a | gry THE DAILY BRITISH "WHIC, KINGSTON. Th r ifty How Mother Nature Tears Away The Tinsel of Life--An Inspiring Story of Hardship, Youth and Love. 7 girl, stormful and ~ebellious, T had come out of the old tarm- house above Fraternity, and without much caring In which direc- tion she turned walked across the stubble of the freshly cut .naidow toward the edge of the woods At the crest of the hill, This meadow was really a high plateau; it was fringed with ushes which grew along the crumbling stony wall which bordered it, and with birck and wild cherry trees here and there along !ts edge. Betwesn these trees she could look .broad ancross a wooded valley. down ~hose middie meanderski the dead water of the George's River, backed up »y the mil dam at the village. There had been a light she er at| dzwn, woarce sufficient to settle the dust; and the alc, thus clariried, lent lovely colors to the countryside. Leep grean of hemlock and spruce ard pipe. etraggling tracery of hackma- tack, highter green of the birch tops aimoat yellow !n the heart of the wocds: tie blue of distant hillsides; the blues of the sky; the yellow glory of sunlight drenching everything In ap uncut strip of meadow white daisies bloomed. There were birds about, But to all theses matters Lucla Moore was oblivious. She knew cnly that her father was stubborn and unreasonable, ber mother supine, the world at an {ll turn. Drops of water on the stubble wet her ankles: dust and water combined to mnddy her Imp=acticable shoes; an ccecaslonal bramble tore at her siiken stockings. She came to the stone wall ut the brink of tha hill and chose a large boulder half-shaded by an apple tree that was all run to suckers, .nd sat down on it, her feet propped upon a atone below, her elbows on her kaees, her chin cupped in her hands. The girl's eyes were sulky, and er lips pouted. There was a hint of color not their own upon these lips of hers, and her eyebrows were plucked to a thin line, their smooth arch distort- ed by the frown she wove. Her dress was short, and her present posture revealed her thin, unformed legs, which confirmed the almost ema- clated slimness of her figure, She stared unseeingly across the ovely land. . Industrious Johnny OWN the slope below her 4 to the right Johnny Dree was dusting kis orchard. His well-trained team knew their work: they a ew the sledge on which he had secured the dusting machine up and down between the wide-spaced rows: snd Johnny himself controlled and a'- rected ' the blast of dust which --- He did emile this time. "The Aust's poison," he explained. "It sticks to the leaves, and they eat it with the leaves, and it kills them." "Why?" she asked. He understood that she was in- terested not in the process but the reason for it. "So they won't hurt the trees; so the trees will bear bet- ter," he told her. "Papa doesn't do that to our 'rees," she said. . He turned away, and she thought he smiled. "That's right," he agreed, She looked around her, "Ang there are lots more apples on your trees than on ours, too." "That's because I dust 'em and Spray 'em and take care of them," he sald. "You've got to treat an apple tree right If you want it to bear right." She came gingerly to his side and inspected the duster and asked ques- tions about it, wrinkling her nose at the smell! of the dust; ana he an- swered her questions, warming a little at her interest in that which was dear to him. She perceived that she pleased him, and pretended even greater interest, and smiled at him in her most charming fashion. Turn- ed from the machine to the trees about them, plucked en apple and bit Inter 1 and threw it away with a grimace. His engine still coughed and barked: he showed no disposition to shut off its ignition and give his time to her. She discovered a waxy bandage upon one of the trees and asked what it was and he told her it was a graft, and would have added some explanation, but her attention tlitted elsewhere. "Where do you lve? she asked presently, "That house up thers?" Yes" "Is it your house?" "My mother's and mine," he replied. She turned the full battery of her eyes upon him. "Why haven't you come up to see a fellow?" she asked. "I've, been awfully lonesome here." {He was not at all disconcerted, as she had expected him to be. "I hadn't thought of it" he said. 'I'm pretty busy." "You'll think of it now, won't you?" she begged prettily. She was, this morning, in a reckless mood; she had been, was still, a spoiled child. "I might" he assented, and she thought again there was a smile deep hidden in his eyes. "I'm used to having boys crazy to come and see me," she sald wistful- ly; and he did smile; and she was satisfied with this much of victory, and turned and ran away. From the border of the orchard, she looked back and lifted her. hand to him. He smothered the trees, depositing Itself on every If and twig. Now and then, at the turnings, he called a command to the horses; or ran ahead to tug at their reins. He was doing two men's work and doing it with very little effort. ¥oje voiced, pitched musically, carried far ncrose the still hillside on this quiet morning; and the whir of the .uster carried farther. The spouting clouds of heavy dust rose above the trees, to settles swiftly down again, Lucia Moore heard his voice, heard the duster's purring, punctuated by the bark of the exhaust; she looked in his direction and saw the violently spouting dust, and wondered ho he was and what he was doing. She had an uncontrolled curiosity, and after a few moments her awakenca interest brought hér down the alll Sh. entered the orchard at he ide where the Wolf Rivers were .lanted, a hundred trees of them, the fruit already filling and coloring. Johnny's father had set out this small orchard with discretion; a hundred Wolt Rivers, a hundred Starks, a hundred Ben Davises. Hardy apples, easily tended, easily handled, easily mar. keted. Wolf Rivers for fancy ade for the great city hotels to bake and to serve, crispy browned, with rich cream; Starks and Ben Davises for keeping through the winter. Johnny was in the middle of the Starks when he eaw Lucla oming toward him among the trees. After the fashion of the countryside, he looked at her with frank curlcsity Ho bad seen her, at some distince, onde or twice hetore, since Walter Moore bought! ths run-down farm on the hili-top above his orchard. Had summarized his impressions of .ouge, plucked brows, short dresses in a elagle phrase, "a city girl" Thera Was no malice In thy appellation; i¢ was simply a cassifortion. Her ap- proach now Ald not embarrass bin: there is a Jelf-respect in sush men rot easiy (isturbed. Jhe bad paused between two trees ot a print he wes approaching, and whe he taiue necr where she stood no stopuid the harses and waltas for ber 0 spéei her errand A First Encounter TCA locked at him wurioisly, She wae just tweuty years old, but he was only two or ihree years oliler, and she was used to boys. His overalls were patched and faded from much washing: hs blae ~hirt seemed frech and clean; she 'hought him nice looking and when she was ure this, smiled most dazzlingly. Johnny tuggod off his cap at tbat nd Lucia sald precisely: do you do? Miss Moore," Johnny re- eyes widened in a pretty af. fectation, "Oh, how did you know His Ups were inscrutable, "but his eyes were amused. "I guess every- body around here knows you." She pouted a little. "That doesn't & ow touched his hat in a restrained fashion by way of response; and she ascended the hill, at peace with the world again. And this was the first encounter between the tender of trees and Lucia Moore. H Lucia a Problem ER father had bought the farm during the winter from Dan Howe, who moved away to Augusta. Dan, Fraternity said, made a good thing out of it. He had paid eighteen hundred, two years before, and had sold off three hundred dollars' worth of hard wood for ship timbers, cart- ed to Camden. The price Moore paid him was thirty-three hundred dollars. Moore had thought the figure high; but there was in the man a bunger for contact with the soil. His father had been a farm boy, had harked back to his youthful days in reminiscence during his later years, His death left Moore some fifty-two hundred dollars, and made it possible for him to escape from the small store he had run for years in Som- erville, at a yearly profit less than he might have earned as salary He and his wife had perceived, by that time, that Lucla--they had christened ber Lucy--was a problem in need of solving. Lucia liked mov- Ing pictures, and dancing, and boys, and she was not strong. Country life, they thought, would be good for her; and Moore did not cavil at Dan Howe's price. Sava for u few hun- dred dollars, he put the remainder of lis legacy, wnd his own savings, into a newly organized automcbile company which seemed to him promising, 2nd came {o above Fraternity. Bince than he bad been iearnlng by experience (hat a hore which can be butgat mii to feed them, aud that the directions in printed manuals of the art of farming are not so complete and so reliable as they seen. He was not a practical man. Even the automebile investment had turn- ed out badly; the company was naw Quietly defunct, without even the formality of a receiver. And he owed a mounting bill at Will Bissell's store. If it had been possible, he would have escaped from the farm and returned to bondage; but no one would buy the place and his debts Sto Lucy," he sald wearily. "You're talk- ing about impossible things." The swift temper which sometimes possessed the girl flamed up at him. "You make me sick!" she cried. "You Just sit back and let the world walk over you. You've stuck yourself with sit still and let it smother you. Why don't you try to do something, any- way? Johnny says you've got good orchard land as there is. But you just look wise, and think you know it all, and won't do anything." Her mother said wearily; you oughtn't to swear at father." "Well, he makes me mag! the girl cried, furiously defiant. "He's such a stubborn fool!" Moore wiped his forehead with his handkerchiet and smiled weakly. "l guess I'm a failure, all Lucia," he agreed. "You're right to swear at a father like me." At his humility, her revulsion was 48 swift as her anger had been; ten- derness swept her. She pressed against him where he sat beside the table, and with her thin arm drew his head against her fleshless bosom. "You're not, either, papa!" she cried passionately, "You're always so patient with me. But I do wish you'd talk to Johnny Dree!™ He reached up to touch her cheek caressingly. "That's all right, honey," he sald. "But you will talk to Johnny?" The man nodded at last. "All right, Lucy. Yes, I'll talk to him." A Girls Rebellion OHNNY DREE iound a little time, even during the busy weeks of the apple pickin=, to go with Moere through his orzhard, and to search out the trees scattered along the stone walls. Fe began the work of pruning and trimming them, showed Moore, ard showed Lucy, how to "Lucy, your the hills | continue it. Bade Moore plew under the thick 804 ar>und the base of each ires. "Nothing like grass to steal the water an apple tree needs," for scventy doliare- js |e exdiained. prebakly cot worth it, and that pigs | Weeds. cannot proiitably be raised with noi™Much had bean done. "Grass 's worse than the snow came, Moore sald ilefore oncd, diffidently: "I'd jixe to hire you to help me along with this, Dree!" But Jenny shook his head. "You don't want to lure help only when you have to," he said. ** just come up when I'm not busv at home. You can help me with haying and things, some time." The seasons marched monotonous. ly on. The erisp sunshine of fail days, with frost t'sgling in the alr, gave way to bleaker weather, ani then to the full rigors of harsh cold, when snow lay talck across hills, blanketing everything, ny roal, and he asked in a 2:f 2 : shedd 2 T i § "You fool! You fool!" she cried. this farm, and now you're going to | right, | C were getting to like it. maybe." And S0 passed on, leaving Ner curiously chastened by nis tery mildness. There was on interminable same- | ness in the days. 70 rise early, to do |the morning choces, and cook, aad | eat, and wash dishes, and dust, and cook, and eat, and wash dishes, and sew, and cook, and eat, and wash dishes, and read tLe paper, and £0 fumingly to Led. This was Lucia's bitter life. But because it is impossible te '.314 indignation always at its highest pitch, there were hours when sae forgot to be unhappy: there wa-e hours when she found something like pleasure in tuis ordered simplicity of life. Now and then Johnny came in of an evening, and sat in the {dining room with them all and talk- ed with her father = bout apple trees; and Lucla liked, at tirst, to practise her small cajoleries upon him. He quickly began to call her Lucia, then Lucy as her rather and mother di, She preferred tha simpler name, upon his simple lips. When the ¢now thinned spi &is- appeared, and nex grass pushed greenly up throuzh the brown that clothed the fields, she was stronger than she had ever been. Her arms were rounding, ner figure assum.ng the proportions for which it was de signed; and her color ro longer re- quired external application, When Johnny toek Moore into his own orchard and showed him how to apply the dormant spray, and how to search out the borers in the hase of the trees and kill them with a bit of wire or with a plug of pulsomed cotton, and all the ether mysteries of orchardry, Lucy liked to go along, and learned to d) these tasks as well as Johnny, and bvetter than her (a- ther did. The trees throve and put out a great burst of bloom, and all the hillside was aglow with co.or. Lucy began to see hove gf re'ease from this long bondage here. When the apples were sold, if the market was good, Johany thought they might make five or six hundsel dollars in a year, "lI Hate This Farm" HEN one midnight she awoke shivering in a sharp blast from her open window, and drew fresh blankets ever her: and in the morn- ing there was white frost on the ground, and Johunuy came up the hill with a philosophic smile upon his face. Moore met him at the kitchen door. "Well" sald Johany slowly. "We don't do well this year. This frost has nipped them. ! guess not bearlag will give your trees a chance to gat a better start." Moore acceptsd the cdlamity with mild protest. Said blankly: "No apples. Why, I've got to have soi.e- thing--* --By Ben Ames Williams ILLUSTRATED "There've got to be cpples!" "Be still your nolre," he said, no more loudly than pefere. But the in- sistence in his velce constrained her, and she began to weep bitterly, and slumped against hira, shaken and half fainting. "You can't talk that way," he told her. "It's no way. to talk. You got to be a sport. It's a part of the busi- ness, Lucy. Now you go in the house and wash your face and help with breakfast. I want to talk to your father. Go along." Her father watched her; and his face was white with surprise and consternation. But Lucy turned and went obediently into the house, and he looked after her, and looked at Johnny Dree; and Johnny grinned, a little sheepishly. "You see," he sald, ignoring what had happened. "Thing is, you can raise some garden stuff, and some chickens and things, and get along. We're due for a good year next year." Walter Moore nodded. "That's all right," he assented, and looked again at the door through which Lucy had gone. "But I'd like to shake hands with you, Dree. I'd like to shake your hand." Deepening Understanding HE stoic patience of the farmer, who serves a capricious mas- ter and finds his most treasured works casually destroyed by that master's slightest whim, takes time to learn, but is a might, armor, when it has been put on. It was Johnny's Dree's heritage; it was, in remoter line, the heritage also of Walter Moore. It bore them through that summer, and through the frost- hued glory of the fall There is a pleasure in a task well done, regardless of reward; and when Moore surveyed his trees, he found this pleasure. Johnny Dree confirm- ed it. "They're like money in the bank, Mr. Moore," he said. "You can't lose it, and it pays you inter- est right along. We're due for a good apple year, next year." Moore nodded. "I'm beginning to like it here," he assented. "It was tough, at first. But I'm no worse in debt than I was last year, and 1 ought to bear." "Aye," sald Johnny Dree. "You've got something to build on, now, It'll 80 easier, from now on." Moore had learned many things, In these months that had gone; and so had Lucy. And so had Johnny Dree, Lucy was teaching him a thing he had never had time to learn; she was teaching him to play. When snow came, he brought her, one day, snow- shoes; and thereafter ' ap i ef BY H. S BARBOUR Bissell's store, Fraternity folk are not overly social in thelr inclin- ations. Once he took her to a grange dance, and she found him surprisingly adequate in this new role, found an unsuspected pleasure in the rustic merry-making she would, two years before, have seorned. Johnny did not smoke, and she asked him why; he said he didn't want to waste the money. Yet once when he went to East Harbor, he brought her a flower, in a pot; and when she asked him if that wasn't wasting money, he smiled a little and said he did not think it was, Self-Discipline NE day, to torment him, she cried: 'I'd 'give a lot for a cigaret. 1 haven't had one for'days. Will you get me some, next time you're at the store. I don't dar. buy them there." Johnny merely smiled at her and replied: "I guess if you ever did smoke them, you don't any more." One day her snow-shoe caught on a broken stub and threw her for- ward into the snow, She sald: "Oh, damn!" More in jest than in anger. Lifting her to her feet, he com- mented: "lI shouldn't think a girl swear much." , "I like to," she insisted. 'It make me feel good when I'm mad." "I never could see it helped me any" he rejoined, mildly, enough. But she thereafter guarded her tongue, until the necessity for restraint had disappeared. Self discipline was one of the things she learned from Johnny, You could hardly say they had a romance. They grew together, as naturally 'as stock and scion~graft- ed by his skilful hands. They had this great community of interest in the trees which were his work, which she had come to love. Their forward looking eyes were centred on the harvest time, now a scant year away, when the fruition of their labors could be expected; and their anticipations were tranquil and serene, They talked, sometimes, of what We meant to make of his life. won't always be a farmer, will you?" she asked. "I guess I will," he told her. "Slaving away here?" He smiled a little. "There's a man up in Winterport," he said. "He planted some apple trees twenty years ago, and more and more since, and he's got ten thousand trees, now. I went up there two years ago on the orchard tour the Farm Bureau runs. He cleared over twen- ty thousand dollars, that year, on his apples. "Ten thousand trees. I've only got four hundred; but I'm putting in two hundred more next spring, and more when I can, and my land is better would than his, 'and there's more around me I can buy. It's clean work. You can learn a lot from an apple tree, and eating apples never did anybody much harm. And you've time for thinking, while you work on the trees--" She slipped her hand through his arm in understanding, as they tramped along. Iu December his mother, who had suffered for half a dozen years from a mysterious weakness of the heart, was taken sick with what at first seemed a slight cold. In early Jan- uary, she died. Walter Moore and his wife and Lucy were among those who followed the little cortege to the receiving tomb where--becausa the frost had fortified the earth against the digging of a grave -- his mother's body would lie till spring. Lucy was mysteriously moved by the pity of this; that a woman should die, and yet be kept waiting for her final sweet repose in the bosom of the earth. After supper that evening, she drew on coat and heavy overshoes and muffled her head against the bitter wind that biew. "I'm going down to cheer up Johnny, mama," she sald. Moore and his wife, when the door had closed behind her, looked at each other with deep understanding. "Well" he said, "I guess Lucy's gone." But his wife smiled through misty eyes. "She's come back to us these last two years," she said. "No mat- ter what happens, she can't really £0 away again." "You're Mighty Sweet" ov at Johnny's house, Lucy knocked at the kitchen door and Johnny let her in. 'Je was washing dishes and putting them away, "I've finished supper, just finished supper." he sald aswkwardly. "I wanted to comfort you, Johnny," Lucy told him. He looked at her, rubbing his plate in his hands with the cloth, "That's-- mighty nice," he said. "You mustn't be unhappy. I don't want you to be unhappy," she ex- plained, still standing just within the door. She was plucking away her wraps, laid her coat aside. 'You're a mighty sw2et girl," John. ny told her, rubbing his plate as though the motion of his hands had hypnotized him. "lI want to take care of you," said Lucy. Johnny considered, and saw that she had come a little nearer where he stood. "I guess 't would be rice if we got married," he suggested. "Wouldn't it?" Lucy suddenly smiled, amused at him. Her eyes, full of tears, were dancing, " think 1t would be nice, Johnny," she agreed And moved a little nearer st'll, She did not have to go all the way. The plate unbroken by its fall, rolled across the floor toward the Stove, and tilted over there, and whirled to rest like a dying top, oscil. lating to and fro on its tim with a sound faintly like the sound of bells. They were married tn March; and as though upon a si: winter drew back from the land, taking with it i and in due time the grass tenderly was seemed | cy rried all day tely i H E sq ; ] ; i i i hi i it | : if Ex 4] i £ § k i ! i i eX t : g HT ii jit i HE [ mi i] "You T ormous. And this was one of those years when elsewhere orchards had failed, so that prices were enhanced and buyers were eager. The Tree's Lesson Oe day in October, une Sunday afternoon, when Johnny and Lucy had gone up the kill to have dinner with the older folk, Johnny and Walter Moore walked into the orchard and surveyasd the trees. "A big year," Johnny sald. "The biggest 1 ever saw. Your apples will bring you close to seven hundred dollars." Moore nodded. "It makes me--kind of humble," he said. "It doesn't seem possible. And--it's so different from what my life has been. So great a change, these last two years--" Johnny looked up at him. "You've told me," he assented. Anal he smiled a little. "You know, l've sald to Lucy sometimes, you can learn a lot from an apple tree. If it's got grass and weeds around its roots, trey starve it for water; and the scale and the aphis and the borer hurt it; and the suckers waste its strength. "You were kind of lixe that, when you came up here. You'd been crowd. ed in with a lot of other folks--grass and weeds around yuu, cutting oft the alr and the good things you needed. "And the way you !lved, there were all sorts of things hurting you; no exercise, and no time to yourself, and Lucy's dancing all night, and smoke- ing, and your inside work and all, the way the bugs hurt a tree." He smiled apologetically. "And things like that stock of yours, sucking your money the way suckers drain a tree--" "That's right," Moore agreed. *I couldn't see it then; but I felt it, even then. And 1 couldn't believe these treey would come back, and more than I expected to be so differen myself, up here, 1! feel new, an strong, now, Like the trees. All the wasteful things trimmed out of our lives, Mrs, Moore was never so well. And Lucy--I bave to thank you for Lucy, Dree, She used to worry me. She doesn't, now. (Copyright, 1934.) ------------------------ Eucalyptus Oil L Used in Motor Fuel HE Australian government is in« teresting itself in certain experie ments which have been made with the intent of using eucalyptus ofl as a motor fuel. The experiments were performed by Captain C. M. Dyer, who claims to have established that eucalyptus oil can be used in gase- line engines, with efficient means of vaporization. The only difficulty is that it will not start an engine from cold without priming. On the other hand, the calorific value is high, Tests made with cheap cars are re- ported to have shown that a run on gasoline gave twanty-four miles to the gallon. When the cars were. run on a mixture containing half gado- line and half eucalyptus oil, twenty« eight miles were obtained per gal- lon, while when run on eucalyptus oil alone, as much as thirty six miles per gallon of the fuel were obtained. He stutes that euca« lyptus eil will mix well with gaso« line, benzol and alcohol, and that it acts as a decarbonizing agent, maintaining the cy'inders and pistons free from carbon. There are seventy different varieties of the eucalyptus tree In Australia. The oll ylelds range from 0.02 to ?5 pounds per thousand pounds or the leaf treated. Distillation is a simple process, re- quiring no skilled labor. The main difficulty of manufacture on a large Scale would be laber for gathering the leaves.--Chemical Age of Log- don. Steam Locomotive Without Any Fire SING a mass of hot water for U the storage of steam in the form of heat, is the basis ofa steam accumulator which is béing employed in a variety of ways. More recently, this principle has been successfully applied by the Baldwin Locomotive Works to a number of locomotives in order to meet special operating conditions, Where smoke or gases are objection able and electrification is unware ranted, these locomotives fill a need. The reservoir is filled about two thirds full of water. The water is then heated from a stationary boller to a pressure equivalent to 200 pounds per square inch. A reduce ing valve delivers steam to the cy=- linders at approximately 60 pounds pressure. As the steam is drawn off, the heat stored In the water causes further evaporation and in part re- pienishes the steam supply. The charge of steam or heat will usually last from three to four hours, when it is again necessary to recharge the reservoir from the stationary plant, It might seem that this system would suffer unduly from heat loss es, but it is, of course, a simple mat. ter to give the reservoir the neces sary Insulation.---Sclentific Ameri can, Wind Your Watch . In the Morning ARRY HOLTON, a watch maker of Wells River, Vere mont, kept a record of watch sp! breakages covering a number of years and found that out breakages during the period, 7 curred fol the winding watch at nigh ly lowing explanation of the suggested: A and has Faz 258 i i : i § : § ; : J i | = ; # Hk sks i ; gE ie i Hi] § g