Wayside Courtships

ake his resolution good. He determined many times t

here was a change. She seemed to have lost her first eager and fran

to stand before her to make such a request covered with perspiration and dust. It was

s stood, and some of them made very free with the

were rough, hard characters. They would have come to blows with him,

nd his tone stopped the blood in Arthur's heart. When he

low voice. "You take that back, or

n; but Tim hesitated. "I'll do him, then,"

Norwegian workmen put his foot on it, and before he could command his weapon, Art

l staves. Arthur turned then to face Tim, his hands doubled into

turned away reeling and breathless. For an hour afterward hi

demand the discharge of the two tramps, but as he thought

, and the nervous prostration which followed showed him how far he had gone. He had not had a fight since he was thirteen years of ag

found him in his barracks, sitting near a pail of cold

, but went on with his ministr

u give me, young feller-brou

l you," was Art

s foot on that board you'd be doing this." He lifte

board for? Why didn't y

were swinging

e a coward as well

up with a gle

ung feller-if

rkened, and the

m going to let you stay here till you're well, and then I want this thing settled with Ri

rned toward the door. At the doorway he tur

say another word about-her, I

fury returned, and he came b

ose to do?" he demande

at him, with a curiou

urtly answered, and sopped his

rase convey, with its subtle inflections. It was cunning and candid and chivalrous all

ur. "One thing more-I don't want you

d; only, you'd

the ears of Richards, who laughed over

! When did

le of d

er in the fence. Dan had a head on him

Tim said ab

re they've been going around as p

f women who go around sniffin' and spittin' at each other," said Richards, wi

Mrs. Richards indignantly. "I told y

the grindstone," Richards rep

eply engaged now on Arthur's side, and was very eager to do something to help on i

we had t'other day," she began, in phrase w

d Mrs. Richards stood at the whee

o. What

." The old woman enjoyed deeply the dramati

what do y

id out sure. So Richards says; as it is, it's the other feller that

Ramsey i

going around here for a week, quiet as you please. I w

dreadful?" s

eadily agreed; "but why don't

ow anything more about

was approach

all ab

she should have with a disgraceful ro

name, and Art he overheard them and he went for 'em, and they both come at him, two to one, and he lammed both out in a minu

te, and she seized the chance for escape. Her lips quivered with sham

s!" she said, in her thr

e is a chance for an American imitator of Monet-those purple-brown deeps and those gray

home," she said, the te

in ha

e matter? Has your old enemy the headac

I'd never seen it! How could those drea

jor wh

ng it wouldn't reach you at all. I wouldn't mind it, my dear. It's the shadow every lovely wom

a part of me. What do you suppose they sa

tepping into the muck after your shadow; th

t mean Mr

and I don't suppose anything else would have

oking strai

horrible,

ghtened his

ou all you ought to know. Ramsey meant well," he went on, after a silence, "but such things do little good

mean-I didn't know that men talked in tha

still fasc

assions of animals, and all the vices of men. Ramsey was too ho

the mountains again, and both raised their eye

t it. I'm sorry Ramsey fought. To walk into a gang of rough men like that is foolish and

ugh, don't you thi

d at her

as brave and v

little for th

s I lik

or it," he said with a smile that made h