American Agriculturist, December 20, 1924 
449 
The Trouble Maker —By E. R. Eastman 
J IM watched John Ball go away from 
the meeting with real regret. He 
was genuinely sorry, for he knew that 
the valley held no better citizen nor 
kinder-hearted man. 
He was also sorry on account of Dor¬ 
othy, because he thought that she must 
be terribly embarrassed. Stealing a 
glance at her, from time to time, how¬ 
ever, as the meeting progressed, it 
seemed that she was holding her own. 
Her cheeks were flushed, to be sure, but 
she sat leaning forward a little, as much 
interested apparently in the develop¬ 
ments of the meeting as anyone else in 
the room. 
The business of the meeting was soon 
completed. Several of the men spoke 
briefly, but the discussion was confined 
to ways and means of taking care of the 
milk. No one questioned the necessity 
of going ahead. Copies of the Dairy¬ 
men’s League contract were circulated 
and at the close of the meeting a major¬ 
ity of the men came forward to a table 
at the front of the hall and joined the 
League. Others stated their intention 
of signing up later. All agreed to with¬ 
hold their milk from the market on the 
coming Sunday. 
Jim Taylor was made chairman of a 
county organization committee of five 
members, consisting of prominent dairy¬ 
men from different sections of the coun¬ 
ty known to be in favor of the League, 
and the county farm bureau office was 
made the meeting place of the commit¬ 
tee. It was expected that this group 
would be in almost constant session for 
several days. Arrangements were made 
to call meetings in the different com¬ 
munities, and then this historic meeting 
came to an end. 
For once the lifetime habit of “hurry¬ 
ing home to milk the cows” was broken. 
Both men and women gathered in little 
excited groups to discuss details, and all 
of them showed a desire to talk to Jim 
Taylor. 
Finally they began to thin out until at 
last only Harry Bradley was left. As he 
and Jim stood talking Jim noticed Dor¬ 
othy coming back through the door at 
the end of the hall toward him and the 
county agent. He waited until Dorothy 
was nearly up to them, and then, think¬ 
ing that she had come to speak to Brad¬ 
ley, and not wishing to embarrass them, 
he turned abruptly and strode off to the 
other end of the hall and out of the side 
entrance. 
Dorothy hesitated for a second, look¬ 
ing at the door through which Jim had 
gone, and then she turned to Harry and 
asked him if he would not take her home. 
If Jim could have known that Doro¬ 
thy had stood outside of the door for a 
quarter of an hour ostensibly talking to 
a group of women, but really fighting 
a great battle with herself to conquer 
her pride and to get the courage to come 
back in to congratulate Jim Taylor for 
standing for what he thought was right, 
how different the future might have been 
for both of them! 
CHAPTER XIII 
HEN. the men came in to supper 
from the milking, after their return 
from the Speedtown meeting, the early 
dusk of the fall evening had come, and 
the light of the shaded lamp reflected 
from the red cloth on the big table gave 
a pleasant and cozy glow to the dining 
room. This cheerful feeling of comfort 
and well-being was increased by the 
•teaming dishes which Mother Ball and 
Dorothy were hastening to put on the 
table, while old John Ball and Bill Mead 
washed themselves at the kitchen sink 
with much loud splashing, snorting and 
blowing. 
But in spite of the cheerful room, sup¬ 
per that night was a subdued affair. All, 
except Mother Ball, seemed absorbed in 
their own thoughts, and, judging from 
their faces, those thoughts were none 
too pleasant. 
Mrs. Ball wanted to talk. She usually 
did. She was one of those people to 
whom silence is always oppressive, and 
her pleasant, intelligent commend added 
to the feeling of optimism and homeli¬ 
ness which one always felt in her pres¬ 
ence. 
But even the most cheerful of con¬ 
versationalists begin to lose enthusiasm 
when there is no response. Mother Ball 
had not been able to attend the meeting 
that day and naturally was curious as to 
what had happened, but whether she ad¬ 
dressed her question to John or to Dor¬ 
othy, she was answered in monosylla¬ 
bles or not at all. Sensing finally that 
something was out of tune in the at¬ 
mosphere, she stopped and devoted her 
attention strictly to the business of eat¬ 
ing. 
HEN Bill Mead tried his turn. He, 
too, had been unable to go to the 
meeting because he had to prepare for 
the silo-filling which would start on the 
Ball farm on the morrow. 
“Big meeting today, Johnny?” he 
asked. 
“Yes.” 
“Who was there?” 
“I dunno. Fellsrs from all over the 
county.” 
“Many women folks?” asked Mrs. 
Ball. 
“Some.” 
“Queer that you should want to go, 
Dorothy,” said her mother. “You’ve 
been telling me how much you hated 
this whole milk business and then all of 
a sudden you’re up and all possessed to 
go to that meeting.” 
Dorothy smiled absently at her moth¬ 
er, but made no reply. 
“Who did the speech-makin’?” asked 
Bill. 
“That young Taylor idiot,” growled 
the old man. 
“He didn’t do it all by a long shot,” 
spoke up Dorothy. 
Her father glared at her. 
“What do you mean?” 
“I mean that I am sorry that I went 
to the meeting at all.” 
Old John’s beard began to quiver in 
characteristic fashion. 
“Do ye mean by that that ye were 
’shamed of your old dad?” 
“Yes, I do,” snapped the girl. “When 
they didn’t want you to talk, why didn’t 
you sit down instead of disgracing your¬ 
self?” 
“Don’t talk to me about disgrace, 
young woman. All’s the matter with 
you is that young Taylor. All you went 
to the meetin’ for anyway was to hear 
him make a fool of himself.” 
“No such thing! Besides, Jim Taylor 
was not the one who made a fool of 
himself. If you had any shame, Dad, 
your ears would be burning now. I get 
warm all over every time I think how 
you acted. I bet every family in the 
county is talking about you tonight.” 
“Let ’em talk!” stormed the old man, 
his beard sticking straight out from his 
chin. “I don’t need ’em in my business; 
and I’m tellin’ you somethin’ else, young 
lady. I don’t even -want to see that 
young whipper-snapper of a Taylor 
around these here premises agin. And 
I don’t need any daughter, either, that 
can talk to me the way you have to¬ 
night. All you young folks think that 
you know more’n your fathers and moth¬ 
ers afore ye.” 
Shoving back his chair from the table 
with a bang, the old man rose to his 
feet and shook his finger at Dorothy. 
“And I’m tellin’ you somethin’ further, 
too. An long as you stay in this house, 
jest remember that I’m your dad, and 
neither you nor that Taylor, or no one 
else, can tell me how to run myself or 
my business.” 
“Oh, now, now, John dear,” fluttered 
his wife, “set down and eat your sup¬ 
per, and don’t get all het up. Dorothy 
didn’t, mean anything.” 
“Johnny’s right,” put in Bill. “That 
young Taylor’s gettin’ too smart. Needs 
’nother lickin’ like I gave him in the 
cornfield.” 
This directed Dorothy’s attention to 
him, and brought down her wrath on 
his head. 
“You’d better keep still, Bill Mead,” 
she said. “I heard all about that ‘lick¬ 
ing,’ and it wasn’t Jim Taylor that got 
it—and he didn’t start it, either. The 
less you say about it the better.” 
Bill subsided, John Ball sat down, and 
again quiet brooded over the table. But 
it was not the quiet of. peace. 
After he had finished his supper, Ball 
shoved back his chair, went to the clock 
shelf, back of the stove, filled his pipe 
from the tobacco box, ramming the to¬ 
bacco down in the bowl with vicious jabs 
of his thumb, and emphasizing every ram 
by emphatic jerks of his out-pointed 
beard. Then he stormed out into the 
night. 
W HEN Dorothy and her mother had 
silently cleared the table and 
washed the dishes, Dorothy took her 
lamp from its accustomed place on* the- 
clock-shelf, and went over to kiss her 
mother good-night. Then she turned 
quickly to hide her tears, and went up¬ 
stairs to the little bedroom which had 
been hers as long as she could remem¬ 
ber. 
Standing at her dresser, she studied 
critically the face in the glass that gazed 
back at her so forlornly. 
“What a mess life is anyway. Flad a 
decent disposition once—now I’m quar¬ 
reling with everybody.” 
With her forefingers, she lifted the 
drooping corners of her mouth until 
they tilted upwards, and studied the 
effect in the glass. 
“Jim used to tell me he liked them 
that way,” she mused. . . “What a dear 
he w r as—but now all he thinks of is that 
old League. . . All it does is to make 
trouble. . . It’s made Jim different, and 
Dad’s a regular old bear lately.. . . 
“How Jim did talk today—made me 
believe in him when I didn’t want to . . 
made all the rest of them believe, too. 
. . . What an orator he would be with a 
little training! 
“Funny how you can think you know 
anyone and not really know him at all— 
poor little lonesome kid. What a hard 
What Has Happened in the Story Thus Far 
T HE great milk strike is on! Jim Taylor, forgetting his own troubles 
in his enthusiasm for the cause, leads the fight in Speedtown. Jim 
speaks at a farmers’ meeting, but is opposed from the floor by old 
Johnny Ball, father of Dorothy, Jim’s childhood sweetheart. Dorothy 
is there, but for days has been coldly polite to Jim and gone everywhere 
with young Bradley, the young farm bureau agent. After a hot dis¬ 
cussion which shows the great majority of the farmers to be with Jim, 
Johnny Ball stalks angrily out of the metting followed by a few sym¬ 
pathizers. 
time he had. . . Now he’s changed—and 
grown sort of hard. 
“Oh, well,” and she threw her shoul¬ 
ders back and looked reprovingly at the 
girl in the glass, “he’ll have to go . his 
way while I go mine.” 
T URNING from the mirror, she 
slipped off her blouse and with white 
arms over her head, began to let down 
her hair. With the pins out, down it 
cascaded over white neck and shoulders, 
crinkly, silky, brown and long, reaching 
well below her waist, and making a coat 
that shone and gleamed in the lamplight. 
Slowly and absent-mindedly she brushed 
it, while in a sort of confused medley her 
tired thoughts went over and over again 
the milk situation, Harry Bradley, her 
quarrel with her father, and Jim Taylor. 
The hair-brushing slowed up, and 
stopped, while tears glistened for a mo¬ 
ment in the brown eyes of the girl in 
the glass. 
“Jim was always such a dear when we 
were kids. . . Probably I bothered him 
a lot tagging him around, but he never 
let on if I did. . . Then there was that 
night when he kissed me goodby before 
I went away to school.” 
The hair-brushing began again. 
“But he’s changed since I came back, 
or else I have. All he thinks of and 
talks about is that League business”—• 
and then face and neck in the glass 
turned red, as she thought how Jim had 
turned his back on her that day when 
she had humbled her pride to come back 
to talk with him after the meeting. 
With a final fling of long woven braids 
Dorothy laid down the law to the girl 
in the glass: 
“When you talk to Jim Taylor again, 
Mr. Jim will do the first speaking!” 
S HE stopped, as if struck with another 
thought. 
“Now Harry doesn’t get up in the air 
so. Sort of comforting, too, when one 
is all wrought up—decent, ambitious, 
considerate, always just the same, one 
day with another,” ... a long look at 
the girl in the glass, then “and the other 
night, he told you he loved you. I 
wonder—” 
But what she wondered, she did not 
even admit to herself. 
The little room was stuffy and hot, and 
the oil lamp made it hotter. So aftci 
she was undressed, instead of going di¬ 
rectly to bed, Dorothy went over to sit 
on the little stool at the open window. 
It was a childhood habit, followed when 
things had gone wrong. After a while 
the gentle breeze, the stars and the calm 
night soothed and quieted her. 
Over the Eastern hills climbed the 
silver moon. In the swamp at the foot 
of the pasture where the cows were 
turned for the night, a hoot owl gave 
voice to his mournful meditations. Some¬ 
where a dog barked occasionally, and 
when Dorothy listened, she could just 
hear the faint jingle of a sheep bell on 
some distant hill. But the few lone¬ 
some sounds accentuated rather than 
broke the silence. 
A S she watched the rising moon, pick¬ 
ing out the shadows of the familiar 
landscape, Dorothy was startled for a 
moment to see a man’s figure and the 
glow of his pipe as he sat on a chopping 
block in the wood yard south of the 
house. Then she knew it was her father. 
“Dad,” she called softly. 
“Yes, Dot.” 
“Wait a minute. I’m coming down.” 
Slipping on a warm coat, she tiptoed 
down the stairs, out through the kitchen, 
and across the yard, to old John Ball. 
She hesitated a moment and then put 
her hand on his shoulder. For a time 
the spell of the night and their own 
thoughts held them silent. 
' (Columned on Page 454) 
