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it T J. . it I I IV M v I I' " cum w NECK Oil NOTHING. By JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH. (Copyright. 1S37. by the Author.) CHAPTER I. Commencement day is, so to speak, resurrection day in the good old collo town of Shingleton, t anions the ml clay hills and tho sweet smelling pines that belong to one of the oldest coun ties in tho state of Mississippi. On commencement day there is a general uprising of the population, sparse and scattered as it is, to set that fcShiugleton does credit to itself and hon or to tho college. Poor and rich, humble and haughty, from tho baker's baby burdened wife up to the president's childless "lady," ev ery ono makes common cause of the an nual and stirring climax to a year of somewhat languid intellectual exertion. Local prido and femiuiuo ingenuity are evoked confidently and exercised without stint. It is only once a year that Shingleton challenges public atten tion, and it strenuously endeavors to pose respectably on that ono important date, putting out of sight, as far as jms sible, every indication of its ordinary out at heeluess. Shingleton frankly admits that its everyday methods may bo open to crit icism and is mildly convinced that in a hand to hand contest for municipal lau rels with any one of tho half dozen plebeian little towns that have sprung up since it reached its majority it would very likely come off second if not third best. But the Etaid old college town dos not medtato any such unseemly contest with tho villages whose mushroom ac tivities are an offense in its nostrils. Shingleton stands upon its dignity in an attitude of perpetual aloofness from its neighbors. Marks of ago and of pinching poverty pit its venerable face deeply. Its paint loss fences, its crumbling brick houses, its weather stained frame buildings, its patched and peeling stucco facades, are drearily suggestive of a badly pock marked old face. If it were not for the college, Shingle ton might have dropped out of the memory of every one but the maptnak ers long ago. But the college is, has been and will be a thing of today, yes terday and tomorrow, linking Shingle ton's pathetic present with a splendid past and a problematical future. Local pride clusters with considerable confidence aliout the two solemn eyed dingy red brick houses that are set squarely in the middle of vast acres of nutilled and untillablo ground in the suburbs of the town. These houses aro brick and mortar twins. The same num ber of broad, squat windows in each, duplicate front doors, clumsy and pon derous, gloomy suggestions of jail facil ities. The same number of blunt top ped chimneys, whose growth might have been arrested by cyclones, or whose stunted proportions might have been the exponents of the mason's groveling spirit. The same description of low ceil ed, whito iinished, rectangular apart ments in each. One of these time defying creations is the college proper, the other shelters tho professors' families and the board ing students. No ornamental vine or officious fig tree flings superfluous pro tection over the stern fronts of the two college houses. They riso superior to all such effete requirements, and all day long the Fquat, squaro window panes, with their heavy green blinds plastered against the brick walls, stare unblinking at the sun. Equidistant between these two self sufficient structures is a small oval in closure known as "tho garden." The gate to it is always locked and the whereabout of the key always an in scrutable mystery. The designer of this solitary decorative touch evidently had leanings toward tho enduring. Some unperishing box trees, a few long lived arbor vitirs, a largo laura mundi or two, a tangle of pink and white azaleas, long since grown to the dimensions of trees, all clustered ir regularly about the stem of a century plant whose blossom tido had occurred but once within tho memory of Shin gleton, but furnished then a sort of flo ral calendar back to which any event of local importance might bo referred as having happened before or after the col lege century plant had blossomed. Occasionally gardeners who havo been hired to nip any desultory tendencies on the part of the rigid shrubs and bushes within this rigid inclosuro havo brought to light specimens of petrified wood, which seem, curiously enough, to be the most natural product of the petrified garden. These specimens, duly classified and labeled, have been honored with con spicuous places in tho rather meager geological collection which finds ample accommodation in a small showcase purchased at a milliner's bankrupt sale. This collection of minerals in tho show case is callod the collego museum and is an object of respectful awe to the vil lage urchins. Nothing but a barbed wlro fence is be tween this arid nursery of learning and nature in her sweetest, wildest, raost riotous mood. Close about the college grounds, creat. forrg jrcca. crowd rd CO iCr, 1897 8Y THE AUTHCH fling soft, thick. s oth ing shadows far out over the tart, hot sod of the college inclcsurv. Wild grapevines and flam ing "trumpeters" clamber tumultuous It ovi-r the sharp barbs of the fence, adorning the rain washed gullies about them with a delicate, lacelike tracery of grtvu. Iuto the very presence of the pundits the laughter of a babbling creca intrudes. It leaps untrammeled over its bed of shining in bbles in gleeful mock ery of man's laborious efforts to master nature's well kept secrets. Tho creek knows them all by heart, at least all that it concerns it to know. As for tho rest poof! That for it! It lets them all alone. Wise kibbler! On commencement day this creek is an important factor in tho general fes tivities. All tho day long vehicles of all sorts and condition toil collegeward over hot and dusty clay roads, deposit ing a mixed cargo of anxious matrons, bright eyed girls, wondering infants and well stuffed hampers for tho com mencement collation. At the oih'ii door of Shingleton's one church the cargoes aro deposited with a minimum of consideration for tho chil dren and a maximum for tho hanicrs, after which the straining beasts and the dust laden vehicles aro driven into the creek for the rest and refreshment. Far across its dimpling waters the switch willows stretch their slender green wands, to the infinite content of the hot and punting brutes. Comment- incut day partakes of the character of a rite; hence tho cutiro propriety of holding the exercises in the town's one consecrated building. The church, red, rectangular, respectable, environed by dark browed cedars and whispering pines, opens its doors and its windows hospitably wide on these occasions. Feminine ingenuity always exhausts itself upon tho church decorations for commencement day. Conspicuous tal ent is displayed in the immense wooden arch that spans the brand new plank rostrum, which has for its underpin ning tho pulpit and tho chancel rail. The startling crudeness of this material rainbow is softened to the cyo by a wrapping of gray Spanish moss, into which is stuck, with happy irrelevance, hydrangeas, sunflowers, roses and glad ioluses. From the keystone of this gorgeous arch springs always the symbol of as piration, as interpreted by the lady dec orators of Shingleton, a ladder made of cedar wisps, moro or less successful ly hiding from view an intrusive groundwork of white pasteboard. It is under this work of art that the pallid and quaking orators of the day take their stand, to make targets of them selves for countless bright eyes and for the cruder darts of rival criticism. Girls aro always out in force on com mencement day, not that they take any abiding interest in the educational as pect of tho occasion, but the brass band which occupies tho choir loft and dis penses tho most depressingly solemn music during tho exercises is engaged to officiate at tho dance in which com mencement always culminates. Shingleton has just cause for prido on theso occasions, and some orator is sure to assert from tho rostrum, with out fear of contradiction, that so much of beauty and talent and grace could not possibly bo gathered together in any other known spot on the earth. After the declaiming is all safely through with there will bo a dinner out under the cedar trees in tho old church yard. No ono objects, to tho somber presence of the occasional tombstones that crop abovo the tall weeds in the churchyard. They come rather handy, in fact, tho tall and conical ones as hatracks, the flat ones as receptacles for the icecream freezers and the lemonade buckets. Tho sunken and effaced in scriptions appeal to no unhealed griefs. They are at ouoe too obscure and too familiar to flutter tho faintest pulses. Shingleton's resurrection day is for the quick, not for its dead. Every housekeeper within a radius of ten miles stands sonsor to tho dinner spread that day on tho long, precarious plank taldes under the cedar trees, through whose breezo stirred branches tho sunshine falls upon the white table cloths in dots and checks. Enforced attention for several hours to declamations, sometimos trito, al ways crude, is productive of ravening hunger. From tho inevitable roast pig, with the red apple clinched in its fixed jaws, down to tho lightest salads, ev erything is provided on a colossal scale by tho experienced housewives of Shin gleton, who for weeks past havo merg ed private interests, personal dislikes, moldy disputes and inherited feuds in the one cause for which Shingleton moves and has its being. Commeneement day of 18.19 was no exception to its predecessors. It came in June, us it always did. It was hot and dusty, as it always was. Every thing and everybody who 'shared the social responsibilities of the ex'-easion were in a state of smiling readiness, as they always were. If now tho loys would only "quit themselves like men," Shingleton's proud record would remain unbroken. To the uflual interest of this partic ular commencement at tho eleventh hour was added on element of painful sur prise. An ominous whisper was afloat. A foreshadowed disgraco threatened Shingleton. An illusive veil of mystery dropped like a pall over the familial to no of the decorated churchwith its befiowered rainbow and the precarious tables with their load of comestibles. A robbery had been committed at thu college, not only at the collego, but in tho collego. Cash and valuables lelong ing to tho professors and students had disappeared under circumstances coin pelling tho conviction that some one of the students wai tho culprit. Shingleton accepted tho possibility of enmo xu connection with its college slowly and incredulously. In view of the fact that nearly all of the boys came from well known families of high social position, it was almost boyoud conception that any one of them should stoop to tho plebeian otleuso of stealing. To a man they belonged to tho slave holding aristocracy. Thoy were the sons of planters, doctors, lawyers. Tho off spring of senators and congressmen had drunk at tho Shingleton fountain of learning, and, crowning boast, the grandson of a bishop was among tho declaimcrs booked for that identical mystery shadowed commencement day. . There was nothing commonplace about Shingleton. Nothing shocking had ever happened there, and tho possi bility of disgrace overtaking it through the medium of any ono of its young aristocrats shook tho congregated houso wives to tho very center of their nerv ous systems. Mrs. Fitzwilliams, absently dipping a long handled gourd in and out of tho lemonado barrel, conveyed to Mrs. Ma ginnis, who was slicing cold tongue in to newspajiers spread on a neighboring tombstone, her conviction that "tho thing was impossible. There was not a plebeian in tho wholo college, from President Hopkins down." Mrs. Maginnis poised her caning knifo reflectively. "Yes, one." "You mean that young Martin?" "Yes." "Why, ho is the valedictorian. They say ho is dreadfully smart, studious 4ud ainbitious beyond everything; mid aight oil sort of boy, you know." "His father is old Colonel Strong's overseer," said Mrs. Maginnis, stabbing the cold tonguo severely. " le-s, that's true. But tho boy came hero with Adrien Strong. That ought to bo indorsement enough. In fact, as I understand it, Colonel Strong sent him with his grandson because tho boys had grown up together on the planta tion and tho overseer had named this boy for him, which inclined him to givo him a better chance for an education than overseers' sons usually get." "Or need. I think Colonel Strong is doing wrong, very wrong indeed, in breaking down the barriers in this way. What will that poor boy do with tho education ho has spent four year in ac quiring when ho goes back to the plantation?" "He need not necessarily go back to tho plantation. Tho world is not bound ed by Colonel Strong's plantation fence. Let him strike out for himself." Mrs. Maginnis fixed a troubled gaze on the heaped cold tongue on the tomb stone. Mrs. Fitzwilliams' last remark struck her as revolutionary. She was sorry to hear such views advocated in Shingleton. It pained her doubly to hear them from the lips of her own sis ter-in-law. "Well, if this theft is traced to the door of that overseer's son it will go a long way toward proving tho folly of any attempt to educate the masses. Per haps it may be as you say, the world is not bounded by Colonel Strong's planta tion fence, but I still contend that it was a very uncalled for pulling down of social fences for him to havo sent his own grandson and his overseer's son hero on a footing of social equality that cannot possibly bo maintained when they go home. " "The boys are devoted to each other. " "Now yes, perhaps." "Lawyer Soophar is to address the boys on tho subject of thoso robberies when tho exercises are over. I told Hon rietto to wave her handkerchief as soon as ho took tho stand. I don't care to go inside before. " "Ncr I. I confess ono does tiro of tho dear boys when ono has been listen ing to them straight along for 15 un changing years." In duo season a whito handkerchief fluttered briefly in ono of the open win dows. Mrs. Fitzwilliams spread a pink mosquito bar carefully over the lemon ade barrel and Mrs. Maginnis secured the cold tonguo against tho possible dep redations of flics and spiders. Then they wero ready for tho church. "Keep your eye on that Martin boy, Nell, whiio old Seephar is scoring tho boys, and I will too. Wo will comparo notes afterward.' With this understanding tho amateur detectives separated, each passing by a different aisle well up toward the hy drangeas and the sunflowers that were making a brilliant halo about Counsel or Seephar's sternly intellectual face. Each seated herself where she could get an unobstructed view of the valedic torian's face. Ho was seated on the front form, this overseer's son, who, by right of his plebeian extraction and so- Yta, one." clal abasoment must be tho offepder against all of Shingleton's proud tradi tions. He sat there, with his arms qui etly folded. Lawyer Seephar was noted for his f e rociofta onslaughts tvnon wrongrloin iii any shape. TTio line of argument no employed on this occasion for probing the collego mystery to its core was the valuo of testimony. Tho flimsy sentiment that honor de manded tho sheltering of a culprit ho pierced through aud through with barb ed arrows of scorn and denunciation. Tho first duty devolving upon every stu dent there, who was but a citizen iu embryo, was his duty to his state. Tho obligation to deliver up the guilty par ty, to be whipped of justice, no matter how near or dear the culprit might bo personally, was held up for grave con sideration. Pushing his iron gray locks impa tiently back, that he might tho better sweep that row of youthful upturned faces, tho old lawyer exhorted them with impressivo solemnity to perform their duty on this occasion, even though, it demanded tho iron resolution of a Brutus. Tho sound of stertorous breathing from the front form caught Mrs. Fitz williams' alert attention. She telegraph ed Mrs. Maginnis with her fan : "Look at him!" Mrs. Maginnis looked at Strong Mar tin. His aspect of composed attention had been tumnltuously broken up. He had turned sidewise on the bench, and the fixed gaze which ho had at first planted on Lawyer Seephar's face was now roving restlessly among the tops of the cedars that tapped the window frames with their dark fingers. From an ivory whiteness, that had lent a fine touch of intellectuality to his features, his complexion had turned to a crimson bordering on purplish. Occasional move ments of a long, nervous hand to his necktie suggested physical discomfort in that region. His handkerchief went of ten to his brow. Mrs. Maginnis tele graphed Mrs. Fitzwilliams with her eyes: "Did you ever seo guilt more plainly revealed?" But Lawyer Seephar's ringing voice imperatively demanded undivided at tention: "In conclusion, young gentlemen, I havo this to say: I make no apology for addressing you on tho law of testimony. You know well what directed my choico of subjects this nrorning. A crime has been committed, and some of you know by whom. If the knowledgo could be traced home to you, you would, by tho law of your state, be liablo to imprison ment for failure to testify. As it is, I leave it to your own consciences. That you cannot eludo. And if it succeeds in convincing you that it is your duty as men of honor to shield ono guilty man and permit suspicion to rest on a score or two of innocent ones, all I have to say is that it is a miserable, paltry, ly ing conscience that will stand you in poor stead when you leavo the shelter ing arms of your alma mater and go out to an inevitable hand to hand strugglo with tho power of evil lying in wait for you in the world." The like of it had never been seen or heard in tho old red brick church before. The Juno zephyrs, astray from tho fields of ripening corn, floated in at the open windows and lifted tho old man's long hair from bis heated brow, then wan dered off to play at hide ahd seek in the artificial flowers of a girl's hat. The mocking birds were singing the very fullest throated sonatas out there in their cedar branch swings. With folded arms the college boys gazed unmoved at th e old man eloquent Side by side Adrien Strong and Strong Martin sat on the front form. Adrien, aristocrat from the smallest wave of his light tawny hair to the tips of his faultless boots; Strong, broad shouldered, massive, suggestivo of a fino pi(co of sculpturo rather than a crude, struggling lad, bitterly conscious already th.it ho was to run his race heavily handicapped. Adrien's clear, frank eyes never left tho lawyer's face once. In point of fact, not one of tho students had followed the harangue with moro pointed inter est and unbroken composure. Ho nover onco unlocked his placidly folded amis. On either sido tho pink nails of his well kept hands wcro restfully planted against tho bluo sergo sleeves of his coat. Occasionally, with a light toss of his hoad ho throw back a wind blown wisp of fair hair. When Strong Martin had shifted his position, ho had turned his back par tially on Adrien. They never once look ed at or spoko to each other. As through a veiling fog ho saw tho lawyer finally step backward to a table and lift a glass of water to his lips. Tho great speech was at an end. The plain tive band up in the choir loft struck in to "Nearer, My God, to Theo. " There was a rustlo of women's garments and a movement of tho crowd toward the door. Adrien Strong had risen with the crowd and stretched his long legs delib erately. Strong Martin alone remained seatedj. to be continued. The Local Flavor. An American who bad left his mv tive country to travel in Europe with the maxim, "When in Rome do as the Romans do," well in mind, found him self in Marseilles. He wanted some ice cream and went into a restaurant and ordered it. "What flavor will yon have?" asked the waiter. The American hesitated a mom.cnt and then remembered his maxim. "Oh, garlic I suppose" he answered. Youth Companion. Itapld Chang-. "My hair turned from raven black to snowy white in a single night " "That's nothing. I went into a pawn broker's shop once and stayed only 15 minutes. When I came out, my watch had turned from gold to Bllver."Lon don Tit-Bits. ..SUBSCRIBE FOR.. Soap BobbU Ilnea. beautiful colors seen In the soap arise from the fact that the bubble, very thin, reflects light from both er and Inner surfaces of the film. T EE 23- V Fining News ! And Keep Posted On The Local Events As They Happen. TERMS: 50 Cents Per Month or $5.00 Per Year. 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