Dewar fit ——————————— —_———CErmm Bellefonte, Pa., January II, 1907. PRINTED WHERE LIVE. YOU USED TO Tisn't filled with cuts and pictures, nor the latest news dispatches ; And the papers often dampened, and the print is sometimes blurred There 1s only one edition, and the eye quite often catches Traces of a missing letter, and at times a mis- spelled word. No cablegram nor “specials anywhere the eye engages ; The make-up is, maybe, a trifle erude and primitive. But an atmosphere of home life fills and per- meates the pages Of the little country paper printed where you used to live, How the heart grows soft and tender, while its columns you're perusing! Every item is familiar, every name you know fall well. And a flood of recollection passes o'er you as you're musing On the past and weaves about you an imagi- native spell. You can see the old home village, once again in fancy, seeming To be clasping hand of neighbor, and of friend and relative ; And their faces rise before you, as you're idly fondly dreaming O'er the little country paper, printed where you used to live, And you seem to leave the city, with its rush’ and roar, and clamor, With its busy, bustling atmosphere of turmoil! and of strife ; Leave the multitude of surging, eager workers, and the glamour, For the quiet, soothing blandishment of rest. ful country life. And you note a vine-clad cottage, with the roses nestling round it : Hear the voice of mother calling for the long- gone fugitive, While the echo of her pleading, memories re- peat, and sound it Through the little country paper, printed where you used to live. Every printed line reminds you of the days long since departed : Herea boyhood chum is mentioned, there a schoolmate's name appears ; And the eye grows moist in reading, while the soul grows heavy-hearted O'er the changes Time has wrought through. out the swiftly passing years, Memory's scroll has deep impressions stamped npon its face forever, Of sweet pleasures which the busy city life can never give ; And, in faney, you are roaming through the quiet town, whenever You peruse the country paper, printed where you used to live, «Sunset Magazine i ———————— THE BOY JAKE. "I'm sure, miss, I don’t know as I'm right in letting you have it,” Mrs. Fexon worried, beating her keys uucertainly on a crumpled palm. *“‘He never would bave left his things out like that if he hadn't ex- pected a young lady friend from his own home to take it. But you cowe so highly recommended, and you like it so much --"' “Indeed I do!"’ Miss Mariner laid down her bag aud took off ber hat as though to guard against any chauge of wind on the other’s part. ‘You may be perfectly at ease about his books and possesions—I am a thoroughly scrupulous peison.” A smile brought a vivid sweetuess to her thio, dark face. ‘‘And think how much more he will enjoy Europe if he is uss pay ing rent here,’’ she added. "'Quite true, iss. He was very pleas ed when his lady friend wroie she'd take it, and off be flew by the next steamer. And theo, the very hour I got word that she'd changed her mind, in comes you, lookiug for a place ; it does seem sors of meant to be.” Miss Mariner, deep in a leather olair, was looking contentedly abous the cool, darkened, restful room. full of masculine ease as represented by a few big, satisfac. tory pieces of furniture and a blessed lack of small stuffiness. There was not even a portiere in the arch that led to the bed- room; and the white tiling in the bathroom beyond showed the only gleam of reflection from the oppressive brightness of the day ‘without. *‘Put the responsibility on me,’’ she sug- gested. ‘And don’t worry him with let- ters —his best friend could uot take hetter vare of thivge than I sball. I think you raid you would furnish breakfasts 2" Settling the practical details steadied Mrs. Foxou’s 1esolution. Miss Mariner, left presently in full possession, still sas with ber thin bands drooping over the arm of her chair and ber head tilted back on ite small brown throat. There was grace in her long, relaxed sliminess, though the at- titude suggested a rather weary matority. Two years before, when she broke her en- gagement, Miss Mariner had quietly pus away the bright badge of yoath, which is called expectancy. She bad learned to live ASiiinly Suligutory be without it; the pursuit of a degree, w brought her to New York for some special study, was one of ber deliberate substitutes; but where. as she had looked much less than her twen- ty-seven years then, she now appeared rather more than twenty-nine. Ot the things around her she liked best a huge, solid, masculine desk, table-top- ped, free of frivolous pigeon-holes and par- titions, suggesting in every line a splendid, sane capaciousness. A scholarly desire to pull up to is with her knees in its dark cavern, her papers strewing its top, and her pen dipping in ite massive inkstand, drew her to the revolving chair that confronted it. The big drawers at the sides were emp- ty, but when she opeved the shallow drawer in the centre she paused with a startled laugh. Within lay a sheet of pa- per on which was pasted a blue printol a young man, a delightfully boyish person of twenty-one or two in white ducks, a ten- nis rackes in his hand, his face framed in ereot, tight curls of an amusingly childish order and lit by a smile of beaming good- natore. He was an enchanting symbol of youth to her grave twenty-nine years. But what bad startled her was the inscription written beneath : ‘Hello, Edith! Glad to see you. Make yourself at home. JAKE.” Banh yd jar own Bans, wl for » to. ment she orgotten the ‘‘young lady friend from home’ who was to have taken the rooms. Then she remembered, and put it back with a laugh. Obviously, the other was an Edith, too; probably an Edith young enough to look on the owner of the rooms as an individoal rather than an en- chanting symbol. How stupid of her not to have come! ‘“1 am very grateful for your welcome, Jake, even if I am not the right Edith,” she said, loath to shut the drawer. “Yon are a pice boy,” she added, passing her fingers over the picture with a maternal touch. She was sorry for that other Edith, who had missed such a pleasant moment. The boy haunted her oddly as she exam- ined bis possessions. She found his hooks recklessly mixed, advanced science elbow- ing a little black and gilt ses of *“‘Rollo,” modern literature sandwiched by obsolete histories and biographies with such inserip- tions as ‘“To Isabel, Xmas, 1861,” on their yellowing fly-leaves; here and there a vol- ome io French or German. She shook her head reprovingly at the boy as she took down a fairly new copy of ‘Lettres de Femmes.” “0 Jake, why must a curly infant like you read that!" she murmured. *‘If yon were my son—"' She opened it to see if the leaves were cut, then stooped fo: a piece of paper that bad flustered out. Across it sprawled the same handwriting that had greeted her under the picture. ‘‘Pat it back, my dear Edith,” she read. ‘‘This is not a proper book for a young la- dy. You will find Miss Austen over by the east window. ‘Your absent chaperon, JAKE.” Miss Mariner laughed, silently but with sudden warm intensity. ‘‘Jake, you are a darling,” she said; and presently, as a grave afterthought, she added, ‘‘How your mother must have ador- ed you!" § idea clung to her all through the day, with a sense of surprised dissovery. She bad always felt, and with longing, the desirableness of children, Lut never before this intense consciousness of what a son might mean in one's life. She took the picture out again presently and fastened it up over the fireplace. Later, when she went out, she seemed to an uousoal proportion of young fellows in the streets; sell-conscious or swaggering youths with the curve of childhood still amusingly evi dent in their cheeks and mannish indiffer- ence held precariously like a loose lid over boiling young spirits. Some of them were Lapomnitly horrid, she told herself, bat it did not seem to matter; she loved them all in ber sudden passionate appreciation of their sonship. And after all, it was not one of the unusual blessings, a gift that only the especially elect could ask, this de- sirable thing that was making the pursuit of a degree appear all at once such a cold, dead business. So many women bad sons! Jake was smiling at her when she went back. ‘Have you had a good day?” she asked. Hersmile began in appreciation of ber own silliness, but it ended in pure mother feeling for Jake; he was so enchant- iogly young ! The habit of expectancy wasso thorough: ly broken in Miss Mariner thas she did not look for further messages; and so it was all the more delicious when he bobbed oat at her again that night. She was patting away her clothes and the bottom drawer of the chiffonier stuck with an obstinacy few tempers could have withstood. Nhe tried patience, intelligence, diplomacy; then she set her lips and gave an outraged jerk. Oat it came, and from the bottom a rerawled bit of paper confronted her like a grin. She bent over and read : “Swear at it, Edy. Nothing less will fetoh is. J." ‘Ob, poor Jake !" she cried. *‘All this wasted on an old maid Edith who wishes she were your mother!” The thought of the romance that might have grown up for the right Edith made her feel like a mali- cious interloper. That Edith would, of course, leave her own demure m es when she flitted—it would all have been very pretty. ‘Bat be is too young yet, any way,” she cousoled herself. She left the slip of paper in the drawer for the pleasure of seeing it again when she should pack up. For the eight wedks of her stay alone in the hot city, working six and seven hours a day, Miss Mariner went wrapped about in a mellow garment of r10maunce beside which the obvivus velves aud plumes of youuger dreamers seemed to her tawdry iwitations. She was vot a lover but the mother of a sou. He walked down the street with her, tall aud protective, this suuny Jake —she could feel the swing of bis shoulder as her ear; his beats biguess oppos.t: ber made her solitary meals times of quiet delight. She kept Lim scrupulously ous of the library, but the moment her work was done she flew home to him. She knew now why people clung to life so passiouately : is was that they might bavesous, When toward the end a fo eigu letter came addressed to that other Edith, she gave it to Mrs. Foxon to forward wish a keen sense of injary. What did the chit care about ason’'s letters! He would be only another wan to her, And the pride of motherhood beset ler. Oue day she sou. bt a pen koile for his desk, looking critically at the assortment offered. “These are too small and feminine—I want one for my great boy,” she told the clerk, and went away with it, horribly ashamed, yet rejoicing. When she reached bore she leaned her elbows on the mantel- iece and stared long and gravely at the yish figure in the blue print. **Ooe has to bave something, Jake,’ she said. ‘Sons ought to be a natural compen- sation provided for those who bave no lovers.” Tired with the day’s work she dropped into a leather chair with a battered oopy of *‘Shirley,”’ opening it in the middle with a hall-realized need of its emotional inten- sity. A plengayiien Saat as like a yi grance pervad e dim, quiet room as wens through the familiar scenes wherein love is made so real, so faulty, and yet so radiavtly desirable. That loveliest scene of all, where Moore gives in to his feeling for Caroline, shook for a moment even her Justine un San, 4 Hugh weut e a w r from the dead. She turned the blive: ly. Then she plunged her face down on the leaves of the hook with a cry of laugh- ter, for across the end of the chapter was written in the familiar band : *'0 Edith, isn’t is lovely?” ‘‘Jake, Jake! You blessed sou of wom- an!” For all her laughter there were tears in her eyes. She to dry them bastily as she threw down the to answer a ring at her bell. Her little entry was and the man standing outside could ently see only an outline, for be put out two welcoming bands with a joyous: ‘‘Hello, Edith!” It was so like the boy in the picture that she was bewildered for a moment, confused between the dream and the reality. ‘0 Jake!" she cried. The sound of her own voice, warm and thrilled, brought her sbarply to her senses. She shrank drawing away ber bands with a stammer of dismayed apology. Yes even in her con- fusion she bad time to be acutely disap- pointed that it was not Jake, but a man well into the thirties, that followed her into the room. He looked equally startled when he found himself confronting a dark, graceful woman with slim hands nervously clasped and a faint flash showing through the tired Swestuess of ber fare, . al ‘‘Bus—1I beg your pardon!" he exclaim- ed. *‘I thought—I expected to find —"’ “Oh, yes; but whe didn’t come. I a- here instead,”” Miss Mariner explained ah- sently, for a clearer look at bis face Lad given her a joyous hope. It was: a lined face, not as al ish, but some guality of pleasantness in y eyes under the square forehead, the slightly olefs chin, the crisp little curls that no brushing could subdue, brought ber to an impul