The Little River news., 1920-12-18

time? It was not pleasant thing to contemplate. for any man can kill another if he waits his opportunity. and takes him at disadvantage. Why hadn't he struck? Always the question came back to that And what was holding him to the Flat woods? The Pearlhunter whirled with ! the thought and looked back over the ] fence
 | The girl was gone. The basket and bundles were still 1 scattered about the path. He climbed the fence and began gathering them 1 up. He had them all back in the basket, and was leaning against the | fence, wondering how to get them to | their proper owner. when a slight rustic among the bushes reached his ear. He glanced up; the girl stood before him.
 It was the girl of the pool-the Wild Rose.
 The woods had hid them; the woods had nursed them; the woods had set them face to face-the Pearlhunter: the Wild Rose-a man; woman. Strip away from life every nonessen- tial; bare 1t of every husk of sham and convention; pare 1t right down to the red, quick core, beyond which | it is not possible to reduce 1t further, and you come at last to a man and a woman. Six million years the AL mighty Artist practiced on such sec ondary studies as stars and suns, and peopling them with inconceivably di- verse and curious forms of life. before trusting his hand on his final master piece-a man; woman.
 They stood staring, as at that other meeting at the pool. And that was 1 the thought uppermost in the mind of the Pearlhunter-that other meeting. And he had looked! Somehow he wished he hadn't; and yet he wasn't sorry that he had. The thought drew his eyes to her feet. Shifting tho basket, his hand slowly stole up and dragged off his battered hat.
 The blue eyes under the sunbon- net livened. The girl drew a step nearer. The bushes she had been bending aside sprang back into place. She drew another step nearer. AS she moved, an overhanging limb caught the sunbonnet and dragged 1t of, displaying a very soft and glossy mass of yellow curlS She turned, disengaged the bonnet from the limb, and was shaking the curls into shape to replace 1t when the Pearlhunter made a quick step toward her with hand upraised.
 | "Don't!" he cried. Don't" A man of slow speech, with eyes hard to wake he wouldn't have be- lieved such words were in him.
 The girl stood fumbling the bonnet. He watched one stray curl lose it's place and come slowly tumbling down. little by little, till 1t fell over her shoulder and lay upon the softly ris- ing and falling bosom. From the curl. he raised his eyes to her face. He saw smile steal across 1t. It was only little smile, but 1t grew under his gaze till 1t reached up to her eyes, and pinched the lids together, and squeezed out tiny ripple of merri- ment that ran out over her face and settled in two round dimples that teasingly uptilted the corners of her mouth-a good winsome mouth, fringed with full red lips and set with wholesome teeth. The smile grew until 1t quite passed beyond her control. She threw up her head; the smile became laugh.
 It was the only thing that could have broken the restraint The laugh; the slow smile that answered it. I ho;, Sv%n .a1 xl, net strings, while he watched her fin- gers as they formed the knot.
 "That song" he said, Git was the most wonderful thing I ever heard"
 The girl laughed again-a laugh like water tinkling over pebbles.
 ''The birds are my playmates," she answered simply. "They fly down all over me. l had to learn their lan- guage"
 You live in these woods?"
 The Pearlhunter was long time asking that question.
 Not far from the pool"
 And you're not afraid?"
 He glanced up the road toward tho | village.
 "Oh, I live with Daddy" shade crossed her face. Never before" she added. as if the first statement had not quite satisfied his question. Daddy Is not very well and I have to go :o the store. Every time I've l gone in .he last few days that Vnan has tried to talk to me. I was fright ened to death today when he followed | me. He never did that before. I'm so glad you happened along; and l thank you over and over!" Tt was nothing" he said simply, | twisting his hat in his hand. He didn't | tell her 1t wasn't a matter of hap pening.
 | She shook the curl off her bosom and back over her shoulder. He was sorry for that "He is gambler; at least so the grocery man told me today-and a. a-man killer"
 The Pearlhunter could have added quite startlingly to the information