8Y EDNA.
FERBER
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY CLARK AGNEW,
Copyright by
Doubleday, Pags & Co.
WNU Service,
(Continued frem last week.)
SYNOPSIS
CHAPTER L—Introducing “So Bi
{Dirk DeJong) in his infancy. And his
jrother, Selina DeJong, daughter of
imeon Peake, gambler and gentleman
of fortune, er life, to young woman-
hood in Chicago in 1888, has been un-
conventional, somewhat seamy, but
generally enjoyable. ft school her
chum is Julie Hempel, daughter of
{August Hempel, butcher. Simeon is
illed in a quarrel that is not his own,
and Selina, nineteen years old and
Tasiicatly destitute, becomes a school-
eacher.
CHAPTER II—Selina secures a posi-
tion as teacher at the High Prairie
hool, in the outskirts ,of Chicago,
jving at the home of a tfuck farmer,
laas Pool. In Roelf, twelve years
old, son of Klaas, Selina perceives a
Jundrea spirit, a lover of beauty, like
erself.
CHAPTER II1.—The monotonous life
of a country school-teacher at that
time, is Selina’s, brightened somewhat
by the companionship ot the sensitive,
artistic boy Roelf.
Adam Ooms’ glance swept the hall
until it reached the tall figure tower-
ing in the doorway—reached it, and
rested there. His gimlet eyes seemed
to bore their way into Pervus De-
Jong's steady stare. He raised his
right arm aloft, brandishing the potato
masher. The whole room fixed its gaze
on the blond head in the doorway.
“Speak up! Young men of High
Prairie! Heh, you, Pervus DeJong!
‘WhatmIbidwhatmIbidwhatmlbid }”
“Fifty cents!” The bid came from
Gerrit Pon at the other end of the hall.
A dashing offer, as a start, in this dis-
trict where one dollar often repre-
sented the profits on a whole load of
market truck brought to the city.
Crash! went the potato masher.
“Fifty cents I'm bid. Who'll make it
seventy-five? Who'll make it seventy-
five?”
“Sixty!” Johannes Ambuul, a wid-
ower, his age more than the sum of his
bid.
“Seventy!” Gerrit Pon.
Adam Ooms whispered it—hissed it.
“S-s-s-seventy. Ladies and gents, 1
wouldn't repeat out loud sucha figger.
I would be ashamed. Look at this
‘basket, gents, and then you can say
. . . Ssseventy!”
“Seventy-five!” the cautious Am-
buul.
Scarlet, flooding her face, belied the
widow's outward air of composure.
Pervus DeJong, standing beside Selina,
viewed the proceedings with an air of
detachment. High Prairie was looking
at him expectantly, openly. The widow
bit her. red lip, tossed her head. Per-
wus DeJong returned the auctioneer’s
meaning smirk with the mild gaze of a
disinterested outsider.
“Gents!” Adam Ooms’ voice took
on a tearful note—the tone of one who
is more hurt than angry. “Gents!”
Slowly, witl infinite reverence, he lift-
ed one corner of the damask cloth that
concealed the hamper's contents—lifted
it and peered within as at a treasure.
At what he saw there he started back
dramatically, at once rapturous, de-
spairing, amazed. He rolled his eyes.
‘He smacked his lips. He rubbed his
stomach. The sort of dumb show that,
since the days of the Greek drama, has
been used to denote gastronomic de-
flight.
“Eighty!” was wrenched suddenly
from Goris Von Vuuren, the nineteen-
year-old fat and gluttonous son of a
prosperous New Haarlem farmer.
Adam Ooms rubbed brisk palms to-
gether. “Now then! A dollar! A
‘dollar! It’s an insult to this basket to
make it less than a dollar.” He leaned
far forward over his improvised pulpit.
#Did I hear you say a dollar, Pervus
DeJong?’ DeJong stared, immovable,
gnabashed. “Elghty-elghty-eighty-eighty
-—gents! I'm going to tell you some-
thing. I'm going to whisper a secret.”
His lean face was veined with crafti-
ness. “Gents. Listen. It isn’t chicken
fn this beautiful basket. It isn’t
chicken. It's”—a dramatic pause—
“it’s roast duck!” He swayed back,
‘mopped his brow with his red handker-
chief, held one hand high in the air.
His last card.
“Eighty-five!” groaned the fat Goris
Non Vuuren.
“Eighty-five! - Eighty-five! - Eighty-
fiveeightyfiveeightyfive eighty - five!
Gents! Gen-tle-men! Eighty-five once!
Eighty-five—twice!” (Crash)! “Gone
$0 Goris Von Vuuren for eighty-five.”
A sigh went up from the assemblage;
a sigh that was the wind before the
storm. There followed a tornado of
talk, It crackled and thundered. The
rich Widow Paarlenberg would have to
eat her supper with Von Vuuren’s boy,
the great thick Goris. And there in
the doorway, talking to teacher as if
they had known each other for years,
was Pervus DeJong with his money in
his pocket. It was as good as a play.
Adam Ooms was angry. His lean
fox-like face became pinched with spite
He prided himself on his antics as auc
tioneer; and his chef @'oedvré ha
AERP Ed
brought a meager eighty-five cents, be-
sides doubtless winning him the en-
mity of that profitable store customer,
the Widow Paarlenberg. Goris Von
Vuuren came forward to claim his prize
amidst shouting, clapping, laughter.
The great hamper was handed down
to him,
Adam Ooms scuffled about among
the many baskets at his feet. His nos-
trils looked pinched and his skinny
hands shook a little as he searched for
one small object.
When he stood upright once more he
was smiling. His little eyes gleamed.
His wooden scepter pounded for si-
lence. High in one hand, balanced
daintily on his finger tips, he held
Selina’s little white shoe box, with its
red ribbon binding it, and the plume of
evergreen stuck in the ribbon. Affect-
Ing great solicitude he brought it down
then to read the name written on it;
held it aloft again, smirking.
He sald nothing. Grinning, he held
it high. He turned his body at the
waist from side to side, so that all
might see. The eyes of those before
him still held a mental picture of the
huge hamper, food-packed, that had
Just been handed down. The contrast
was too absurd, too cruel. A ripple of
laughter swept the room; rose; swelled
to a roar. Adam Ooms waited with a
nice sense of the dramatic until the
laughter had reached its height, then
held up a hand for silence. A great
scraping “Ahem!” as he cleared his
throat threatened to send the crowd off
again,
“Ladies—and gents! Here's a dainty
little tidbit. - “Here's something net
only for the inner man, but a feast for
the eye. Well, boys, if the last lot was
too much for you this lot ought to be
just about right. If the food ain’t quite
enough for you, you can tie the ribbon |
in the lady’s hair and put the posy in |
your bottonhole and there you are. !:
There you are! {What's more, the lady
herself goes with it. You don’t get a
country girl with this hers box, gents.
A city girl, you can tell by looking at
it, just. And who is she? Who did
up this dainty little box just big enough
for two?” He inspected it again, sol-
emnly, and added, as an afterthought,
“If you ain’t feeling specially hungry.
Who?—"” He looked about, apishly.
Selina’s cheeks matched her gown.
Her eyes were wide and dark with the
effort she was making to force back
the hot haze threatening them. Why
had she mounted this wretched soap
box! Why had she come to this hid-
eous party! Why had she come to
High Prairie! Why! . .
“Miss Selina Peake,
Miss Se-li-na Peake!”
A hundred balloon faces pulled by a
single cord turned toward her as she
stood there on the box for all to see.
They swam toward her. She put up a
hand to push them back.
“Whatm I bid! What'm I bid!
What'm I bid for this here lovely little
toothful, gents! Start her up!”
“Five cents!” piped up old Johannes
Ambuul, with a snicker. The tittering
crowd broke into a guffaw. Selina was
conscious of a litdle slek feeling at the
pit of her stomach. Through the haze
she saw the widow's face, no longer
sulky, but smiling now. She saw
Roelf’s dear dark head. His face was
set, llke a man’s. He was coming
toward her, or trying to, but the crowd
wedged him in, small as he was among
those great bodles. She lost sight of
him. How hot it was! howhot. . . .
An arm at her waist. Someone had
mounted the little boxiand stood teeter-
that’s who.
Ing there beside hier, pressed against’
her slightly, reassuringly. Pervus De-
Jong. Her head was on a level with
the doorway, on the soap box, for all
High Prairie to see.
“Five cents I'm bid for this lovely
little mouthful put up by the school
teacher’s own fair hands. Five cents!
Five—"
“One dollar!” Pervus DeJong.
The balloon faces were suddenly
punctured with holes. High Prairie’s
Jaw dropped with astonishment. Its
mouth stood open.
There was nothing plain about Selina
now. Her dark head was held high,
and his fair one beside It made a vivid
foil. The purchase of the wine-colored
cashmere was at last justified.
“And ten!” cackled old Johannes
Ambuul, his rheumy eyes on Selina.
Art and human spitefulness struggled
visibly for mastery in Adam Ooms’
face—and art won. The auctioneer
triumphed over the man. The term
“crowd psychology” was unknown
to him, but he was artist enough
to sense that some curious magic
process, working through this room-
ful of people, had transformed
the little white box, from a thing
despised and ridiculed, into an object
of beauty, of value, of infinite desir
ability. He now eyed it in a catalepsy
of admiration,
“One-ten I'm bid for this box all
tied with a ribbon to match the gown
of the girl who brought it. Gents, you
get the ribbon, the lunch, and the girl.
And only one-ten bid for all that.
Gents! Gents! Remember, it ain't
only a lunch—it’s a picture, It pleases
the eye. Do I hear one—"
“Five bits!” Barend DeRoo, of Low
Prairie, in the lists. A strapping young
Dutchman, the Brom Bones of the dis-
trict. He drove to the Haymarket
with his load of produce and played
cards all night on the wagon under the
gas torches while the street girls of
the neighborhood assailed him in vain.
Six feet three, his red face shone now
like a harvest moon above the crowd.
A merry, mischievous eye that laughed
at Pervus DeJong and his dollar bid.
“Dollar and a half!” A high clear
voice—a boy's voice. Roelf.
“Oh, no!” said Selina aloud. But
she was unheard in the gabble. Roelf
had once confided to her that he hac
saved three dollars and fifty cents in
the last three years. Five dollurs
would purchase a set cf tools that his
mind had been fixed on for months
past. Selina saw Kirnaz Pccl’s look ef
| astonishment changing to anger. Saw
i Maartje Pool’s quick hand on his arm,
restraining him.
| “Two dollars!” Pervus DeJong.
“And ten.” Johannes Ambuul’s cau-
tious bid.
“Two and a quarter.” Barend De-
Roo.
“Two-fifty!” Pervus DeJong.
“Three dollars!” The high voice of
the boy. It cracked a little on the last
syllable, and the crowd laughed.
“Three-three-three-three-three - three-
three. Three once—"
“And a half.” Pervus DeJong.
“Three sixty.”
“Four!” DelRoo.
“And ten.”
The boy’s voice was heard no more.
“I wish they'd stop,” whispered
Selina.
“Five!” Pervus Delong.
“Six!” DeRoo, his face very red.
“And ten.”
“Seven!”
“It's only jelly sandwiches,” said
Selina to DeJong, in a panic.
“Eight!” Johannes Ambuul, gone
mad.
“Nine!” DeRoo.
“Nine! Nine I'm bid! Nine-nine-
nine! Who'll make it—"
“Let him have it.
fell a little. Don’t—"
“Ten!” said Pervus DeJong.
Barend DeRoo shrugged his great
shoulders.
“Ten-ten-ten.
I hear ten-fifty.
tentententen !
The cup cakes
Do I hear eleven? Do
Ten-ten-ten tententen-
Gents!
Ten once. Ten
“Gone !—for Ten Dollars to Pervus
! DeJong.”
twice! Gone—for ten dollars to Per-
vus DeJong. And a bargain.” Adam
Ooms mopped his bald head and his
cheeks amd the damp spot under his
chin.
Ten dollars. Adam Ooms knew, as
did all the countryside, this was not
the sum of ten dollars merely. No
basket of food, though it contained
nightingales’ tongues, the golden apple
of Atalanta, wines of rare-vintage,
could have been adequate recompense
for these ten dollars. They represented
sweat and blood; toil and hardship;
hours under the burning prairie sun at
midday; work doggedly carried on
through the drenching showers of
spring; nights of restless sleep snatched
an hour at a time under the sky in
the Chicago market place; miles of
weary travel down the rude corduroy
road between High Prairie and Chica-
go, now up to the hubs in mud, now
blinded by dust and blowing sand.
A sale at Christie’s, with a miniature
going for a million, could not have met
with a deeper hush, a more dramatic
babble following the hush.
They ate their lunch together in one
corner of Adam Ooms’ hall. Selina
opened the box and took out the
deviled eggs, and the cup cakes that
had fallen a little, and the apples, and
the sandwiches sliced very, very thin.
The coldly appraising eye of all High
Prairie, Low Prairie, and New Haar-
lem watched this sparse provender
emerge from the ribbon-tied shoe box.
She offered him a sandwich. It looked
infinitesimal in his great paw. Sud-
denly all Selina'’s agony of embarrass-
ment was swept away, and she was
laughing, not wildly or hysterically,
but joyously and girlishly. She, sank
lier little white teeth inte one of the
absurd sandwiches and looked at him,
expecting to find him laughing, too.
But he wasn't laughing. He looked
very earnest, and his blue eyes were
( fixed hard ca the bit of bread io his
hand, and his face was very red and
clean-shaven. He bit into the sand-
wich and chewed it solemnly. And
Selina thought: “Why, the dear
thing! The great big dear thing! And
he might have been eating breast of
duck. . . . Ten dollars!” Aloud she
said, “What made you do it?”
He seemed not to hear her; bit
ruminantly into one of the cup cakes.
Suddenly: “I can’t hardly write at
all, only to sign my name and like
that.”
“Read?” 2
“Only to spell out the words. Any-
ways I don’t get time for reading. But
figuring I wish I knew. ’Rithmetic.
I can figger some, but those fellows in
Haymarket they are too sharp for me.
They do numbers in their head—like
that, so quick.”
Selina leaned toward him.
teach you. I'll teach you.”
“How do you mean, teach me?”
“Evenings.”
He looked down at his great cal-
loused palms, then up at her. “What
would you take for pay?”
“Tn
“Pay! I don’t want any pay.”
was genuinely shocked.
His face lighted up with a sudden
thought. “Tell you what.
start for you the fire, mornings, in the
school.
in a pail of water. This month, and
-.-{ Januuery snd February and part of
“Marcel; even, now I don't go to market
you the fire. Till spring. And
could come maybe three times a week.
i be ashamed of, like a violent temper,
She {
I could
And thaw the pump and bring | SONS
Sometimes they fell to talking. His
wife had died in the second year of
their marriage, when the child was
born. The child, too, had died. A
girl. He was unlucky, like that. It
was the same with the farm.
Selina’s heart melted in pity. He
would look down at the great cal-!
loused hands; up at her. One of the
charms of Pervus DeJong lay in the
things that his eyes said and his tongue
did not. Women always imagined he
was about to say what he looked, but
he never did. It made otherwise dull
conversation with him most exciting.
His was in no way a shrewd mind.
His respect for Selina was almost rev-
erence. But he had this advantage:
he had married a woman, had lived
with her for two years. She had borne
him a child. Selina was a girl in ex-
perience. She was a woman capable
of a great deal of passion, but she did
not know that. Passion was a thing
no woman possessed, much less talked
about. It simply did not exist, except
in men, and then it was something to
or a weak stomach.
Dy the first of Murch he could speak
a slow, careful and fairly grammatical
English. He could master slmnle
sums. By the middie of March the ese
would cease. There was too
i much work to do about the farm—
i
|
|
evenings, to Pool’s place, for lessons.” |
hugeness.
She felt a little rush of warmth
toward him that was at once lmper-
sonal and maternal. She thought
again, “Why, the dear thing!
great helpless big thing! How serious
he is! And funny.”
denly, a gay little laugh, and he, after
a puzzled pause, joined her companion-
ably.
“Three evenings a week,” repeated
Selina, then, from the depths of her
ignorance. “Why, I'd love to. I'd—
love to.”
Chapter V
The evenings turned out to be Fues-
days, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Sup-
per was over by six-thirty in the Pool
household. Pervus was there by seven,
very clean as to shirt, his hair brushed
till it shone; shy, and given to drop-
ping his hat and bumping against
chairs, and looking solemn. Selina was
torn between pity and mirth. If only
- about it.
he had blustered. A blustering big
man puts the world on the defensive.
| A gentle giant disarms It.
Selina got out her McBride's gram-
mar and Duffy's arithmetic, and to-
gether they started to parse verbs,
| paper walls, dig cisterns, and extract
square roots. They found study im-
possible at the oilcloth-covered kitchen
table, with the Pool household eddying
Jakob built a fire in the
parlor stove and there they sat, teacher
and pupil, their feet resting cosily on
the gleaming nickel railing that encir-
cled the wood burner,
On the evening of the first lesson
Roelf had glowered throughout sup-
per and had disappeared into the work
shed, whence issued a great sound of
hammering, sawing, and general clat-
ter. He and Selina had got into the
way of spending much time together,
in or out of doors. The boy wor-
shiped her inarticulately. She had
early discovered that he had a feeling
for beauty—beauty of line, texture,
color, and grouping—that was rare in
one of his years. The feel of a satin
ribbon in his fingers; the orange and
rose of a sunset; the folds of the wine-
red cashmere dress; the cadence of a
spoken line, brought a look to his face
that startled her.
Since the gathering at Ooms’ hall
he had been moody and sullen; had
refused to answer when she spoke to
him of his bid for her basket. Urged,
‘he would only say, “Oh, it was just
fun to make old Ooms mad.”
Now, with the advent of Pervus De-
Jong, Roelf presented that most touch-
ing and miserable of spectacles, a
small boy Jealous and helpless in his
Jealousy. Selina had asked him to
join the tri-weekly evening lessons;
had, indeed, insisted that he be a
pupil in the class round the parlor
stove.
Roelf would not. He disappeared
into his work-shed after supper; did
not emerge until after DeJong's de-
parture.
There was something about the sight
of this great creature bent laboriously
over a slate, the pencil held clumsily
in his huge fingers, that moved Selina
strangely. Pity wracked her. If she
had known to what emotion this pity
was akin she might have taken away
the slate and given him a tablet, and
the whole course of her life would
have been different. “Poor lad,” she
thought. “Poor lad.” Chided herself
for being amused at his childlike earn-
estness.
He did not make an apt pupil, though
painstaking. - Selina would go over a
problem or a sentence again and again,
patiently, patiently. Then, suddenly,
like a hand passed over his face, his
smile would come, transforming it. He
would smile like a child, and Selina
should have been warned by the warm
rush of joy that his smlle gave her.
She would smile, too. He was as
pleased as though he had made a fresh
and wonderful discovery.
“Its easy,” he would say, “when you
know it once.” Like a boy.
He usually went home by eight-thir-
ty or nine. Often the Pools went to
bed before he left. After he had gone
Selina was wakeful. She would heat
water and wash; brush her hair vig-
orously; feeling at once buoyant and
depressed.
The |
; the backs of them, slowly, moistily,
She laughed, sud- |
He looked so helpless, so humble, so | control something. She was trying to
huge; and the more pathetic for his! keep her eyes away from something.
|
with her mouth, lingeringly. She was
i terribly frightened. She thought to
i herself: “I am going crazy. I am los-
i work In a gust of sympathy and found
‘had heard that Julie was to be mar-
ried to a Kansas man named Arnold. {~
night work as well as day. She found
-herself trying net to think about the
on account it's winter, I could start , time When the lessons should” cease,
1 ' She refused to look ahead to April.
One night, late in February, Selina
was conscious that she was trying to
She realized that she was trying not
to look at his hands. She wanted,
crazily, to touch them. She wanted to
feel them about her throat. She want-
ed to put her lips on his hands—brush
ing my mind. There is something the
matter with me. I wonder how I look.
I must look queer.”
At half-past eight she closed her
book suddenly. “I'm tired. I think |
it’s the spring coming on.” She
smiled a little wavering smile. He :
rose and stretched himself, his great
arms high above his head. Selina
shivered.
“Two more weeks,” he said, “is the
last lesson. Well, do you think I have
done pretty good—well?”
“Very well,” Selina replied evenly.
She felt very tired.
The first week in March he was Ill,
and did not come. A rheumatic afflic-
tion to which he was subject. It was
the curse of the truck farmer. Selina's
evenings were free to devote to Roelf,
who glowed again. She sewed, too; !
read; helped Mrs. Pool with the house-
strange rellef therein; made over an
old dress; studied; wrote’all Her let-
ters (few enough), even one to the |
dried-apple aunts in Vermont. She no !
longer wrote to Julie Hempel, She
Julie herself had not written. The
first week in March passed. He did
not come. Nor did he come the fol-
lowing Tuesday or Thursday.
She was bewildered, frightened. All
that week she had a curious feeling—
or succession of feelings. She was
restless, listless, by turns. Period of
furious activity, followed by days of
inertia. It was the spring, Maartje
said. Selina hoped she wasn't going
to be ill. She had never felt like that
before. She wanted to cry. She was
irritable to the point of waspishness
with the children in the schoolroom.
On Saturday—the fourteenth of
March—he walked In at seven. Klaas,
Maartje and Roelf had driven off to
a gathering at Low Prairie, leaving
Selina with the pigtails and old Jakob.
She had promised to make taffy for
them, and was in the midst of it when
hig knock sounded at the kitchen door.
All the blood in her body rushed to her
head; pounded there hotly. He en-
tered. There slipped down over her a
complete armor of calmness, of self-
possession ; of glib how do you do Mr.
DeJong and how are you feeling and
won't you sit down and there's no fire
in the parlor we'll have to sit here.
He took part in the taffy pulling.
Selina wondered if Geertje and Jozina
would ever have done squealing. It
was half-past eight before she bundled
them off to bed with a plate of clipped
taffy lozenges between them. She
heard them scuffling and scrimmaging
about In the rare freedom of their
parents’ absence.
Pervus DeJong and Selina sat at
the kitchen table, their books spread
out before them on the oilcloth. The
sweet, heavy scent of fruit filled
the room. Selina brought the parlor
lamp into the kitchen, the better to
see. It was a nickel-bellied lamp,
with a yellow glass shade that cast a
mellow golden glow.
“You didn't go to the meeting,”
primly. “Mr. and Mrs. Pool went.”
“No. I didn’t go.”
“Why not?”
She saw him swallow. “I got
through too late. We're fixing to sow
tomato seeds in the hotbeds tomor-
row.”
Selina opened McBride's grammar.
“Ahem!” a school-teacherly cough.
“Now, then, we'll parse this sentence:
Blucher arrived on the field of \Water- :
loo just as Wellington was receiving |
the last onslaught of Napoleon. ‘Just’
may be treated as a modifier of the de-
pendent clause. That Is: ‘Just’ means:
at the time at which. Well. Just here
modifies at the time. And Wellington
isthe...”
This for half an hour. Selina kept
her eyes resolutely on the book. His
voice went on with the dry business of
parsing and its deep resonance struck
a response from her a8 a harp re-
sponds when a hand is swept over its
strings. Selina kept her eyes reso-
lutely on the book. Yet she saw, as
though her eyes rested on them, his
large, strong hands. On the backs of
them was a fine golden down that
deepened at his wrists. Heavier and
darker at the wrists. She found her-
self praying a little for strength—for
strength against this horror and wick-
edness. This sin, this abomination
that held her. A terrible, stark and
pitiful prayer, couched in the idiom of
the Bible.
“Oh, God, keep my eyes and my
thoughts away from him. Away from
his hands. Let me keep my eyes and
my thoughts away from the golden
hairs on his wrists. Let me not think
of his wrists. . . . “The owner of the
southwest quarter sells a strip 20 rods
wide along the south side of his farm.
How much does he receive at $150 per
acre?”
He triumphed in this transaction,
began the struggle with the square
root of 576. Square roots agonized
him. She washed the slate clean with
her little sponge. He was leaning
close in his effort to comprehend the
flendish ttle figures that marched se
tractably under Selina’s masterly pen-
cll.
She took it up, glibly. “The remain--
der must contain twice the product of
_ the tens by the units plus the square
of the units.” He blinked.
- She was: breathing rather fast. The-
fire in the kitchen stove snapped and
cracked. “Now, then, suppose you do-
that for me. We'll wipe it out. There!
What must the remainder contain?”
He took it up, slowly, haltingly..
The house was terribly still except for-
the man’s voice. “The remainder . . ..
twice . . . product . . . tens... .
units . . .” A something in his voice:
—a note—a timbre. She felt herself
swaying queerly, as though the whole:
house were gently rocking. Little de-
licious agonizing shivers chased each:
other, hot and cold, up her arms, down:
her legs, over her spine. . . . “plus:
the square of the units is the same as:
the sum twice the tens . . . twice:
. +. the tens . . , the tens.” His
voice stopped.
Selina’s eyes leaped from the book
to his hands, uncontrollably. Some-
thing about them startled her. They
were clenched fists. Her eyes now
leaped from those clenched fists to the-
face of the man beside her. Her head
came up, and back. Her wide, startled
eyes met his. His wese a blaze of
blinding blue in his tanned face. Some
corner of her mind that was still work-
_ ing clearly noted this. Then his hands:
{ unclenched. The blue blaze scorched
her, enveloped her. Her cheek knew
Her Cheek Knew the Harsh Cool Feel
of a Man's Cheek.
the harsh, cool feel of a man's cheek.
She sensed ‘the potent, terrifying,
pungent odor of close contact—a mix-
ture of tobacco smoke, his hair, fresh-
ly laundered linen, an indeflnable
body smell. It was a mingling that
disgusted and attracted her. She was:
at once repelled and drawn. Then she
felt his lips on hers and her own, in-
credibly, responding eagerly, wholly to
that pressure,
(Continued next week.)
tn mo ——— pn in ——
Museum at Priestley House.
Alumni chemists of The Pennsyl-
vania State College who own the
house on the banks of the Susquehan-
na at Northumberland built about
1794 by Dr. Joseph Priestley, the Uni-
tarian minister who discovered oxy-
gen, are planning to build a fire-proof
museum there to house the historic
relics and laboratory equipment used
by the pioneer chemist. The Penn
State chemists bought the house in
the hope that it could be moved to the
college campus but this was found to
be impossible. Through Dr. Gerald
L. Wendt, dean of the Penn State
school of chemistry and physics, the
American Chemical Society has be:n
invited by the Penn State chemists to
celebrate the sesqui-centennial of the
discovery of the oxygen at the old
Priestley home during September,
11926. The society was organized at
Northumberland fifty years ago.
~ ——An egg contains a large portion
of albumen, intended by nature for
the nourishment of the growing chick.
It is for this reason that it is impossi-
ble to cook an egg on top of a high
mountain, for there, owing to a lesser
atmospheric. pressure, the water boils
at a lower temperature, and this tem-
perature being under “coagulation
point,” the egg never “cooks.” :
~—Get your job work done here.
eave