106 



THE AMKRKJAN BEE-KEEPER 

 TTFKSHTITJ SCHOOL. 



April 



"Order! Order!" cried the teacher. 

 But the naughty thing was done- 

 Eddie rubbed out Tommie's lesson, 

 And the fight had just begun. 



Little chubby hands were clinching 

 Jackets torn and rumpled hair. 



They coii.ld never sit together, 

 They were such a naughty pair. 



So the teacher straightway stood them 

 In the corner, with high caps. 



And two little outstretched palms 

 From her ruler got ten slaps. 



"Now, then, tell me all the trouble," 



Said the teacher at recess, 

 But they both talked loud together, 



Each one anxious to confess. 



"Hush, now, children," said the teacher; 



"Let Eddie speak; one at a time." 

 So Eddie answered, all defiance, 



"Tom said his n)a uz prettier 'n mine." 

 —Ida Hammond Clark in Kansas City Star. 



A HOUSE TO LET. 



It was advertised iu tlio papers aftei 

 this fashion : "A bijou resideace, suit- 

 able for small family. Charmingly situ- 

 ated on one of the loveliest reaches of 

 the Thames. A house of unique design 

 and exceptional sanitary arrangements. 

 Sloping garden 1o river, boat, boat- 

 house, stabling, fruit garden," etc. 



Yet despite the alluring character of 

 this aimouncemeut, the bijou residence 

 went through two seasons unlet, its 

 notice boards leaning lower and lower 

 as the seasons ^vent on over the stone 

 boxed fringed garden walls with pa- 

 thetic irresponsibility. 



At length, sinmltaueously one morn- 

 ing iu late July, two people caught the 

 glow of that announcement from oppo- 

 site corners of England — the one a 

 man, the other awomt.n — and they bent 

 their faces iu its direction. 



A geographical — as well as a railway 

 time book — dispensation decreed also 

 that these two people should make their 

 debut simultaneously at the little way- 

 Bide station, situated some mile and a 

 half from the bijou residence in ques- 

 tion. After that, how much fate or des- 

 tiny had to do with it, how much man, 

 how much woman, remains problemat- 

 ical. I defy two people of the opposite 

 sexes to walk for a mile and a half 

 along a boxed in country lane and not 

 be oppressively conscious of each other. 



1 dety a man possessed of the slightest 

 moiety of taste not to pick out the vari- 

 ous beauties of that woman if she have 

 them and briefly tabulate them on the 

 retina of his appreciation as he walks. 

 I defy h.cr, if she have a grain of that 

 coquetry which is said to be innate in 

 woman, not to display those beauties to 

 the best advantage for his especial de- 

 lectation. 



And what woman ever walks along a 

 country I'oad rich in wild flowers with- 

 out stuppiig every five minutes to pick 

 samples of t Jem? 



Finally, the two drew up at the gar- 

 den gr.te, if not simultaneously almost 

 so, the man pushing the gate wide fof 

 her and waiting, and they arrived fad 

 to face under the trellised porch. 



Thev. unnuj had put a bunch of scarlet 

 rowan berries in her hat, a correspond- 

 ing bunch in her waistband. She held 

 sufilcient wild grasses and flora in her 

 arms to decorate a font at a harvest fes* 

 tival. Her dark gypsy face had caught a 

 glow from these berries; her dark eyeJ 

 shone; she was not young, the man 

 thought, but extremely attractive. 



The sound of advancing footsteps — 

 footsteps presumably of the caretaker — 

 roused him from his temporary aberra- 

 tion. It occurred to him that speech was 

 the only thing possible to save the situa- 

 tion. He raised his hat, displaying a 

 grizzled but putriciau head, and smiled. 



"Is the housG let then?" he asked. 



The woman showed a gleam of teeth 

 under t ho rich undulating curve of her 

 red lips. 



"That was just the question I was 

 going to put to you, " she answered. 



"I<o," he said. "I have merely come 

 from Dorchester to look at it." 



"And I have come from Cromer. " 



In the pause cf which announcement, 

 a woman, in sunbounet and clogs, with 

 that reticence which the caretaker ex- 

 hibits when she does not want to let the 

 house, slowly opened the door. She 

 moved back, making room for them to 

 enter, making at the same time a de- 

 preciatory movement with her bare 

 arms. "It's all very nice and convenient 

 like," she said, indicating the tiny 

 drawing room on the right, the tiny din- 

 ing rocni on the left, the lilliputian 

 kitchen in perspective, the narrow stair- 

 v/ay intervening, "fur a bachelor, or a 

 spinster, but not fur them es is married. 



