Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 270, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1912 — PREPARES TO MOVE [ARTICLE]

PREPARES TO MOVE

[Then Young Author Makes the Discovery That She is Famous.

By MOLLY McMASTER.

■Prudence gazed wistfully about the small studio that had been her haven of dreams for the last two years. She had taken if pn the strength of having sold a poem to one of the magazines, and her heart had been filled with hope and the foundation of success. A tear trickled through her lashes and splashed down onto the keys of her typewriter. Spasmodic breaths began to tear at. the girl's slight frame, and her head went forward on her arms, and Prudence burst Into an uncontrollable passion of weeping. Farewell to her hopes, farewell to the dear, delightful studio were embodied in hen grief; and the horrible feeling of failure crowded it all. One by one her manuscripts had been returned to her. They were far too poetic, too much a part of the dream world for the average reader to appreciate. “Your characters are TOereal, not human,” one editor had written. "Put them under the sprinkling can of human emotions and let them get spattered with mud. You will write a story then.”

“But I do not see the mud,” Prudence had bemoaned within herself, “nor did my father write about mud spattered characters —yei he was successful,' 1 she had argued in imagination with that editor. “But your father was a man, and a man’s life touches earth more frequently than does a woman’s. Your poet father’s pen was human.” So Prudence had struggled on with her ethereal heroes and heroines. The meager amount left her by her successful but over-generous father had dwindled down. Prudence’s slim pocketbook and shabby clothes testified to an ardent need of money. “I dare not attempt to keep my studio for 'another year,” she told herself, “the editors may be just as cruel as they have been.” She smiled through her tears. “And I certainly will not marry Bobby, because he* calls me a ‘pipe dreamer.’ ” Even so, Prudence did not decide to give up / her studio without a struggle. | “Still,” she jiighed, “there is no use my having a studio if I am going into an office, and if I will be wearing stiff collars and shirtwaists.” Prudence cast 1 a regretful glance at her shabby, artistic brown frock, and at the same time smoothed back a touseled head of brown curls. “Yes, I will have to give it up. Studios would not be respectable if connected with a girl in shirtwaists and tight skirts. I will look about for a hall room.” And with the bravery that had kept her courage up through untold misery Prudence made arrangements to move the following Monday. Had Prudence known the meaning of the word irony she would have considered the fact that a substantial check came to her from one of her stories on the Saturday before her departure as a bit of irony. But, because to Prudence, irony, hypocrisy and slander held no part in the big scheme of existence she only rejoiced in her good fortune and forthwith spent a portion of the’ money on flowers, "I want my studio to be beautiful — on the last day.” She choked back her tears while she arranged a great cluster of pink roses in her favorite rose jar. During Sunday Prudence was half hysterical and half brave. She had not realized how terrible the parting with the dream of life was to be until she felt the evening hours of her last day drawing in. She sank into the big cozy chair beside the red lamp and tried to feel that on the morrow Bhe would be an office girl. A friend of her father’s had secured Prudence a position as first reader on a magazine. “And tomorrow evening I will go home to my hor?ld little hall room with tired eyes from having read many bad manuscripts,” Prudence smiled ruefully and shadows darkened her eyes. The brass knocker on the door told her that a guest waß without “I wanted to be alone,” she commented, as she went to the door. The man who had knocked crept straight into the heart of Prudence. He was genial and happy and franklooking. “Are you Miss Prudence Lange?” he asked. “Yes,” said Pruderies, and opened the door still wider. “Will you come 1n?” “Thank you.” James Henry said, and went within. Prudence closed the door, and somehow the atmosphere was suddenly charged with electricity. She found her voice almost refusing to echo her mental question. “I have good news for you,” James Henry told her when they were both seated. He began without preamble. "Do you—but of course you do, remember sending a play called ’Stolen Idols' to Emery Hill?” “Two long years ago,” Prudence amiled wistfully. “I had no acknowledgment even/' tire added. “During our South African tour,” Henry James went on, as if be expected Prudence to know that Emery Hill had taken his entire company to South Africa, “I discovered ydur play among Mr. Hill's mail. I am Mr.

Hill’s business manager, and when 1 had read your play I found something worth while in it” Prudence managed to smile through the excitement that was now flaming in her cheeks and sparkling in her eyes, * “I am rather good at making over other writers’ plots,” he continued without conceit, “and 1 took your play and ran your characters through the mud —just sufficient to make them earthly,” James Henry laughed, and Prudence joined him. **An editor once told me that my characters needed the sprinkling cart run over them,” she told him, “You are evidently the driver.” “A mighty good one at that,” laughed James Henry. “So don’t faint —or anything—when I tell you that I have a sum that runs over the ten-thousand mark for you. I put your play on, and it has been running to crowded houses through South Africa. We have brought it home to try in. New York. Do you mind?" “Mind!” Prudence did not faint, but she jumped up and took James Henry by both hands. “If I knew you better,” she cried, "I would dance you about the room. As it is I can only thank you from my heart.” James Henry laughed, because there was something in the voice of Prudence that warned him that tears were scarcely hidden, and he knew that if Bhe cried he would not remember that he had known her a scant five minutes. As it was, the soft pressure of her fingers was tingling up his arm. "We, of course, are collaborators?” Prudence stated, rather than questioned. _ “ ' „r. : '

“As a manager I can not have my name flaming on all the billboards," said James Henry. “But since a collaborator is what you require—I want the other half. We will turn out some plays belween us that will travel through all the stock companies in the country after they have had record runs on Broadway.” “Then I will cancel my order for the moving vans,” Prudence laughed and caressed the studio with her eyes. “I should have told you before,” James Henry put In contritely, and for the first time noticed the shabblness of her brown frock. “No. no!” she cried swiftly, “your coming sp unexpectedly has been wonderful —” she broke off suddenly, and James Henry gloried In the blushes that swept across the girl’s cheeks. * “Quite too wonderful,” he commented inwardly. (Copyright, 1912, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)