The Big Stone Gap post. [volume] (Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Va.) 1892-1928, 1922-05-10

anu OF LiPPic-LiP, fo~ she Bob
bed Up Again. and the Message he
Sent to Bee-Bec Because of 1t.
She had rosy checks. dark, dark
hair and deep brown eyes And she
was such lovely little thing that OIL
liver was slowly but surely Forgetting
the wonder of Zippic-Zip.
He worked in the great flower beds
now and thought how like the rose
petals were Bee-Bee's crimson lips
She loved flowers and marveled at his
knowledge of them. On this morn
ing, all OF two years from the night
he had told zippie-zip goodbye in
Ordinary, he worked slowly in Il bed
of giant pansies.
Things had changed since he
left the mountain changed
just rs he had expected The Old Hen
was zippie-zip's mamma now. May
be that is why Zippie-Zip never wrote
or sent card. The great gulf be-
tween them was filled with the silence
eternal, only now aud then came n
haunting voice to awaken in his
heart his first love for the Greatest
Woman on Earth. He did not blame
her for not writing. He was Just a
brat in the Old Hens black eyes. but
some day he would show her.
In these new days of new life Bee
Bee shared his confidence. He neyrr
told her Of ZippieZip and her prom
Use. He told her of the Old Hen in II
round about way aud laughed happily
when Bee-B Bee openly expressed her
topinion of such woman Indeed
she had been SO sympathetic that OIL
liver had almost told the whole story
All his other secrets she enjoyed.
She knew of his great ambition 10
write; she also knew that the passion
had grown in leaps and bounds these
two years. She was the only human
being in the world that knew he was
at work ON four act comedy-drania
he called "The Fiddler o. Solomon's
Nose She was familiar, too, with
a strange something that had entered
her own heart because Of him
Oliver was not the kind that girls
go crazy over" He was too short.
too freckled, too fun OF healthy am
bition. He delighted in roaming ov-
er the big fields with green net. a
bottle full of bugs and butter flies,
and his delapidated old volume OF the
encyclopaedia. SO armed he would
sit for hours watching the bees as
they buzzed busily among the rabbit
foot clover, or regarded with pro-
found astonishment the pleasing
spectacle OF ruby-throated hum
ming bird eating dantily from the
heart of a cardinal flower. He was
always talking books and dreaming
about things long since the dust Of
memory. His sedentary habits, his
grave dignified address, and his real
ly remarkable store OF surprising
knowledge soon won him a title--Dr.
Smith, title that. Miss Matte Star
butt, the natron, explained to Bee
Bee usually accompanied bald heads,
ioothless jaws.and other evidences OF
declining usefulness.
He was different from his huge
trousers to his great head. HIS
trousers, always two sizes too large
for him, Tapped and ratified in the
summer breeze; his barefeet. and
such big feet they were, always
bruised and stumped, made their way
among the flower beds and across the
rolling fields doing their best to step
on each other His head, covered by
a huge straw hat that looked as ii the
cows had found him asleep and taker
a huge bite, was indeed remarkable
head Bee-Bee liked DR.. Smith be-
cause she thought him little old
man without "a single whisker on his
eager face.
II was wonderful morning. The
breeZes We're laughing and asking the
flowers questions, for Oliver watched
them nod gently and blush radiantly
IN the morning sun. This breeze was
different from the mountain breeze.
1t was much dryer, much lighter. and
a great deal swifter. The eastern
winds, so he told Bee Bee did not
have To lift the heavy mists from the
valleys or dip into dark fern scented
covies of the Cumberlands TO take the
fairies their breakfast. But he had
come to love it just as he loved the
L.