Comrades Only [pp. 287-293]

Comrades Only.
her talk about culture can't hide her old
age."
"Fifty? you don't say! I've often won dered, but-Jimmie stop wetting your finger
every time you turn a page of that album.
You've left a great thumb mark on every
page, you wicked boy. Stop, or I'll whip
you.
"No, you wont," nonchalantly retorted
Jimmie, continuing to moisten his thumb in
order to make the pages turn more easily.
"Did you hear me, Jimmie Richards?"
"Yes, ma.;'
"WAVell, you better mind, then. Where
was I, Mrs. Stillwell? 0, about Luridy
Janes's age. According to that, her mother
must be nearly a hundred. Awful homely
old woman, isn't she?- uncultivated, too.
Why, what do you think? The other day,
says she to me,'I've been tryin' to per suade Luridy to take dancin' lessons one is
invited out so much more when one dances.'
But Luridy says, says she:'Don't you think
it's most too late for me to learn to dance?
I'm going on fifty.'"
"I should say!" exclaimed Mrs. Stillwell,
who was eyeing Jimmie nervously. He had
removed all the bric-a-brac from mantels, ta bles, and brackets, and had made a Noah's
ark procession of the articles, two and two,
that stretched clear across the room.
"Jimmie Richards!" cried his mother,
"you just put them things back. He don't
mean any harm, Mrs. Stillwell. Boys will
be boys. Jimmie, mind me this instant."
"Yes, ma," he replied, without the smallest idea of obeying.
There was an ominous silence of one minute, then Jimmie rent the air with a piteous
howl.
"There, now, you'll disobey me again, will
you?"
She thrust him into a chair beside her.
MVrs. Stillwell replaced her bric-a-brac, and
then the two women resumed their comments, but this time upon people not concerned in this narration.
Lurida, in the meantime, was forming the
acquaintance of the shop-keeper, who seemed
more like a gentleman of high standing than
VOL. VII.-I9.
like a dairyman. He had placed the five
cents' worth of milk in the can and returned
it to her. Still she lingered.
"Curious old girl, that," irreverently
thought the proprietor, who was wondering
why she did not go. Lurida's eyes rested up on the window, in which were tastefully ar ranged some plants-two palms, and a num ber of tall ferns.
"How pretty your window is. Who would
ever have thought of making a store out of
this old house. You can't imagine how sur prised we were to see a store opened in our
square. It is the first time."
"Just because it never had been, did you
think it never could be?-is that the theory
you follow out in life?" he asked, with a
shadow of annoyance in his voice.
" 0, well, we thought we were too far up
town to siofter from such an invasion," she
answered, without taking his feelings into con sideration.
"You are too conservative for an Ameri can," he answered, quickly. "I have been
trying all my life to make that the central
idea of my writings a broader social de mocracy than we have now. They talk of
European aristocracy —there is no country
in the world where people are so rigidly ex clusive as in America exclusive to every thing but money. Bah!"
"You write, then?" asked Lurida, with
renewed interest, looking about the shop interrogatively.
"You wonder why I am here if I write?"
he said. "Well, I wouldn't be here if people bought what I wrote. It is one thing to
write, and quite another to make money in
that calling."
"Are your family going to live here in the
house?" inquired Lurida, eager to know
more of this singular person.
"Family?" he repeated, with a vague look
of dismay. "Famlily? I have none-never
had. Fact is, I am both an orphan and a
bachelor."
Then you will have plenty of room hereand quiet," smilingly responded Lurida, taking her leave.
"Well, Lurida Janes, did you stop to help
1886.]
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