Connecticut western news., 1919-09-25

wall, and a trapdoor in the floor gave promise of further resources beneath. There was a window in the east and another in the west, both open and unscreened; myriads of flies gave the only touch of life to the dismal scene.
 Irene looked it all over, then leaned against the window sill and laughed. Her father had brought her west for holidays, with the promise of changed surroundings and new experiences, but be had promised her no such delight as this. With the Elden kitchen still photographed in her mind she called up the picture of her own city home-the order; the precision; the fixedness; the e-and-that-stands-the ness; the fatness and emptiness and formality of it all; and she turned again to the Elden kitchen and laughed "a soft, rippling, irrepressible laugh, as irrepressible as the laughter of the mountain stream amid tho evergreens.
 Then she looked again from the open window, this time with eyes that saw the vista of valley and woodland and foothill that stretched down into the opening prairie. Suddenly she realized that she was looking down upon a pie ture-one of natures obscure master pieces-painted in brown and green and saffron against an opal canvas. It was beautiful, not with the solemnity of the great mountains, nor the sol emnity of the great plains, but with that nearer, more intimate relationship which is the peculiar property of the foothill country. The girl drew q great breath of the pure air and was about to dream a new daydream when the voice of her father brought her to earth.
 Cant you find anything that will do for bandage?" he asked.
 "Oh, you dear Daddykins!" she re- piled, her voice tremulous with self reproach. 'T had forgotten. There was spell, or something; it just came down upon me in the window. The bandage? Dear, no! The only cloth see is the kitchen towel, and I can't recommend it. But what a goose I am! Our grips are in the car, or un- ter it, or somewhere. I'll be back in jiffy." And she was off at a sharp trot down the trail along which she had so recently come in Dave Elden's wagon.
 The grips were duly found, and Irene congratulated herself that she and her father were in the habit of travelling with equipment for overnight. Arrived at the house, she deftly wrapped a oandage about her fathers injury and set to work at the preparation of SUD- per-a task not strange to her, as her mother considered it correct that her daughter should have a working knowl- edge of kitchen affairs.
 Once during the evening she took a glance into the other room. It was even less inviting than Dave's, with walls bare of any adornment save dirty garments that hung from nails driven in the logs. On the rude bed lay an old man. She could see only part of his face-a gray mustache dropping over an open mouth, and fiorid cheek turned to the glow of the setting sun. On a chair beside the bed sat bottle and the room reeked with the smell of breath charged with alcohol. She gently closed the door and busied her self through the long evening with re- forms in the kitchen and with little ministrations designed to relieve the sufferings of her father.
 The sun sank behind the Rockies and 8 darkness, soft and mystical and silent. stole up the valley, hushing even the noiseless day. The girl stood