A Forest Hearth. Charles Major

those early cabin homes to see the whole family sitting upon the broad hearth, shading their eyes with their hands, while some one—frequently the local school-teacher—sat upon the hearth log and read by the fire that furnished both light and heat. This reading was frequently Dic's task in the Bays home.

      One who has seen a large family thus gathered upon the spacious hearth will easily understand the love for it that ages ago sprang up in the hearts of men and crickets. At no place in all the earth, and at no time in all its history, has the hearth done more in moulding human character than it did in the wilderness on the north side of the lower Ohio when the men who felled the forest and conquered nature offered their humble devotions on its homely altar.

      So it came to pass that Dic and Rita grew up together on the heart of the hearth; and what wonder that their own hearts were welded by the warmth and light of its cheery god. Thus the boy grew to manhood and the girl to maidenhood, then to young womanhood, at which time, of course, her troubles began.

      Chief among the earlier troubles of our little maid was a growing tenderness for Dic. Of that trouble she was not for many months aware. She was unable to distinguish between the affection she had always given him and the warming tenderness she was beginning to feel, save in her disinclination to make it manifest. When with him she was under a constraint as inexplicable to her as it was annoying. It brought grief to her tender heart, since it led her into little acts of rudeness or neglect, which in turn always led to tears. She often blamed Dic for the altered condition, though it was all owing to the change in herself. There was no change in him. He sought the girl's society as frankly as when they were children, though at the time of which I write he had made no effort to "keep company" with her. She, at fifteen, believing herself to be a young lady, really wished for the advances she feared. Sukey Yates, who was only fourteen, had "company" every Sunday evening, and went to all the social frolics for miles around. Polly Kaster, not sixteen, was soon to be married to Bantam Rhodes. Many young men had looked longingly upon Rita, who was the most beautiful girl on Blue; but the Chief Justice, with her daughter's hearty approval, drove all suitors away. The girl was wholly satisfied with Dic, who was "less than kin," but very much "more than kind." He came to see the family, herself included; but when he went out to social functions, church socials, corn-huskings, and dances he took Sukey Yates, or some other girl, and upon such evenings our own little maiden went to bed dissatisfied with the world at large, and herself in particular. Of course, she would not have gone to dances, even with Dic. She had regard for the salvation of her soul, and the Chief Justice, in whom the girl had unquestioning faith, held dancing to be the devil's chief instrument of damnation. Even the church socials were not suitable for young girls, as you will agree if you read farther; and Mrs. Margarita, with a sense of propriety inherited from better days, tried to hold her daughter aloof from the country society, which entertained honest but questionable views on many subjects.

      Dic paid his informal visit to the Bays household in the evenings, and at the time of the girl's growing inclination she would gaze longingly up the river watching for him; while the sun, regretful to leave the land, wherein her hero dwelt, sank slowly westward to shine upon those poor waste places that knew no Diccon. When she would see him coming she would run away for fear of herself, and seek her room in the loft, where she would scrub her face and hands in a hopeless effort to remove the sun-brown. Then she would scan her face in a mirror, for which Dic had paid two beautiful bearskins, hoping to convince herself that she was not altogether hideous.

      "If I could only be half as pretty as Sukey Yates," she often thought, little dreaming that Sukey, although a very pretty girl, was plain compared with her own winsome self.

      After the scrubbing she would take from a little box the solitary piece of grandeur she possessed—a ribbon of fiery red—and with this around her neck or woven through the waving floods of her black hair, she felt she was bedecked like a veritable queen of hearts. But the ribbon could not remove all doubts of herself, and with tears ready to start from her eyes she would stamp her foot and cry out: "I hate myself. I am an ugly fool." Then she would slowly climb down the rude stairway, and, as we humble folk would say, "take out her spite" against herself on poor Dic. She was not rude to him, but, despite her inclination, she failed to repay his friendliness in kind as of yore.

      Tom took great pleasure in teasing her, and chuckled with delight when his indulgent mother would tell her visiting friends that he was a great tease.

      One evening when Rita had encountered more trouble than usual with the sun-brown, and was more than ever before convinced that she was a fright and a fool, she went downstairs, wearing her ribbon, to greet Dic, who was sitting on the porch with father, mother, and Tom. When she emerged from the front door, Tom, the teaser, said:—

      "Oh, just look at her! She's put on her ribbon for Dic." Then, turning to Dic, "She run to her room and spruced up when she saw you coming."

      Dic laughed because it pleased him to think, at least to hope, that Tom had spoken the truth. Poor Rita in the midst of her confusion misunderstood Dic's laughter; and, smarting from the truth of Tom's words, quickly retorted:—

      "You're a fool to say such a thing, and if—if—if—Mr.—Mr. Bright believes it, he is as great a fool as you."

      "Mr. Bright!" cried de Triflin'. "My, but she's getting stylish!"

      Rita looked at Dic after she spoke, and the pain he felt was so easily discernible on his face that she would have given anything, even the ribbon, to have had her words back, or to have been able to cry out, "I didn't mean it, Dic; I didn't mean it."

      But the words she had spoken would not come back, and those she wanted to speak would not come forward, so tears came instead, and she ran to her loft, to do penance in sobs greatly disproportionate to her sin.

      Soon Dic left, and as he started up the forest path she tried by gazing at him from her window to make him know the remorse she felt. She wanted to call to him, but she dared not; then she thought to escape unseen from the house and run after him. But darkness was rapidly falling, and she feared the black, terrible forest.

      We talk a great deal about the real things of after life; but the real things of life, the keen joys and the keenest pains, come to a man before his first vote, and to a woman before the days of her mature womanhood.

THE BACHELOR HEART

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CHAPTER II

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      The Bachelor Heart

      Rita's first great pain kept her sleepless through many hours. She resolved that when Dic should come again she would throw off the restraint that so hurt and provoked her, and would show him, at whatever cost, that she had not intended her hard words for him.

      The next day seemed an age. She sought all kinds of work to make the time pass quickly. Churning, usually irksome, was a luxury. She swept every nook and corner of the house, and longed to sweep the whole farm.

      That evening she did not wait till Dic was in sight to put on her ribbon. She changed it many times from her throat to her hair and back again, long before the sun had even thought of going down.

      Her new attitude toward Dic had at least one good effect: it took from her the irritation she had so often felt against herself. Losing part of her self-consciousness in the whirl of a new, strong motive, wrought a great change, not only in her appearance, but also in her way of looking at things—herself included. She was almost satisfied with the image her mirror reflected. She might well have been entirely satisfied. There was neither guile nor vanity in the girl's heart, nor a trace of deceit in her face; only gentleness, truth, and beauty. She had not hitherto given much thought to her face; but with the change in her way of seeing Dic, her eyes were opened to the value of personal beauty. Then she began to wonder. Regret for her hard words