The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1925-03-27

ietter from Julie Hempel, now married.
The letter had been sent to the Klaas
Pool farm and Jozina had brought it
to her. Seated on her kitchen steps in
her calico dress she read it.
Darling SELMA
Il thought 1t was SO queer that you
didn't answer my letter, and now /
know that you must have thought 1t
queer that l did not answer yours.
found your letter to me, written long
ago, when / was going over mothers
things last week. 1t was the letter.
you must have written when i was in
Kansas City. Mother had never given
it to me.
Mamma died three weeks ago. Last
week was going ever her things--a
trying task, you may imagine-and
there were your two letters addressed
to me. She had never destroyed them.
Poor mamma
swell, dear Selma, / suppose you
don't even know that am married. /
married Michael Arnold Of Kansas
City. The Arnolds were in the pack.
ing business there, you know. Michael
has gone into business with pa here In
Chicago and suppose you have heard
Of pas success. Just all of a sudden
he began to make great deal of
money after he left the butcher bust
ness and went into the yards-the
stock yards, you know. Poor mamma
was so happy these last few years,
and had everything that was beautiful.
have two children-Eugene and
Pauline
II am getting to be quite society
person. You would laugh to see me.
am on the ladies' entertainment COM
mittee of the Worlds fair. We are
supposed to entertain all the visiting
big bugs-that is the lady bugs. There!
How is that for joke?
81 suppose you know about the In
fanta Eulalie. OF Spain, you know.
And what she did about the Potter
Palmer ball. {. ;"
Selma, the letter in her work.
stained hand. looked up and across the
fields and away to where the prairie
met the sky and closed In on her; her
world. The Infanta Eulalie of Spain.
=. She went back to the letter.
WELL she came to. Chicago for the
fair and Mrs. Potter Palmer was to
give huge reception and ball for her.
Mrs. p. is head of the whole commit
tee, you know, and must say she
looks queenly with her white. hair SO
beautifully dressed and her diamond
dog-collar and her black velvet and all.
Well, at the very last minute the In
fanta refused to attend the ball be-
cause she had just heard that Mrs. P.
was an innkeeper's wife. Imagine!
The Palmer house. of course"
Selma, holding the letter in her
hand, imagined.
1t was in the third year of Selina's
marriage that she first went into the
fields to work. Pervus had protested
miserably, though the vegetables were
spelling in the ground.
Selma had regained health and vigor
after two years of wretchedness. She
felt sreel-strong and even hopeful
again, sure sign of physical well-being.
Long before now she had realized that
this time must inevitably come. So
she answered briskly, Nonsense, Per-
vus Working in the fields no harder
than washing or ironing or scrubbing
or standing over hot stove in August.
Women's work Housework's the
hardest work in the world. That's why
men won't do it,"
She would often take the boy Dirk
with her into the fields, placing him
on heap Of empty sacks in the shade.
He invariably crawled off this lowly
throne to dig and burrow in the warm,
black dirt. He even made as though
to help his mother, pulling at the root
ed things with futile fingers, and sit
ting back with bump when a shallow
root did unexpectedly yield to his tug.
ging.
Look! He's farmer already" Per-
yus would say.
So two years went-three years
four. In the fourth year of Selina's
marriage she suffered the loss of her
one woman friend in High Prairie.
Maartje Pool died in childbirth. as was
so often the case in this region where
a Gampish midwife acted as obstretri-
clan. The child, too, had not lived.
Death had not been kind to Maartje
Pool. 1t had brought neither peace
nor youth to her face, as it>often does.
Selma. looking down at the strangely
still figure that had been so active, so
bustling, realized that for the first time
in the years she had known her she
was seeing Maartje Pool at rest. 1t
seemed incredible that she could lie
there, the infant in her arms, while
the house was filed with people and
there were chairs to be handed. space
to be cleared, food to be cooked and
served. Sitting there with the other
High Prairie women Selma had a
hideous feeling that Maartje would
suddenly rise up and take things in
charge; rub and scratch with capable
fingers the spatterS of dried mud on