Evening star., 1921-09-18

he left much to be desired. Even a
kindly disposed employer would have
to be excused a show of irritation
when beans and peas and early sweet
thorough manner as iron weed and
elephant ear and wild clover. Stephen
Hezekiah's idea of wedding q garden
was to extract from it all growing
Besides. Stephen always found de-
lightful things to. play with. Gro
tesquely long, plumb angleworms, hop
toads. ground thrush nests. and the
sluggish water in the quarter-section
ditch offered INFINITE possibilities In
Had his own wishes been consulted.
he would have preferred dog or
even a kitten to this entire galaxy Of
amphibians. but dogs and cats had to
taboo. In the house Hephzibah in
sisted the boy was great help. Per-
haps he was. but Zeke remained skep-
tical. Anyway. as he growled. he
hadn't intended to adopt hired girl.
were unquestionably Of the best. He
would have every intention to pile
the f1fewoOd neatly in the lean-to
back of the kitchen, to empty the
ashes in the franklin burner. to
itinerant hens and to finish hoeins
the squash patch. But a field mouse.
he discovered, had taken up her abode
in the woodpile. How could one pile
on more sticks until one had first
searched % out the iieid mouse,s apart; ,;
mice!
Almost without fail, too. zeke Pres
ton would appear at the moment
when some Undertaking thoroughly
way. To the boy zeke was like an
ogre eonjured up out Of the darkness
of an unfriendly world. To Zeke Ste
phen represented the Towering of
that shiftlessness and disloyalty he
ashorred in his neighbors. but which
cate. What q sensible man would
have been exasperated with. but
would have forgiven, Zeks held to be
a moral rotten4ess. Unless the boy
waster and a scoundrel. zeke held
himself to be the divinely appointed
chastener.
WITH the strong fall rains tras-
" edy took place up on Section
Four The wire fence along the quar-
ter-section ditch was washed away
and q COW stumbled into the muddy
torrent and was drowned. Tho loss
of the COW was catastrophe almost
irreparable. Besides, with the husk-
ing and the fall piowine zeke had no
speetion of the matter. too, convinced
him new poles and wire were re-
quired. and that would mean a spe-
cial trip to town. a day lost on tho
dollars. zeke jugEled It this way
and that in his mind. and burrows of
anxiety deepened between his shaggy
brows. Then he remembered the boy.
Stephen should drive the cows to pas
them till milling time. BY the broken
fence he should take up his sentinel
and with q long stick drive them back
whenever an adventurous urge to-
ward new fields of clover should
All the way to the pasture that first
day zeke Impressed the boy with the
seriousness Of his mission, Had the
Prestons been born with the gift Of
speech, Zeke's words would have
to prove that even in the heart of
boys who have been placed out exists
q spark Of loyalty; here was his ep-
poPtunity to redeem the sins Of his
needless past. But all zehe could say
tiers. boy" and ':None Of that laggin',
Stephen Hesskiah had every good
reason in the world for tagging. He
early winter tinged the air. and the
fields. scared brown and withered.
held none of the resources or witch :
cry of summer. He would be in luck
to find more than q half dozen erick-
cts and q stiff-legEed, freexipg grass
hopper to beguile his solitude.
But Stephens chief reason for lag
sing was none Of these. It was Q
miserable, cowardly reason. StepheI
was AFRAID Of the COWS! True. ~ he
tfudged behind with. zeke, they
seemed like great ambling creatures,
unhalieyahly clumsy and stupid, but