MAIDA’S
SHIPWRECKED
WOOER
By H. M. EGBERT
(Copyright WwW. G. Chapman.)
by
AIDA stood still and looked at
the black object upon the
beach. At first thought
it was a seal, washed ashore
after the great storm that had
whipped up the shingle in great ridges
all around the lighthouse rock. Then
she saw that It was a man.
She held her breath in terror. Pres-
ently ventured to draw nearer.
It was young man, with dark hair
and a pale face, the tan of the neck
in a V where the shirt
lisclosed the white of the skin
she
she
a
ene open
colla
a moment Maida did not know
Then, moved by compas
she kneit beside him and
ed his head upon her knees, while ghe
to revive him, chafing his hands
and dashing sea water upon his face.
Ail the while her heart beat furious.
She had never seen a man before,
whit to do.
sion, rest.
tried
ly.
except some occasional sea captain,
grizzled and bowed, who rowed out to
the lonely and the
who brought oil and provisions in his
motor boat.
Maida's mother had kept the light-
man
lighthouse,
house ever since Maida was born.
had lived alone, tending
light ceaselessly, a worn and
eled, hard-featured, taciturn old wom-
there
1
bought
her daughter to read
Maida had spoken of her
the world but 3
gestion aroused ! 's fury to
such a degree that Maida had
at last to acquiesce in her lot as
evitable,
The - sea captains,
looked at her
afraid of the grim whose
loneliness had turned brain
They spoke to Malda hurriedly, and
always watched to avoid the old light.
an, who sel
had
m spoke,
taught
Often
and
write,
She books
and
desire to see
the very
outside ; sug-
the mother
come
i
in-
they
been
though
had
old woman,
pityingly,
her
e
house keeper's anger.
The young ma a pair of
dazzlingly blue eyes on Maida.
“Am I dead and are you a fairy?”
he asked.
“No.”
Inch
He gr
tered. “Let n
She hi
om
( pened
answered Maida,
rock.
ined,
* he
} Stand
“1 remen
"
mut-
we see if 1 1.
i him to iis wot
stood t i 1
fousl
he
sen
impossible.
“1f
me,” said t
“Why? In
regarding her curiously.
men. She
quired
d Maida.
» place where I can
fo
opportunity
young man,
Maida. “The
You can stay there and
you Mother leave
up the store-
you won't
comes
ing iv?" asked the
“yes.”
of the tower.
answered base
, a
food. 8
oil from
will
me to
room.
you?’
EO 8000,
answered the
“I think,” he
hing is broken after all
It feels as If a rib had
can”
as 1
man, groan
+
A
“AS soon
young
added,
-in my side,
gone.”
Maida got him to the base of the
tower and made him comfortable upon
some sacking. The young man
himself out at He
told her how he had been on the bark
that had gone ashore two miles away
the night be He had been the
only survivor when the lifeboat
swamped, ‘He had clung to it until
the waves washed him ashore off Inch
rock. Then he had remembered
nothing.
Maida listened In fascination as he
told her his story. He was the only
son of a rich importer, an Englishman
who had settled In the Canaries and
married a Spanish lady. He, too, had
been tired of his island. His father,
reluctant to lose his only child, had
at last granted him permission to sail
on a voyage to Boston, to which port
he had consigned an Importation,
He spoke of his own island home in
terms which aroused every dormant
desire in the girl to travel. His own
father had spent his youth in the Unit-
ed States, and, strangely enough, not
far from the lighthouse—at Seabury,
on the Maine coast,
“Malda! Maida!
child?”
Malda started in terror and ran up
the lighthouse stairs as her mother
summoned her.
“Where have you been, Malda?"
“On the shore, mother,” faltered the
girl, and she lowered her eyes, unable
to meet her mother's piercing gaze,
“Aye, dreaming of sweethearts, I'll
warrant. All my words to you for
nothing. Didn't I refuse a handsome
young fellow, and rich, who loved me
to distraction, because I had learned
all men were villains?”
“Yes, mother.”
“You'll stay with your old mother,
Malda?' The voice was pleading now,
and it was the first time Malda's
mother had ever pleaded with her,
The girl's eyes filled; she nodded and
turned away.
But those stolen hours were the
sweetest In which the girl had lived.
They loved each other at sight, she
and the young mdn in the basement
of the lighthouse. They planned =a
thousand things, When he got well
he was to confront Malda's mother
. .
“some
stretched Case,
fore,
Where are you,
boldly, and demand Maida by natural
right. If she refused, they two would |
go away together in the next sea cap
tain's boat that touched at Inch rock
Maida listened with beating heart
Canaries, of
reject
bride;
his father, who would
the his son made
of the tropical trees and |
cholee
of a
So i
The
nights and
man had recovered
injury, And’ they e
the method of breaking
the crazed old woman
Malda feared her mother no longer.
She to have unfolded from
girlhood to womanhood in those three
days; and, if sensible of it, her |
mother's toward her had
insengibly altered.
On the fourth night the mild air and
a brilliant them from
the cellar, new the old |
woman ed, she al
ways sat, ght, thincking-
of what Maida It
safe If they kept tower,
wandered her
three
young
days parsed
from
planned
news to
ver
the
above,
seemed
us
demeanor
moon
Above, they
he
beside
tempted
1
n
would sented
the |
never knew,
under the
together, and
{ as
:
wis
on
kiss, Insensible of the
time, they wandered on.
Suddenly slight
them, them
mother, frantic, with rage an
She s! and
Nook
passage of
startled
Malda’'s
d grief. !
bab
fl noise
Before stood
her fist at Maida
bled incoherently.
“Come, mother, sald
we pli 1 ¥¢
iyed
man, “I own
trick, but It 3
washed
+}
where the dear
a
A
na
£ 1 lives,
“Ay
sobbed
e, you've
I the old
her, I'll kill
the tower and
“Now, mothe
yo
You haven't created her
ight
Who
er
today?
except
tell »
Malda
Ol somet
and sneer when 1 tell
the belle
Ma
stand
ory ths
young
“I do."
she {8°
n
was Just
English
wanted me
Maida.
I knew it
So [ came here,
“There
me—the young
He
care
let him.
pity and not love,
there's and r man
might trust my girl
none other,
one Geoffrey Hale in th
The young man,
attentively, started
forward.
“My father!” he cried. “You are
Louise Troy. He has often spoken of
you. Look at me, mother. Don't you
see my father's face in me?”
Incredulously the old woman seized
him by the shoulder and stared into
his eyes, Suddenly a mask seemed to
fall from her face.
“I have-—lived
sald solemnly.
IJ"
He caught her as she stumbled for.
ward. But he knew that, having her
day, she could rest peacefully till her
night ended.
wanted to for
couldn't would
#1
nie
alive
to
like
him, but to
world.”
had
then
a
who
and
for this
good
she
her.
day,”
to
“Ila
Fiddler Crab One of
Oddities of Nature
There 18 one member of the crab
family for which the Latin name is
Gelasimus, meaning “laughable.” The
name seems appropriate, for he is a
very queer little fellow, says the Mont.
real Star. The male has one claw
of Immense size, the cher being quite
small. The big claw is brightly eol-
ored, and when he ru he waves it
about as If he were energetically
beckoning, or playing stirring tune
on a violin; hence he i« often known
as the “calling erab” or “fiddler crab.”
Fiddler crabs Inhabit various parts
of the world and usuaily are found
in large numbers on muddy or sandy
flats left dry by the tide, where they
may be seen hurrying over the sand
or peering out of their holes, into
which they vanish when alarmed. The
holes, about a foot deep, are made
by the crab digging up and carrying
away mud or sand.
4
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“This ear has four-wheel brakes"
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“Applesauce!” snorted the flaming
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le
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