The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 147: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AND SHE TOOK ME IN. that,” Joe lied: briskly. “I’ve had such a good time that it’s worth it. Besides, it won’t be very long before I won’t have ta go off and leave like this. Then we won’t care how hard it storms, will we, dear?”’ But Amelia broke into sudden weeping, and Joe had to stop and kiss her several times, so that it was one o’clock by the time his buggy creaked through the snow of the yard and made its exit to the drifted highway. Amelia watched at the parlor window until the carriage had vanished into the night and the storm. Then she shook down the base burner and poured more coal in its top, let out the sleepy cat, and, lamp in hand, mounted the stairs to gaze, weeping, at the three beds that ~ stood cold and spotless in the upper chambers. She undressed quickly amidst cold tears and crawled between the warm blankets. “JT wish I’d ’a’ made him stay,” she moaned to herself. ‘‘ I wish I’d ’a’ made him stay.” “But if he had,” she resumed with chilly sobs, “‘ with me all alone in the house, it would ’a’ been all over the neigh- borhood to-morrow and I’d ’a’ got talked about.” She got up to gaze out at the wind and snow. She crept into the two other rooms and smoothed the pillows, all the time with her thoughts on a young man bat- tling his way against the elements. “Tf I had it to do over again—” she said at length with sudden boldness. But Amelia was a born coward. Poor Amelia! id; By the end of fifteen minutes Joe Kenagy was colder than he had ever been in his whole life; at the end of half an hour he began to peer through the shift- ing snow-clouds for a haven. He knew that he was not far from the home of Mary, the girl whom he had compared so unfavorably with Amelia, 329 and after jerking vainly at his flounder- ing ponies and beating his hands against the sides of the buggy for another half hour he breathed a frosty sigh of thanks- giving to see a light shine out directly in his path. A moment later he drove up to a farmhouse door and called lustily for some one to come. Some one came, some one in a lav- ender wrapper, a shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders and her hair shining under the light of the lamp that streamed from the door behind her. “Is that you, Brother Jim?” she called cheerily. Then a moment later—‘ Oh, it’s Joe; Joe Kenagy. Well, what’s up?” Joe was too miserable to speak. He merely clambered out of the buggy, and pulling the lines across the backs of the shivering horses stumbled up the little step on which the girl stood. ‘‘ Nothing’s up,” ‘he said at last, sway- ing toward her and the kitchen door. “ If you'll just let me warm my hands a minute—” It was the work of an instant for the girl to whisk the lines from the young ‘man’s stiffened fingers and push him bodily inside the door, which she slammed shut. Joe could hear her outside, as she climbed into the buggy and applied the lash to the dancing ponies and drove them furiously away. Presently he heard her returning, her shoes crunching through the snow, then her boyish stamp on the step. She came breezing in like a spirit of the storm out- side. “T got ’em into the barn, buggy and all,” she cried. ‘“‘ They’re safe. Now what about you?” There appeared to be plenty “ about him.” He sat where she had flung him, his face distorted and blanched, his hands held out before him numbly like two sticks. “They wouldn’t ’ave got so cold if I’d ’a’ thought to put on my fur gloves,” he explained miserably. “ But I thought - COMEOOOKS (C©@)