White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1927-12-23
CHAPTER III-Continued

But" said Mr.. Schwenckton, puz-
zled, you must know how to school
teach when you're graduate Of
Kutztown Normal yet! Well, guess
anyhow Us we don't cleo no teacher
to our William Penn that amt got
her Normal school diarploma."
"Oh, yes-well, but-yes, Of course"
Nicely concluded in some confusion.
She glanced surreptitiously at Aunt
Rosy-and found, to her discomfort,
that she was being regarded with a
look of cunning suspicion.
"Say" suddenly spoke up Rosy.
"Have you got such Kutztcwn Nor
NAL school diarploma?"
"Why-why, of course-why, of
course I have"
Mister" she demanded of her
brother-in-law, "did you ever see her
diarploma?"
Zach, Rosy, what's over you? To be
sure, she had to send her diarploma
along with her application and her
photygraft when she wrote for the
job here at our William Penn. Your
photygraft," he said to Nicely, "don't
favor you much. You're lot prettier
than that there photygraft."
tits funny" answered Nicely, show
my photographs never look like-nev-
er dc me justice" she amended her
remark.
Again she found Aunt Rosy's little
cunning eyes boring like gimlets into
hers.
Nicely Schwenckton seemed to her.
self, these days, to be ever walking in
fear. Yet never in all her young life
had she found existence so eXhilarat-
ing, so tense with interesting sus-
pense. 1t was not really fear, she
decided, only thrilling apprehension
that hung over her every minute
of the day and night; an apprehen-
sion which even if realized could not
really bring harm to her, only awk-
ward embarrassment.
"But somebody else would feel
more awkward and embarrassed !" she
smiled to herself
However, this apprehension, fol
lowing her ceaselessly, was BIZ
nerve acking; and the startling
knowledge just acquired that Marvin
Creighton Cher "Steady Dates
brother y stood over her as the schoo
superintendent and was therefore
bound to make her acquaintance very
soon, greatly augmented her sense Of
the danger of her situation-a situa
ton brought about less by her owr
plotting than by a succession of for
tuitous and unforeseen circumstances
Never would she have had either the
audacity or the ingenuity to have ar
ranged such an extraordinary chair
of circumstances.
"Up to now, I've always held fictior
to be stranger than truth-but never
again! If l were novelist I'd never
have the cheek to make up such {
lurid and improbable yarn as I'm liv
ing!" she amazedly told herself. IF
offered it to the movies I'm sur,
they'd consider it too true to life t,
be convincing"
If either of the Creighton brother.
should ever see her in the other'
company Or if st. Croix discovered
she was the district teacher, instead
Of the ignorant COW she feigned t.
be! Or if any of the SchwencktoI
family discovered her meeting with ST
Croix or any of the other things abou
her which they were congenitally In
oonohlo of susnectinpl
1t was just three days after her las
rendezvous with st. Croix that on
afternoon at quarter past foul
school having been dismissed and he
plain tailored school dress havin
been changed right here in her empt
schoolrcom for the fancy, chea
.finery in which she always disguise
herself to meet her Date" that sh
came out of the schoolhouse an
after locking the door and hiding tn
key under a stone, glanced cautiousl
up and down the road before startin
for the distant hilltop where s
Croix would be waiting for her. Ft
she intended again today to keep hi
waiting.
Last Monday she really had bee
at their meeting place long ahead
the appointed time and, having bee
curious as to how he would treat hi
hardness she had, on his appearir
in the distance, hidden in a clump
bushes and watched him; his restle:
impatience, the eager light in his eye
when once he thought he heard HI
coming; and then his childish name
vers to deceive her-his descendir
the hill, skirting the base and elm
Ing up again on the other side in q