Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-06

Quiggs to her neighbor, Mrs. Blaine
as she reached over for hymn book
Mrs. Blaine nodded and her eyes sharp
ened with interest.
Her father had forbade Rea going
near the beach after that episode, and
Rea doggedly determined to obey him.
but as the days slipped by she could
not endure the sight of that blue strip
seen from her bedroom window, and
one misty evening she stole down to
! the beach with a bag of stale bread
crumbs to feed the gulls. BY wiping
the sand off her shoes she could hide
the place she had been.
Her father never knew when she
went down to the wharf to watch the
tugs and barges came into harbor and
see the fishing boats unload.
Often enough the big seagoing tugs
would anchor their barges in midharbor
and then come in to the wharf to lay
until 1t came fair weather again. Rea
knew every tug that came in. The
Philadelphia tugs, with their German
crews, and the New York boats, with
their Spanish and Italian sailors. The
dark men in their greasy blue jeans
fascinated her and the furnished gold
braid on the officers dirty uniforms
made her heart hammer against her
to her she remained silent. Inarticu-
late, with a great longing for some
thing she could not name, and they,
Indifferent at the scrawny kid with the
wide blue eyes and the tangled, wind
blown hair, who would not speak,
went on.
Even at Is Rea still looked like q
kid. A slender, elfish bit Of motion
that seemed about to be blown away.
Sticky lookin'" some called it.
Little gale O. wind 'ud take you
clear cross to China coast" old Cap'n
Ben at the Sailors Mission used to
say to her.
him wistfully, listening to his adven-
turous tales of the clipper ship days.
y X **
ON the day Rea was 10 her father
~ called her into his study. His
long face was Swallowed by the de-
pressing gloom of the book-lined walls.
For a moment or two he did not speak.
His nearsighted eyes strained for
sharper view of her until 1t seemed
to Rea that he must know that she
was longing to be out of the stutty
place.
"Rea," he began, portentously clear
ing his throat, you are budding into
wolnanhood. You are no longer
child" Rea looked down at the toe
of her shoe and tried to rub off grain
of sand she thought she saw there.
ut is time for you to think seriously
Of marriage"
Reas eyes widened. Her father had
never spoken Of marriage before.
Luke Dunnet has asked my per-
mission to make you his wife" He
paused to let the full significance OF
his words reach her.
She gasped and opened her lips.
''And / have given my consent"
"Rea stared at her father. Luke
Dunnet! AS methodicai and steady as
the old clock on the white tower Of
her fathers little church. One OF the
dependable young men OF the village"
Owner of the only hardware store In
the community, and said to be COM
fortahly fixed. But he had only taken
her out twice. Once to Grange picnic
and once to o church supper. She
had never considered him as q real
beau. He had never said that her eyes
were pretty or that she looked nice in
pink.
"It will be an excellent match for
one OF your age" her father went on.
His position is of the best. and hope
that you will make him dutitul wife"
he added more sharply. -
A dutiful wife. The phrase stuck In
her mind. The word had followed her