Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 162, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1913 — Page 2

RICH MENS CHILDREN

UhKtrbtioDs c tyDCMILiWIN

SYNOPSIS. I i Bill Canncn, the bonanza king, and his ■daughter. Rose, who had passed up Mrs. Cornelius Ryan’s ball at San Francisco to accompany her father, arrive at Antelope. Dominick Ryan calls on his mother to beg & ball Invitation for his wife, and Is refused. The determined old lady refuses to recognise her daughter-in-law. Dominick had been trapped Into a marriage with Bernice Iverson, a stenographer, ■evenal years his senior. She sqanders his money, they have frequent quarrels, and he slips away. Cannon and his daughter are snowed In at Antelope. Dominick Ryan Is rescued from storm In unconscious condition and brought to Antelope hotel. Antelope Is cut off by storm. I CHAPTER V.—Continued. 1 “I waa tired," he said slowly. “I’d worked too hard and I thought the mountains would do me good. I can get time off at the bank when I want and I thought I'd take a holiday and oome up here where I was last summer. I knew the place and liked the hotels I wanted to get a good way off out of the city and away from my work. As for walking up here that afternoon —I’m very strong and I never thought for a moment such a blizzard was coming dearth” He lifted his head and turned toward the window, then raising one hand rubbed it across his forehead and eyes. There was something in the gesture that silenced the young girl. She thought he felt tired and had been talking too much and she was guiltily conscious of her laughter and loquacity.

They sat without speaking for some momentß. Dominick made no attempt to break the silence when she moved noiselessly to the stove and pushed in more wood. His face was turned from her and she thought he had fallen asleep when he suddenly moved and said:. ; ; ■ “Isn’t it strange that I hive never met you before?" She was relieved. His tone showed neither feebleness nor fatigue, in fact it had the fresh alertness of a return to congenial topics. She determined, however, to be less talkative, less encouraging to the weakening exertions of general conversation. So she spoke with demure brevity. "Yes, very. But you were at college for four years, and the year you came back I was in Europe." He looked at her ruminatingly, and nodded. x "But I’ve seen you,” he said, "at the theater. I was too sick at first to recognize you, but afterward I knew I’d seen you, with your father and your brother Gene.” It was her turn to nod. She thought ft best to say nothing, and waited. But his eyes bent inquiringly upon her, and the waiting silence seemed to demand a comment. She made the first one that occurred to her: "Whom were you with?" "My wife,” said the young man. She murmured a vague sentence of comment and this time determined not to speak, no matter how embarrassing the pause became. She even thought of taking up her book and was about to stretch her hand for it, when he said: “But It seems so queer when our parents have been friends tor years, and I knew Qene, and you know my sister Cornelia so well.” She drew her hand back and leaned forward, frowning and staring in front of her, as she sent her memory backward groping for data. "Well, you see a sort of series of events prevented it. When we were little our parents ' lived in different places. Ages ago whefl we first came down from Virginia City you were living somewhere else, in Sacramento, wasn’t it? Then you were at school, and after that you went East to college for four years, and when you got back from college I was in Europe. And when I came back from Europe—that’s over two years ago now—why then —’’ Bhe had again brought up against his marriage, this time with a shock that was somewhat of a shattering nature. % “Why, then,” she repeated falterlngly, realizing where she was —“why then —let’s see—?” “Then I had married,” he said quietly. "Oh, yes, of course,” Bhe assented, trying to Impart a suggestion of sudden Innocent remembrance to her tone. "You had married. Why, of course.” 'An hour later when the doctor came back she was kneeling on the floor by the open stove door, softly building up the fire. At the sound of the opening door she looked up quickly, and, her hands being occupied, gave a silencing Jerk of her head toward the sleeping man. The doctor looked at them both. The scene was like a picture of some primitive domestic interior where youth and beauty had made a nest, Warmed by that symbol of life, a Are, which one replenished while the other Jr <.g , CHAPTER VI. In Which Berny Write, a Letter. The morning after the quarrel Beraioe woke late. Bhe had not fallen tIU the night wu weU sp«L

BY GERALDINE BONNER

Author FJONEER. “TcMmswis tangle;^

f . Cogyri|k Tbe BQBDS-MEH3LL CO.

the heated seething of her rage keeping the peace of repose far from her. It was only as the dawn paled the square of the window that she fell Into a heavy slumber, disturbed by dreams full of stress and strife. She looked up at the clock; It was dearly ten. Dominick would have left for the bank before this, so the wretched constraint of a meeting with him was postponed. Sallow and heavyeyed, her head aching, oppressed by a sense of the unbearable unpleasantness of the situation, she threw on her wrapper, and going to the window drew the curtain and looked out The bedroom had but one window, wedged into an angle of wall, and affording a glimpse of the green lawn and clipped rose trees of the house next door. There was a fog this morning and even this curtailed prospect was obliterated. She stood yawning drearily, and gazing out with to which her yawns had brought tears. Her hair made a wild brush round her head, her Tace looked pinched and old. She was one of those women whose good looks are dependent on animation and millinery. In this fixity of Inward thought, unobserved in unbecoming disarray, one could realize that she had attained the thirtyfour years she could so successfully deny under the rejuvenating influences of full dress and high spirits. During her toilet her thoughts refused to leave the subject of last night's quarrel. She and her husband had had disagreements before —many In the last year when they had virtually separated, though the world did not know It—but nothing so ignominiously repulsive as the scene of last evening had yet degraded their companionship. Bernice was ashamed. In the gray light of the dim, disillusioning morning she realized that she had gone too far. She knew Dominick to be long-suffering, she knew that the hold she had upon him was a powerful one, but the most patient creatures sometimes rebel, the most compelling sense of honor would sometimes break under too severe a strain. As she trailed down the long passage to the dining-room she made up her mind that she would make the first overture toward reconciliation that evening. It would be difficult but she would do It.

She was speculating as to how Bhe would begin, in what manner she would greet him when he came home, when her eyes fell on the folded note against the clock. Apprehension clutched her as she opened it. The few lines within frightened her still more. He had gone—where? She turned the note over, looking at the back, in a sudden tremble of tearfulness. He had never done anything like this before, left her, suddenly cut loose from her in proud disgust. She stood by the clock, staring at the paper, her face fallen into scared blankness, the artificial hopefulness that she had been fostering since she awoke giving place to a down-drop into an abyss of alarm. The door into the kitchen creaked and the Chinaman entered wi|h the second part of the dainty breakfast cooked especially for her. “What time did Mr. Ryan leave this morning?” she said without turning, throwing the question over her shoulder. “I dunno,” the man returned, with the expressionless brevity of his race particularly accentuated in this case, as he did not like his mistress. “He no take? blickfuss here. stay here last night." She faced round on him, her eyes full of a sudden fierce intentness which marked them in moments of angry surprise. “Wasn’t here last night?" she demanded. “What do you mean?” He arranged the dishes with careful precision, not troubling himself to look up, and speaking with the same dry indifference. “He not here for blickfuss. No one sleep in his bed. I go make bed—all made. I think he not here all night" His work being accomplished he turned without more words and passed into the kitchen. Berny stood for a moment thinking, then, with a shrug of deflanoe, left HPr buckwheat cakes untasted and walked into the halL She went directly to her husband’s room and looked about with sharp glances. She opened drawers and peered into the wardrobes. Sbe was a woman who had a curiously keen memory for small domestic details, and a few moments' investigation proved to her that he had taken some of his oldest clothes, but had left behind all the better ones, and that the silver box of jewelry on the bureau—> filled with relics of the days when he had been the idolized son of his parents —lacked none of its contents. More alarmed than she had been in the course of her married life she left the room and passed up the hall to the parlor. The brilliant, over-fur-nished apartment in which she had crowded every fashion in interior decoration that had pleased her fancy and been within the compass of her purse, looked slovenly and unattractive in the gray light of the morning. TIM smell of smoke gras strong In It

and the butts and ashes of cigars Dominick had the evening before lay in a tray on the center table. She noticed none of these things,. which under ordinary circumstances would have been ground for for she was a woman of fastidious personal daintiness. A cushioned seat was built round the curve of the baywindow, and on this she sat down, drawing back the fall of thick ecru lace that veiled the pane. Her eyes were fastened with an unwinking fixity on the fog-drenched t street without; her figure motionless. Her outward rigidity of body concealed an intense inward energy of thought. It suddenly appeared to her as if her hold on Dominick, which till yesterday had seemed so strong that nothing but death could break it, was weak, was nothing. It had been rooted in his sense of honor, the sense that she fostered in him and by means of which she had been able to make him marry her. Was this sense not so powerful as she believed, or—dreadful thought!—was it weakening under the friction of their life together? Had she played on it too much and worn it out? She had been so sure of Dominick, so secure in his blind, plodding devotion to his duty! She had secretly wondered at It, as a queer characteristic that it was fortunate he possessed. Deep in her heart she had a slight, amused contempt for It, a contempt that had extended to, other things. She had felt it for him in those, early days of their marriage when he had looked forward to children and wanted tb live quietly, without society, in hre own home. It grew stronger later when she realized he had accepted his exclusion from his world and was too proud to ask his mother for money. And now! Suppose he had gone back to his people? A low ejaculation escaped her, and she dropped the curtain and pressed her hand, clenched to the hardness of a stone, against her breast. The mere thought of such a thing was Intolerable. She did not see how she could support the Idea .of his mother and sister winning him from her. She hated them. They were the ones who had wronged her, who had excluded her from the home and the riches and the position that her marriage should have given her. Her retaliation had been her unwavering grip on Dominick and the careful discretion with whieh she had comported herself as his wife. There was no ground of complaint against her. She had been as quiet, home-keeping and dutiful a woman as any In California. She had been a good housekeeper, a skillful manager of her husband’s small means. It was only within the last year that she had, in angry spite, run Into the debts with which she had taunted him. No wife could have lived more rigorously up to the letter of her marriage contract. It was easy for her to do It. She was not a woman whom light living and license attracted. She had sacrificed her honor to win Dominick, grudgingly, unwillingly, as close-fisted men part with money in the hope of rich returns. She did not want to be his mistress, but she knew of no other means by

"Wasn’t Here Last Night?” She Domanded. "What Do You Mean?”

which she could reach the position of his wife. Now suppose he had gone back to his people! It was an insupportable, a maddening thought. It plunged her into agitation that made her rise and move about the room with an aimless restlessness, like some soft-footed feline animal. Suppose he had gone home and told them about last night, and they had prevailed upon him not to com* back! Well, even If they had, hers was still the strong position. The sympathy of the disinterested outsider would always be with her. If she had been quarrelsome and ugly, those were small matters. In the great essential* she had not failed. Suppose she and the Ryans ever did come to an open crossing of swords, would not her story be the story of the two? The world’s sympathy* would certainly not go to the rich women, trampling on

the poor little typewriter, the honest working girl, who for one slip, righted by subsequent marriage, had been the object of their implacable antagonism and persecution. She said this opposite the mirror, extending her hands as she had seen an actress do in a recent play. As she saw her pointed, pale face, her expression of worry gave way to one of pleased complacence. She looked pathetic, and her position was pathetic. Who would have the heart to condemn her when they saw her and heard her side of the story? Her spirits began to rise. With the first gleam of returning confidence she shook off her apprehensions. A struggle of sunshine pierced the fog, and going to the window she drew the curtains and looked out on the veil of mist every moment growing brighter and thinner. The sun finally pierced it, a patch of blue shone above, and dropping • the curtains . she turned and looked at the clock. It was after eleven. She decided she would go out and take lunch with her sisters, who were always ready to listen and to sympathize with her.

These sisters were the only Intimate friends and companions Bernice had, their home the one house to which she was a constant visitor. With all her peculiarities and faults she possessed a strong sense of kin. In her rise to fairer fortune, if not greater happineßs. her old home had never lost Its hold upon her, nor had she weakened In a sort of cross-grained, patronizing loyalty to her two sisters. This may have been accounted for by the fact that they were exceedingly, amiable and affectionate, proud to regard Bernloe as the flower of the family, whose dizzy translation to unexpected heights they had watched with Unenvlouß admiration. Hannah, the oldest of the family, was the daughter of a first marriage. She was now a spinster of forty-five, and had taught school for twenty years. Hazel was the youngest of the three, she and Bernice having been the offspring of Danny Iverson’s second alliance with a woman of romantic tendencies, which had no way of expressing themselves except In the naming of her children. Hazel, while yet in her teens, had married a clerk in a jewelry store, called Josh McCrae. It had been a happy marriage. After the birth of a daughter, Hazel had returned to her wofk as saleslady In a fashionable millinery. Both sisters, Josh, and the child, had continued to live together In doinestic harmony, in the house which Hannah, with the savings of a quarter of a century, had finally cleared of all mortgages and now owned. No' household could have been more simply decent and honest; no family more unaspiringly content. In such an environment Bernloe, with her daring ambitions and bold uiiscrupulousness, was like that unaccounted-for blossom which in the floral world Is known as a “sport.” But It did not appear that she regarded herself as such. With the exception of a year spent in Los Angeles and Chicago she had been a member of the household from her childhood till the day of her marriage. The year of absence had been the re-

suit of a sudden revolt against the monotony of life and surroundings, an upwelling of the restless ambitions that preyed upon her. A good position had been offered her in Los Angeles and she had accepted it With eagerness, thankful for the opportunity to see the world, and break away, so she said, from the tameness of her situation, the narrowness of her circle. The spirit of adventure carried her farther afield, and she penetrated as far across the continent as Chicago, where she was employed in one of the most prosperous business houses, earning a large salary. But, like many Californians, homesickness seized her, and before the year was out she was back, inveighing against the eastern manners, character, and climate, and glad tb shake down again into the family nest Her sisters were satisfied with her account of her wanderings, not knowing that Bernioe was as

much of an adept at telling half a story as she was at taking down a dictation in typewriting. She was too clever to be found out In a lie; they were altogether too simple to suspect her apparent frankness. After the excursion she remained at home until her marriage. Her liaison with Dominick was conducted with the utmost secrecy. Her sisters had not a suspicion of It. knew nothing but that the young man was attentive to her, till she told them of her approaching marriage. This took place id the parlor of Hannah’s house, and the amazed sisters, bewildered by Berny’s glories, had waited to see her burst into the inner glories of fashion and wealth with a tiara of diamonds on her head and ropes of pearls about her throat. That no tiara was forthcoming, no pearls graced her bridal parure, and no Ryan ever crossed the threshold of her door, seemed to the loyal Hannah and Hazel the most unmerited and Inexplicable injustice that had ever come within their experience.

It took Bernice some time to dress, for she attached the greatest Importance to all matters of personal adornment, and the lunch hour was at hand when she alighted from the Hyde Street car and walked toward the house. It was on one of those streets which cross Hyde near the slope of Russian Hill, and are devoted to the habitats of small, thrifty householders. A staring, bright cleanliness is the prevailing characteristic of the neighborhood, the cement sidewalks always swept', the houses standing back in tiny squares of garden, clipped and trimmed to a precise shortness of grass and straightness of border. The sun was now broadly out and the house-fronts engarlanded with vines, their cream-colored faces spotless in fresh coats of paint, presented a line of uniform bay-windows to its ingratiating warmth. Hannah’s was the third, and its gleaming clearness of window-pane and the stainless purity of its front steps were points of domestic decency that its proprietor insisted on as she did on the servant girl’s apron being clean and the parlor free from dust.

Berny had retained her latch-key, and letting herself in passed into the dustless parlor which connected by folding doors with the dining-room beyond. Nothing had been changed in it since the days of her tenancy. The upright piano, draped "with a China silk scarf, stood in the old corner. The solar print of her father hung over the mantelpiece on whioh a gilt clock and a pair of china dogs stood at ac-curately-measured distances. The tufted arm-chairs were placed far from each other, severely isolated in the corners, as though the room were too remote and sacred even to suggest the cheerful amenities of social Intercourse. A curious, musty smell hung in the air. It recalled the past in which Dominick had figured as her admirer. The few times that he had been to her home she had received him in this solemn, unaired apartment in which the chandelier was lit for the occasion, and Hannah and Hazel had sat in the kitchen, breathless with curiosity as .to what such a call might portend. She had been married here, tn the bay-window, under a'wedding bell of white roses. The musty smell brought it all back, even her sense of almost breathless elation, when the seal was set on her daring schemes. Prom beyond the folding doors a sound, of conversation and smitten crockery arose, also a strong odor of cooking. The family were already at lunch, and opening the door Berny entered in upoir the midday meal which was being partaken of by her two sisters, Josh, and Hazel’s daughter, Pearl, a pretty child of eight. Neither of her sisters resembled her in the least. Hannah was a woman who looked more than her age, with a large, calm faoe, and .gentle, nearsighted eyes which blinked at the world behind a pair of steel-rimmed glasses. Her quarter-century of school teaching had not dried or stiffened her. She was fuller of the milk of human kindness, of the ideals and enthusiasms of youth, than either of her sisters. All the love of her kindly, maternal nature was given to Pearl, whom she was bringing up carefully to be what seemed to Hannah best in woman. Hazel was very pretty and still young. She had the fresh, even bloom of a Californian woman, a round, graceful figure, and glossy* brown hair, rippled and arranged in an elaborate eoiffure as though done by a hairdresser. She could do this herself as she could make her own clothes, earn a fair salary at the milliner’s, and sing to the guitar in a small, piping voice. Her husband was ravished by her good looks and accomplishments, and thought her the most wonderful woman in the world. He was a thin, tall, young man with stooping shoulders, a long, lean neck, and an amiable, Insignificant face. But he seemed to please Hazel, who had married him when she was nineteen, being haunted by the nightmare thought that if she did not take what chanoes offered, she might become an old maid like Hannah. Berny sat down next to the child, conscious that under the pleasant friendliness of their greetings a violent curiosity as to whether she had been to the ball bunted in each breast. She bad" talked over, her chances of going with them, and Hazel, whose taste in all such matters was excellent, had helped her order the dress. Now, drawing her plate toward her and shaking out her napkin, she began to eat her lunch, at once too sore and too perverse to begin the subject The others endured their condition of Ignorance for some minutes, and then Hazel, finding that to wait was useless, approached the vital topia fy.

"Well, Berny, we’ve been looking over the list of at the ball in the morning papers and your name don’t seem to be down." : “I don’t see why if should," said Berny without looking up, “considering I wasn't there.” 'Ton weren’t there!” ejaculated Hannah. “They didn’t ask you?” “That’s right,” said Berny, breaking a piece of bread. "They didn’t ask me. 1 ’ “Well, I’ll be jiggered!" - exclaimed Josh. “That’s heats the Dutch!” “I didn’t believe Mrs. Ryan would do that,” said Hannah, so pained that her generally observant eye took no note of the fact that Pearl was putting her fingers in her plate. “You’re as good as her flesh and blood, too —her son’s tian, and I don’t understand it” “It’s tough,” said Josh, “that’s what it is, tough!” “If I were you,” said Hazel with spirit, "husband or no husband, I’d

It Took Bernice Some Time to Dress.

never want to go inside that house or have any dealings with that crowd again. If they were down on their knees to me I’d never go near them. Just think what it would be if Josh’s mother thqught herself too good to kncrw me! I’d like to know what I’d feel about it.” “But She wouldn’t, dearie,” said Josh placatingly. “She’d be proud to have yeu related to her.” “I guess she’d better be,” said Ha. zel, filing an indignanf glare on her spouse. "She’d find she’d barked up the wrong tree if she wasn’t.” Considering that Josh’s mother had been dead for twelve years and in her lifetime had been a meek and unassuming woman who let lodgings, Hazel’s proud repudiation at her possible scorn seemed a profitless wasting of fires, and Josh forthwith turned the conversation back to the ball. “Perhaps they did send you an invitation,” he said to Berny, “aud it got lost in the mails. That does happen, you know.” Berny’s cheeks, under the faint bloom of rouge that covered them, flajned a sudden, dusky red. She had never been open with these simple relatives of hers and Bhe was not going to begin now. But she felt shame as she thought of Dominick’s humiliating quest for the Invitation that was refused. “Oh, no,” she said hurriedly. "It wasn’t sent, that’s all. Mrs. Ryan won’t have me in the house. That’s the fact and there’s no use trying to get around it. Well, she can do without me. I seem able to support my. existence without her/’ Her tone and manner, marked by a sort of hard bravado, did not deceive her sisters, who had that extreme naivete in expressing their intimate feelings which is peculiar to Californians. They looked at her with commiserating sympathy, not quite comprehending her attitude-of independence, but feeling sorry for her, whatever pose she adopted. "And youi) dress/' said Hazel, "what will you do with that? When will you ever wear it —a regular ball dress like that?" "Oh, I’ll wear it,” said Berny with an air of having quantities of social opportunities not known by her sisters. "It won’t be a loss.” “You, could put a guimpe in and have sleeves to the elbow and wear it to the theater. With a white hat with plumes it would be a dead swell costume. And if you met any of the Ryans they’d see you were holding up your end of the line and not quite ready yet to go to the almshouse. 1 * Hannah shook her head. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Why the Football Squad Laughed.

Those who were there when this Incident happened some twelve years ago never tire of telling the following yarn on I. 1. Cammack, assistant superintendent of schools: ■ Professor Cammack was vice principal of the Central high school in 1900 or thereabouts and the athletic moventent had led to the formation of a football sQUkd. The ambitious were led to one of the study halls on a Friday afternoon, where Professor Cammack addressed them after this sash? ion: “I am glad to see you boys here and pleased to notice that you are taking an interest In athletics. I think it Is a line tiling to be interested in healthful sports. Football will give you confidence. We need boys and men of confidence in this country. In fact, I want td make confidence men out of all of you.” Perhaps the genial professor is wondering to this day why the football •quad broke into loud laughter.—Kansas City Journal.