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DRIVING into the yard on a dull<br />

September day in an old democrat<br />

wagon which might have arrived<br />

on the Mayflower with his' distinguished<br />

ancestor, scowling and snarling at<br />

a * rack-a-bones <strong>of</strong> a horse, William Brewster<br />

nervously grasped the reins and slid<br />

gingerly to the ground.<br />

"Whoa! didn't I t^ll ye?" he shrieked,<br />

jerking on the reins and throwing his<br />

clumsy-weight on the tugs. "Back, you old<br />

fool! Do you want me to tear the whiffletrees<br />

out gettin' you onhitched!"<br />

When he stamped . into the kitchen a<br />

few .minutes later, the refined old gentlewoman<br />

by the window lifted her deep grey<br />

eyes for an instant from a pan <strong>of</strong> pie apples<br />

to drop again.before he could catch their<br />

subtle flash.<br />

"What'd you think has happened now,<br />

Anne Rutledge?" he growled throwing him<br />

self iqjo the big rocker. "Stone has sold<br />

to Bayton for fifteen thousand and oneV<br />

these durned furriners has bought the<br />

Jenkins' place."<br />

It was a piece <strong>of</strong> real news and the woman's<br />

industrious fingers halted for a<br />

moment as she looked him full in the face.<br />

The Stone place was directly east <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Brewster estate, the last farm owned by a<br />

"native" between them and beautiful<br />

Kildare, which, within a few years had<br />

been' bought up by millionaires from St.<br />

Louis and New York and converted into a<br />

sort <strong>of</strong> Bar Harbor <strong>of</strong> the granite hills.<br />

The Jenkins place was the next farm<br />

directly west.<br />

" AND <strong>of</strong> all kinds <strong>of</strong> course it had<br />

*» to be one <strong>of</strong> these crazy Rooshan<br />

Poles," the incensed "native"<br />

added.<br />

• "Maybe it will be all for the best,<br />

William," his wife s<strong>of</strong>tly ventured,<br />

resting her eyes on old Mount Maroonock<br />

rising dimly above the gathering<br />

clouds. ''Bayton has his millions and<br />

will probably convert the Stone Place -.,,<br />

into one <strong>of</strong> his model farms and as for<br />

the Jenkins place, I'm sure anything j<br />

ought to be better than an abandoned t<br />

farm all going to rack and ruin." —• j<br />

"Jest like you, Anne Rutledge!" he<br />

retorted, "Staring at the mountain!<br />

If your darned old mountain should<br />

bust, an' give us all a fire an' brimstone<br />

shower bath, you'd say the<br />

same. Bayton ain't a-goin' to set up<br />

another <strong>of</strong> his high-toned farms but<br />

jest hitch a bigger frontier on to his<br />

lordly serfdom. He'll have a barb<br />

wire fence twelve feet high all aroun'<br />

my farm, that'll scratch up my cattle<br />

like the old Harry an' spile my huntin'<br />

an' fishin', darn 'im!<br />

,"An' the worst <strong>of</strong> it all is," he went<br />

on getting up and pacing the room in<br />

growing excitement, "Bayton swears<br />

that this is the last acre he is goin' to<br />

buy. Just imagine my luck, Anne!<br />

Stone sells for fifteen thousand and I<br />

couldn't sell for fifteen hundred an'<br />

my farm's twice as good as his'n.<br />

Jest imagine it Anne Rutledge, if you<br />

can! A barb wire fence on one side o*<br />

me an' a crazv Polack on the other!"<br />

«s j TELL ye what, Anne! I tell ye<br />

* what!" he cried as his flashing eyes fell<br />

on the beloved Winchester and fishing rod<br />

in a conspicuous corner, "1 ain't goin' to<br />

stan' this insult. A man <strong>of</strong> my name an'<br />

antecedents ain't called on to do it. My<br />

forefathers fought the injuns at Plymouth<br />

and chopped a home outen the wilderness,<br />

an' a hundred an' fifty years later they did<br />

the same thing all over again up here among<br />

the granite hills. An' now an insolent<br />

money-grubber buys up the whole country-side,<br />

postin' every wood and stream ,<br />

an' fences me in on one side an' tells me to<br />

'sociate with the scum o' the earth on the<br />

other! I'll sell out an' git out if I have t<br />

gnglwH^BP&«uft ||^ starting the<br />

? ^a»alBEHB>^PB«SBk, horse down<br />

VjJnaaHBnaKaaaM ^naaaHKSiinBB<br />

1 | y<br />

At Latt She Came I !<br />

Home With a Story \<br />

With a Real Thrill<br />

in It tor Everybody<br />

hill on the run and only the sudden ap-<br />

(jearance on the scene <strong>of</strong> the new neighbor,<br />

as, with a flying leap, he caught the horse's<br />

bridle, saved her from a serious accident.<br />

And—here was the thrill—the rescuer had<br />

greeted and soothed the fri ghtened girl in<br />

perfectly good French!<br />

She tried tp thank him in the same ḷanguage.<br />

All that followed was onl y partly<br />

revealed. At least so it seemed to the<br />

gentle mother when, left alone with her<br />

mountains, she thought it all over. Brewster<br />

listened to the story with flushed face<br />

and tingling ears but in thinking over the<br />

French feature <strong>of</strong> it, his resourceful hatred<br />

found additional cause for suspicion.<br />

"Like's not the critter is one o' these eddicated<br />

Nihilists that had to git up an' git<br />

for throwin' bombs!"<br />

> However, the deeper instincts <strong>of</strong> the<br />

gentleman prevailed, and he actually<br />

nodded to the foreigner the next time they<br />

passed on the road but the man's industry<br />

and enterprise continued to excite and irritate<br />

him beyond endurance. Every new<br />

venture <strong>of</strong> the young enthusiast seemed to<br />

strike him as an insulting challenge. The<br />

logging and lumbering, the shingling <strong>of</strong> the<br />

barn, sides and all, with his own shingles,<br />

the re-modelling <strong>of</strong> the old farmhouse, the<br />

installation <strong>of</strong> modern improvements with<br />

second hand materials donated by one <strong>of</strong><br />

the millionaires on the hill seemed to Brewster<br />

little short <strong>of</strong> a «Iap in the face.<br />

it'T'HEidea <strong>of</strong> that scum o' the earth with<br />

* a bathroom in his house," he snarled.<br />

"A dry sink's been good enough for us."<br />

But even this was not the end for what<br />

should this insatiate foreigner do but revive<br />

an old sugar orchard which had not<br />

been tapped for twenty-five years, the spicy<br />

smoke and fragrant steam rising like incense<br />

over the hill day and night. After<br />

that he attacked an unsightly cider apple<br />

orchard, trimming and pruning so close<br />

that the natives declared the trees looked<br />

"for all creation like sheared sheep with<br />

their hind legs and tails stickin' up in the<br />

As the snowline kept rising higher and<br />

higher on Mount Maroonock, William<br />

Brewster tossed the foreigner and his impertinent<br />

innovations to the glorious spring<br />

breezes and started with plow and harrow<br />

for the fields. And it was with the devout<br />

feeling that all the stars in their courses<br />

were fighting for him that, just as old<br />

Maroonock was putting away its winter<br />

night cap and all the streams were breaking<br />

into their spring songs, he hailed a<br />

"lowery day threatenin' rain." Filling his<br />

pocket with worm ' s released by the plow<br />

and enlisting the dextrous fingers <strong>of</strong> Anne<br />

Rutledge on his snarled lines, he was soon<br />

<strong>of</strong>f toward the mountain filled with fisherman's<br />

joy.<br />

He cut across the Stone place up through<br />

the woods to the east side <strong>of</strong> old Maroonock<br />

where the descent jriras the greatest and<br />

the pools the deepest .<br />

" ASFINEadayasever broke," he said to<br />

** himself as he made a bee line for the<br />

big hole under a mighty hemlock,<br />

But there was nothing doing there,<br />

much to his disappointment, although<br />

he bobbed his bait with patient persistence.<br />

And when the next pool<br />

and the next yielded no greater returns,<br />

the main stream being still too<br />

\ high and boisterous, he began to be<br />

|bitterly suspicious that somebody had<br />

3 out-guessed him and sneaked in ahead.<br />

"If that's what's up, it's no use my<br />

fiddlin' any more," he muttered, as he<br />

threw down the rod and produced his<br />

pipe and tobacco. Then he noticed<br />

footprints in the mud. "It's probably<br />

Zeke," he said to himself. "I<br />

beat him good an' hard last year, do<br />

it four years out <strong>of</strong> five an' if I skin<br />

along now I can maybe get the double<br />

cross on him down at the big bend."<br />

Alas for his hopes! There at the<br />

I big curve his enemy appeared—and it<br />

¦ was not Zeke!<br />

, Astounded and maddened, William<br />

\ Brewster muttered imprecations at<br />

the unconscious <strong>of</strong>fender standing out<br />

in the open and getting ready for the<br />

cast. The high-brow affectation <strong>of</strong><br />

fly fishing added insult to injury.<br />

"The low, miserable furriner!" said<br />

Brewster under his breath.<br />

A little above six feet, straight as a pine<br />

and handsome as a Greek athlete, the<br />

young man turned on his heel, threw his<br />

head backward and swung the rod into<br />

position for the cast.<br />

"Cuss him!" hissed the spectator as the<br />

fisher's sinewy wrist started the mighty<br />

whir! that was to shoot the dancing coachman<br />

into the boiling eddy twenty-fivuflft<br />

away. But suddenly something happened<br />

for the quivering rod stood poised in the<br />

air, the line floating down and curling up<br />

limp on the ground.<br />

"He's seen me an' thinks I'm Bayton's<br />

warden," muttered Brewster but suddenly<br />

catching sight <strong>of</strong> the object which had<br />

fCovriNTF.D ON PAGE 32:1)

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