The Little Immigrant | Page 4

time.
"Is not this solemn beauty? Somehow it hurts, it is so beautiful," said
Renestine quietly, her large eyes dreamy and full of softness.
"Ah, you have a poet's soul, Miss Jewel. Will you tell me something of
your life? You were not born here?"
They were walking up and down the broad verandah and Renestine was
telling him of the little mother so far away, parted from, perhaps never
to be seen again. She was saying, "At last when the time came to say
good-bye, I clung to my mother's form and in that moment could see
my soul, bared, bruised, wounded and somehow the little girl passed
with that parting and although I was but a few months younger than I
am to-night, I am here just one year, I feel much changed and older."
Her lids closed and Jaffray did not interrupt. "Mr. Starr, do you know
of any experience more cruel than this parting of parents in Europe
with their children to come to America? I think of it now so often. I
think there cannot be in all life . . . ."
Jaffray saw the tears in those wonderful eyes. "No, Miss Jewel, no. I
know of nothing more humanly cruel! I, too, parted from my beloved
mother and twin sister when a mere lad to cross the ocean to seek my
fortune in America. A lad barely fifteen years of age, I had no idea of
what I was going out to meet in the world when I took my small
belongings and journeyed toward these shores. There were no friends,
no relatives where I was going; all those were being left behind; but the
spirit of adventure possessed me and I wanted more freedom to work
out my destiny in and the parting had to be for me and I cannot tell you
how I have suffered from homesickness for the beloved Mother and
good sister, for the little home in the Rhine village where the terraces of
grapes lay just back of our house; that never is forgotten, no matter how
long one lives. We have a common bond of sympathy, may I hope it
means a tie of friendship?"
She gave him her hand and shortly afterwards he led her back into the
ballroom; but the music could not tempt them to dance again and, after

seeing Renestine with friends, he said good-night and left.
It was near daylight when Jaffray smoked his last cigar and finally put
out the light in his little room in the hotel and went to bed.

Jaffray paid frequent visits to Houston from McKinney, after he met
Miss Jewel. Although Renestine was busy with her school work, her
sister permitted her, like all the young girls, to accept the attentions of
young men who wished to call or who invited her to social affairs.
Jaffray was some years older than Renestine and was aware that she
was but a school girl, untutored in the ways of the world, even less than
most girls of her age. But Renestine's modesty, her innocence, her
beauty, appealed to him as no other woman's charms had done and
thoughts of her took possession him. His stuffy little office in
McKinney, in the long, narrow store where general merchandise was
rather irregularly piled around in high wooden boxes, in barrels, and on
shallow shelves, became a prison house and the weeks endless terms of
sentence. It happened that be could not absent himself from duty
oftener than once every month and then only from Friday to Sunday
night. These days of freedom were now prized tenfold more dearly than
if he had had his time free to do as he wished.
Heretofore it had been his dearest wish to employ his spare time with
books, reading and studying to improve his mind and for the pleasure
that books gave him. Now his thoughts refused to concentrate upon
anything but Miss Jewel.
After some weeks of acquaintance there was an exchange of letters
which grew into a long correspondence. Those were happy days for
Jaffray! Eagerly he would look forward to the mail and from the receipt
of each of Renestine's letters to the next he would be in a heaven all his
own. He sent her songs and books of verse; he wrote long and
throbbing letters, and Winter and Spring, Summer and Autumn were
just one long summer day for him with the music of the birds overhead
and the earth a garden of blossoms.

CHAPTER III
TWO years went by and Renestine had been the bride of Jaffray Starr
three months. Grown into womanhood, she was radiant; happy in her
love and secure in the faith of her choice, she went forth from her
sister's home full of