Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1925-04-22
CHAPTER I-Continued


the matter was pretty we'll hush0A I'D.
The publishers paper-which wss Chi
cagO's Oremost-scarcely mentioned
the incident and purpOsely misspelled
the name. The lady, thinking her task
accomplished, had taken truer aim
with her second bullet, and had saved
herself the trouble of trial by human
jury.
Simeon Peake left his daughter Sc
lima legacy of two fine clear blue
white diamonds Che had had the gam
bIer's love of them) and the sum Of
four hundred and ninety-seven dollars
in cash. Just how he had managed to
have sum like this put by was
mystery. The envelope containing it
haa evidently once held a larger sum-
1t had been sealed, and then slit On
the outside was written, in Simeon
Peake's fine, almost feminine hand:
For my little daughter Selma Peake
In case anything should happen to
me-" 1t bore a date seven years old.
What the original sum had been no one
ever knew.
To Selma fell the choice of earning
her own living or Of returning to the
Vermont village and becoming with
cred and sapless dried apple, with
black fuzz and mold at her heart, like
her aunts, the Misses Sarah and Abbie
Peake. She did not hesitate.
But what kind of work?" Julie
Hempel demanded. "What kind of
work can you do?" Women-that is,
the Selma Peakes-did not work.
well, 1 can teach"
Teach what?
''The things 1 learned at Miss Els
ter's."
You have to do something first-go
to Normal, or teach In the country,
don't you?-before you can teach in
the public schools. They're mostly old.
Twenty-Five or even thirty-or more y
with nineteens incapacity to imagine
an age beyond thirty.
"Then I'll just teach a country
school. I'm good at arithmetic. You
know that" Julie should have known
1t, having had all her Fister sums
solved by Selma. Country schools
are just arithmetic and grammar and
geography"
You Teaching country school !"
She looked at Selma.
She saw a misleadingly delicate
face, the skull small and exquisitely
formed. The cheek bones rather high
or perhaps they looked so because
of the fact that the eyes, dark, soft
and luminous, were unusually deep
set In their sockets. The face, instead
OF narrowing to a soft curve at the
chin, developed unexpected strength
In the jaw line. That line, fine, steel
strong, sharp and clear was Of the
stuff Of which pioneer women are
made. Julie, inexperienced in the art
of reading the human physiognomy,
did not decipher the meaning of it.
Selina'S hair was thick, long and fine,
80 that she piled 1t easily in the loops,
coils and knots that fashion demand
ed Her nose, slightly pinched at the
nostrils, was exquisite. When she
laughed 1t had the trick of wrinkling
just little across the narrow bridge
very engaging, and mischievous. She
was thought rather plain little thing,
which she wasn't. But the eyes were
what you marked and remembered
Perhaps it was this velvety softness
Of the eyes that caused one to over
look the firmness of the lower face.
When the next ten years had done
their worst to her, and Julie had sud
denly come upon her stepping agilely
out Of truck gardeners wagon on
Prairie avenue, a tanned, weather
beaten, toil-worn woman, her album
dant hair skewered into a knob and
held by long gray hairpin, her full
calico skirt grimed with the mud of
the wagon wheel, pair of mems old
side-boots on her slim feet, a gro
tesquely battered old felt hat Cher
husband's) on her head, her arms full
OF ears OF sweet corn, and carrots, and
radlshes, and punches of beets, a wom-
IN with bad teeth, fiat breasts a sag
ging pocket in his capacious skirt
even then Julie, staring, had known
her by her eyes. And she had run to
her In her silk suit and her fine silk
ShirtwaiSt and her hat with the plume
and had cried, "Oh, Selma My dear
My dear with a sob OF horror
and pitY-"My dearr' And had
taken Selma, carrots, beets, corn
and radishes, In her arms. The
vegetables lay scattered all about
them on the sidewalk In front Of Julie
Hempel Arnolds great stone house on
Prairie avenue. But strangely enough
1t had been Selma who had done the
comforting, patting jules silken
shoulder and saying, over and over,
~There, therel It's all right, Julie.
It's all right. Don't cry. What's there
10 cry forl Sh s. It's all right"