The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-11-12
Euening Story
The Pretenders.
BY JESSIE DOUGLAS,

The young man saluted and sat dowr
on the other side of the berry bushes
His fingers, big and brown and
clumsy, made slow work of the berry
picking. He stopped a moment tc
watch his companion In labor as she
stripped the bushes with the easy
\ skill of experience. From her fingers
his eyes travelled to her face and he
noted the healthy glow of color in
chestnut hair that was drawn back
| under her coarse, wide nat.
Dan Willard summed her up as the
! typical farmers daughter-skilled in
her tasks, healthy, unthinking. happy.
Then he went back to his own labori-
Gus task.
IF you'd begin at the bottom of the
| bush-so,'' she illustrated, land pluck
! them off-so-you'd get on fasteri"
/ Dan looked into her pretty liquid eyes
and learned his lesson.
( There was no further conversation
while they worked at varying speeds.
while the drowsy hot sound of the To-
Gusts came to them, and the breath of
| the hayfields, freshly cut, sweet with
| the thousand blended perfumes.
They both Strengthened up at the
| sound of the horn blowing across the
fields.
''Dinner!''
They both stopped with relief and
the man rose stiffly.
Il guess you're not used to this" the
girl smiled. Her voice. huskily sweet.
was as pretty as her eyes, he decided.
| Then he lifted his pail and hers and
strobe off beside her.
mot berry picking" he explained,
| looking down on her pink sunbonnet
that she had tossed on to cross the
fields, I've been haying over to
| Farmer Dicks, and now he's set ma to
| berrying.'
"Ohr' said the girl. In a flash she
knew he was the new hand at the
Dicks, who tossed the hay on the
| racks and rode past to the barns
while she had been wedding in the
kitchen garden of the farm below.
do you live around here?" it was
his turn to question.
lover to the MayberryS," she an
swered
He remembered now this was the
same girl he had noticed hanging out
the clothes and working around the
place. Old Mayberry's daughter.
She was pretty thing, he thought,
as he watched her swing down the
road to the next farm. The girl ak
most as tho she had read his thoughts,
turned at the pasture to wave to him.
He waved back awkwardly, knowing
that he was not used to this easy give
and take of farm life. as he should be.
But he was more disappointed than
the occasion Warranted when she did
not rejoin him that afternoon at the
berry bushes. They must have needed
her at home, but still. He noticed
how tedious the work was and how
his fingers were stiff with thorn pricks
and how hot the sun beat down on
the fields.
When his days work was over at
last and he had washed out at the
pump with the other two hands" and
had eaten his supper of hearty farm
food, he found that he had no desire
as usual to throw himself out under
the stars on the cool grass and lie
there until bedtime.
With his pipe between his teeth he
walked off hazily down the road until
he had come to the white farmhouse
cuddling down under the trees-where
she had said she lived
"Cissyi" he heard a voice call, and
as soon as he heard the name he knew
that no other could have suited her
so perfectly. He was very slow at go
ing past the house, and when he came
back he saw a figure out under the
Rose-of-Sharon bushes, and he knew
it was she.
He ought to go past. But he gave
in and called, Good evening"" and she
answered him in that husky, sweet
voice that blended in with the night
sounds and came out to where he
waited in the road. AS she came to
him her little Bingham dress had taken
on the glamour of moonshine and the
fragrance of the roses; he knew he
was going to be sorry later. But he
found himself strolling up the road
and sitting on the crumbling stone
wall that shut in the Mayberry
orchard.
What do you do all the timer" he
asked her.
And she toldahim about the kitchen
or-do nd fhn&uaadinpr and how she
made bread and churned the butter;
she told him how she drove the cows
home at night sometimes and the way
she hunted for the eggs. and laughed
at the funny tricks of the hens which
hid them so smartly in new hooks and
crarnies.
He thought she was very sweet, this
little farm girl with her knowledge
of the ways of all these animals and
her natural Way of looking on her
duties as so many pleasures.
But she shook him out OF his
thoughts with the question, And
what do you do?"
ooh, I'm just a farmland, haying
in season., and the chores, milking,
feeding the animals-"
There was pause and the girl won
dered how such strong, brown
steady-1ooking man could speAd win
ter midsummer in the work of the
farm laborer. If it was his own farm,
or even if he were learning! but he
seemed satisfied with his work, and
she said nothing.
Good night" he said at last. and
she never knew what longing he had
to kiss her there under the moonlight.
Cissy could not sleep well that night
in her hot little room under the caves;
she saw him again, tall, brown of face,
hardy. with big muscles-as the man
who works out of doors
She was to think of him a great
many other nights. with an aching
heart and q deep happiness and a
burning fear that all this was to end
with the summer. For as day follow
| ed day she saw Dan Willard and
walked with him under the stars and
talked with him on her own white
piazza sweet with the climbing honey
suckle.
The summer was ending and Dan
Willard knew that now he would have
to tell the truth. He could never mar
nv this little farmers daughter-for
skilled as she was in the ways of the
! farm country she could never fit in
with the duties and essentials of his