The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-09-29

aEaEaEaEgEzgzEzEzEzBzEzBzE 1 there had been a picnic to the noun l tain-top, everybody making the nara | climb except Peter Joyce. who was a | trif1e lame, and perhaps a little lazy | as well, and who usually rode an old | horse, with the lunch in saddle-bags at
 each side. Alix formulated her the | orieS of platonic friendships on these
 walks; Anne dreamed a foolish, hap
 py dream. Girls did marry, men did
 take wives to themselves, dreamed
 Anne, it would be unspeakably
 sweet, but it would be no miracle! | It was just after that mountain pie
 nic that Cherry mad come home; on a
 Sunday, as it chanced. that was her
 eighteenth birthday. and on which
 Martin and his aunt were coming to
 dinner. Alix had marked the occasion | by wearing a loose velvet gown in
 which she fancied herself; Anne had | conscientiously decorated the table,
 had seen to it that there was ice | cream, and chicken, and all the acceS- | sorieS that make a Sunday dinner in
 the country a national institution. Cherry had done nothing helpful On the contrary, she had disgraced
 herself and infuriated Hong by decid-
 ing to make fudge the last minute.
 Hong had finally relegated her to tho
 laundry, and it was from this limbo
 that Martin. laughing joyousiy, extri-
 cated her, when, sticky and repentant,
 she had called for help. It was Mar
 tin who united the checked brown
 apron, disentagling from the strings i the silky gold tendrilS that were blow
 ing over Cherry's white neck and | Martin who opened the door for her ! sugary fingers. and Martin who
 watched the flying little figure out Of sight with a prolonged "Whew-w-wn
 of utter astonishment- The child was i a beauty.
 Her eighteenth birthday, Martin
 had been shown her birthday gifts; books and silver belt buckle and a 1 gold pen and stationery and handker- i chiefs. A day or two later she had had another gift. had opened the tiny
 Shreve box with a sudden hammering
 at her heart, with presage Of de-
 light. She had found a silver-topped l candy jar, and the card of MT. John
 Martin Lloyd, and under the name. ! in tiny letters, the words "Oh, fudge!"
 The girls laughted over this nonsense | appreciatively, but there was more
 than laughter in Cherry's heart.
 From that moment the world. was l changed. Her father, her sister, her
 cousin had second place. now: Cherry i had put out her innocent little hand, | and had opened the gate, and had passed through it into the world. That
 hour was the beginning. and 1t had led
 her surely. steadily. to the other hour
 tonight when she had been kissed.
 and had kissed in return.
 "So-we walk home with young men?" unused the doctor, smiling. l Look here, girls, this little Miss Muf- fet will be cutting you both out with that young man, if you're not care- fuII''
 Alix, deep in her story. did not hear
 him, but Anne smiled faintly. and faintly drowned as she shook her
 head. She considered Cherry suffi-
 ciently precocious without Uncle Lees
 ill-considered tolerance
 He would have had them always
 children. this tender, simple, innocent | Df~ Strickland He in many
 ways a child himself. He had never
 made money in his profess1on;S he and his wife and the two tiny girls had had a hard enough struggle some
 times. Anne and her own father had
 joined the family eight years ago, in
 the same year that the Strickland
 patent fire extinguisher, over which
 the doctor ha been puttering for years, had been sold. It did not sell
 as his neighborS believed, for a mil
 lion dollars, but for perhaps one-tenth
 Of that sum. It was enough, and more than enough, whatever it was , After Anne's father died it meant that the doctor could live on in the browr house under the redwoods, with his girls, reading. fusSing with new in- , vention, walking, consulting with , Anne, laughing at Alix, and spelling his youngeSt-born-
 It was a perfect life for the old , man; it was only lately that he begun ? uneaSily to suspect that they would some day want something more, tha1 5 they would some day tire of empty
 forest and blowing mountain ridge and go away from the shadow Of Mt Tamalpais, and into the world. : Anne. now-was she beginning tC . fancy this young Lloyd? pr. Strick , land was. surprised with the fervol } with which he repudiated tht
 thought. This young engineer. wht
 had drifted already into a dozen diff ferent and distant places. was not tn. man for staid little Anne.
 , What did you want to see MT Lloyd about tomorrow, Dad 2" Cherrl interrupted ..a1 his thoughts to ask = about coming over, Cherry?''
 3 Cherry remarked, between twt
 rending ydwns, that MT. Lloyd wa. ? coming over tomorrow at 10 o'clock 5 Peter won't be much good," Ali, commented. Cherry looked at her re proachfully.
 "You're awfully mean to Peter |. latelyi" she protested. Her fathe t gave her a shrewd look, with his good !, night kiss, and immediately afterwart r both the younger girls dragged thei
 way up to bed.
 s AliX and Cherry shared a pare r woody-smeIling room tucked ava. g under brown caves. The walls wer g bungalow fashion. opened into tn = | fragrant darkness of the night, tn
 beds were really hunks. and above he f bunk each girl had an extra birth fo T | f pretdness in the room, and yet it wa full of purity and charm. The girls
 like all their neighobrs, were hardy - bred to cold baths, long walks, simpl, & hours, and simple food. In the sof n 1 western climate they left their bed e room windows open the year round
 they liked to wake to winter daml e and fog. and go downstairs with blu
 1 inger-tips and chattering teeth, t, , l warm themselves with breakfast ant U | the fire.
 ; Alix rolled herself in a gray arm. :. blanket, and was asleep in some sixt. ' seconds. But Cherry felt that she wa
 floating in seas of new joy and ute e delight, and that she would never b. ,, sleepy again.
 = Downstairs Anne and the doctor sa = sadly on, the man dreaming with n knotted forehead, the girl sewing e Presently she ran a needle througl e her fine white work with seven tin, al stitches, 6oIded 1t. and put her thin