Year: 1877

Bertrode Dodge was blue. 1t was
August weather-there was no air STIR
ring from one arid noon until bhe next,
and the insects hissed maliciously all day
long in the parched grasses. Perhaps
that was the rrason that Bertrode wa
blue.


Perhaps it was that as she walked
Growers Tract, day by day, and saw the
summers limited completion in the red
apples burning among the gray-greer
boughs, the hay-tields at aftermarth, the
purple tasselled corn, and yellow wheat,
that she felt her life to be aimless. She
had let the summer come and wane
across her passive existence. The pre-
vious winter she had said, ct feel ice
bound now. When summer comes, I
will shake off this inertion and redeem
to-day"


Yet the summer was rapidly passing
and she was still a.dream. The hour
never seemed to come which called her
to exertion. Well, cloves young
dream comes but once it was oil we'll,
perhaps.


Growers Tract and her farmhouse life
was not dull as she had expected it
would be when she returned from her
mountain tour year before only at
times the outdoor sounds and the
leisurely growing works of nature op-
pressed her. In the winter she had
been gay, looking at the sunset across
the snow, watching the chick ADDE'S, and
searching the woods for purple merer-
ion. In the spring the long walks to the
post office had been full of joyful fancies
and golden realities; she loved the
sweet country sights and scents more
than ever before in her life.


But in August something seemed to
oppress her. The sky burned too blue,
the woods We're to calmly content in
their greenness, the days closed too
beautifully in their ripe splendor, as she
walked the Tract at sunset, coming
from the post st-office-coming always
empty handed. Yes, something was
wrong, and when she realized it fully,
she said:


81 am idle-I am stepped in idleness.
have been doing nothing for year.
Now | will have some work, and Dick
may go to the post-ofice. [ care too
much for those letters"


Whatever those letters might be, there
came no more of them. A certain gay
tourist drifting about the world, forgot
to write them at last; perhaps Bertrode
was pretty, but one travelling everywhere
meets many pretty faces.


Bertrode's cheek grew thin and white.
Her mother saw that she struggled to re-
press growing irritableness. But sine
worked on increasingly at her new EN-
ployment of teaching the district school
OF Growers Tract. She devoted herself
to the children. Their parents said they
had never before learned so fast. Ber.
trode smiled only family at their praise.
One day, coming home from school
through the woods, she flung herself
down among the ferns and dry grasses.


cit is dust and ashes |" she cried.


The sky cleaned blue through green
bOughs overhead, and bird sang cheer
lily in a neighboring bush. She lay
there until she felt the dew falling. As
she rose up, something rustled at her
side. She looked down great rattle.
snake was slipping through the grass,
going from her, apparently unaware of
her presence. Fascinated, immovable,
yet full of horror, she stood and watched
the creature. For a moment it glided
steadily ON, it's course so direct, its ap-
pearance so subtle and deadly, that she
felt spellbound as she regarded it.
Suddenly, with thrill of horror, she
saw the reptiles aim it was making
directly for shady spot, where a man
lay asleep beneath the trees. One
moment more would be too late to pre-.
vent the threatened attack. Starting
from her passivity, she seized stone al
her feet and hurled it full at the crea-
ture. He had just paused and raised
his crest to view his position, when the
stone struck him upon the back of the
head, and with vengeful hiss he leaped
into the air, then fell at full length upon
the ground and slowly expired.


Bertrode stood looking at the dusty
length and bloody head of the dead
snnke, her mind in sort of wonder that
anything could be 80 loathsome. when
she heard her nams spoken. She raised
her eyes and saw Fennel Gould STANDING
before her. The young man looked al
The snake with sort Of shudder, and
"a ii