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"THE LAD! FROM ALABAMA”
*By Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne, Authors of "Psyche”, "Limit of the Line”, "Mission Girl”, TLtc.
CHAPTER X.
HE sunshine lay in yellow drifts across
the green-teriaced banks at Hayden
Park; and a flock of ducks with their
blue and white wings sheathed, swam,
lazily, in serpentine circles, across the
mirror-like brightness of the water. The
oblong shadows under the giant magno
lias and Norway Pines on the slope of
the hillside lengthened, slowly, while a
T
mocking-bird trilled, at intervals, from the silver
limb of a sycamore tree, under whose leaflless
branches June Churchill sat, with an open volume
of Browning in her lap.
She wore a grey house-gown with a big black gar
den hat, and a large cluster of Parma violets were
half-hidden among the black velvet ribbon loups of
her belt. It was evident that Miss Churchill had
slipped away from the sitting room without making
any changes in her costume to her favorite haunt
in the park. Perhaps, she needed the calm of the
hour and the peaceful loveliness of the sylvan scene.
The Park was really the beautiful domain of the
neighborhood, the artistic reserve of the circle in
which she lived, and near enough to the privacy of
her own grounds to seem almost like an extension.
Suddenly, a quick step rang down the white grav
eled walk and a man of superb physique came round
a vine-covered boulder, and, uncovered, with swift
grace, before her.
“You look so much a part, Miss Churchill, of the
ideal loveliness, “Prof. Cam Blake observed, “that I
was tempted not to disturb you. Would you mind
telling me, “he continued, lightly, as he sat down
on the rustic bench by her side, “the component
parts of a vision? How a woman makes herself into
a picture, with the requisite background, at will? My
knowledge of color-schemes, I confess, is limited, but
I recognize the fact, that you harmonize with this
ouVqf-doors environment, either designedly or unde
signedly.”
“I am perfectly unaware of it, Prof. Blake,” June
replied, with a sudden darkening of her sapphire
blue eyes. “Indeed! I should have to be more arti
ficial than I am, to dress for my part on this lonely
rustic stage. My friends happen to find me here, at
long intervals, sometimes because it is the nearest
way from the street cars to the house, on the west
side.”
“As I have been so fortunate to do,” he comment
ed, as he adjusted a refractory cuff inside his blue
sleeve. “My boys in the High School,” he continued,
looking upward with a dazzling smile, “have given
me all I was looking for today. They have been
both turbulent and restless; in fact, I had to calm
them down, with a story, before I could get them
into any sort of decent working shape.”
“Tell me the story,” June returned, with a sky-blue
glance of interest. “For, alas! I sympathize with
the boys, and my mood unfortunately corresponded
with theirs, when I slipped down here, just about a
half-hour ago.”
“But, dear old Mother Nature,” he replied, in his
rich musical voice, and with a penetrating glance,”
has already soothed you into calm, and, consequent
ly, the relation of the story would be altogether su
perfluous.”
“I think I ought to be the judge,” she replied, with
a merry persistence. “You might be good enough to
give the outlines, at least, if you disdain the de
tails.”
“It was about a poor priest,” he said, with a
shadow falling across his clear-cut face, “who taught
in the Catholic Monastery School, where I studied,
in my boyhood. The man did the right, simply for
right’s sake. He didn’t have any enthusiasm for his
work, you understand, but he taught us, the sublim
ity of patient continuance in well-doing, all the
same.”
June Churchill drew a long shuddering sigh, and
then took off her big black hat, as if its weight op
pressed her; and it seemed to her, that Prof. Cam
Blake had never appeared so distinguished looking
or handsome, as he did at that moment, when she
knew, from his own revelation, that she had lost
The Golden Age for March 24, 1916.
him forever. And the words of her grandfather Jere
miah Churchill’s will, burned like a flame-lit sentence
across the grey width of her mental conscious
ness:
“Southern born and Protestant bred!’’
“Then, I suppose,” she asked quite involuntarily,
“that the place of your nativity was north of Mason
and Dixon’s line, although you look enough like a
southern gentleman to deceive the very elect them
selves.
“Do I? Then I do not dishonor my southern ances
tors. But, all the same, I am a Northerner, for, I
was born in New York City.”
“There are so few Catholic schools South, that my
logical guess was easy.” Miss Churchill affirmed, by
way of explanation, as she got to her feet, and Prof.
Blake stood up to accompany her to the house.
“Do you know,” the Professor commented, as he
sauntered along by the fair girl’s side, down the
wide box-bordered walk, “I had an absurd sensation
just now, a strange feeling like I was walking, un
consciously, over a grave.’ ’
“You are,” June replied, as she put on her big
black hat, to hide the stain of color in her cheeks,
“the grace of the Ghost of Chance.”
“What do you mean, Miss Churchill?” he inquired
thoughtfully, for he felt that there was a psycholog
ical meaning to her words.
“Nothing,” she answered, “except, perhaps, that
Destiny wrenched away from you, somewhere today,
a golden opportunity.”
And then she turned toward him and held out her
slender white hands, appealingly, as she added, in a
voice of unmistakable sadness.
“If it will comfort you any, Prof. Blake, to know
it, I feel the same way—victimized!”
************
Mrs. Howell apparently never did anything by
halves, but with that rare judgment, which does not
leave anything to chance, when the protection of a
young girl is in question, she proceeded to secure
board for Schiller, at the Settlement Home, which
was situated on a corner of the mill compound. It
was a great red brick building, which had formerly
been used as a hotel for the mill hands; but which
the management had kindly turned over rent-free to
the philanthropic association, whose aim was to help
the operatives to a higher personal development,
and to conditions correspondingly harmonious in
character.
Schiller wrote a note full of sunny courage to her
Aunt Alma Morris, and sent it by the old colored
expressman, with an order foi' her trunk, books and
pictures. But, in the note, she asked her Aunt, not to
say anything to Burwood, about her plans or where
abouts. Mrs. Howell knew the Secretary of the
Home, and, as she was not only cultured and relig
ious, but brave besides, she felt that Schiller would
have help of the right sort, in her new environment.
And, it is more than possible that she had all these
things in her sub-consciousness, when she fought her
battle with Mr. Moran and won.
On Saturday afternoon, she and Schiller went out
to the mill compound again, with the definite pur
pose of arranging the young girl’s room, for her oc
cupancy the next week. They took a different street
car which landed them in front of the Settlement
Home, and, as it was a day full of warmth and sun
shine, Schiller felt that her prospects were indeed
brightening; that, at least, she was to have once
more a definite place in the world.
The lower entrance hall was conspicuously plain,
but the wide dark-stained stairway, broken by easy
landings, led to a reception hall on the second
floor, which was attractively furnished, with a large
Mission Davenport, and easy chairs; dwarfed orange
trees in tubs, and some rare ferns in jardiniers, were
disposed about the room artistically; while a great
bowl of golden chrysanthemums, on a quaint round
table, in the center of a brown art square, gave a
home-like touch to the wide apartment.
Mrs. Mildred Lowell, the Secretary of the Settle
ment Home, greeted Mrs. Howell and her charge
cordially. She was a tall young woman, whose
blonde fairness was accentuated by the blue linen
house gown she wore, and whose eyes gleamed
kindly behind her rimless eyeglasses.
“I hope Miss Wilkins will soon feel at home with
us here,” she said, turning to Schiller with a smile.
“We are a very busy household, but we think we
are busy about the very best things in the world.
We have so many interesting lines of work, that
I am sure she will develop an enthusiasm for some
of them, almost before she realizes it. There is
the night school, and the kindergarten, and boys’
baseball club —” '
“But she will only have such a small margin of
leisure,” Mrs. Howell suggested in a puzzled tone.
Only Sunday, Miss Lowell, and her evenings.”
“Yes, Mrs. Howell, but she’ll catch the spirit of the
home; I can see it in her eyes, just wait and see.
But I must not detain you with shop talk, delight
ful as it is to me.”
And the Secretary of the Home took a bunch of
keys from a wicker basket on the table, and, pre
ceding her callers down a long narrow hall, un
locked and threw open a door on the left, which
was numbered 14,
“The room across the hall, number 13, was va
cant, Miss Wilkins,” she said, as she turned away,
with an expressive gesture, “but I remembered, in
the nick of time, that once I was young, and super
stitious.”
“Thank you. So kind of you to remember, Miss
Lowell,” Schiller, called after the tall blue retreat
ing figure, as she vanished down the hall.
“Tin cans,” sighed Burwood Morris, looking at
a tier of shelves, in his long grocery store, filled
with Red Salmon and Silver Salmon, and other not
ables of the can family. “Tin cans! They haven’t
a friend, after they are empty. The Salvation Army
don’t want ’em. The Governor won’t consider ’em,
as presumptive ammunition for the cannon on the
lawn of the capitol, and there have only been a
few attached to the Goddess of Liberty. It seems to
me that I am in the same canoe, wih the empty
can. Purse empty, money gone, spree over, the
boys depart for fuller fields, and I am left alone.
Down in Lonesome Tank, you have a chance to
stroke your Belshazzar, and reflect, some! I’ll bet
that Christopher Churchill couldn’t diagram that
last remarn of mine, or tell its full meaning, in
classic English.”
He stared at the stove, and stroked his mustache,
with a diabolic grin.
“I have reflected. Without a penny, it appears to
me, that I will have to board the rear step of
the water wagon, out of pure necessity. I cannot
be a hard drinker —from necessity. I cannot be a
soft drinker —from necessity. I’d love just to sleep
on the water wagon, all day, but for the boys. They
say, I’m not game unless I set myself on fire within
with intemperate swallows of corn or rye. It gives
me wet-pellagra, I presume, which is more inter
esting and causes . more commotion than dry-pella
gra. I am on to my job as a pellagrist—you bet.
What do you want, bud?”
Bud had a pair of innocent blue eyes, and a
tinge of Elberta pink, on his youthful cheeks.
“Have I any rabbits? No, son, I haven’t. What
did you take this joint for? Do you calculate that
I am a wholesale merchant, and get it all for myself,
and defraud my little mountain shippers out of hare,
partridges and frying-size chickens? I pay for what
I get, spot cash, and I don’t claim to be in the
fish, rabbit and oyster business. You go to the
graveyard —for hare.”
Bud vanished.
Burwood Morris gave the coals, in the small
heater a vigorous poking. He stared bitterly into
the pool of crimson embers.
“Sales dropped to SSO a day,” he whispered, “and
food stuff prices soaring beyond the comet Halley,
which leaves my feelings, low as the deepest hole
that was ever dug in red clay. I can’t remember all
the details of this life! By the time I pay store
rent, and wholesale prices, Good Snoozles! I ain’t
50 cents to the good. No! Wonder where
Schiller lit out to?” he speculated, with a change of
(Continued on Page 15.)
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