The Hindered Hand

resta Firs

er's care awoke the next morning she saw standing near he

nose prettily chiseled, her skin smooth, her brow high, her head covered with an ample supply of jet black

nestling under equally pretty eyebrows, looked lovingly into the stranger's face. Without saying more, however, Forest

equally pretty eyebrows, looked lovin

in the stove. We thought we would do a little better by you than that," said Foresta ap

t," said Foresta, unable to repress a smile over som

akfast. "My!" she said, "Your eyes are

f her own hair and looking admiringly at the wealt

isn't as long as mine, but it is so b

young woman remarked, "You are a pretty girl, Foresta-and a good gir

time she had felt, without knowing what it was that she felt, the need

appened once about

young woman, with a

d a brother Dave that looked just like him," said Foresta. "Almost, I mean," she added, remembering that nobody was to be put on a level

self-defense. Dave could have come clear, but it wouldn't have done any good. He would have been lynched. His lawyers advised him to take a twenty years' sentence to sati

good-hearted boy. He died there in about a year and a half. It may be he's better off." Foresta now pause

said the young wo

have to tell," said Foresta, laughi

ng," said the

go there. "Well, Bud isn't a highly educated boy and he doesn't like our church for anything. He likes the preacher all right. He will hardly ever go in and

erested," said the yo

ust the opposite. Dave was full of nerve. Bud kep

ying to," said the young woman

sh of some sort to find out how Bud stood with me. On our way home Dave didn't talk much. That helped to fool me, because Bud and I have gone along not saying a word; only looking at each other now and then. But that night Dave, whom I was taking to be Bud, was unusually quiet. And I thought then that he was meditating something. When Dave got home with me, he stood between me and the gate and said, 'You must pay toll to get in.' I knew he was asking me to kiss him. 'If you don't let me by I will call mama,' I said, mostly for fun, for I knew that Bud thou

, though my time hasn't come

k as a flash, but so he could plainly see what I was doing, I threw a kiss and darted in the house. Dave fairly flew to where Bud was waiting for him. Dave told Bud all about it and the two boys liked to have hugged each other to death. D

p a finger of warning, she said, "