The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1932-09-08
The Good Gift
By ALICE RoUNDY
% by Mcclure Newspaper syndicats.l
CWNU service)


Montana plains. She was awaiting
the coming Of Eric Wllloughby, a
young ranchman Of English descent,
who was the only man in the world
who dared to shorten her distinguished
name to Nora. He had requested her
to await him here in the shade Of a
windmill not far from the ranch
that he was going to ask her to marry
him. This she knew to be impossible
because she was the only and adored
child of wealthy parents who be-
lieved that no man was quite good
enough for her.
Presently she beheld him approach
ing at gallop on his superb horse,
the pick of the range.
Reaching her side, he threw himself
of the horse, leaving him to Craze,
and seated himself on the ground
near her. Without preliminaries, as If
he were continuing a line Of thought,
he said, Marriage seems to me the
grave Of freedom"
$50 is everything in life II one al
lows it to be-" replied Autonoe, dog
matically. 1--WE are chained to our
selves"
Il have been interested in you ever
since your Uncle Johnnie first told
me about you and said that he was
going East to rescue you"
Autonoe gazed at him in amaze
ment. ale said that you were like a
lizard waiting to cast its skin. Eyes
shut. The whole of you encased in
the dead cut1cle of your parents
prejudices and fears and culture. And
unless you could be freed, you would
have no life Of your own"
"a thoroughly Western point Of
View!" murmured Autonoe, haughtily.
"Since you came" he continued, re-
1entlessly, II have seen that he was
dead right"
At the smack of his words, his man.
ner of uttering them, Autonoe felt the
lizard skin crack from top to bottom.
IT cannot understand" she remarked
plaintively, "why man when he pro-
poses, should make himself so dis
agreeable"
II am not proposing to you," as
serted Eric, sharply.
Certainly you are. And the answer
IS livery plumply) no."
He smiled acridly.
"At lease you are alive" he said,
"and l sometimes have doubted that.
I do not wish to hurt your vanity, but
my thoughts at present are occupied
by a very different type Of woman.
A Mexican, a dancer in a cafe, superb
1y dark-I prefer brunettes."
Since he loathed poetry, Autonoe
began to quote from a poem as Greek
as her name.
Eric, as If stung unendurably, sprang
to his feet and began to tighten Poll
mino's clnch.
Eric yanked up his horses head and
threw himself into the saddle. Sur
prised, Polimino reared to his full
height, an appalling wall of flesh.
Eric sat like a rock, fearless in per-
feet control. With a catch Of her
breath, Autonoe thought him like
Baldur the Beautl1ul.
The horses feet once more on
earth, Eric said fiercely, with swift
glance at Autonoe's useless little
hands:
"a ranchman's wife must be up at
dawn and put in fourteen hour day.
She must scrub, cook, launder her
mans clothes, mend them, feed the
dogs and serve every stranger that
hallos the house."
Then, with lift of the rein and
touch of the spur, he sent Polimino
forward in a swift gallop.
Autonoe, turning her back upon him,
returned to the house to find her
Uncle Johnnie. A middle-aged, pros
porous ranchman, with peculiarly
steady eyes, he was resting from labor
on the wide piazza in a comfortable
chair and watching a distant scene.
One Of his men in flivver, rounding
up straylng cattle, and another flying
overhead In a small airplane, survey
ing fences. His Mexican wife, not
older than he but deplorably wrin-
killed., was waiting on him slavishly.
Sinking into a chair beside him,
AutOnoe said soberly:
"Uncle Johnnie, I want Aunty Pc
pita to teach me to cook, and scrub,
and feed the dogs and-and-"
Her uncle looked at her with per-
feet understanding.
"You mustn't mind anything that
Eric says at present" he said, sooth.
1ngly. "He Is awfully stirred up by
the ideals which you represent because
they are like those which he himself
had when he first came out here. But
he seems to have lost them in this
rough life and he has been in danger
of marrying at a low level" with a
fitting glance at his own wife). 'But
If he has begun to quarrel with you,
= ne is saved. And you must remember
that this is the West where"
81 know" interrupted Autonoe, i'm
patiently. But prefer gentlemen,
bland and courteous like my father,
and am going straight back East,
where they grow"
Her uncle, with kindly smile, left
the decision with her.
And presently she was smiling at
her contradictory self. For in her
heart NJ hearts she knew that sooner