The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-10-03

zEzEzgzEzEzM9s CHAPTER With his. two daughters, l Strickland, retired, is living at Mil val His closest friend is Peter Joyce, some thing of a recluse. Visiting in the Vii falls in love with and secretly becomes engaged to Cherry.
 CHAPTER II. - whmile the family is speculating as to Lloyd's intentions, Cherry brings him to supper, practically announcing her engagement to him.
 CHAPTER III.-Doctor Strickland feels Cherry too young to marry and the e girl coaxes him into agreeing to an an takes place, the couple leaving at once
 There was a brown and red car pet in the oblong of the room, and a brown bureau, and a wide iron bed with limp spread, and peeling brown washstand with a pitcher and basin. The boy lighted a flare of electric lights which made the choco- late and gold wallpaper look like one pattern in the light and another in the shadow A man laughed in the adjoining room; the voice seemed very near.
 Cherry had never been in a hotel of this sort before. It seemed to her Cnedp ana nOErfDie, Sne u1Q not want to stay in this room, and Martin, tip ping the boy and asking for ice-water seemed somehow a part of this new strangeness and crudeness. She began | to be afraid that he would think she was silly. presently. if she said her | prayers as usual
 | In the morning Martin hired a mine, Cherry had had a good break | fast and was wearing a new gown; | they stopped another phaeton on the long, pleasant drive and Martin said | to the fat man in it:
 'Mr. Bates, I want to make you | acquainted with my wife!''
 | Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Lloyd." said the fat man. pleasantly.
 ed him that that was the superinten- | dent of the mine, and seemed pleased | at the encounter. Presently Martin
 put his arm about her and the bay | will, while Martins deep voice told
 his wife over and over again how adorable and beautiful she was and how he loved her.
 l Cherry listened happily, and for a little while, the old sense of pride. and achievement came back-she was gold ring! But after a few days that feeling vanished forever and instead it began to seem strange to her that
 she had ever been anything else than Martins wife.
 For several days she and Martin | laughed necessarily and praised each other incessena1ty, while they experi-
 mented with cooking and ate deli ciouS gypsy meals.
 | By midwinter Cherry had settled
 down to the business of life, buying | bacon and lard and sugar and matches
 at the store of the mine, cooking and cleaning, sweeping, and making beds. She still kissed Martin good-by every
 morning and met him with an effec-
 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 it 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 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 f1rewood that was running low, the towels that a wet breeze was blowing on the line; or
 realms where feeling entirely strange to this bare little mining camp and this hungry, busy, commonplace man, , held sway.
 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
 quarrel was trif1e; her father had ! sent her a Christmas check and she immediately sent to a San Frapcisco , shop for a clock that had taken her
 fancy months before.
 Martin, who had chanced 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 a banjo, gilded and quaint he broke her heart afresh by pretend } ing not to admire it.
 But on Christmas eve he was de layed at the mine and Cherry, smitten
 suddenly with the bitterness of having
 their first Christmas spoiled in this } way, sat up for him, hudd1ed in her
 silk wrapper by the air-tfght stove She was awakened by feeling herself
 lowered tender1y 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 it was l inevitable that another quarrel should come and then another; Cherry was F young and undisciplined, perhaps not
 more selfish than other girls of her | age, but self -centered and unreason- able. She had to learn self-contro , and she hated to control herself. She . had to economic when poverty pos sessed neither picturesQueness nor in- terest. They were always severa weeks behind in the payment of do-
 mestic bills, and these recurring re-
 ninders of money stringency mad dened Cherry. Sometimes she sum. med it up, with angry tears, remind. , ing him that she was still wearing
 her trousseau dresses, and had nc maid, and never went anywhere But she developed steadily. As she
 grew ski1lful in managing her little house, she also grew in the art o1 managing her husband and herself
 She became clever at avoiding causes 7 of disagreement; she listened. nod , ded, agreed, with boiling heart, and
 had the satisfaction of having Mar. tins viewpoint veer the next day. ol
 the next hour. to meet her own
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