Bewoaiatdae. Bellefonte, Pa., June 25, 1909. THE WILD FLOWERS. Little Jack ran away to the woods, one fine For his mother, he said, was unkind; In the forest so dark, the fierce Dogwood's loud Made him shake, though he tried not to The trinmpet Flower blew a blast in his ear as The Saapdragon snapped at his toes; Dutchman's Pipe puffed some smoke in his eyes for a joke, Bneezewood tried to tickle his nose. Catnip pinched his poor arm till he screamed The Cowslips sll lowered their horns; The goidenrod beat him, and rushiog to meet ‘‘Say is is the worst attack be bas bad— be does not know me. Ob, burry, dear cbild ! barry !" It may be that she bad never burried be- fore in ber life, this tall, thin woman with the sallow, frightened face,—'‘Aaron Jer- rold’s little girl,”’—who ran stumbling along the uneven brick sidewalk that led auder the thick row of maples. A pink cotton dress, hall-buttoned clung closely to her lank figure, and a leghorn bas, heavy with crimeon roses, flopped with incon- groous coquetry over her anxious eyes. Alone, breathless, running through the si- lent dawn, with the doctor’s brown house at thedim end of the long village street not yet even visible, the dread of death grew in ber steadily. Yet knowing nothing, after all, of the great catastrophe, the terror that ewam in her brain was a great, empty, in. flated thing, like a ohild’s painted balloon. Shielded as she bad been from sane, steady- ing griefe,she was giddy now from the very fear of fear, and leaned heavily for an in- stant against a dew-dampened picket-fence. Through her hrain thoughts flew dizzily, him like mad leaves; she could not seize or de- Were Cudocks and Brambles and Thorns, The Coltsfoot stamped in wrath by the side of | ¢ the path, Tne Spidersort crawled in his ear, tain them. Yet they were crudely elo- uent, like pioture-writing. They told t Rosa Jerrold was pot wondering whether she would succeed in saving her father’s life : she was shrinking from the When the cross Cattails yowled and the Dan. | horror of no longer being ‘‘Aaron Jerrold’s deiion growled Little Jack wus just frantic with fear! The Vines ran at his heels as he fled with shrill squeals To that same unkind mother, who smiled little girl.” Bat before Rosa bad reached the doctor's bouse and pulled its old-fashioned glass bell-bandle with all the violence it was its sullen habit to demand, Aaron Jerrold’e wife bad already seen that no dootor was When he sobbed: “I'll be good, mother! Who needed in that big, still chamber. Her ever would husband was dead. They had told ber it Have believed that wild flowers were #0 | wonld be like this—some day. Yet his wild!® = [Camilla J. Knight. bushy bead and bearded face seemed to lie S— THE PRISON OF AFFECTION, Rosa Jerrold stood idly by ber listle gar- den—a round patch of earth reserved for ber each epring, just as ‘‘saucer pies’’ were on the pillow with a feigned submissive. ness. His strongly vocal presence seemed to be deliberately and jocosely dumb. That carelessly vital personality was irreconsil- able with death; yes it was death that lay there under she still sheet, that each in- stant filled the room with a more and more still included for ber in the family baking stifling presence. —and watched ber father swing lazily up the ebaded strees, Part of the pleasure of | move, Susan Jerrold did not sob or speak or A certain sublimity of those fires being Aaron Jerrold’s daughter lay in his | moments of ber widowhood held emotion eeable conspicnousness, People always | mute. It is the moment when the only liked to watch tbat long, leisarely stride, | solace, as the only loyalty, is the belief that or to linger in the big, shaggy man’s mag: | everything is lcst—when unlovely me- petio presence. It had always heen so mories seem only distortions. A belated satisfying to be his “listle girl,” to be | bas ineffable understanding, the more insi- drawn into bis lap and petted with bis big, | mate for being unspoken, seemed to comforting band, to be teased with boister- between them, the dead and the living. ous tenderness. Rosa was now no longer Trembling,she bent low to kiss him, when, “listle,” as sbe was obviously no longer below, there was the sound of a door hast- young; bat Aaron was always magnificent- | , ly able to overloook the rigidities of faos, ly flang open. It was Rosa, with her case. less, childish ways—poor, dear Rosa, who while bis danghter still swam in the bland | did nos know, who perbape did nos even sea of utter irresponsibility. They bad loog ago stopped wondering in dream — The widow rose bastily to her feet with- Farndon Corners whether Aaron Jerrald's | out kissing ber dead hueband. The sound daughter would ever grow ap. To their | ghat meant Rosa's return bad sufficed to irritated perceptions it had become fairly | detach her from ber irrecoverable commun- apparent that she would nos. contemporaries emerged While ber! on. Her supreme moment was forfeited. from girlhood, | Hastily she placed something over Aaron's married, raised families, and then paused sharpened face and lefs the room. Ountside comfortably cn the serene platean of mid- | ghe seized Rosa by the arm. dle age, Rosa Jerrold remained an elderly young girl, Theoretically of a certain | found the courage to say. ‘‘Rosa your father—isn’t so well,” she *‘I cannot bave bodily frailness, and guarded always by an you in the room. Come with we, child ; over-anxiou® mother, she had spent ber life you are pale—"' in a kind of nursery extension. Neverthe. *“Who is with him ? You must not leave less, various dim buds of talent were popu- bim, mother ; you—"’ larly understood to await their due season of encouragement, and Farndon Corners ‘‘He does not need—"’ There was only a second’s faltering, bot balf-skeptically awaited Rosa's debut in | Roea understood, and signified her under- ose of tbe arts, dramatic, musical, or, for | standing ; ber eyes closed ; she sank down all that anybody kuew, terpsichorean. To this event Rosa herself looked forward upon the floor aud screamed. waye been her way to screaw by way of It bad al- cheerfully, but by no means impatiently, | protest against the unusual or the unpleas- ber thin days filled with the easy and de- | ant. When ber kitten was lost, or when oeptive volace of an ambition not sharp and | a dress bad not come in time for a party, real encogh to be a torment. She sappos- | Rosa bad screamed, and bad heen soothed ed that some more than usually agreeable apd petted nll she stopped. It could only destiny lay awaiting her, did she only be expected that her father's death would choose to grasp it; meanwhile she was 200- | elicit at least an equal demonstration ; so tent to peer with untronhled innocence | that now, while Aaron Jerrold lay alone from ont the stony sheath of her artificial | gud dead, the woman whom his death bad youth. most bitterly bereaved had already tnrned As her father lightly accepted the mir- | to soothe a shrilier sorrow, But Susan acle of Rosa's stationary adolescence, £0 | Jerro'd could not bave understood that ber Mure. Jerrold—who bad on this score seores action was unnatural. It was unthinkable agonies of misgiving, due to ber persistent | that she should fail to relinquish the luxu. recollection of her daughter's date of birth ry of articulate griel when ota demanded —ocberished as hie: particular fetish the be- | service. lief in Rosa's beauty. There was not a Thus they were still together. the moth. celebrated heroine whom the gaunt and | er and daughter, when Abby Barrows, Sa- swarthy young woman bad not been taught | san’s sister, whom the little house-servant shat she io sowe way or avotier resembled, | had gone uosolicited to fetch, arrived, and and the local dressmakers gossiped freely | arrived firmly, to stay, to ‘‘take charge.” about the ordeal of sewing week at the Jer- | Turning blindly toward her, Mrs. Jerrold rolde. It was haid enough to acquiesce in | made swo etatements in what seemed the the theory of Ro