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head-you could do that at West Addams, ,
especially all alone by yourself. Sylvia-
Marie sighed. It was lonesome all alone
by yourself. She looked down at her
white shoes and out at the dusty roa -
lnit then she need not scuff like “Thcedie.”
Yes, she would walk down that road
ll“ U Se. 5“'e'-’Dl“f='- of past that little playhouse. and maybe she
C0lIrSe.5l16'lll<'!)‘0“ lake would catch sight of Aunt Jelly Ann
it !l‘0“gl1-" straining her jel y.
Poor A-mt Aim. nearly But it was already strained. She saw a
bllml and WW5 than neall)’ row of it on the window sill, standing in
By Annie Hamilton Donnell
Di'(Iir(n((A- Hy am... 0. illcll.
Ii, why did she have to be seven-
teen years old!" scolded Jane
over her dish" pan. “Why couldn't
she have been born a lot later, or sooner?
I'd have loved to have her twenty-seven
or just seven. Then I could have gone
out on the front porch with her after I
finished washinizrthese dishes. But now
:I guess not!"
Jane was seventeen. She was slender
and brown and sweet, and the new
boarder was slender and white and sweet.
Very white-that was, why she was here
in the country. -Her guzirdian and her
doctor had picked out this little hamlet
of West Addams.as the quietest, best
placeifor her to get ‘brown. Ordinarily
- Janc Barrett, who was motherless herself,
would have been drawn by sheer syiii-
Apathy toward the lonely little figure out
on the front porch.’ "But this was not
“ordinarily." There were too many com-
plications in this situation-complications
of dazzlingly daintyqwhite gowns, white
shoes, white silken stockings, parasols,
gloves,-white everything.
"SllE'Sl(‘3 snob," Jane uttered sharply.
and the little condemning word seemed to
drop with a his into the pan of foamy
suds, ‘hotter than the water itself. Jane
uas remembering her" own dark gowns,
dark shoes, gloves, everything. A wide
river that might as. well be an ocean
flowed between her and Miss Dainty Snob
out there. And she-Jane Barrett, G. D.
iwould not build any bridges to cross
'th ‘ river. '
' V D.” was her “degree," attained by
three years of steady and more or less
patient drudging to pay her board and
-winter scliooling. She had a right to that
‘degree of Good Dishwasher.
' “I"robably she's never seen a dish pan
.wouldn't know' what it was! She'd
' ’walk all round it, when she found out,
uitli her little lace petticoats pulled away
‘from it.’ If lvdidift know a living thing
about her but hcr.name I'd know she was
"a snob!" '
The new boarder’s name was Sylvia-
Illarie Van Dykc. Sylvia-Marie, just that
vway, with a hy'plien',betwt-cii! Jane had
seen it written. ‘-
“And me-I'm Jane!“
“llello, Jane! iVho you talkin' to-
'that pitcher yoii're'washin'?"
‘ Jane whirled aboutlto face the bare-
foot boy in theldoorway. .
"“'ell. pitch:-rs have ears!" she rc-
jtorted. and began to feel better already.
“ilfliat do you want this time, Theodore?
Eggs-sugar4mustard-help yourself!"
‘ Jaiie was the only soul on earth who
‘called hint Theodore. and if for nothing
else" the boy would have swunl the Hel-
lcspunt for Jane. His name was his sole
‘litilc asset of pride.' '
“Aunt Ann wants to borrow Mia’ Har-
rison‘s jelly bag. ‘She's burst hers in
three holes. She's makin' her fair jell’."
“Oh! - “'ell, go ask Mrs.-Harrison.
'Slie's somewhere in the front of the
crippled. Silll malilng ll" the sun. Aunt Ann sat on the tiny plat-
falf l<’ll'l It Would l1l’e3l< form in front of her door and rested her
lief lit’-31'! "0! !0 Eel El’ tired arms. Iler old face looked peace-
first prize at the West Ad- fu] and c(,me,,ted,
<liIm5 F3ll'- F01’ f01‘!3Y “Good afternoon, deariel Be you Pa-
39i“'5 Slle lml “Of 53ll0Cl- tience Harrison's little gal boarder? I
“She Wlll 'lll5 Yeah” know you're young on account o’ the way
.l3"0 5lgl194‘lDllYl'‘gl)'- “5 9 you come along the road-secli a nice
C V 566 “'l19!llE1‘ “,5 young way! That's how I usetcr walk,
muddy 01' Cl93l‘v and l5 W5 m“dllY"?' but I never will again till I walk down
poor "Aunt Jelly Ann"! the street o‘ gold. I don‘t suppose"-
Th60d0l'Ei Willi ll” .l9ll)' bag. scuffed the old voice hesitated-“I don‘t suppose
l33Cl<i ‘Vl1lStllnE.'. lllmllgll ll‘? ‘l“5!- Plump you feel like settin' down to rest, this
Mrs. Ilarrison stepped out onto the porch 500“? 1 could fgmh ;, Chair’?
to get a moment’s rest. and rest I “Please don'tl I do want to sit down
"Will 3'0“ 595 that l70)' l<lCl<l"E “P ill? and rest, right on this doorstep, but I
Cll15!l" Slle 9XCl3lmed- Slle lallglled wouldn't sit on a chair for anything.”
plumply. “I hope Ann Owen will think The girl laughed, nicely adjusting her
to rinse out my jelly bag after that dust- white draperies. This was a closer ac-
ing! Theedies got the boy terribly-I quaintance with Aunt Jelly Ann than she
suppose all boys have to scu !" .
“‘Thcedie’?" The slender girl in the
hammock looked up with faint interest
from her book. “What a funny name!"
“Yes. Theedie-short for Theodore.
I‘Ie’s-Aunt Jelly Ann‘s great ncphev
“Aunt Jelly II "
Again the
“You‘ll have to get used to West Addams
names, my dear. She is ‘Aunt' Jelly Ann‘
because she makes the clearest jelly in the
county and always takes first prize. Al-
ways has. that isrshe’s grown almost
blind since last fair time, poor thing!
Seems she still calculates to compete,
though, according to Theedie. She’l1 fail >
to get her forty-first prize, sure. I can't
help it, either, unlcss being sorry for the
poor old creature is helping.’ It’ll about
break her heart-niy dear, she‘s so proud
of her nickname! Somebody wrote her
up one year in the ‘iVeekly Circulator’
and told hoiv many jelly prizes she'd
taken. Jane declares Aunt Ann's got that
piece in the paper hanging up, framed l”
Janc? That was rather a funny West
Addams name, too, but it sounded clean
and good-natured and healthy! Sylvia-
Marie sighed a little over her thoughts.
Her own hyphened name had never ceased-
to be a trial to her, yet for worlds" she
would not have changed it. Her fanci-
ful, frail little mother had liked Sylvia-
Marie. If she carried it to college with
her, hyphen and all-Sylvia-Marie set
her lips together in soft defiance. She
would carry that hyphen to college with
her! It would he doing something, 2!
very little, indeed. for the dear, frail
mother who was dead.
For want of anything else to think
u
4
.a
pleasant, plump laugh.‘d
Jcx: 7, I013
hovering at a safe distance, and was
shown the framed piece and the row of
jelly tumblers set. Indian file, in the sun.
There were twelve glasses.
“I always send a dozen," chattercd the
old voice. "You mult‘p1y a dozen by
forty-no, forty-one-an‘ you get how
many I’ve sent in all. Tlieedie, there.
ought to do that sum on his slate. I
guess there ain't another soul in the
county ever made that many glasses o’
prize jell’l I didn’t know but I'd go’.
to give up sendin’ this year, but its done
now. I ain't ever been so thankful to get
it over, as I he this time. Theedie llrlpeil
a lot, didn't you, Theedie? You come
right in this room an’ spe k to the lady.
I'm ashamed o’ you liangi back.”
A little later Sylvia-Marie walked back.
along the dusty road. She walked slouly
and with a curiously sobcr face. for one -
who had been having a good time. In
Theedie's small, round, brown face there
had been a look much like Sylvia-)laric‘s.
iVere they both thinking of the same
thing?
Jane, on the porch with Mrs. llarrison.
got up quickly at sight of the dainty white
hgure approaching. She was not going to
sit there and be compared to a-a bride.
For to Jane's bitterly admiring eyes the
girl who was coming along: the road was
as beautiful. any-
way. as a bride,
"She wouldn't
soil herself for
anything. not any-
thing. See how
carefully she
jeztloiis thing! If
I wasn't so dt-ad
ti r e d I'd be
ashamed of you."
Jane had been
up since five. She
li.1d worked
through the long.
hot day. Mrs,
Ilarrison was a
kin d mistress-
really more a
kind friend than
thatabut she her-
self worked and
did not conivlain.
They wdre lmtli
very tire .
"Jane, what you
going into the
house for? There
isn't anything to
do till supper
time. Poor thing.
you look melted-
thcre. I know
w ll at you tlul
You clear out till
bedtime an" I'l
sec to supper my-
rlf. Yes. I will.
mu-clear out!
about that afternoon. Sylvia-Marie swayed
in the hammock and thought about Aunt
Jelly Ann. She had been to a fair once,
a long time ago, and she thought she re- had ventured to hope for. She spoke of
menibered rows of glasses of clear amber the jelly at once,
and crimson jelly. What if they had been “Mrs. Harrison told me about your fa-
Aunt Jelly Ann's glasses! She laughel mous jelly," she said; “you are the jelly
lazily. How must it feel to make fair lady, arcn‘t you? Isn't that it, in the
jelly for forty years and get into the window?"
newspaper because you always took the The pride in the old face!
prize? Ilow must it eel to read your “Y s, it is-yes, I be the ‘jelly lady’!
obit-your praise-uary every day out of I've took first prize to the county fair for
a frame? Was it that little playhouse of forty years a-runnin‘-tliis’ll make forty-
a cottage Mrs. Harrison had said Aunt one. Mebbc you'd like to come in an’ see
Jelly Ann lived in‘that one just down a piece in the paper that was wrote about
the road.’ Sylvia-Marie felt a lazy, half- my jelly"-:
alive fancy to go and see what an Aunt Indeed Sylvia-Blaric would like! She
Jelly Aiui looked like. was having her first good time in West
e got out f:the hammock 'and Addams. She followed the old woman
stretched her bare. thin arms above her into the tiny house, uitli bashful Thecdie
“SYLVIA-MARIE swn-rn IS THE HAMMOCK no
new um."
You take some
cookies or some-
thing an‘ go oft’
in the woods, the way you like to, an’
get rested up. I can't have you giving
out on me! I don't want to see you again
till tomorrow morning!"
Jane hesitated one second, then stooped
and impetuously kissed the good, plump
face.
“You're a dcarl" she said and flew in-
doors. Up to her hot little attic room for
her books. out to the pantry for cookies
-she was pleasantly thrilled and already
rested. For what could she not do in that
old Cxsar hook with all the precious time
from now to dark: Jane was “inaking
up" Caesar to keep up with her class at
school: she had been obliged to stay out
most of the last lt'l’I1l.
1’Nol'(‘.HT ABOUT at-s-r