Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 116, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1913 — LAETITIA’ SPARENTS [ARTICLE]

LAETITIA’ SPARENTS

They Thought She Sought a Career When in Reality It Was Love. By DOROTHY BLACKMORE. They, epoke in undertones, furtively watching the door. is to be done wsth her?” Mrs. Calhoun asked. Her' tone was colorless, hopeless. Her husband shook his head sadly. "That's it, my dear. Laetitia's whole life seems to be centered in that one purpose; she sees only one goal—strives for only one. Why, I can’t even make an engagement for her any more for fear of interfering with a lesson or a class or an appointment to practice with someone or other. And she's our only daughter.” Mrs. Calhoun raised her hand cautiously. "Do be careful, dear; she’s upstairs, and I wouldn't have her hear us for the world. We musn’t break her heart in trying to thwart her ambition. That would be cruel.” "The whole thing’s cruel,” Mr. Calhound said, desperately. Mrs. Calhoun nodded thoughtfully and neither father nor mother spoke for some moments. Presently the man looked up, a bright light in his eyes. ■ "Suppose—suppose, dear, we contrive to tell her I have had some reverses in business and cannot longer afford to pay for her lessons. We can curtail expenses and live consistently with the statement, can we not, dear?’’ he asked eagerly. The mother hesitated. “Y-e-s —we could, I suppose, but would that do any good? Isn’t Laetitia just the sort who would go to work—sing in a chorus, in case earn enough to study? Any girl with her energy and determination will find a way. And there is a way—if only she could see It—a way to make us all

happy." “How’s that?" “If she would only fall in love, desperately in love, and be made to feel that she was making a great sacrifice for the man she loved in giving up her career—her music, she Would be happy—we would be happy, and she would be saved all the pain of failure that is sure to be hers if she continues to believe she will be a grand opera star.” Mrs. Calhoun had studied her daughter; she knew that the girl lived for dramatic effects; that heroics appealed to her. More than Once she had prayed that her girl might fall in love with a man who would insist on her giving up her musical career. Unlike many mothers, Laetitia’s parent was not blind to the shortcomings of her child. Laetitia could not sing, and it was her one aim and object in life —to sing, to go into grand opera, to shine before the footlights. Teachers, struggling for the dollars that came to them from lessons, flattered her and led her on toward her imagined place among the stars. Friends who were kind-hearted asked her to King; and even her father and mother hadn’t the heart to tell her she could not. Why a girt who had no voice should have such a wild desire to sing was the question that often put itself to both mother and father. Laetitia had become so engrossed in her studies of music in all branches pertaining to voice culture that she had forsaken most of her friends; she had withdrawn from social life, saying that she must save her strength for her work. The home that had once been the scene of gay little parties, was now quiet after dinner, and the father and mother sat silently reading under the library lamp. Letitia was in bed gathering energy for the following day’s lessons. She was working diligently on the opera scores in the faint hope that she might have opportunity to sing before a manager. "Whom could she love?” Mr. Calhoun broke in abruptly, as if the idea conveyed to him by his wife had just appeared to his rather thick vision. Mrs. Calhoun smiled. “Better—who loves her enough to make her give up her career, my dear?” “Well, put It your way—who’s the man? I’ll ask him here, throw them together, do anything to save our little girl from the awful failure I can see coming her way," the father said, sitting up, energetically. “Do you think young Davis is hopelessly discouraged?" “He ought to be —the way she’s treated him. But if he showed half the determination about winning Laetitia that she shows about winning fame, he'd have her," Mrs. Calhoun declared. “Nice fellow —Davis," mumbled the father. “He's all of that I had quite made up my mind to him.” “How to make up Laetitia’s mind to him is the question now,” remarked Mr. Calhoun, with a hopeless Inflection in his voice. Mrs. Calhoun raised a silencing finger, remarking: "Listen, I hear footsteps—Laetitia is coming down.” Mr. Calhoun began to read, ostentatiously; Mrs. Calhoun, too, became absorbed In her magazine. “Mother,” faltered Laetitia at her elbow. Her mother looked up. Laetitia’s hair was hanging in two braids across her shoulders; they glistened in the lamp light. Her long rose-colored kimono fell to her toes and she crumpled down one her mother's footstool, burying her face la her mother’s lap. Mr*. Calhoun looked quickly across at her husband who, in turn, peered across the top of bis glasses at his daughter's bowed head; then ho

looked up quickly and held his wife’s eyes fori an instant. Had she heard? Mrs. Calhoun put her hand tenderly on the girl’s hair. "What is it, dearie?" she asked. Laetitia burst into sobs; her whole slight frame shook and she buried her face deper and deeper into her Mother’s lap. Tears came silently to the eyes of both mother and father, but no one spoke, Laetitia reached for her mother's hands and held them convulsively in her own while her body continued to shake with her sobbing. “Can—can’t you tell mother, dearie?” Mrs. Calhoun asked, letting her own tears drip down unheeded on her bosom. “I—l will. That’s what I came down for, mother," Laetitia whispered from the mother’s lap. Mr. Calhoun was preceptlbly ill at ease. He tried to remember all they had said; he would have given all he owned to have retracted his words; let her sing; let her practice; let her do into anything that she thought she wanted, but —never let him see his little girl so unhappy again. That was his only wish “L—let me have your handkerchief, mother," Laetitia said, raising her head.

“Here —take mine, daughter,” said her father, quickly offering his most cherished pocket handkerchief from his upper coat pocket. “I —I want to tell you both all about it,” the girl began, plying the ample bit of linen diligently. “Go right on, dearie,” Mrs. Calhoun staid, stroking the hand she held. “It’s about me —about me and my career—and Tom,” she confessed. “You don’t understand how it has been perhaps." Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Calhoun said a word; they still wondered if she had heard. “I have worked so hard to be a success for you two. I am your only child, your only hope. I wanted so much to do something big and wonderful for you—mother and father, dear —but, oh —I can’t give up Tom for the empty fame of an opera star. I’ve tried so hard. I’ve spent all this money of father’s and yours for music and you’ve given me every advantage, and it seems so ungrateful of me to give it all up so She hid her face, and the father and mother looked at each other again. “Tom says I must give it up—my career —or he will go away to the end Gt the world, where he can never, never even hear of me,” said she, bursting in fresh sobs. “Dearie, dearie,” protested the mother, with emotion, “don’t do that. We want you to be happy—we want you to marry Tom. We —we’ve been realalfy disappointed, daddy and I, because he did not come around any more.” ~~

Laetitia looked up, a gleam of light shining in her swollen eyes. She glanced from one to the other. Her father smiled and nodded. “Have you, really? Do —do you like him?” “We—we love him,” Mrs. Calhoun said, earnestly. “Oh, mother!” cried Laetitia climbing, like a little girl, to her mother’s lap and squeezing her around the neck. “Do you, truly? And I won’t have to work so hard to —to try to be a success in order to make you proud of me? Oh —oh!”

In spite of herself, the mother’s eyes overflowed with tears. She was too happy to speak. And Laetitia had not heard their plotting and planning against her. And it was Tom Davis, after all!

“I’ve always thought it was an awful thing to be an only child, the one hope of a pair of doting parents — it’s been such hard work! And now there will be two of us to make you happy. Daddy—ask Tom to come to dinner tomorrow night that —that you want to show him something—anything to get him here.” “I’ll ask him to breakfast, if you say so,” laughed the father, wiping his glasses carefully; they had become moist and dimmed. (Copyright, 1913, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)