Lydia of the Pines

e fed my roots-yet to

i

new loss. She went back to school, after the quarantine was lifted and the familiar routine there helped her. She was a good student and was doing well in

h her black head beside Lydia's yellow one. Sometimes she slipped into t

at my back," the good soul told Lydia. Bu

the locked bedroom o

-worked, asked no ques

Lydia at work on a ni

mb

e young lady s

nt, adding, "Lydia ought to be getting back to h

Amos. He was working quietly on his campaign, a year hence, for the office of sheriff and Amos, who was an influential Mason, was planning to use his infl

ng in a fresh pail. He stopped while there to fuss over a barrel in which he had an o

hn, as soon as they we

"Don't you think it's time for you to get back to y

ked at hi

in that stuffy bedroom wi

he's fat and snores and won

Levine's voi

id to sle

of any memory of de

she's choking and I-I can't help her. Then I wake up a

was trembling violently and her fingers twitched. "This won't do! That's what keeps the

"I hate grammar and diagra

ok are you r

ng 'David C

. It's bedtime, isn't i

d went slowly off to bed as her fa

ully convinced she wan

door closed

erves are all shot to pieces." He

s to me she's just got to wear it out. It's awful hard

y daughter," he said. "If you'll ask Brown to come a

she found the house apparently deserted. But there issued from the neighborhood of the kitchen a yipping and ki-yi-ing that

there!"

d the door. It opened easily and a great, blundering

he floor and the pup crowded his great hulk into h

re is a friend who wants to share your bedroom with you. You must bring him up

had been moved out and the dining-room couch moved in. The bureau had been shifted to another corner.

quirming puppy and st

e. He helped me. We stored all the other things up in the attic. See the old quilt in the corner? Th

ood," cried Lydia. "Oh, L

looks to me as if some one had stepped on hi

tural dog lover and that was enhanced by her bereavement. And he, being of a breed that is as amiable and loyal as it is unlovely to look upon, attached himself unalterably and entirely to Lydia. She and Kent cast about some time before

f on the foot of the couch where all night long he snuffled and snored and Lydia, who had objected to Lizzie's audible slumbers, now, waking with nigh

ll, although Lydia's age, was not a good student and was two grades below her. After the episode of the note, Lydia made a conscientious

ould invite her into

Lydia would stare with

ered oak, plush upho

nd the velour portières

daughter, that had been foreign to him for years. It was the garden that did this. Not only was it a wonderful garden to look on and to eat from, but

. For Lydia's real childhood had left her that December night she had spent under the far corner of her father's bed. She had not prayed since then. Her yo

g-a couple of squaws laughing and chatting while they ate food they had begged-an Indian boy, dusty and tired, resting after a trip to Lake City. Lydia was a

t day at High School. Kent was entering at the same time and she would have liked to have asked to go w

rly blond hair barely long enough to tie in her neck, standing in one of the lower halls after the mo

me, my dear?" as

ted her promotion car

ley, or you'll miss t

y intelligent, a high bred little face under a finely domed head. The back of her ears and the back of her nec

must inquire about her. Almost too bashful to breathe. Precoci

he classroom system of recitations, that she was introduced to different teachers, that she learned how to decipher the hours of her recitations from the complicated chart on the

ply. She knew that her list of books came to something over five dollars. She knew that this sum of money would floor

urned into the dirt road. Billy Norton overtook her. He was wearing a very high starched collar and a new suit of cloth

n the School football team, I know it, if I didn't have

ickly. "How much milk

o Stones'. They both got babies and have to have it. Think of

do it for you-if-Billy, have you

ey're awful banged up, but I

illy, if you'll let me have your books,

ed at the little

, Lydia. Half the fun of having s

," she answe

it. Let your dad

can't right now and I'm going to look o

med Billy, with a sudden huskiness in his

ke anything for nothing. And I'm no

, "just till after Tha

e now and we'll f

o give the child the books and said, "Till Thanksgiving is plenty of pay, Billy, and when the snow comes, the two mile extra walking wil

ting Lydia's neck and ears. "Children in the high school are apt to get ink in th

hat a big pile! Thank y

after school to-m

ing Billy's textbooks, with Adam snoring under h

dam trudging beside her with his rolling bulldog gait and his slavering ugl

to the offspring of the Norwegian day laborer and the German saloon keeper. There were even several colored children in the High School as well as an Indian lad named Charlie Jackson. In the High School, class feeling was strong. There were Greek letter societies in the fourth grade, reflecting the influence of the college on the lake s

usting herself to the new type of school life,-a different teacher for each study, heavier lessons, the responsibility of collateral reading-t

ctory explanation of his dereliction-had he cared to make any-as far as Saturdays went. In the Assembly room

s, but satisfied with her efforts. Saturday afternoon, she worked in the garden when the day was fair, helping to gather the winter vegetables. Before little Patience's death she had gone to Sunday School, but since that time she had not entered a church. So Sunday became her feast day. She put in the entire morning preparing a Sunday dinn

m, mostly because of the beauty of the wooded hills, the far stretch of the black fields, ready plowed for spring and the pale, tender b

. On her desk that first morning lay a tiny envelope, addressed to her. She opened it. In it was an invitation from Mis

e rapidly to earth. She had nothing to wear! It was an evening party and she had no way to go

rone to do, in the window of the cloak room,

when you can go to a dance? I've got two bids to t

in Algebra," said another girl. "I'll wea

she'll let us dance.

th want to

the sweetest eyes! Do you know what he said

he inevitable sailor suit, and at her patched and broken shoes. So far she had had few pangs about her clothes. But now for the fir

Civil Government. Lydia sat down dejectedly next to Char

e preamble?" he w

no

Charlie went on, "but I lik

boys surreptitiously shoving and kicking each other, the girls giggling and re

ble to the Constitution

. "You never told us

o you during most of yesterday's period about it. I wondered if you were old

s done in the latest mode

sy to learn a

." He continued with his query half way round the class, th

ot up, boldly. A thin wh

ace brightened. "M

imidly. Then the dignity and somewhat of the significance

ic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liber

y it, Mr.

e and began. "We, th

too was le

, a gray-haired, stern-faced man

inally, "does the preamb

vention," she said hesitatingly. "One of 'em lived in a log farmhouse with loop holes in it. They used to

odded. "And y

e concerned. And I know they needn't have been if whites weren't

eagerly, questioningly. Mr. Jame

"We're all Americans.

n naturalized, Hanse

oy shook his he

u born in th

by when the

o find out-or to know what was the impulse that gave birth to our laws, the thing that makes an American different from a Norwegian, for instance. The two peo

ghts she never had had before. Tramping home that night through the snowy road she had a new set of thoughts. What had made her stiffen and at the same time feel sorry and ashamed when C

ent glimmers of excitement when Lydia came. He lunged up against her now with howls of delight and she knelt in the snow, as

as Lydia when she he

ght blue serge waist she had, Lydia, let's get 'em dyed red. Smitzky's will do it in a couple of day

t won't look made over?" asked L

omorrow and I'll get in to town in the morni

You always look nice, Lydia; whatever you wear. And I'll take you up there and call for you. If all the boys in school was running afte

yeing process had developed unsuspected moth holes. The blue and the gray serge did not dye exactly the same shade, nor were they of quite the same texture. However, by twisting an

ne old stone houses that crowned the lake shore near the college. At eight o'clock on a Saturday evening, Amos left Lydia at the front door of the house, and in a few minutes Lydia was

ttle figure hesitating in the doorway, saw the cobbled red dress, with skirt that was too short and sleeves that were too long and neck that was too tight, saw the carefully

own for my party. Mother--" this clearly for all the children to hear, "this is the

ult to cross the room without unduly exposing that back. But she reached the safe ha

because of the multi-colored organdies. Charlie Jackson was there. He lived with Dr. Fulton as office boy and general helper and the doctor was clothing and educating him. Charlie was half-back of the school fo

er to entertain these youngsters already accustomed to a grown up social life. Miss Towne had declared that there should be no dancing. But the games were neglec

o had stuck like a little burr at Miss Towne's side all the e

e, my dear?" as

ust a child. There's time enough for those things after High S

to Lydia, watching the

pped on the far side of the room fr

dress a screa

ise. He followed his partn