DRAWING THE COLOR LINE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2382, 24 December 1908, Page 10 (Supplement)

DRAWING THE COLOR LINE.

(By Cornelia A. P. Comer.)

It was after supper. on a hot J uly day. Mona Leissler, maid of all work, was sitting on Dr. Larkin’s back stoop, looking with half-closed eyes down the garden path to the rear of the lot, where a row of tall, wea-ther-beaten gray palings served as background for a delectable plantation of high hollyhocks in shades of wine color, crimson, pink, and dappled rose and white. The level rays of the setting sun fell across and illumined them. In front of the hollyhocks,, but at one side, were masses of sweet-peas—the old-fashioned “Pain ted Lady” variety—and the path itself was bordered with parti-colored phlox. On either side were the beds of the kitchen-garden, and dark green of tomato-vines, tlie spreading medallions of the cucumbers, a few rows of potatoes, the low bushes of tlie thrifty green beans. Mona surveyed it all with with profound satisfaction. The hired man had dug and—planted, bub Mona herself had hoed and watered and kept the borders even, just for the love of it. And every warm evening she sat on the back stoop and gloated over the prospect that topped the vista—the screen of bright hollyhocks against their gray background. There certainly is something very special about such a row of hollyhocks. A man came around the corner of the house, a stout, dark-haired, redfaced, candid-looking German of forty-odd. Mona had never seen him before. She eyed him interrogatively and without interest. It is so that most of us face Opportunity. “Vas you Mona Leissler?” he asked.

“Yah,” Mena responded, indifferently. "It vas you I vants to see, den. My name iss Gottlieb Ruppert, I vork by Mr. Neihardt in do sawmill. He told me lie fought you make me a goot vife. I come to seo about it.”

The two stared at each other frankly and without embarrassment. Mona was no beauty . TV ith her square shoulders, deep chest, stout frame, high cheek-bones, dull yellow hair, weather-beaten skin and narrow blue eyes, she exemplified the peasant type, as one sees it in the German fields, far more accurately than most of the country women in America. She was well past thirty. Nevertheless, Gottlieb surveyed her cheerily, with a shrewd twinkle somewhere at the back of his brown eyes. Beauty was far from being the greatest need of his household. Mona lookoil honest, strong, and reliable, a littlo obstinate, perhaps, but that was nothing if one knew how to manage tlie.se women. “You kin sed down.”

He took a seat on the step below, turned around, and looked up at her. “Maybe you liaf heard about me al_ re tty yet. I had bad luck wit’ my first. She vas Pete Kapelsky’s sister. 1 guess dat ain’t goot blood.” “She run off, two, free year ago, ain’t it. ?”

“She’s de one. Sho took up mit a spieler vat come to town along of de carnival. Dem carnivals uud street fairs iss had t’ings. De men gots drunk and do vimmen dey gets foolish.”

Mona nodded soberly. “I nefor heard you got a diworce from your vile?” she interrogated. “No. I didn’t joost like to. She lef’ me do boy. He’s a goot boy. Las’ week I hoard she died in Indianny, und I went to see. It vas so, all right. I guess she ain’t had a very easy life. Derc vas no goot in dot man she went along wit.” “How old iss your hoy?” “Chonny, lie’s twelf’ undin do eight grade airetty.” “Vas you hachin’ it?”

“No. TVe boards by my sister, Mrs Siegel, dat iss. But her bouse iss bretty small, und de kids iss all underfoot. I fought I’d like to lif in mine own house a spell, mebbe. I got a place, you know?” “You owns it?”

“Ja wohl! It iss rented, but de renter lie’s movin’ out first; of September. Mebbe we move in, huh?” The brown eyes twinkled merrily at the blue eyes—which were still half closed as Mona looked judicially down the garden path. Mona was not ready yet for coquetry. “Veil—l see,” she said, slowly. “You say Mr Noihardt sent you to see me?”

“Yah! Mr. Neihardt he says you’re a goot, steady vooman und you’d like a goot home und 1 a steddy man like mo.”

“My broder he worked for Mr. Neihardt ven wo comes here six year ago. He got hurt in do / sawmill und Mr Neihardt he pay for doctorin’ him. Mebbe vat he says—goes.” Gottlieb slipped his arm gently around the square waist. “Goot'vorlc!” he cried, cheerfully. Mona looked down at the arm consentingly if not with enthusiasm. There was something about this man one could like and trust—a genial, homelike quality that would make one glad to see him coming in the door of a cold winter’s night. There was something pleasant and reassuring in his proximity, in his square-built, stocky figure, in his ruddy cheeks and twinkling eyes. He radiated an atmosphere of homo and good cheer. Secretly Mona thought his “first” had been a fool. Aloud she said sedately : “Mebbe we get along bretty goot; ain’t it?”*

Gottlieb squeezed her hand, but Mona’s thoughts had already wandered away from tlie sentimental side of this wooing. Marriage is such a serious matter and there are so many other considerations than those of sentiment to bo debated by the wise. “Y'ou say you owns a place? Vere iss dat?” “You know de common down to do sout ’end of town ? My place iss one block east, brown house and yella triimnin’s. Story und a„ half high, und two lots. We can haf a fine garden dere.”

The thought of the garden made a strong appeal, for Mona liad been born and bred close to the soil and blindly loved it, but her eyebrows contracted a little at tlie notion of the yellow trimmings. Mona hated red and yellow things with an almost vicious hatred. To her mind flowers ought always to bo'pink or blue or white, and she liked best gray houses with white trimmings. It was such a one she had seen in her dreams. The prospect down the garden walk before her pleased her to the very soul—the gay, yet soft, harmonised colors of the flowers, the' subdued background of the gray-shingled barn and the palings—it all stood for something that she needed and that satisfied her she scarcely knew how. And she knew that it rubbed her the wrong way to bear of a brown house with yellow trimmings.

Gottlieb rambled on, unconscious of licr change of mood: “I got sunflowers planted up de valk to de side door, und ’sturtiums up de valk to de front door. I got ’sturtiums all over de front of de house, und in de back yard I got more sunflowers. De seeds iss goot for chickens, und I likes to see de flowers growing dere.” Mona was frowning portentously. “I don’t like sunflowers,” she said, heavily. “Yella Pings—dey gets in on mo someways. I always fought I’d have , a gray house wit’ white trimmin’s und flowers like dose.” She pointed to the plantation of hollyhocks nodding alluringly against the fence. The hollyhocks smiled back at her reassuringly.

"Like dose!” Gottlieb’s voice was full of surprise and distaste. ‘ ; No snap to ’em,” he said, disconsolately. “Dere’s a lot of go to ’sturtiums und sunflowers—und yella.flowers dey look so goot by de brown house.” “Brown’s a kinda dark color for a house,” said Mona. Gottlieb paused a moment to reflect. It was true that he did like the strong and vivid colors, and that sunflowers and nasturtiums were the flowers lie most wanted about his dwelling. Still, if the inside of the house were neat and clean, the food well coo'ked, and the housewife no sloven, a man'could he comfortable in a houso of any color. Gray and white and bine and pink were feeble, wishy-washy shades, but still—was it too much of a concession to say, “Well, paint it green or paint it gray, and plant what you like, for all of me,, so you come and live in it.” Perhaps he would have said it if he had not suddenly remembered something. “Chonny—my boy—he planted do sunflowers. Ho likes deni, too. A great gardener Clionny vill be in a year or two.” Mona remained weightily silent. Her brows drew closer together and her lower lip was thrust out a trifle. As Gottlieb looked up into her face he perceived this, and the masculine spirit in him was aroused. What nonsense! And if one began bv humoring a woman, one might go'on at that gait for ever: No, the way to do was to make women understood at the beginning how things must be. Then there was no difficulty afterwards. Oh, everything would bo all right if a man knew how to manage these women !

“My houso iss brown,” he said, firmly, “und brown it iss to be. Brown—wit’ yella trimmin’.” Mona thought long and' steadily in her turn. A houso of her very own —could she not forget its color when she was inside? Kveu Gottlieb would hardly insist on yellow paint and paper in all the rooms., Her tastes might surely have sway there. And a garden—a whole lot for a garden! As for Gottlieb himself, lie was an all-right man or Mr. Neihardt, whom she trusted, would never have sent him to her. If only he were not eo obstinate! If only there were some way of managing these, men! Mona hesitate* .

Down at the end of the garden the tall hollyhocks lifted their graceful spires and nodded at her with a knowing look, a look of irresistible distinction and appeal. She thought of the many nights she had sat there alone and watched them ,and their beauty had somehow rested Her. After all," why should a man have everything his own way? She had three hundred dollars in the bank. She could be independent too. Whafe was the use of a house if it wasn’t the house.you had always longed for? “My house iss gray,” said Mona, firmly. “Gray wit’ white trim min’. Or else'l don’t haf no house.”

Gottlieb got up slowly, regretfully. Tlie twinkle had gone out of his brown eyes. They were slightly perplexed. After all, it was not always easy—managing these women ! “Veil, I guess den I mus’ be goin’. Goot night, Mona Leissler.” “Goot night, Gottlieb Ruppert.”

He went around the corner of the house as quietly as be had come. So Opportunity passes when it is done with us.

The sun dropped below the horizon. The garden was melting into indistinguishable dusk. Mona sat wondering —wondering. It was not every day that a good man and a thrifty, with a homelike twinkle in his eyes, came around the corner of the house seeking a wife and offering a home. When, she rose at last with a sigh, it was to saunter down the path toward the dimly nodding hollyhocks.*

MAUD’S CHRISTMAS SHOPPING.

"Everything I can think of to give anyone X seem to have given them last Christmas,” said Maud m a worried way, looking at her list. "Dick, Mary, Aunt Julia, Miss Brown, Mort—um,” she muttered, blocking the way to a counter. I suggested a move. '"l’ve forgotten Norah. 11l get hers while I think of 'it.. What would you get, May?” "Gloves, handkerchiefs, ties!” "But she always gets tons of gloves, and I refuse to'get any more handkerchiefs. I’ve bought dozens.” "You’re in the way,” I reminded her.

"But I’m trying to think. Can’t you suggest anything?” "Books,” I said desperately. "She’s not a girl you can give books to ; she wouldn’t look at selections and gems or novels, and anything else is too expensive.” "Soap in a nice box,” I suggested

again. "Oh, May! She’d be offended. Do think!” "A frame!” "Not silver,” said Maud suspiciously. "Certainly not,” I said, carefully steering the way to frames, and sighing with relief when the purchase was concluded. When the frame was wrapped up and paid for Maud was dubious. "Isn’t it rather banal?” she asked.

"Most things are,” I told her. "Now for Dick,” she said brisklv. "What shall I give him?” I was incapable of suggestion. "I think I’ll get him a new artsilver pen tray,” Maud said after a pause, "I want one for my table.” "But—?”

"We always do things that way,” she went on blandly. "On my birthday Dick gave me Grote’s 'History of Greece,’ and I never opened it. I was mad, because I was dying for a parasol, and. Dick hardly stuck his nose out of it for weeks.”"

When the tray was at length selected I faintly suggested tea. After that we began in earnest, and invaded the book shops. "I always get a lot of little books to send to people I've forgotten all about until Christmas Eve,” said Maud. "One can get all kinds of dear little books, and they look better than calendars. Here’s one ‘Gems of Friendship,' only sixpence, and quite uice-looking. I’ll get it for Miss Hardeastle; I gave her a brass rose bowl last Christmas- and she gave me a nine-penny cane pocket for a door—simply hideous. She’s awfully well off, too.”

We tore ourselves away eventually, and pressed on to the jeweller’s. “I promised Leonie a gun metal watch, but I want a silver purse. I lost mine last week.”

"Wait until after Christmas, and someone might give you a purse.” I suggested. “But they mightn’t; and then ev» eryone will be etoney, and Dick won’t give me any more ‘extra.’ Here’s a dear little clock, look, May. Only eight shillings. I’m sure Leonie would rather have it than a watch—so nice for a girl’s room.” "Yes,” I assented weakly, but Maud was absorbed in negotiations. “Now, ’what for Miss Brown?’ 1 Mauu was looking into her purse. We stood in people’s way and con sidered.

"A hatpin,” I said tentatively. "Cm! We’ll leave it for a bit. Mortimer?” "A shaving tidy.” "He’s got dozens. He’s got evervrliing.” "Then don’t give him anything.” "I must. Surely you know of something.” I thought until my head ached. "I can’t.” I said desperately. We were moving on when Miss Hardeastle came up. "My dear Maud, this is lucky.” she said, in her deep voice. "I’m going to Moss Vale for Christmas, and I can now give you my little remembrance in person before I go.”

“And I’ll give you mine if you “'don’t mind carrying it,” said Maud. It’s very small, but the wishes that go with it are the same.” They tliauk-yop’d, and Miss Hardcastle hurried away. -Maud looked at her present distastefully. “It’s a horrid little book.” she .said. “Devotional, I expect.” I tore the paper, and held up “Gems of Friendship” before Maud’s eves.

“How tragic!” she gasped. “She’ll never forgive me for giving her a sixpemrorth. Isn’t it -awful? She must have been at that- place this very morning!” 'AA hat about Mortimer?” I said, to create a diversion.

“I think we’ll go home to lunch,” said Maud weakly. “I’ve done enough shopping for one day.” “Lei’s..” I said with alacrity.