Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1922-09-27

home with extra cream, she dad
gone round TO the side door and had
come full upon Di and Bobby, seated
on the steps. And Di was saying:
well, II | marry YOU. you've simply
got to be a great man. could never
marry just anybody. I'd smother"
Lulu had heard. stricken. She
passed them by, responding only faint
" TO their greeting. hi was far less
taken aback than Lulu.
Later Di had said TO Lulu: II s'pese
you heard what we were SAYING"
Lulu, much shaken. had withdrawn
from the whole matter by a fiat no."
Because she said to herself, al
couldn't have heard right"
But since then she had looked at Di
as IL Di were some one else. Had not
Lulu taught her to make buttonhoIes
and to hem-oh. MOI Lulu could not
hare heard properly.
"Eyerybody's got somebody to be
nice to Them" she thought now, sit
ing by the kitchen window, adult yet
4 !inderella.
She thought that some one would
c,me for her-her mother or even
Ina. Perhaps they would send Mo-
mona. She waited at first hopefully,
then resentfully. The gray rain
wrapped the air.
Nobody cares what becomes of me
after they're fed" she thought, and
derived an obscure satisfaction from
her Dhrasing. and thought it again.
Ninian Deacon came into the
kitchen.
Her first impression was that he
had come to see whether the dog had
been fed
Il fed him." she said. and wished
that she had been busy when Ninian
entered.
"Who, me?' he asked. "You did
that all right. Say, why in time don't
you come in the other room?"
ooh, don't know"
swell, neither do l. I've kept think
ing, Why don't she come along Then
! remembered the dishes" He glanced
about. Il come to help wipe dishes"
''Ohl" she laughed so delicately. so
delightfully."-, one wondered where she
got 1t. They're washed" she caught
herself at Tong ago"
"Well then, what are you doing
here7"
Resting"
"Rest in there. He bowed, crooked
his arm. Sonora" he sald-his Span
ish matched his other assimilations of
travel-"Senora, allow me-"
Lulu rose On his arm she entered
the parlor Dwight was narrating and
did not observe that entrance. To the
PlOws 1t was sufficiently normal. But
Ina looked up and said:
.Well l"-in two notes, descending,
curving.
Lulu did not look at her. Lulu sat
in a low rocker Her starched white
skirt, throwing her chally in ugly
lines, revealed peeping rim of white
embroidery. Her lace front wrinkIed
when she sat, and perpetually she adj
justed 1t. She curled her feet side
wise beneath her chair, her long
wrists and veined hands lay along her
lap in no relation to her She was
tense. She rocked.
When Dwight had finished his mar
ration, there was pause, broken at
last by Mrs. Bett:
"You tell that better than you used
to when you started in telling it, she
observed. 'You got in some things I
guess you used to clean forget about.
M0nona, get off my rocker
Monona made a little whimpering
sound, in pretense to tears. Ina said,
Darling quiet !''-chin a little lifted,
lower lip revealing lower teeth for
the words completion; and she held
1t.
The Flows were asking something
about Mexico. Dwight was wondering
IL 1t would let up raining at ALL Di
and Jenny came whispering into the
room. But all these distractions Min
ian Deacon swept aside.
Miss Lulu" he said, 81 wanted you
to hear about my trip up the Amazon,
because knew how interested you
are in travels"
He talked. according to his lights.
about the Amazon. But the person
who most enjoyed the recital could
net afterward have told two words
that he said. Lulu kept the position
which she had taken at first, and she
dare not change. She saw the blood
in the veins of her hands and wanted
to hide them. She wondered If she
might fold her arms. or have one hand
to support her chin, gave It all up and
sat motioniess, save for the rocking.
Then she forgot everything. For
the first time in years some one was
talking and looking not only at Ina
and Dwight and their guests. but at
her.