Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1921-09-02

cleaning, sweeping. and making beds.
She still kissed Martin good-by every
morning and met him with an affec-
tionate rush at the door when he came
home. and they played Five Hundred
evening after evening after dinner.
quarreling for points and laughing at
each other. while rain sluiced down on
the porch. But sometimes she won
dered how 1t had all come about, won
dered what had become Of the violent
emotions that had picked her out of
the valley home and established her
here. In this strange place, with this
man she had never seen a year ago.
OF these emotions little was left.
She still liked Martin, she told her
self, and she still told him that she
loved him. But she knew she did not
love him, and In such an association
as theirs there can be no liking. Her
thoughts rarely rested on him; she
was either thinking of the prunes that
were soaking, the firewoOd that was
running low, the towels that wet
breeze was blowing on the line; or
she was far away, drifting In vague
realms where feelings entirely strange
to this bare little mining camp and
this hungry, busy, commonplace man,
held sway.
The first time that she quarreled
with Martin she cried for an entire
day, with the old childish feeling that
somehow her crying mattered, some
how her abandonment would help to
straighten affairs. The cause of the
quarrel was trifie; her father had
sent her a Christmas check and she
Immediately sent to a San Francisco
shop for clock that had taken her
fancy months before.
Martin, who had CHANGED to be
pressed for money, although she did
not know IT, was thunderstruck upon
discovering that she had actually dis
posed of fifty dollars SO lightly. For
several days a shadow hung over their
intercourse, and when the clock came,
as large as banjo, gilded and quaint,
he broke her heart afresh by pretend
ing not to admire 1t.
layed at the mine and Cherry, smitten
suddenly with the bitterness of having
their first Christmas spoiled in this
way, sat up for him, huddled in her
silk wrapper by the alright stove.
She was awakened by feeling herself
lowered tenderly into bed and raised
warm arms to clasp his neck and they
kissed each other.
The next day they laughed at the
clock together, and after that peace
reigned for several weeks. But ii was
inevitable that another quarrel should
come and then another; Cherry was
young and undisciplined, perhaps not
more selfish than other girls Of her
age, but self-centered and unreasOn-
able. She had to learn self-contrOl
and she hated to control herself. She
had TO economic when poverty pos
sessed neither picturesqueness nor in
terest. They were always several
weeks behind In. the payment of do
nestle bills, and these recurring re-
minders of money stringency mad
dened Cherry. Sometimes she summed
1t up, with angry tears, reminding him
that she was still wearing her trous-
seau dresses, and had no maid, and
never went anywhere!
But she developed steadily. AS she
grew skilful in managing her little
house, she also grew In the art of
managing her husband and herself.
She became clever at avoiding causes
of disagreement; she listened, nodded,
agreed, with a boiling heart and had
the satisfaction of having Martins
viewpoint veer the next day, or the
next hour, to meet her own secret
conviction. Martin seemed satisfied,
and all their little world accepted her
as q matter Of course. But under Ii
all Cherry knew that something young
and irresponsible and confident In her
had been killed. She never liked to
think Of the valley, of the fogs and the
spokes Of sunlight under the redwood
aisles, of Alix and the dogs and the
dreamy evenings by the fire. And es-
pecially she did not like to think of
that eighteenth birthday, and herself
thrilling and ecstatic because the
strange young man from Mrs. North's
had stared at her, in her sticky apron,
with so new and disturbing a smile
in his eyes.