Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1913 — CALEB CONOVER, RAILROADER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CALEB CONOVER, RAILROADER

BY ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

Astbor at “Syriafran the Saddle.” St®rie»/’ Etc. Copyright, 1907. Albert Payion Terhune

CHAPTER X. Caleb Undergoes A Home Evening. no use glowering at 1 I me every time you speak of poor Clive,” protested Mrs. tWrrW Conover with all the fierce courage of a chased guinea-pig. "It isn’t my fault he’s running against you, and it isn’t my fault that he’s my ; nephew, either.” "I guess both these failings would come under the head of misfortunes, rather’n-'faults,” retorted Caleb. "And they’re both as hard on him as they are on you, Letty. I wasn’t glowering at you, either. Don’t stir up another spat.” 3 The idea that Mr. Conover was capable of inciting any such disputation so flattered that poor, spiritless little creature that she actually bridled and looked about her to make sure Anlce and Gerald, the only other members of the household present; had heard. The quartette were seated in the Conover library, whither they had gathered after dinner for one of those brief intervals of family intercourse which Caleb secretly loved, his wife as secretly dreaded and Gerald openly loathed. The Railroader, at heart, was an intensely home-loving man. He had never known a home. Least of all since moving into the Mausoleum. He had always, in increasingly blunderingly fashion, sought to make one. 1 The wife he bullied, the son he hec tored, the daughter with whom he had forever quarreled, the secretary who met his friendliness with unbroken reserve; all these he had tried to enroll as assistants In his various homemaking plans. The results had not been so successful as to warant description. Finally, Conover had centred his former efforts on one daily plan. He had read In the advice column of the Star about the Joys of “pleasant evening hour In the bosom of one’s family” and directions therefor. The idea appealed to him. He ordained accordingly that after the unfashionably early evening meal the household should congregate in the library, and there for at least one hour indulge in carefree, confidential chat. This, Caleb mentally argued, was a capital opening wedge in the inculcation of the true home-spirit which had been his lifelong dream. The household obeyed the order, even as all Conover’s orders —at home and abroad —were obeyed. The ses sion usually began in laborious efforts at small talk. Then an unfortunate remark of some sort from Mrs. Conover, or an impertinence or sneer from Gerald, and the storm would break. The “pleasant evening hour” oftener than not ended in a sea of weakly miserable tears from Mrs. Conover, a cowed or sotto voce profane exit on Gerald’s part, and in Caleb’s stamping off to his study or else around to the Kerrigans’ for a blissful, shirt-sleeved, old-time political argument in front of the saloon’s back-room stove. On this present evening Caleb had Just received Shevlin’s report of the Standish tour. He was full of the theme and strove to Interest his hearers in it In Anice he found, as ever, an eager listener. But Gerald yawned in very aparent boredom, while Mrs. Conover shed a few delightfully easy, but Irritating tears at the account of the opera house fight. Caleb had silently resented these moist signs of interest and his glare had called forth an unusual protest from his weak little spouse. The butler entered with a card, which he carried to Oaleb. After one glance at the pasteboard Caleb crushed it In his fingers and threw It to the floor. "Turn her outi” he ordered. "Why, who is it?" squeaked his wife tn high excitement "It’s some woman for Jerry. Gaines brought me the card by mis--’’ "For me?" cried Gerald, Jumping up, his face aflame. "Why, it —it can’t—" "Yes, it can. And it is, or rather it was, for I’ve sent her away. Maybe you forget I made you promise—"

"Stand aside! I'have a right here." "Stand aside!” spake a dramatie contralto voice from beyond the portieres, "I have a right hero.” The cartalhs were thrust apart, revealing the protesting, discomforted butler; and, pushing past him, a tall, slender young woman, quietly but prettily dressed, pompadoured of hair, and very, very determined of aspect "Good Lord!” grunted Caleb under bis breath, “sbe ain’t even a blonde. I thought they all—"

But she was in the library Itseß facing the amazed master of the house Gerald, at first sight of hie wife, hai sprung forward and now grasped the newcomer ardently by both hands and drew her to him. J. "I was sure," murmured the intrude! 1b that same throaty contralto, rich yet Insensibly conveying a vague Im pression of latent vulgarity, "I wai sure your man was mistaken, and that you couldn’t have meant to turn m« away without a word when I had come so far to see my precious truant boy. Did you? We women, Mrs. Conover," she went on, eyes and voice claiming alliance of the meek-faced little nonentity who shrank behind Anice Lanier, "we women understand how hard It Is to keep away from the man whohasiMUght us to love hIM Don’t we? Men never can quite realise that. Not oven my Gerald, or he wouldn’t have stayed away so long ot made me stay away from him. Would her I 'lt was Dad,” broke In Gerald. ’I told you that in my first letter, darling. He won’t stand for our marriage, and- ” "Ah! that is because he doesn’t know," she laughed archly. "Mr. Conover, this big splendid boy of mine is too much In love to explain as he should. And he’s so high-spirted, he can’t listen as patiently to advice as he ought to. Can you, Gerald? So I came myself, when I couldn’t stand it any longer to be away from him. I knew I could make you understand. Can’t I?" "I can tell better when you’ve tried," answered Caleb, watching with a sort of awed fascination the alterdate plunges and rearing* of the vibrant black pompadour, which, in deference to the prevailing style of the moment —and of the chorus —was pendent directly above the visitor’s right eye. His curt rejoinder rather took the caller aback. She looked about the group as If for inspiration. Anice Lanier had risen, and was at the door. Caleb saw her. "Please don’t go, Miss Lanier!" he called. "I would much prefer to,” answerd Anice, “If you don’t object This seems to bo purely a family affair and—’’ “And at least one person with a de-cently-balanced brain ought to be present. Our affairs are your affairs as far as you’ll allow. Please do me the favor of staying.” The visitor had, by this diversion, regained grasp on her plan of action. "Mr. Conover,” she said, stretching out her suede-gloved hands toward the less appeal as to an all-powerful judge, ‘T am your son’s wife. He loves me. I love him. Does that tell you nothing?” "Yes,” said Caleb Judicially, "It tells me you love each other; If that’s what you mean. For the sake of argument we’ll take that for granted, just for the present Now get down to facts." "I am your son’s wife," repeated the woman, somewhat less throatily, but still with brave resolve. "He sought me out and wooed me. He told me I should receive a welcome In his home. He made me love him. Didn’t you, Gerald? And I married him. Ah, but we were happy, we two! Then, like a thunderbolt from the blue sky fell your command that we part He and I. For long—oh, so long—l have tried *o be patient, to wait for time to soften your heart But at last I couldn’t bear It I couldn’t bear It, so I came hero to meet you In person, to cast myself at your feet If need be. To—" She paused. The cold, Inscrutable gaze of the Railroader’s light eyes did not tend to inspire her very creditable recitation. As a matter of fact, Caleb was at the moment paying very little attention to her Words. He was noting the hard dryness of her skin and the only half-hidden lines about mouth, brow and eye; and contrasting them with Anice Lanier’s baby-smooth skin and the soft contour of her neck and cheek. Her pause brought him back to himself. "Well?” he demanded. "So I am here to implore you to be just, to be generous,” resumed the girl,-slightly raising the pitch of the scene as she approached the climax. "I throw myself on your mercy. I, Enid Conover —” “Enid Conover!” snorted the Railroader. “Why—” “Yes. Enid Conover. How I have learned to love that name!" “Have, hey? Then take my advice, young woman, and stifle that same wild adoration for my poetic cognomen, for you aren't going to have the renting of it any Icmger’n I can help." "Not—"

"Oh, you’ll get over it easy! Just as you got over your love for that high-sounding title, Enid Montmorency. And Just as, before that, when you left your mother’s Germantown boarding-house, you got over any passion you may have had for your original name, Emma Higgs. You see I know some little about you. I took the trouble to have you looked up. You and your family. You told Gerald your family’s old. From all I hear, I guess the main difference botween you and that same family Is that one’s older’n you make out and the other's younger. Take your choice aa to which Is which. And now—” "You insult me!” declaimed the girl, hei eyes flashing, her figure drawn to the full height of a really excellent pose, her pompadour nestling protect tngly above the arched brow. "No, I don’t I couldn’t (Jerry, you sit down there and behave yourself or I’ll spank you!) If you think rm wrong, maybe you’d like me to tell my son the way you first happened to go on the stage. No? I guess I’ve got this thing framed up pretty near straight It’s a grand-stand play, and Fapa Is It, eh? A masterstroke of

surprise for the old man, and a final tableau of the bunch of us clustering about you and Gerald in the centre oi the stage, while you fall on each other’s necks and do a unison exclamation of ‘God-bless-the-dearold-Dad! How-much-wiH-he-leave-us? And-how soon?* You waited in town awhile But Papa didn’t relent and send Hubbj back to his lonely wlfle. Then yo« sick Gerald on to acting like a human being, hoping to win Papa over by being a good boy. No go. Then as a last play you butt: In here on a sudden with all your lines learned down pat, and do a grand appeal. Well, Mrs,- Miss-Emma-HlggsrEnld-Montmor-ency-Conover, It doesn't work. That’s aIL If you’ve got the sense I think, you’ll see the show’s a frost, and you'll start back for Broadway. Tak- my blessing, if you want it, and take Jerry along for good measure. If you like. It’s all you’ll ever get from me, either of you." To Caleb Conover’s unbounded horror and amaze, Enid, Instead of spurning him haughtily, burst into a crescendo, throaty gurgle of contralto weeping, and flung herself bodily upon him; her long-gloved arms twining about his neck, her pompadoured head snuggling Into his bosom. "Oh, Father! Father!” came a muffled, yet artistic wall from somewhere in the region of his upper waistcoat buttons. "How can you? You’ve broken Gerald's heart And now you're breaking mine. Forgive us! ** “Miss Lanier!” thundered Caleb, struggling wildly to escape the snakelike closeness of the embrace, "for heaven’s sake won’t you come and — and unwind this person? She’s spoiling my shirt-front Lord, how I do hate to be pawed!" "Do not touch me! Do not dare to, menial!” commanded the bride, relinquishing her hold, and glaring like a wounded tigress at Anice, who had made no move whatever in response to Caleb’s horrified plea. The visitor drew back from Caleb as though contact with him besmirched her.

“Well!” she gasped, and now the throaty contralto was merged into a guttural snarl, ridiculously akin to an angry cat’s. *!Well! Of all the cheap tight-wads I ever struck! Think you can backtrack me, do you? Well, you lose! I’m married to him air right, and I’m not giving him up In a hurry. * You try to butt in, and you’ll find yourself. In a hundred thousand alienation suit! Oh, I know my rights, and no up-country Rube’s going to skin me out of ’em. You old bunch of grouchiness! And' to think they let you boss things in this jay town of yours! Why, In New York you’d never get nearer Broadway than Tenth Avenue, and you couldn’t even boss a red light precinct My Gawd! I’ll have to keep It dark about my coming to a hole like this or my friends’ll think I’ve been playing a ten-twenty-thlrt’ circuit No civilized person ever comes here, and now I know why. They're afraid they’ll be mistook for a friend of yours, most likely. You red-headed old geezer, you don’t even know a lady when yotf see one. Keep your lantern-jawed, pie-faced mutt of a son. I’m going back to where there’s at least one perfect gentleman who knows how to behave when a lady honors him by—” "Enid!” cried Gerald, who had sat In dumb, nerveless confusion during the recent exchange of courtesies, "you don’t mean —? You mustn’t go back to him! You mustn’t! Has he met you again since I left? Tell me! I said Fd kill him If he ever spoke to you again, and, by God, I will! He shan't —” A timid, Yalsetto screech, like that of a very young leverett that Is inadvertently trodden beneath a farmer’s foot In long grass, broke in on the boy's ravings. Mrs. Caleb Conover collapsed on the floor In a dead faint Anice ran to the unconscious woman's aid. Even Gerald, checked midway In his mad appeal, stopped and stared down In stupid wonder at hls mother's little huddled figure. Caleb seized the moment to croea the room quickly toward the furious .chorus girl. He caught her by the shoulder, and in his pale eyes blazed a flare that few men and no woman had ever seen there. The color, behind the artistic paint on the visitor's face, went white at the look. She, who was accustomed to brave the rages of drunken rounders, shrank speechless, cowering before those light eyes. One arm she raised awkwardly as if to avert a blow. Yet Caleb’s touch on her shoulder was gentle; and, when he spoke, hls voice was strangely dead and unemotional. So low was It that hls meaning rather than hls exact words reached the ertresa. "This Is my city," said he. "What I say goes. There Is a train to New York In‘thirty minutes. If you are In Granite one minute after it leaves, my police shall arrest you. My witnesses shall make the charge something that oven you will hardly care to stand for. My Judge shall send you to prison for a year. And every paper in New York shall print the whole story as I chose to tell It. Now go!” The fear of death and worse than death was in her eyes. She slunk out, shrunken in aspect to the form of an old and bent woman. Not even —most beloved trick of stage folk!—did she turn at the portieres for a parting look. The pattei of her scared, running feet sounded irregularly on the marble outer hall. Then the front door slammed, and she was gone. The final scene between Conover and his son’s wife had endured less than twenty Blonds. It was over, and she had departed before Gerald realized what had happened. Then, with a cry, he was on hls feet and hurrying to the door. But hls father stood in front of it "If you’re not cured now,” said Oonover, “you never will bet Go bMk

and ring for your mother’s maid.” The boy’s mouth was open for r. wrathful retort But embers of tht blaze that had transformed Caleb’s

face as he had dismissed the chorus girl still flickered there. And under their scorching heat Gerald Conover slunk back, beaten but still muttering defiant Incoherences under his breath. (To Be Continued.) .

“There is a train to New York in thirty minutes.”