Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 145, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1912 — Love and Loneliness [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Love and Loneliness

By A. Howard Gunter

(Copyright, 1912, by Associated Literary Press.)

New York Is larger than Bologee, Alabama, and Willy Ben Bibb, who knew every man, woman, child and dog in Bologee, did not' care rdf a town that was chiefly made up of strangers. He lived In one of those elegant apartment houses, where everything is done by magic. He pressed a button when he wanted anything and another button when he did not want anything. His laundry disappeared and reappeared while he was at work. Even his shoes were spirited away while he slept and, no matter how early he rose, never a glimpse could he catch of the bootblack. The elevator boy wore a mechanical, highly glazed look, the telephone girl was calm and repelling. If he ventured a salutation, the clerk at the desk gave him a reproving, impersonal bow. All of this was very painful to Willy Ben, who liked human beings. The truth is, he missed his mother and his six pleasant sisters, but he was capable and ambitious, and as mother’s cousin’s nephew had given him a good position in his law office, there seemed no excuse for a return to Bologee. When he left home Willy Ben- had brought his Bible, which he did not read; his tennis racket, with which be was making a reputation among the athletic clubs, and—his ideal. His mother had given him the ideal when he was a very tiny boy, his sisters had fostered It, and strange to say, it clung to him sturdily among the temptations of the city. All this partly explained his loneliness. He was dressing for tennis one afternoon, suffering at the same time violent pangs of homesickness, when a sharp tap sounded at the door. He flung It open and found a small messenger boy waving a telegram at him. “Come at once,” it commanded; “Miss Walton seriously injured. Maria Lorgey.” It gave an-address-on the lower east side. “Now who,” asked the puzzled Willy Ben, "is Mss-Walton? And whQ ls_ Maria Lorgey?’ —— • The messenger boy did not seem to know; he did not seem to care, so Willy Ben dismissed him and pon-

dered on the matter. There were his name and address written clea’rly on the envelope, yet he had never beard of either of the women who were sending him this urgent call from the unknown. He concluded it waa a plot to trap him, though why he should be trapped he could not imagine, for If he had few friends in the city he had to his knowledge no enemies. Obviously, the thing to do was to Ignore the telegram, but Willy Ben was young and hot-headed. He stuffed his revolver into his pocket and decided to walk Into the trap. The number given on the message proved to be one of a row of vaultlike structures facing a filthy street. There was no one n sight, but when Willy Ben rang, the door flew open instantly and out of the blackness within appeared two wild white eyes and a row of gleaming teeth. Willy Ben recoiled, then realized that this wap no apparition, but a ragged negro girl. “Is you Mr. Bibb?” she questioned, eagerly. ‘‘We ’lowed you’d, hurry. Come this way, suh.” She plunged back into the darkness. With some misgivings. Willy Ben followed her. Somewhere In the Inky blackness they stumbled on some crooked stairs and up, up, up interminably they, climbed, the ragged guide flitting W before. ;. At the top the girl stopped and pushed open a door. “Miss Walton's been kilt,” she whispered, in a scared voice. “Miss Marla’s done gone for the doctor.” Before Willy Ben could stop her, she was gone tearing down the steps an£ the blackness swallowed her up. . Willy Ben walked into a small, bare room. In the corner was a narrow bed, with a figure thrown limply across it He stole across the room and looked at her In wonder. She was a young girt, no. larger than hla sister Bess, and with beautiful hair like his sister Evelyn’s. It spread over the tied in disorder and framed a sad, little, lovely face. The waist was torn open at the neck and there was clotted bloodon her forehead, himselfin horror if shs were dead?

If it were only a feint, something must bp done for her, so he found a basin and, pouring some water Into it, knelt down by the bed and awkwardly began to bathe the girl’s forehead. So troubled was he that he forgot to wonder why ho had been sent for, until his eyes fell on a picture that hung by the bed. To his utter astonishment, Willy Ben found his own Image staring at him from an ornate gilt frame. Then be looked about the room and saw that he was everywhere. When he won the big tennis match from the champion of the Enderby Athletic association every paper in New York had printed his photograph, and here they all were, on walls and tables and dresser, the only pictures in the room. His address was printed under one of them and Willy Ben could now easily understand why the landlady had sent for him. But he had never seen the girl on the bed, he was sure of that, and why had she lined her walls with his photograph? There could be only one explanation. Willy Ben was strong, well-built, six-footer, but ho was not handsome, and to find that his rough-hewn, freckled countenance had appealed to one feminine heart was a wonderful thing. A deep crimson dyed his tanned cheeks. The stairs began to creak and a wheezing sounded regularly from below. Mrs. Lorgey and the doctor, ho supposed it must be. They puffed Into the room, a large oily woman and a large untidy man. While the doctor examined the girl, Mrs. Lorgey sank into a chair, oozing over the sides and began a grumbling explanation. “She came yesterday, and ’twas bad luck I took her In. I gave her the room most reasonable, and this morning she goes and gits run Into by a cab.” “A concussion,” murmured the flootor, soothingly, “only a slight concussion.” The landlady pointed to the picture of the young man. “I didn’t know where she come from nor anything about her, but I seen you was a friend of hern, so 1 sent for you on a guess.” Willy Ben was about to admit his Ignorance, hut he looked at the pictures of himself and then ait the pretty little girl on the bed. Beneath his tailor-made New York clothes his home-made Bologee heart swelled with pride. “She is a very dear friend of mine,” he answered tenderly, “and I Intend to have her moved to the hospital at once.” At the hospital, Emily Walton came back to consciousness to find a cleanlooking, red-headed young man sitting patiently beside her. For a long time she regarded him in silence, then she spoke wonderingly. “William Benjamin Bibb, the tennis champion, however, did you come here?” “Never mind,” answered Willy Ben, for the doctor had said she must not talk. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. We’re playing that I’m your big brother." She was asleep when he left, and like a big brother, he kissed her —a friendly, respectful kiss —Just as if she were Bess or Evelyn. But all the time he knew that she was not; he knew she was the ideal come to life. Tomorrow came, and for the two a great many tomorrows. She told him all her sorry story, how she had run away from her. home to go on the stage, and how, though she could cook and sew and recite Hamlet's soliloquy better than any girl in boarding school, she could not act. Having a stubborn kind of pride which took the place of courage, she had gone on trying and trying. “And when the cab struck me,” she told him, “I was glad to think the fight was over.”

He in turn told her about hla home, his mother, hla brothers and sisters, how housed to steal away from school to visit the swimming pool, how a mad dog came through town and he had to kill his faithful hound, how a rattlesnake bit him In the leg one day. He told It all so fervently that little Emily, who was born in a hoarding house and brought up in hotels, grew homesick. When the wound oh her forehead was well and the time came for her to leave the hospital the young man made a brilliant suggestion. “Why go back to that horrid place? Let’s go right out and be married.” “And spend tbe honeymoon in Bologee,” she added. 1 So it was settled, and Willy Ben, who knew that marriages are made In heaven, fell to wondering. . “To think,” he cried rapturously, “that you fell in love with my picture before you ever saw me!” But the little Emily was truthful and practical. *1 didn’t,” she answered, leaning fondly against him. ”1 cut your picture out of the paper because you looked like a m»n I used to be In love with out west."

"I’ll Tell You Tomorrow."