The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-03-08
CHAPTER XIV.


Slug Truman Continues to Be a
Sport But Comes on a Sad Errand
Mary sat on the side porch of the
Cobb Hill place looking over the tops
of the gnarled trees in the lower or
chard at the far-fung valley below.
The countryside was leafing and more
luxuriously with each passing week
into the deep calm greens of deep
summer. Again the day was dying
and a hush was upon the world.
She had bought herself some cheap
black stuff at the Bon Ton store and
Mrs. Amos Seaver who did dressmak-
ing reasonable, had fashioned it in
to mourning dress. Her dark hair
was gathered low on the back Of her
head. Her face held an unhealthy
pallor and her dark wistful eyes were
redeemed with traces of many tears.
1t was hard for her to realize as
she sat there on the steps that the
step-father was dead, that he would
never sit more by the kitchen fire
during the long evenings, eternally
the varied red covers and splitting
with sharp Kisses into the stove. 1t
brooding, nursing the poker, lifting
was hard to believe that the long anx-
Gus evening hours when her mother
awaited his Homecoming with the
greenish fire smouldering in his in
human eyes, were over for all time.
But it was hardest to realize that
fhe would never see her mother again.
Ihe bitterest part of her sorrow was
that she had been able to go home
but four times in the brief year which
# bad passed, that her mother had seen
ack but once, that the inability to
get home because of finances OF
transportation was tantamont tC
6 neglect and that the woman had gone
With no one at hand to help her.
md yet she had gone and was out
pf her earthly Golgotha. And that
Vas something.
About the place were hundred
Evidences of the man who had gone
30 terribly-and of her mothers per-
sonality. At the edge of narrow,
newly planted garden by the fence
she saw trowel which had been laid
Gown by her mothers hand but a
4 few days-not over a week bygone
A couple of her mothers big white
hens came liesurely around the cor
Der of the house, searching offhand-
kdly for grubs, grooming to them
Selves and darting forward at fly
together Tom Tinker, the big tiger
cat who had purred in her mothers
( lap and kept her company on many
lonesome evenings, came out of the
shed door, started across the YARD
hnd stopped midway, cat-like, to
Scratch particularly inaccessible
spot on his anatomy. Two of the
Fl olsteins were browsing along dow1
In the lower lane and toward the
barnyard bars as the sun sank lower
1t seemed strange the homely little
sVorld she had known from girlhooC
8 could be so much the same and yet
So different.
She tried to think out her plans
for the future. If Jack would have
accepted the money, she would have
brought herself to sell the place anC
use the money in his financial predl
cament. But he had scolded her fol
thinking of such thing. She thought
that she could get one of the OsgooC
boys to work the farm for her ant
get enough out of it to keep up the
taxes and help out their finance:
bitter she and Jack were married
She was thankful that old Pete
Whipple at the bank had refused he
stcpfather a mortgage on the place
asst year when he wanted cash t.
axe over the Perkins woodlot. A
east she did not have that mortgage
o worry over and pay
She was trying to think of some
man and wife who might be glad o
he opportunity to live at the place
Ind run it for her when she hearC
he rumble of buggy-wheels and tn
click of steel tires in the sand OF
The other side of the wall and Til,
naples. The next instant spiritct
boots becoming Immediately noise
less. as he stepped on the-short-crop
horse spanked into the yard, hi
ped lawn.
She was expecting Jack to- com
out after work and return to the VII