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"Well, after all, the country isn't such a bad place as some city folk think. " The young fellow who said this stood upon the highest point of the Ridge Road, where the land sloped abruptly to the valley in which lay the small municipality of Crawberry on the one hand, while on the other open fields and patches of woodland, in a huge green-and-brown checkerboard pattern, fell more easily to the bank of the distant river. Dotted here and there about the farming country lying before the youth as he looked westward were cottages, or the more important-looking homesteads on the larger farms; and in the distance a white church spire behind the trees marked the tiny settlement of Blaine's Smithy.
"Well, after all, the country isn't such a bad place as some city folk think."
The young fellow who said this stood upon the highest point of the Ridge Road, where the land sloped abruptly to the valley in which lay the small municipality of Crawberry on the one hand, while on the other open fields and patches of woodland, in a huge green-and-brown checkerboard pattern, fell more easily to the bank of the distant river.
Dotted here and there about the farming country lying before the youth as he looked westward were cottages, or the more important-looking homesteads on the larger farms; and in the distance a white church spire behind the trees marked the tiny settlement of Blaine's Smithy.
A Sabbath calm lay over the fields and woods. It was mid-afternoon of an early February Sunday-the time of the mid-winter thaw, that false prophet of the real springtime.
Although not a furrow had been turned as yet in the fields, and the snow lay deep in some fence corners and beneath the hedges, there was, after all, a smell of fresh earth-a clean, live smell-that Hiram Strong had missed all week down in Crawberry.
"I'm glad I came up here," he muttered, drawing in great breaths of the clean air. "Just to look at the open fields, without any brick and mortar around, makes a fellow feel fine!"
He stretched his arms above his head and, standing alone there on the upland, felt bigger and better than he had in weeks.
For Hiram Strong was a country boy, born and bred, and the town stifled him. Besides, he had begun to see that his two years in Crawberry had been wasted.
"As a hustler after fortune in the city I am not a howling success," mused Hiram. "Somehow, I'm cramped down yonder," and he glanced back at the squalid brick houses below him, the smoky roofs, and the ugly factory chimneys.
"And I declare," he pursued, reflectively, "I don't believe I can stand Old Dan Dwight much longer. Dan, Junior, is bad enough-when he is around the store; but the boss would drive a fellow to death."
He shook his head, now turning from the pleasanter prospect of the farming land and staring down into the town.
"Maybe I'm not a success because I don't stick to one thing. I've had six jobs in less'n two years. That's a bad record for a boy, I believe. But there hasn't any of them suited me, nor have I suited them.
"And Dwight's Emporium beats 'em all!" finished Hiram, shaking his head.
He turned his back upon the town once more, as though to wipe his failure out of his memory. Before him sloped a field of wheat and clover.
It had kept as green under the snow as though winter was an unknown season. Every cloverleaf sparkled and the leaves of wheat bristled like tiny spears.
Spring was on the way. He could hear the call of it!
Two years before Hiram had left the farm. He had no immediate relatives after his father died. The latter had been a tenant-farmer only, and when his tools and stock and the few household chattels had been sold to pay the debts that had accumulated during his last illness, there was very little money left for Hiram.
There was nobody to say him nay when he packed his bag and started for Crawberry, which was the metropolis of his part of the country. He had set out boldly, believing that he could get ahead faster, and become master of his own fortune more quickly in town than in the locality where he was born.
He was a rugged, well-set-up youth of seventeen, not over-tall, but sturdy and able to do a man's work. Indeed, he had long done a man's work before he left the farm.
Hiram's hands were calloused, he shuffled a bit when walked, and his shoulders were just a little bowed from holding the plow handles since he had been big enough to bridle his father's old mare.
Yes, the work on the farm had been hard-especially for a growing boy. Many farm boys work under better conditions than Hiram had.
Nevertheless, after a two years' trial of what the city has in store for most country boys who cut loose from their old environment, Hiram Strong felt to-day as though he must get back to the land.
"There's nothing for me in town. Clerking in Dwight's Emporium will never get me anywhere," he thought, turning finally away from the open country and starting down the steep hill.
"Why, there are college boys working on our street cars here-waiting for some better job to turn up. What chance does a fellow stand who's only got a country school education?
"And there isn't any clean fun for a fellow in Crawberry-fun that doesn't cost money. And goodness knows I can't make more than enough to pay Mrs. Atterson, and for my laundry, and buy a new suit of overalls and a pair of shoes occasionally.
"No, sir!" concluded Hiram. "There's nothing in it. Not for a fellow like me, at any rate. I'd better be back on the farm-and I wish I was there now."
He had been to church that morning; but after the late dinner at his boarding house had set out on this lonely walk. Now he had nothing to look forward to as he returned but the stuffy parlor of Mrs. Atterson's boarding house, the cold supper in the dining-room, which was attended in a desultory fashion by such of the boarders as were at home, and then a long, dull evening in his room, or bed after attending the evening service at the church around the corner.
Hiram even shrank from meeting the same faces at the boarding house table, hearing the same stale jokes or caustic remarks about Mrs. Atterson's food from Fred Crackit and the young men boarders of his class, or the grumbling of Mr. Peebles, the dyspeptic invalid, or the inane monologue of Old Lem Camp.
And Mrs. Atterson herself-good soul though she was-had gotten on Hiram Strong's nerves, too. With her heat-blistered face, near-sighted eyes peering through beclouded spectacles, and her gown buttoned up hurriedly and with a gap here and there where a button was missing, she was the typically frowsy, hurried, nagged-to-death boarding house mistress.
And as for "Sister," Mrs. Atterson's little slavey and maid-of-all-work--
"Well, Sister's the limit!" smiled Hiram, as he turned into the street, with its rows of ugly brick houses on either hand. "I believe Fred Crackit has got it right. Mrs. Atterson keeps Sister instead of a cat-so there'll be something to kick."
The half-grown girl-narrow-chested, round shouldered, and sallow-had been taken by Mrs. Atterson from some charity institution. "Sister," as the boarders all called her, for lack of any other cognomen, would have her yellow hair in four attenuated pigtails hanging down her back, and she would shuffle about the dining-room in a pair of Mrs. Atterson's old shoes--
"By Jove! there she is now," exclaimed the startled youth.
At the corner of the street several "slices" of the brick block had been torn away and the lot cleared for the erection of some business building. Running across this open space with wild shrieks and spilling the milk from the big pitcher she carried-milk for the boarders' tea, Hi knew-came Mrs. Atterson's maid.
Behind her, and driving her like a horse by the ever present "pigtails," bounded a boy of about her own age-a laughing, yelling imp of a boy whom Hiram knew very well.
"That Dan Dwight is the meanest little scamp at this end of the town!" he said to himself.
The noise the two made attracted only the idle curiosity of a few people. It was a locality where, even on Sundays, there was more or less noise.
Sister begged and screamed. She feared she would spill the milk and told Dan, Junior, so. But he only drove her the harder, yelling to her to "Get up!" and yanking as hard as he could on the braids.
"Here! that's enough of that!" called Hiram, stepping quickly toward the two.
For Sister had stopped exhausted, and in tears.
"Be off with you!" commanded Hiram. "You've plagued the girl enough."
"Mind your business, Hi-ram-Lo-ram!" returned Dan, Junior, grabbing at Sister's hair again.
Hiram caught the younger boy by the shoulder and whirled him around.
"You run along to Mrs. Atterson, Sister," he said, quietly. "No, you don't!" he added, gripping Dan, Junior, more firmly. "You'll stop right here."
"Lemme be, Hi Strong!" bawled the other, when he found he could not easily jerk away. "It'll be the worse for you if you don't."
"Just you wait until the girl is home," returned Hiram, laughing. It was an easy matter for him to hold the writhing Dan, Junior.
"I'll fix you for this!" squalled the boy. "Wait till I tell my father."
"You wouldn't dare tell your father the truth," laughed Hi.
"I'll fix you," repeated Dan, Junior, and suddenly aimed a vicious kick at his captor.
Had the kick landed where Dan, Junior, intended-under Hi's kneecap-the latter certainly would have been "fixed." But the country youth was too agile for him.
He jumped aside, dragged Dan, Junior, suddenly toward him, and then gave him a backward thrust which sent the lighter boy spinning.
Now, it had rained the day before and in a hollow beside the path was a puddle several inches deep. Dan, Junior, lost his balance, staggered back, tripped over his own clumsy heels, and splashed full length into it.
"Oh, oh!" he bawled, managing to get well soaked before he scrambled out. "I'll tell my father on you, Hi Strong. You'll catch it for this!"
"You'd better run home before you catch cold," said Hiram, who could not help laughing at the young rascal's plight. "And let girls alone another time."
To himself he said: "Well, the goodness knows I couldn't be much more in bad odor with Mr. Dwight than I am already. But this escapade of his precious son ought to about 'fix' me, as Dan, Junior, says.
"Whether I want to, or not, I reckon I will be looking for another job in a very few days."
"You're a creepy bastard." His eyes smolder me and his answering grin is nothing short of beautiful. Deadly. "Yet you hunger for me. Tell me, this appetite of yours, does it always tend toward 'creepy bastards'?" **** Widower and ex-boss to the Mafia, Zefiro Della Rocca, has an unhealthy fixation on the woman nextdoor. It began as a coincidence, growing into mere curiosity, and soon, it was an itch he couldn't ignore, like a quick fix of crack for an addict. He didn't know her name, but he knew every inch of her skin, how it flushed when she climaxed, her favourite novel and that every night she contemplated suicide. He didn't want to care, despising his rapt fascination of the woman. She was in love with her abusive husband. She was married, bound by a contract to the Bratva's hitman. She was off-limits. But when Zefiro wanted something, it was with an intensity that bordered on madness. He obsessed, possessed, owned. There'd be bloodshed if he touched her, but the sight of blood always did fascinate him. * When Susanna flees from her husband, she stumbles right into the arms of her devilishly handsome neighbour with a brooding glare. He couldn't stand her, but she needed him, if she was ever going to escape her husband who now wanted her dead. Better the devil you know than the angel you don't. She should have recalled that before hopping into Zefiro's car and letting him whisk her away to Italy. Maybe then, she wouldn't have started an affair with him. He was the only man who touched her right, and the crazy man took no small pains in ensuring he would be the last.
Kallie, a mute who had been ignored by her husband for five years since their wedding, also suffered the loss of her pregnancy due to her cruel mother-in-law. After the divorce, she learned that her ex-husband had quickly gotten engaged to the woman he truly loved. Holding her slightly rounded belly, she realized that he had never really cared for her. Determined, she left him behind, treating him as a stranger. Yet, after she left, he scoured the globe in search of her. When their paths crossed once more, Kallie had already found new happiness. For the first time, he pleaded humbly, "Please don't leave me..." But Kallie's response was firm and dismissive, cutting through any lingering ties. "Get lost!"
Rose looked at the reports in her hand and was in shock... The reports said that she was one month pregnant, however, how can she get pregnant when she didn't have any man in her life... "Was it because of that dream? Could I get pregnant because I have sex in my dream?" She thought... She didn't have any mental problems, however, except for this she can't able to think about anything... However, she still didn't get out of her surprise when she met the man in her dream... Kevin Davis looked at the reports in her hand and asked, "Is this child mine?" However, Rose didn't answer but asked... "Was that night not a dream?" Kevin was angry because it was his first time and she thinks it was a dream... Kevin forced her to marry him however, Rose didn't want it... She wanted to abort the child but he didn't let her... In the end... Rose agreed to marry him... She looked at Kevin's blue eyes and said, "I will marry you, however, I had two conditions..." "First, after marriage, you can't control my freedom, I still had the right to do whatever I want. Don't worry I won't harm the child." "Second, if I ever found out that you had cheated behind my back then I will leave with my child and you can't stop me..." Both of them got married... However, after she falls in love with him... She found there are hidden secrets in his past...
Life was perfect until she met her boyfriend's big brother. There was a forbidden law in the Night Shade Pack that if the head Alpha rejected his mate, he would be stripped of his position. Sophia's life would get connected with the law. She was an Omega who was dating the head Alpha's younger brother. Bryan Morrison, the head Alpha, was not only a cold-blooded man but also a charming business tycoon. His name was enough to cause other packs to tremble. He was known as a ruthless man. What if, by some twist of destiny, Sophia's path were to intertwine with his?
In order to fulfill her grandfather's last wish, Stella entered into a hasty marriage with an ordinary man she had never met before. However, even after becoming husband and wife on paper, they each led separate lives, barely crossing paths. A year later, Stella returned to Seamarsh City, hoping to finally meet her mysterious husband. To her astonishment, he sent her a text message, unexpectedly pleading for a divorce without ever having met her in person. Gritting her teeth, Stella replied, "So be it. Let’s get a divorce!" Following that, Stella made a bold move and joined the Prosperity Group, where she became a public relations officer that worked directly for the company’s CEO, Matthew. The handsome and enigmatic CEO was already bound in matrimony, and was known to be unwaveringly devoted to his wife in private. Unbeknownst to Stella, her mysterious husband was actually her boss, in his alternate identity! Determined to focus on her career, Stella deliberately kept her distance from the CEO, although she couldn't help but notice his deliberate attempts to get close to her. As time went on, her elusive husband had a change of heart. He suddenly refused to proceed with the divorce. When would his alternate identity be uncovered? Amidst a tumultuous blend of deception and profound love, what destiny awaited them?
Lindsey's fiancé was the devil's first son. Not only did he lie to her but he also slept with her stepmother, conspired to take away her family fortune, and then set her up to have sex with a total stranger. To get her lick back, Lindsey decided to find a man to disrupt her engagement party and humiliate the cheating bastard. Never did she imagine that she would bump into a strikingly handsome stranger who was all that she was currently looking for. At the engagement party, he boldly declared that she was his woman. Lindsey thought he was just a broke man who wanted to leech off her. But once they began their fake relationship, she realized that good luck kept coming her way. She thought they would part ways after the engagement party, but this man kept to her side. "We gotta stick together, Lindsey. Remember, I'm now your fiancé. " "Domenic, you're with me because of my money, aren't you?" Lindsey asked, narrowing her eyes at him. Domenic was taken aback by that accusation. How could he, the heir of the Walsh family and CEO of Vitality Group, be with her for money? He controlled more than half of the city's economy. Money wasn't a problem for him! The two got closer and closer. One day, Lindsey finally realized that Domenic was actually the stranger she had slept with months ago. Would this realization change things between them? For the better or worse?