Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 148, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1913 — MATTER OF FLIGHT [ARTICLE]

MATTER OF FLIGHT

Girl Clerk’s Lecture Helped Man Find Himself, Then She Finished the Job. BY JOANNA SINGLE. Ou the June day before his twentysixth birthday Pacton put things up to himself straight from the shoulder. At his age a man who can't more than support himself should begin to think. Something was wrong and he knew it What set him with a jar on his mental feet was nothing but the chance remark of a slip of a girl. She stood back of the ribbon counter in the next department and one day this is What he heard her say in her gentle, weary voice to the flippant-looking girl who stood next to her. y “Of course we are not happy! Why should we be? We are in the wrong place. A store at six a week is no place for a girl. We ought to be at home learning how to sew and cook. Do you suppose I don’t know that? At least I never lie to giyself. I have no home, so I have to do this—and while I do it 1 unfit myself for ever having a home of my own. The kind of man I want would be crazy to think of marrying me. I’m tired and ignorant, and a few years of this will ruin my health.” Pacton had purposely lingered to listen. Maisie, the other girl, gave a laugh. "Don’t croak so. We have some fun, anyhow, while it lasts.” “It —isn’t fun,” said Ruth Filmore, the first girl. “You know it isn’t. It’s like a fever—sort of wild overwork and then the wrong kind of cheap amusement. Everything we have is counterfeit, from the rooms we call home to the things we call amusement Only the work is real, and it’s the wrong work—and too much of IL You know it.” Finding himself unnoticed Pactpn turned where he could better watch

this, girl. He had not thought much about her before. She was small, straight, with grave, deep ' blue eyes and smooth dark hair. She looked good, Again Maisie laughed. "You’re due to get married,” she scoffed. “Not for mine! My sister married, and she worries more about money than when she clerked. And ■he has a man and three babies to worry for. He works hard, but he barely makes a very- poor living. 'And she’s thin and cross. I hate to look at her. She can’t even rest Sundays, or go to a dance, or to a movie-show — she can’t spare the dime. Not for

mine!" « Then came the speech that set Pacton to thinking. Ruth said in her slow •way: “There’s no excuse for a man’s halfstarving. Your sister married a clerk. A clerk isn’t a man. Why doesn’t he as a man get a real man’s job? Anything’s better than this. A man can handle a shovel or drive an engine, or get a piece of ground and raise potatoes. No real man,” she finished •with utter contempt, “would stay in the sort of work that keeps him barely able to pay his board and have a few cigarettes on the side as a luxury! A man that can’t support at least one human being beside himself isn’t a man!” Having finished her speech ■he turned to wait on her first customer. It was early in the morning and raining. Pacton betook himself to his own post and began handling the serges. But all day he thought of the shovel, the engine, the patch of ground. Somehow the girl’s words had stung deep. The next day he came along to Miss Ruth Filmore’s counter on some pretext, hoping she would remember that they had met —as he knew they had, some months before. He Recalled It distinctly. She merely spoke pleasantly and turned away to her work. He walked off. She had no respect for him, he thought. He began to put things straight to himself. He was just supporting himself, and laying almost nothing by. In five years—be got out his bank He had 1225.75 to his credit. This shamed him deeply. A man can conquer a situation, be conquered by It—or he can smash something and get out of it. Fred Pacton decided that. After much thought he saw that he never do anything worth while in department store work —he merely got a small raise each ymt. He didn’t really love his work. There lay the trouble. He was in the wrong work. And —he had nothing to work for. He was ■elfish. On that June day before he was twenty-six he rushed out of the store at closing time, ate something at the first place he passed, and started out for a long walk. He walked to the edge of the small mid western city; he walked out farther, past the little rows of cottages, all alike with a patch of ground about each, and on out Into the real country. It was a long time since he had been in the real country. As be sat on a fallen trunk he saw 1 a man drive some sort of an engine down the road, and he remembered Ruth's speech. Something was wrong with the machine, and the man had hitched three horses to It, and was having a bad time with them, shouting and making a great ado. Presently he spied Pacton and gave a yell at him. “Say, fellow, come over here and help me out!” Pacton went at a run. He led the horses, then he mounted ths dhglne and helped fix something thwe. He got tired ano hot and greasy. He ruined his clothes, but by dark be had made a good friend—and had a glimpse of a new life. He would not

have believed it—but u* uiocninery interested him, he found he had an Instinct about horses —aud he was starved almost to death. The man took him into hie small house, introduced him to his trim wife and four rosy children, and together they set down to a kitchen table and ate such a meal as Pacton had not eaten sines boyhooft That was Friday night

Pacton reached town late at night and got little sleep; he hated the store with great violence all Saturday and at closing time he went to the manager and fired himself. ' The manager didn’t seem to mind. He Baid “All right What you going to do?” Pacton said he didn’t know yet took his pay envelope and said good night. Then he seized his hat and started for the door, but thought better of it and walked down the aisle to get a glimpse of Ruth. Somehow he couldn’t get rid of the thought of her. He saw her going out trim and tired, and made a dash after her. He overtook her on the street, and she bowed pleasantly but inquiringly, and stopped short. Evidently she had no intention of letting him walk on with her, and resentment surged up within him. He stammered:

“I—wanted, to say good-by. I am leaving the store —I thought—" but somehow he felt that It was nothing to her, and grew crimson to the roots of his thick, fair hair. Hie good brown eyes grew shy, and her surprized gaze rested on him. She made a little motion to leave him. “Good-by—l—am sorry you are leaving.” Then she flushed— tor she realized that she was not telling the truth. He knew it, too. It made him a little rough. , ' “Don’t try to be polite,” he said. “You don’t—care at all! I am only telling you because I heard what you said about a real man finding a man’s job. It set me to thinking. And after I thought—-I fired myself. I didn’t know what ailed me—until right now. You better let me walk with you a block or two —we mustn’t stand here.” She fell into step beside him. “I won’t bother you long. Well, what ails me is that I am ashamed. I’m going to get to doing something—real. But something else bigger than that is the matter. I’m —in love with you. I found it out three minutes ago. You—despise me.' But —I love anyhow. I am going to ask you to wait for me until September. I won’t come near you until then—then—’’ Looking down he saw her lip tremble, and her face flash. <

. "You had —better go away—this minute,” she said. “I—-can’t make —promises—please go!” She was so vehement that he turned and left her. On the first day of September a brown, thin, serious-faced young man walked into the store near cloeing time and found the ribbon counter. The girl behind it looked up, and then went a little whiter than she was before. Fred Pacton went up and spoke to her. “I want to walk home with you. You —can’t refuse me,” he said. Her lips moved and she smiled a little, and his heart almost stopped. Was she ill ? She looked agile and par thetic.

A half hour later the two were on the street together. He led her to a case, they had something to eat, and as they finished he leaned over the table. His glance claimed her, adored her. * “Ruth,” he said eagerly. “I had a little money and I made some payments on a little place—in the country. I’ve learned to use a shovel—and an engipe, too. A fellow I got acquainted with has taken me in with him. We’ve been doing grading and all sorts of things. There’s money in it—and an outdoor life. I'm on the way to be a real man. I can take care of mysdlf—and you, too. Don’t you see that 1 can? I take to rough work like a duck to water. I was built for it. You helped me find myself by your —criticism of men such as I was. Now you must finish the job. Don’t you see you must? I need you—and you need me. I have to have something to work for—l need a home —and —anyhow —I love you. It seems as If I had —always loved you.” His voice was very quiet, so quiet that the host of eaters about them paid no attention. Ruth sat looking at him, and sudt denly leaned over and spoke with something like anger in her voice. ‘‘You —are —craxy to think you want me. I’m —not fit for you! I’m —tired and weak, and I don’t know anything about a home—but I—knew I cared—that night when I made you leave me on the street Didn’t you know I cared?” The man opposite gave her a look that even a waiter could not have misunderstood. He rose and took her away with him. (Copyright, 1913, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)