The Purple Parasol

iest farmer in Clay Township. On that day he was a pauper; his lands were no longer his own; his wife and his son were penniless. In an upstairs room of th

res. So it was that John and Cora Sherrod began life rich and happy. Their boy was born, grew up a bright and sprightly lad, and was sent to college. From the rude country schoolhouse and its simple teachings he was sent to the busy university, among city boys and city girls, miserable in ungainly self-consciousness, altogether out of place. He left behind him the country lads and lasses, the tow-heads and the barefoots, and

lines, although she could not see it, were like messages from paradise. A dozen times a day she read each letter as she sat in her room, or in the hated schoolroom at Glenville, or in the shady orchard, or in the lonely lane. She longed to have him back at home, to hear his merry laugh, to romp with him as they had romped before he went away to school-but here she blushed and remembered

ery foot of land had been swept away by reverses arising from investments in Arizona mines. Captain James Van went down in the same disaster. When word reached his home of the suicide of John Sherrod, he was on

e boy, when he finally grasped the situation, bared his arms and set forth to support himself and his mother by hard work. The shock of the suicide was too great for Mrs. Sherrod. Her reason fled soon after her husband was laid in the grave, but it was a year befor

Half of the year's crop Strong gave to the widow of John Sherrod, although not a penny's worth of it was hers by right. Af

ughter to the miserable little cottage. The girl shouldered as much of the burden of poverty as her young and tender shoulders could carry. She begged for an appointment as teacher in the humble schoolhouse where her a-b-abs had been learned, and for two years and a half before her marria

farmed the place for her, and he robbed her. For six months after the mother's death she lived alone in the cottage, and then the neighbors finally taking the matter in hand and insisting that she be provided wi

eem like a narrow cell from which he could look longingly with no hope of escape. Tired and sore from misfortune, these two simple, loving natures turned to each other. His first trembling kiss upon her surprised, parted lips was a treasure that never left her memory. The bloom came to her cheeks, lightness touched her flagging heart, happiness shone thro

and full, her eyes big and brown and soft with love, her cheeks smooth and clear. A trifle above the medium height, st

ghtened, his steps became springy. He whistled and sang at his work, took an interest in life, and presently even resumed his drawing. The country folk winked k

h her bit of pasture land, Jud drew his mother's plain gold ring from hi

, her heart beat only for him. Jud's famished hopes of something beyond the farm found fresh encouragement in her simple, wondering praise. She was his critic, his unconscious mentor. Beneath her untrained eye he sketched as he never sketched before. Looking over his s

e no thought to them. Half a dozen widowers with children asked her to marry them. She and Jud laughed when E

canny dread that knew no rest until she was safely Jud's on the we

sherman. Hard stories came down to town about Sam Crawley. Of 'Gene, the boy, nothing against his honesty at le

ll, he clung to the hope that he could take her away from his rival. He dogged her footsteps, frightened her with his mad protestations, and finally alarmed her by his threats. The day before the wedding he had met her as she left the schoolhouse and had sworn to kill Jud Sherro