Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1925-07-01


than YES" or No." or, PERHAPS
you're right. SIR" in the proper places.
1t was during those careless years
OF Dirk's boyhood between nine and
fifteen that Selma changed the DeJong
acres from a WORKOUT and down-at-
! heel truck farm whose scant products
| brought a second-rate price in sec
ond-rate market to a prosperous and
| blooming vegetable garden whose out
put was sought year in advance by
the South Water street commission
| merchants.
These six or seven years Of relent-
less labor had been no snowy success
with Selma posing grandly as the New
Woman In Business. No, it had been
painful, grubblng, heart-breaking
process as is any project that depends
on the actual soil for its realization.
! She drove herself pitilessly. She lit
orally tore living out of the earth
with her two bare hands. Yet there
was nothing pitiable about this small
energetic woman of thirty-f1ve or forty
with her fine soft dark eyes, her clean
cut jaw-line. her shabby decent clothes
that were SO likely to be spattered
with the mud Of the road or fields, her
exquisite nooe with the funny little
wrinkle across the bridge when she
laughed. Rather, there was something
splendid about herl something rich,
prophetic. 1t was the splendor and
richness that achievement imparts.
1t is doubtful that she ever could
have succeeded without the money
borrowed from August Hempel; with
out his shrewd counsel. She told him
this, sometimes. He denied it. Easier,
yes. But you would have found
way, Selma. Some way. Julie, no.
But you, yes. You are like that. Me,
| too Say, plenty fellers that was butch
ers with me twenty years ago over on
North Clark street are butchers yet,
cutting off steak or chop"
Dirk had his tasks on the farm. Sc
lima saw to that. But they we're not
heavy. BY the time he returned from
school the rough work of the day was
over. His food was always hot, APP
petizing, plentiful. The house was
neat, comfortable. Selma had installed
bathroom-One of the two bathrooms
In High Prairie. The neighborhood
was still rocking with the shock of this
when 1t was informed by Jan thai
Selma and Dirk ate with candles light
ed on the supper table. High Prairie
slapped its thigh and howled with
| mirth.
"Cabbages is beautiful" said old
Klaas Pool when he heard this. "Cab.
bages is beautiful 1 betcha."
Selma, during the years of the boys
adolescence, had never urged him to
a decision about his future. That, she
decided, would come AS the farm
prospered and the pressure of neces-
sity lifted she tried, In various in
geniOus ways, to extract from him
some unconscious sign Of definite
preference for this calling, that pro-
| fession.
Until Dirk was sixteen she had been
content to let him develop as naturally
as possible, and to absorb impressions
unconsciously from the traps she so
| d
| shed which he was free to use as a
workshop, fitted up with all sorts of
tools. He did not use 1t much, after
the first few weeks. He was pleasantly
| and mildly interested In all things !;
held by none. Selma had thought Of
Roelf when they were fitting up the
workshop. The Pools had heard from
| Roelf just once since his flight from
| the farm. A letter had come from
France Selma had never heard from
him. But one day years later she had
come running to Dirk with an Illus
trated magazine in her hand.
Look !" she cried, and pointed to a
picture. He had rarely seen her so ex-
cited, so stirred. The Illustration
showed a Photographic reproduction of
piece of sculpture-a woman's fig
ure. 1t was called The. Seine. A
figure sinuous, snake-like, graceful, re-
voting beautiful, terrible. The face
alluring, Unsuitable, generous, treach-
erous all at once. 1t was the Seine
I that fed the fertile valley land; the
Seine that claimed thousand bloated
| lifeleSs floating Things; the red-eyed
bag Of 1893; the dimpling coquette of
| 1850 Beneath the illustration a line
or two-Roelf Pool. Salon.
American. future. 4.
Its Roelfw Selma had cried.
"Roelf. Little Roelf Pooll' Tears in
her eyes Dirk had been politely inter-
| ested. But then he had never known
him, really. He had heard his mother
| speak of him, but
At seventeen Dirk and Selma talked
of the year to come. He was going TO
a university. But to what university
And what did he want to study?
We-e-ll, hard to say. Kind of general
| course, wasn't there?
"Oh," Selma had said. "Yes. Gen
eral. Or course, if person wanted to
be an architect, why, 1 suppose Cor
/ 4 4