4 
6 
Thatcher—be quick!” 
Anton lifted his wife and carried her to 
the lounge. “God has served me right! 
I’ve been a brute to her—my poor little 
Nell!” 
lie brought water and bathed her head 
and face, and drew off the soft garden 
gloves and wet the tired, still, little hands 
with his tears. 
When he let the hands down one arm fell 
in a queer distorted way, and he saw that 
it wap broken. Her heart was beating 
faintly, and there was a fluttering breath 
on her lips, but no sign of consciousness 
answered his agonized words of endear- 
ment. 
Twelve hours afterwards, in the small 
hours of the morning, she opened her eyes 
and gazed in surprise at Anton and the 
doctor sitting by her bedside and solem- 
faced Mrs. Thatcher at the foot. 
“Is the white rose broken?” she asked 
anxiously, and as she spoke she tried to 
lift her bandaged arm and gave it up 
with a little cry of pain. 
Anton was watching the doctor’s face. 
The doctor’s face was lighting up. “No, 
Mrs. Curtis, the white rose is not broken: 
but your head is, and your arm, and 
you must keep quiet until you are quite 
mended.” 
“It serves me right,” murmured the pa¬ 
tient so faintly that no one understood but 
Anton, who the moment the doctor’s back 
was turned, bent over her and kissed her 
forehead and murmured back: “It’s my 
fault you poor, dear girl!” 
During the long hours of her uncon¬ 
sciousness he had in his restless suspense 
visited the field of her recent labors, and 
pathetic enough it looked—if her hands 
were never to take up their work again— 
the partly arranged plants, the baskets of 
soil from the woods, the trowel and sprink¬ 
ler lying where last she used them, and the 
sweet fragrance of the neglected violets 
filled all the room. 
It seemed still more pathetic when he 
picked up the slip of paper from the win¬ 
dow and read the offer for her bouquets. 
One morning in June Anton carried his 
convalescent wife out into the sitting room 
and deposited her in a softly cushioned 
rocker as carefully as if she were made of 
egg-shell china. Then he arranged a rest 
for her feet, and stood somewhat bashfully 
•/ 
regarding two folded papers which he had 
taken from his pocket. 
“If you are strong enough to glance over 
a little business matter or two—” he began 
hesitatingly. 
“Oh, yea, I feel like a giant refreshed! 
And I’m so glad to be consulted in a busi¬ 
ness matter—it shows that you think my 
cracked head isn’t going to make a real 
‘idiot’ of me,” and she smiled brightly up 
into his face. 
“It shows that I’m not going to be the 
idiot I have been, young woman!” and put¬ 
ting the papers in her hands he hastily left 
the room. 
The first paper contained a detailed plan 
for a conservatory opening from the sit¬ 
ting room which, “if approved,” could be 
commenced anytime she should choose to 
set the carpenters at work. 
The second paper was an agreement “to 
pay my wife—the dearest and trustiest 
partner I could possibly find, who is worth 
more to me than all else in the world, ex¬ 
actly half the profits of the farm. And in 
the words of Tiny Tim—‘May God bless us 
all ?’ ” 
Was not this a tonic for our convales¬ 
cent? She was out on the piazza in half 
an hour trying to catch a glimpse of her 
“partner,” and in a week’s time the car¬ 
penters were sawing into the sunny side 
of the sitting room. 
Mrs. Nell was not the woman to abuse 
her husband’s generosity, and now as the 
seasons and the years trip by, there is no 
more prosperous farmer in southern Wis¬ 
consin than Anton Curtis, and no happier 
woman or more cheery homekeeper than 
his wife, Nell. 
Turnip Culture. 
“The twenty-fifth of July, rain or shine,” 
was the couplet by which a certain old lady 
could always remember when, to sow her 
turnip seeds. It is a fact that turnips form 
nicer and inoae tender bulbs when sown 
late than early in the season, and so they 
