Jim Millers Girls

Drury. Not Until I Find Out. The Second Campaign. Jack Millers Love. Xew Wine in Old Bottles. The Cyclone. Mrs. Pattersons Journal. Drurys Quest. Realized Dreams. Jim Millers Revenge. CHAPTER I. WATER-NYMPHS AT PLAY. It was early morning, and nature was just waking up to greet the sun, which was threatening to make his appearance over the eastern hilltops. A squirrel was chattering in a pecantree, and a mocking-bird, which had been singing to his mate all night, was making the grove across the creek ring with his wondrous melody. More than a mile away, on an eminence to the northwest, the big, deep-toned bell in the tower of the Convent, Villa Maria, was calling the students to early mass, and the distance so softened and mellowed the tones that they fitted harmoniously into the music of the beautiful morning. The Miller twins had returned from an Eastern college a year before, with notions in dey haids, as old Rilla, their negro nurse, had declared and one of these notions had been a bathhouse at the big spring, which came boiling up through the white sand on their fathers ranch. The water was the same temperature the year around, and the girls had never failed to take their refreshing morning bath, even on the few mornings there had been ice in the creek. They were in-the4water now, and Rilla was sitting on the steps watching them. I declar ter goodness, Rilla exclaimed, ef yall could only see how lubly an beautiful you are in that clar watah, Yall would jes have spells an spells. Yall minds me o that paintin what Mis Clarissa made an calls it Water-Nimfses. But, dalins, aint that watah too col I knows Id freeze to . def ef I was to stick jes one foot in dar. Yall makes me hab a chill jes a watchin you Why, Mammy, you make that same speech, and ask that same question, every time we come down here. You have been attending us at our morning baths for nearly a year, and you always ask, Aint it col No, we are used to it, and would not miss it for anything, Jessie replied. And you think we are perfecly lubly and beautiful in the water, do you, Mamrny Allie asked. Deed I does, babyichile. That watah is so clar I kin see the seams in yalls bathin-suits, and the stitches in yo hoses. Ef yall was to drap a pin in thar, I could see it from he-er. 0 then it is the water that is, so lovely and beautiful, instead of us, is it Go long now, Miss Allie. You allus is a catchin up yo po black mammy that a way. You knows I neber did see no one in all the whole world as purty as my baby twins. You is jes fishin fer a complement, aint she, Miss Jessie But Jessies gossamer-clad head was under the water, and she could not hear the question that clearly revealed the black nurses favorite. It was an inspiring picture that left nothing wanting to satisfy the heart of artist or poet... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.