E-text prepared by Al Haines LYDIA OF THE PINES by HONORE WILLSIE Author of "The Heart of the Desert," "Still Jim," etc. With Frontispiece in Colors by Eric Papse [Transcriber's note: frontispiece missing from book.] A. L. Burt Company Publishers------New York Published by arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Company 1917 CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE TOY BALLOON II THE HEROIC DAY III THE COTTAGE IV THE RAVISHED NEST V ADAM VI THE COOKING CLASS VII THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE VIII THE NOTE IX THE ELECTION X THE CAMP XI LYDIA GIGGLES XII THE HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR XIII THE INDIAN CELEBRATION XIV THE HARVARD INSTRUCTOR XV THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS XVI DUCIT AMOR PATRIAE XVII THE MILITARY HOP XVIII THE END OF A GREAT SEARCH XIX CAP AND GOWN XX THE YOUNGEST SCHOLAR LYDIA OF THE PINES CHAPTER I THE TOY BALLOON "I am the last of my kind. This is the very peak of loneliness."--_The Murmuring Pine_. There is a State in the North Mississippi Valley unexcelled for its quiet beauty. To the casual traveler there may be a certain monotony in the unending miles of rolling green hills, stretching on and on into distant, pale skies. But the native of the State knows that the monotony is only seeming. He knows that the green hills shelter in their gentle valleys many placid lakes. Some of them are shallow and bordered with wild rice. Some are couched deep in the hollow of curving bluffs. Some are carefully secreted in virgin pine woods. From the train these pines are little suspected. Fire and the ax have long since destroyed any trace of their growth along the railway. Yet if the traveler but knew, those distant purple shadows against the sky-line are primeval pine woods, strange to find in a State so highly cultivated, so dotted with thriving towns. In summer the whole great State is a wonderland of color. Wide wheat lands of a delicate yellowish green sweep mile on mile till brought to pause by the black green of the woods. Mighty acres of corn land, blue-green, march on the heels of the wheat. Great pastures riotous with early goldenrod are thick dotted with milk herds. White farmhouses with red barns and little towns with gray roofs and green shaded streets dot the State like flower beds. An old State, as we measure things out of New England, settled by New Englanders during the first great emigration after the War of 1812. Its capital, Lake City, lays claim to almost a century of existence. Lying among the hills in the northern part of the State, it contains both the state capitol and the state university. Of its thirty thousand inhabitants, five thousand are students and another five thousand are state legislators and state employees.