That Girl of Johnson's — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ey _-: THAT GIRL OF JOHNSON’S. 161 of it, excepting it might be the one who had seen the most of her emotion. Sometimes the girl was tempted to ask about it, but the dread of bringing down something worse upon herself and her father kept her silent to suffer alone. Yet no one came but those who were in the habit of com- ing. Lodie came every day as promptly as the time of milking, his slouching figure growing so familiar to Dolores that she would actually have missed it had he failed to appear in the door-way of the shed as she milked Brindle, whose lean sides were fattening under better feeding, while his slow voice questioning gravely had grown so accus- tomed to saying: | * Ded yer feyther sleep well las’ night, D’lores? I kem outen hyar special ter know ef I ken see him a minute.” And she was growing accustomed to answer mechani- cally, yet with a warm feeling in her heart for the big fel- low’s kindly interest : “Thank you, Jim Lodie. My father slept well. Yes, you may see him.” And every morning when he was gone she grew in the habit of looking on the tiny window ledge beside the door for the bunch of flowers, sometimes hollyhocks, sometimes sweet wild roses or pinks that doubtless grew in the lot at the south of the tavern, pulled stealthily by Cinthy’s hand, in her willingness to please this strange, stolidly kind fel- low who was wooing her in this fashion, asking for her flowers to be given to the girl in the old house up yonder. And Dolores never looked in vain, for Cinthy’s heart was warm in spite of her mother’s anger should she discover this gift of her daughter. And she never saw more of this daughter of the tavern keeper than of the other women of the settlement, perhaps not even so much, for Mrs. Jones’ word was law to her daughter, and she spoke often of her in her zossip with her neighbors. But the destination of the flowers she knew nothing about and asked no ques- tions, for she favored the growing intimacy of her daugh- ter and Jim Lodie, and if Cinthy chose to give him her — SS (€(0) m Eomicboo