Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1921-07-07
THE PRINT DRESS
BY AGNES GRAHAM BRocAN

(@ 1921. Western Newspaper Union.)

Inc olu udH sat III MS porch at
sundewn. Out in the garden a breeze
| stirred the lilac bushes and their per
fume came to him associated I'm some
way with memory of a print dress.
! And he was not a sentimental old man
this, nor one given to tender revefie.
/ Rather was he concerned with
sci emes of shrewd bargaining. and no
scruples as to advantage over another.
The woman who waited on him and
had long been his servant, adopted his
own disagreeable manner through as
ISOLATION, while her husband went a
Flooding taciturn way.
And tonight, after all the bitterly
absorbed busy years, he was dream
ing dreams on his sun-lit porch-like
very schoolboy.
| The print dress had awakened in
/ him memories of that past bOyhood.
Nellie had worn such dress Years
ago; frilly muslin with dainty pur-
pie sprigs upon it. And he had loved
those printed purple touches, because
! they matched so we'll the color of her
eyes.
Nellie had been dead many years,
and Joe Godfrey was glad that it was
| So
1t would have been ineffably harder
to have known her the wife Of another
man. His jealous nature could not
have tOlera ed that And the girl
who had passed him that morning in
the village store, had soft purple eyes
which reminded him suddenly and
poignantly of Nellie, even as her print
dress had done. She had smiled at
him in passing, a swift friendly smile,
which showed her to be a stranger in
the countryside and unfamiliar with
his own forbidding disposition.
Joe Godfrey gazing with unseeing
eyes across his garden, recalled the
dominating character of his loved Mel
lies father. They, too, would have
been married, and his own life might
not have grown into the warped thing
that it was, if Nellie's father had not
valued money above all else.
Young Joe had been unable to
strive for success with the care of an
invalided mother and shiftless faith
err, and so he was forbidden to see
Nellie again. The night she babe him
good-by in that sad secret meeting
down the shadowy lane, Nellie had
worn the purple dress, and lilac bush
es had been in bloom. Old Flint
TO n
accustomed moisture from his eyes,
as through the barred gates a girl
came, making her way toward him.
She smiled all confident and unaffald,
and she wore a lavenderSprigged
gown. "You will excuse me, l know"
greeted the girl. II just had to come
in to view your peonies. l never saw
so many in all my life-a whole hedge
of COLOR I'm from the city,
Godfrey nodded CURLY. Then some
thing in the surprised questioning
glance of the violet eyes brought him
to his feet.
81 will go with you to the hedge"
he heard himself saying, land we'll
pick a bunch of them"
The girl accepted the attention nat
urally. 1t was natural always for
people to be kind to her, and she an
ticipated no exception in the lonely
old man, whom she had seen medi-
tating so gloomily each evening, on
his solitary porch. Il will give them
to Aunt Martha" she said, ''as sort
of parting gift. She and Tom will be
pleased. I am going home to the city.
Father has sent for me Aunt Martha
and-Tom-ar sorry about it,
There was a look in the girls face
as she bent over the flowers, very like
the remembered look that Nellie had
given him years ago-when they said
good-by. =
'Who?" asked the old man brusque-
ly, lis Tom?"
It was her eyes that told him, her
lips merely repeated young mans
name.
HE is helping Aunt Martha to work
her little farm" she explained. 'Tom
has been tied down to unfortunate
parents. w I1eu 1IC was lS1I 4uAtC
alone he went away to agricultural
college. His great wish is to succeed
in experimental work. He has won
derful ideas but no money, or no place
to try out his plans
Old Flint from past experience drew
quick conclusion.
"And SOP" he asked, your father
sends for you to come home, for fear
that you may fall in love with this
man without money!"
The girl looked back at him over
her armful of flowers.
Father is too late,' she said. II
will never love any man but Tom"
Slowly, because his lameness trou-
bled him in the dew Of the evening,
Joe Godfrey followed her to the gates.
"My DEAR" he said gently, Il want
you to send this Tom person to me