The Pulaskian., 1921-04-28

four years older than Bob. who was thirteen when his painting began. The Shepherd looked at her with an ex- clamation of delight; until then he had never seen a beautiful young maiden. Homely. ill-clad daughters of the working folk had come to his room with field flowers now and then, but no one like Pauline. He felt her hair and looked wistfully into her face and said that she was like pink and white and yellow roses. She was q discov- ery-a new kind of a human being. Often he thought of her as he sat looking out of the window and often he dreamed of her at night.
 The little Shepherd of the Birds was not quite boy. He was spiri' untouched by any evil thought, un- broken to lures and thorny ways. He was like the flowers and birds of the garden, strangely fair and winsome, with silken, dark hair curling about his brows He had larges clear, brown eyes, a mouth delicate as a girls and teeth very white and shapeIy. The Bakers had lifted the boundaries of his life and extended his vision. He found new joy in studying flower forms and in initiating their colors on canvas.
 Now. indeed. there was not a hap pier lad in the village than this young prisoner in one of the two upper bed- rooms in the small cottage of the Widow Moran True, he had moments Of longing for his lost freedom when he heard the shouts of the boys in the street and their feet hurrying by on the sidewalk The steadfast and cou- rageous AIr. Bloggs had said: T guess We have just as much fun as they do, after all. Look at them roses"
 One evening. as his mother sat reading an old love tale to the boy, he stopped her.
 Mother" he said, q love Pauline. Do you think it would be all right for me to tell herr"
 Never a word" said the good woman ..Ye see it's this way, my it. tie son, we're like a priest an it's not the right thing for a priest"
 q don't want to be a priest" said he impatiently
 Tut, tut, my laddie boy It's for God to say an for us to obey" she answered.
 When the widow had gone to her room for the night and Bob was think ing it over, Mir. Bloggs remarked that in his opinion they should keep up their courage, for it was a very grand thing to be a priest after all.
 Winters he spent deep in books out of Judge Crooker's library and tending his potted plants and painting them and the thick blanket of show in the garden. Among the happiest moments of his life were those that followed his mothers return from the postoffice with the Bingyille Sentinel. Then, as the widow was won't to say. he was like dog with bone. To him, Bing- vile was like Rome in the ancient world or London in the British em- pire. All roads led to Bingville. The Sentinel was in the nature of a habit. One issue was like unto another-as like as two chaws off the same plug of tobaceer," a citizen had once said. Anything important in the Sentinel would have been as misplaced as a cannon in meeting g-house. Every week 1t caught the toy balloons of gossip, the thistledown events which were floating in the still air of Bingville. The Sentinel was dissipation as en- joyable and as inexplicable as tea.
 To the little Shepherd, Bingville was the capital of the world and Mir. ]. Patterson Bing, the first citizen of Bingville. who employed eleven hun dred men and had four automobiles, was a gigantic figure whose shadow stretched across the earth. There were two people much in his thoughts and dreams and conversation = Pauline Baker and J. Patterson Bing. Often there were articles in the Sentinel re- garding the great enterprises of Mir. Bing and the social successes of the Bing family in the metropolis. These he read with hungry interest. His
 
 favorite heroes were George Wash ington, St. Francis and J. Patterson Bing. As between the three he would, secretly. have voted for Mir. Bing. In- deed he and his friends and intimates MT Bloggs and the rubber tree and the little pine bureau and the round nickel cloek-had all voted for Mir. Bing. But he had never seen the great man.
 Mir. Bing sent Mrs. Moran check every Christmas and, now and then, some. little gift to Bob, but his char ities were strictly impersonal. He used to say that while he was glad to help the poor and the sick, he hadn't time to call on them. Once Mrs. Bing promised the widow that she and her husband would go to see Bob on Christmas day. The little Shepherd