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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (May 20, 1920)
¥ - ----p-*i I 11 THE ROSE-GAR-1 DEN HUSBAND By MARGARET WIDDEMER Copyright, by J- P» L*wnncott Co. i ■ a St was Just then —« **rs- De f3,„-.«er’a crisply spoken advice came Phyllis was one of those peo ple whose first unconscious Instinct Is to obey an unspoken order. She (bent blindly to Allan's lips, and kissed <hlra with a child's obedience, then (Straightened up, aghast. He would think her very bold! But he did not, for some reason. JXt may have seemed only comforting and natural to him, that swift child ish kiss, and Phyllis's honey-colored, ■violet-scented hair brushing his face. Men take a great deal without ques tion as their rightful due. The others closed around him then, ■welcoming him, laughing at the sur prise and the way he had taken it, telling him all about It as if every thing wore as usual and pleasant as possible, and the present state of things had always been a pleasant commonplace. And Wallis began to cerve the picnic supper. I CHAPTER XI. There wore trays and little tables, Ahd the food Itself would have be trayed a southern darky in the kitch en If nothing else had. It was the first meal Allan had eaten with any •ne for years, and he found It so in teresting as to be almost exciting. IWaJlts took tlio plates invisibly away When they were done, and they con tinued to stay in their half-circle About the fire and talk it all over. Phyllis, tired to death still, had slid to her favorite floor-seat, curled on cushions and leaning against the -couch-side. Allan could have touched her hair with his hand. She thought •f this, curled there, but she was too tired to move. It was exciting to %• near him, somehow, tired as she was. Most of the short evening was spent celebrating the fact that Allan had thrown something at Wallis, who was ■•called to tell the story three times la detail. Then there was the house to discuss, its good and bad points, Its nearnesses and farnoaees. "Let me tell you, Allan," said Mrs. Do Guenther warmly at this point, from her seat at the foot of the Couch, "this wife of yours Is a won der. Not many girls could have had a house in this condition two weeks after It was bought" Allan looked down at the heap of shining hair below him, all he could •ee of Phyllis. "Yes," he said considerably. "She certainly Is." ▲t a certain slowness In his tone, Phyllis sprang up. "You must be •tired to death!" she said. ‘It must be •early It. Do you feel worn out?" » Before he could say anything, Mrs. De Guenther had also risen, and was •weeping away her husband. "Of course he Is," she said decisive ly. "What have we all been think ing of? And we must go to bed, too, Albert, If you Insist on taking that early train In the morning, and I Insist •n going with you. Good-night, chil dren.” vt ama u»u ulus uuio, mnd was wheeling Allan from the room before he had a chance to say much of anything but good-night. The De Guenthers talked a little long mr to PhylHs, and were gone also Thyllia flung herself full-length on the rugs and pillows before the fire, •do tired to move further. Well, she had everything that she bod wished for on that wet February 4ay In the library. Money, leisure to be pretty, a husband whom she ■^didn’t have to associate with much,” vest, if she ever gave herself leave <d take It, and the rose-garden. She bad her wishes, as uncannily fulfilled ns if she had been ordering her fate from a department store, and had money to pay for it. . . . And back there In the city it was some bod y'y late night, and that some body—It would be Anna Black’s turn, wouldn't It?—was struggling with Jfehn Zanowrkis and Sadie Rabino witzes by the lapful. Just as she had. And yet—and yet they had really cared for her. those dirty, dear little foreigners of her. But she'd had to work for their liking. . . . Per haps—perhaps she could make Allan Harrington like her as much as the children did. He had been so kind to night about the move and all, and so much brighter, her handsome Allan in his gray, evety-day-looking man clotlies! If she* could stay brave enough and kind enough and bright enough . . her eyelids drooped. . . . Wallis was standing respect fully over her. “Mrs. Harrington," he was saying, with a really masterly Ignoring of her attitude on the rug, "Mr. Harrington sayfe you haven't bid him good-night yet." An amazing message! Had she been in the habit of It, that he de manded it like a small boy? But she sprang up and followed Wallis Into Allan's room. Ho was lying back In his white silk sleeping things among the white bed-draperies, looking as he always had before. Only, he seemed too alive and awake still for his old role of Crusader-on-a-tomb. “Phyllis,” he began eagerly, as she sat down beside him, "what made you so frightened when I first came? Wallis hadn’t worried you, had he? "Oh, no; it wasn't that at all," said Phyllis. "And thank you for being so generous about It all.” “I wasn't generous," said her hus band. "I behaved like everything to old Wallis about it.—Well, what was it, then?” “I—I—onlv—vou looked so differ ent in clothes,” pleaded Phyllis, “like any man my age or older—as If you might get up and go to business, or play tennis, or anything, and—and I was afraid of you! That's all, truly!" She was sitting on the bed’s edge, her eyes down, her hands quivering in her lap, the picture of a school-girl who isn't quite sure whether she’s been good or not. "Why, that sounds truthful!" said Allan, and laughed. It was the first time she had heard him, and she gave a start. Such a clear, cheerful, young laugh! Maybe he would laugh more by and by, If she worked hard to make him. "Goed-night, Allan," she said. “Aren't you going to kiss me good night?" demanded this new Allan, precisely as if she had been doing it ever since she met him. Evidently that kiss three hours ago had created a precedent Phyllis colored to her ears. She seemed to herself to be always coloring now. Bat she must n’t cross Allan, tired as he must bel “Good-night Allan," she said again sedately, and kissed his cheek as she had done a month ago—years ago!—when they had been married. Then she fled. “Wallis,” said his master dreamily when his man appeared again, "I want some more real clothes. Tired of sleeping-suits. Get me some, please. As for Phyllis, In her little green and-white room above him, she was crying comfortably Into her pillow. She had not the faintest Idea why, except that Bhe liked doing It. She felt, through her sleepiness, a faint, hungry, pleasant want of something, though she hadn't an idea what It could be. She had everything, ex cept that it wasn't time for the roses to be out yet. Probably that was the trouble. . . . Roses . . She, too, went to sleep. ‘‘How did Mr. Allan pass the night?” Phyllis asked Wallis anxi ously, standing outside his door next morning. She had been up since 7, speeding the parting guests and in terviewing the cook and chamber maid. Mrs. Clancy's choice had been cheerful to a degree, and black, all of it; a fat \ irginla cook, a slim young Tuskegee chambermaid of a pale saddle-color and a shiny brown out door man who came from nowhere in particular nut wa3 very useful now he was here. Phyllis had seen them all this morning and found them everything servants should be. Now she was looking after Allan as her duty was. Wallis beamed from against the door-post, his tray in his hands. “Mrs. Harrington, it's one of the best sleeps Mr. Allan’s had! Four hours straight, and then sleeping still, if broken, till 6! And still taking interest in things. Oh, ma’am, you should have heard him yesterday on the train, as furious as furious! it was beautiful!” “Then his spine wasn’t jarred,” said Phyllis thoughtfully. “Wallis, I be lieve there was more nervous 3hock and nervous depression than ever tljg doctors realized. And 1 believe all he needs us to be kept happy, to be much, much better. Wouldn’t it be 4ft wonderful if he got so he could move freely from the waist up? I believe that may happen if we can keep him cheered and interested.” Wallis looked down at his tray. “Yes, ma'am," he said. “Not to speak ill of the dead, Mrs. Harrington, the late Mrs. Harrington was always say ing 'My poor stricken boy,’ and things like that—‘Do not jar him with ill uineu iigm or merriment, ana re minding him how bad he was. And she certainly didn’t jar him with any merriment, ma’am.” "What were the doctors thinking about?” demanded Phyllis indig nantly. • “Well, ma’am, they did all sorts of things to poor Mr. Allan for the first year or so. And then, as nothing helped, and they couldn't find out what was wrong to have paralyzed him so, he begged to have them stopped hurting him. So we haven’t had one for the past five years." “I think a masseur and a wheel chair are the next things to get,” said Phyllis decisively. “And remember, Wallis, there’s something the matter with Mr. Allan's shutters. They won’t always close the sunshine out as they should." Wallis almost winked. If an elderly, mutton-chopped servitor can be im agined as winking. “No, ma’am,” he promised. “Some thing wrong with ’em. “I’ll remem ber, ma’am.” Phyllis went singing on down the sunny old houses swinging her col ored muslin skirts and prancing a little with sheer Joy of being 25, and prettily dressed, with a dear house ail her own, and—yes—a dear Allan a little her own, too! Doing well for a man what another woman has done badly has a perennial Joy for a cer tain type of woman, and this was what Phyllis was in the very midst of. She pranced a little more, and came almost straight up against a long old mirror with gilt cornices, which had come with the house and was staying with it Phyllis stopped and looked critically at herself. “I haven’t taken time yet to be pretty," she reminded the girl In the Bioaa, turn u<c&*%u mtui iuiu uiero VO take account of stock, by way of beginning. Why—a good deal had done ltselfl Her hair had been washed and sunned and sunned and washed about every 10 minutes since she had been away from the library. It was springy and three shades more golden. She bad not been rush ing out In alj weathers unveiled, nor - I washing hastily with hard water and cheap library soap eight or 10 times a day, because private houses are comparatively clean places. So her complexion had been getting hack, unnoticed, a good deal of its original country rose-and-cream, with a little gold glow underneath. And the tired heaviness was gone from her eyelids, because she had scAcely used her eyes since she had married Allan— there had been too much else to do! The little frown lines between the brows had gone, too, with the need of reading-glasses and work under electricity. She was more rounded, and her look was less intent. The stroined library teacher look was gone. The lumnious long blue eyes In the glass looked back at her girlishly. “Would you think we were 25 even?" they said. Phyllis smiled irrepressi bly at the mirrored girl. “Yas'm" said the rich and comfor table voice of Illy-Anna, the cook. from the dining-room door; "y<Hi sholy is pretty. Yas'm—a lady wants to stay pretty when she's married. Yo’ don’ look much mo'n a bride, ma’am, an' dat’a a fac’. Does you want yo' dinnehs brought into de sit tin'-room regular till de gem-man gits well?” "Yes—no—yes—for the present, any way," said Phyllis, with a mixture of confusion and dignity. Fortunately the doorbell chose this time to ring. A business-like young messenger with a rocking crate wanted to speak to the madam. The last item on Phyl lis’s shoping list had come. ‘‘The wolfhound’s doing fine, ma'am,” the messenger answered in response to her questions. “Dike a different dog already. All he needed was exercise and a little society. Yes’m, this pup’s broken—in a man ner, that is. Your man picked you out the best-tempered little feller in the litter. Here, Foxy—careful, lady! Hold on to his leash!" There was the passage of the check, a few directions about dog-biscuits, and then the messenger from the kennels drove back to the station, the crate, which had been emptisd of a wriggling six-months black bull-dog on the geat beside him. CHAPTER XH. Allan, lying at the window of the sunny bed-room, and wondering if they had been having springs like this * all the time he had lived in the city, heard a scuffle outside the door. His wife’s voice inquired breathlessly of Wallis, "Can Mr. Allan—see me? . . . Oh, gracious—don’t, Foxy, you little black gargoyle! Open the door, or—-shut it—quick, Wallis!” But the door, owing to circum stances over which nobody but the black dog had any control, flew vio lently open here, and Allan had a fly ing vision of his wife, flushed, laugh ing, and badly mussed, being railroad ed across the room by a prancingly exuberant French bull at the end of a leash. "He’s—he’s a cheerful dog," panted Phyllis, trying to bring Foxy to an chor near Allan, “and X don’t think he knows how to keep still long enough to pose across your feet—he wouldn’t become them anyhow—he’s a real man-dog, Allan, not an interior decoration. . . . Oh, Wallis, he has Mr. Allan's super! Foxy, you little fraud! Did him want a drink, angel-puppy?” “Did you get him for me, Phyllis?” asked Allan when the tumult and the shouting had died, and the caracoling Foxy had buried his hideous little black pansy-face In a costly Belleek dish of water. "Yes,” gasped Phyllte from her fa vorite seat, the floor; "but you need n’t keep him unless you want to. I can keep him where you’ll never see him—can’t I, honey-dog-gums? Only I thought he'd be company for you, and don’t you think he seems— cheerful T’ Allan threw his picturesque head back on the cushions, and laughed and laughed. “Cheerful!" he said.j “Most as suredly! Why—thank you, ever so much, Phyllis. You’re an awfully thoughtful girl. I always did like bulls—had one in college, a Nelson. Come here, you little rascal!" • He whistled, and the puppy lifted Its muzzle from the water, made a dripping dash to the SStich. an3 scrambled up oVet Allah as Ir they had owned each other since birth. Never was a dog less weighed down by the glories of ancestry. Allan pulled the flopping bat-ears with his most useful hand, and asked with Interest, "Why on earth did they call a French bull Foxy?" “Yee, sir," said Wallis. “I under stand, sir, that he was the most ac tive and playful of the litter, and chewed up all his brothers’ ears, sir. And the kennel people thought it was so 6lever that they called him Foxy." “The best-tempered dog in the lit ter!" cried Phyllis, bursting into help less laughter from the floor. (To be continued next week.) Sir Aukland Campbell Geddes is opposed to the adoption of the metric system by England as he says it would cause much confusion in the textile Industry, which composes 30 per cent of their export Industry. PE-RU-NA . and MANAI .IN Cured Blra. E. M. Hams, R. R. CtUrrh 0f,i* No. 3, Ashland, Wis., sends N0,e ti,,-.. a message of cheer to the wd ‘‘After following your advice ~ ~ " and using Peruna and Manalin, I my work and am in good wan eared of catarrh of the none, health. I recommend thin vain *hj®at and stomach, from which *hle remedy to all suffering from I had suffered for several years. a°y disease of the stomach.” When I commenced taking Pe- ^ run* I could not make my bed Peruna Is Sold Bverywher without otop»lng to rent. Now I Liquid or Tablet Form The Right Way In All cases of • DISTEMPER, PINKEYE INFLUENZA, COLDS, ETC. of all horses, brood mares, colts and stallions is to “SPOHN THEM” on the tongue or in the feed with SPOHN’S DISTEMPER COMPOUND Give the remedy to all of them. It acts on the blood and glands. It routs the disease by expelling the germs. It wards off the trouble, no matter how they are “exposed." A few drops a day prevent those exposed from contract ing disease. Contains nothing injuri ous. Sold by druggists, harness deal ers or by the manufacturers. 60 and *1.15 per bottle. AGENTS WANT ED. SPOHN MEDICAL COMPANY. GOSHEN, INC. ANNUAL TIME OF TROUBLE I AS IT APPEARED TO HIM Housecleaning Date May Change, bul Its Consequences Can by No Means Be Avoided. Houseclenning Is one o? tlie spring festivals that has no fixed date, beinf movable on the domestic calendar. II is observed in many places follovtinf the close of the Lenten season, when the first crocus lias bloomed its wel come to the returning birds, when the grass shows green, the sun mount? higher each day and the buds art puffed up with ambition to clothe tret and shrub in summer garb. . . . It's close at iiand, may be celebrated now as eacli domestic circle elects and may be expected to show many ol tlie characteristics of the olden days Men should not grumble when the fes tival Is in progress. They get the eas iest pfirt. They may have difficulty in locating what they want, but they are in it only part of tlie time; the home folks are there all the time. It Is one time of tlie year when the men folks Prosperous Martinique. The number of manufacturing in dustries in Martinique has been in creasing, although most of the (Sants are small. The factories in operation are 15 sugar factories, 114 rum dis tilleries, eight lime kilns, one factory for canning pineapples, one factory where chocolate powder and coco but ter are made, one factory for r*;.#en tary pastes, two ice factories, two forges and foundries, one copper shop, one tile, terra cotta-and brick factory It gaseous water factories and four printing houses. Billions of Tons of New Fuel. For the production of cheap electric power, briquettes and certain by-prod ucts the government of Victoria is planning to develop immense deposits of brown coal, estimated to exceed 20,000,000,000 tons. Taken in the Other Sense. Miss Mugg—I think you are just beautiful, my dear. Miss Bute (modestly)—That’s where we differ.—Boston Transcript. Most people want justice for the purpose of passing It on to those who seed It. mUauMtmtMaamaeKmmmmtEem1ss^aaasrmsmF^^0*^rssssss^aos«s., win h mmmziaassi For Every Home A table drink that refreshes, but leaves no after-depression— Postum | Much used nowadays instead of coffee as a breakfast beverage because of its similarity in flavor to coffee, but with g entire absence of ill effect, since Postum contains no “caffeine.” Instant Postum is made quickly In the cup, with economy as well as con venience. Sold by Grocers Everywhere by POSTUM CEREAL CO., Inc. BATTLE CEE BE. MICHIGAN Hubby Had No Difficulty at All in *" Classifying His Wife as Species of Tree. They are a husband and wife who have many quarrels. And she is not a fair antagonist, because she always weeps during every quarrel in order to win her point. The other night she brought home a new fur hat winch she proudly exhibited to her husband, who did not like it, and proceeded to stay so. “Why, it looks queer to even the dog,” lie ended. “Look how lie’s barking at it. He thinks it is a coon in a tree." “Don’t you call me a tree,” sh« stormed, and then began to cry. “1 suppose you're going to say next that I'm either a quince or persimmon tree.” “No,” lie smiled blandly. “1 should think a weeping willow would lie a more appropriate name.” Seventy to a House. Warsaw is probably one of t he most densely populated cities in tlie world. Its growth in area lias beet retarded by tlie fact that under t tic Russian regime certain fixed city lim its were drawn many years ago. and for military reasons no houses were to be built outside of those limits. In a recent census it was found that flie number of inhabitants to a build ing in Warsaw was about 70. as com pared with only seven or eight in London. Strength in Faith. It is tlie man or the woman of faith ami hence of courage, who is tlie mas ter of circumstances, and who makes bis or her power felt in tlie world. It is tlie man or tlie woman who lacks faith and who as a consequence is weakened and crippled by fears and foreboding who is tlie creature of alt pass'eg occurances.—Exchange. Embryo Politician. “Mother,” said little Ray in an ag grieved tone, “you have no constitu tional right to send me to bed without my supper.” “What do you mean, Raymond?’” "You are exercising rule without the consent of the governed.”—Bostoa Transcript.