Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1928-02-02
SYNOPSIS

CHAPTER Handsome. fastidious
and wealthy-young st: Croix Creign-
ton awaits his sweetheart at their
late, this ordinary little Pennsylvania
Dutch girl, Nicely Schwenckton, but he
awaits her eagerly. She is SO demure!y
beautiful. he thinks. but SO out OF his
"class."
CHAPTER Nicely. in the
Schwenckton home, is altogether unlike
the girl who meets St. Croix Giahoe s,
the Pennsylvania Dutch accent. She
Is the teacher in the neighborhood
school, of which Marvin Creighton. ST.
Croix' brother, is superintendent Due
ton boards in town. near Nicely. who
is living with the Schwencktons.. a
Pennsylvania Dutch farmers family.
Nicely learns that Marvin was to have
lady, but, believing she was attracted
by the Creighton wealth. had refused
the alliance 1t is the rumor that st:
Croix is to take MarVin's place and
marry the English girl.
Continued from last weekly
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 bit
nerve-ra cking; and the startling
knowledge just acquired that Marvin
Creighton cher STEADY Dates"
brotherD stood over her as the school
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 own
plotting than by 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 chain
Of circumstances
up to now, I've always held fiction
to be stranger than truth-but never
again! If I were novelist I'd never
have the cheek to make up such .
lurid and improbable yarn as I'm liv.
tng!" she amazedly told herself. IF
offered II to the movies I'm sure
they'd consider it too true to life to
be convincing"
If either of the Creighton brothers
should ever see her in the others
company! Or If st. Croix discovered
she was the district teacher, instead
Of the ignorant COW she feigned to
be-! Or if any of the Schwenckton
family discovered her meeting with st.
Croix or any Of the other things about
her which they were cOngenitally in
capable of suspectingl
1t was just three days after her last
rendezvous with st. CrOix that one
afternoon at quarter past four.
school having been dismissed and her
plain tailored school dress having
been changed right here in her empty
schoolrcOm for the fancy, cheap
fnery in which she always disguised
herself to meet her Date" that she
came out of the schoolhouse and
after locking the door and hiding the
key under a stone, glanced cautiously
up and down the road before starting
for the distant hilltop where st.
Croix would be waiting for her. For
she intended again today to keep him
waiting.
Last Monday she really had been
at their meeting place long ahead Of
the appointed time and, having been
curious as to how he would treat her
hardness, she had, on his appearing
In the distance, hidden in a clump Of
bushes and watched him; his restless
fmpatience. the eager light in his eyes
when once he thought he heard her
coming; and then his childish maneu-
vers to deceive her-his descending
the hill, skirting the base and climb
ing up again on the other side in all
that mud! How she had enjoyed her.
self watching himl
Evidently Marvin was not such an
ass as st. Croix. "From all accounts
he sounds like the Noble Army-of-
Martyrs-Praise-Thee Which is worse,
I wonderful be bounder or to be
SO uncomfortably noble?" It certainly
did sound uncomfortably noble to be
willing to live at Absalom Puntz'
when you could live in the much more
comfortable home Of the Creightons.
For Aunt Rosy's Investigations had
proven Mr.. Schwenckton's surmise
ccrrect-Marvin Creighton was board.
ing, for the time being, at Absalom's
cottage on the Schwenckton's farm,
which fact added considerably to
Meely's uneasy apprehensions.
As she strolled on her way to her
meeting with St Croix, in the lovely
October sunlight, she wondered wheth.