Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 152, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1915 — IN THE BREAD LINE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IN THE BREAD LINE

By ELEANOR MORRIS WILMARTH.

(Copyright, 1916, by W. G. Chapman.) “Stop here, please, Helen." “You don’t mean that you are going Into that horrid place!” “That is my mission, dear. You see, the church guild has taken charge for one day. Poor creatures! My heart so pities them!” Miss Helen Parr shrugged her shoulders. Her finely chiseled lip curved disdainfully. Only that she was enwrapt in getting the brother of Ivy 'Winsted for a husband, she would then and there have discarded the sister.

She had offered Ivy a lift In her magnificent limousine, and Ivy had directed her, until now they stopped in front of a rickety structure that had once been a cheap lodging house. A line of men, women and children, perhaps a hundred or more, lined up in front of the place. Tragedy, suffering, hunger spoke in every one of the wan, pinched faces. Ivy lifted her basket from the machine.

“Thanks, dear,” she smiled winsomely, and passed inside the lower story of the building. There were long tables piled high with bread and a steam table holding a coffee boiler big enough for a gianL At some of the tables, as with Ivy, ladies waiting upon them had brought baskets and parcels of dainties such as cake, jellies and sandwiches. Ivy’s tender heart went out in earnest pity as the bread line was started on its march. Those who wished to carry food and coffee away to their homes were given the same in bags

and pails. Those who had no home ate and drank standing at the tables. Ivy cried silently over the poor famished little children who came along in the line, and made it an especial point to give them a full allowance. Long before a tall graceful young man whom she had particularly noticed reached her, she had singled him out as one of a class that had seen better times.

He kept his hat well down over his eyes, but could not disguise the finely chiseled lower face. He was evidently a convalescent, for his shapely hands were almost transparent. He was neat and clean, but his attire threadbare. Ivy could not refrain from speaking to him as he drank a cup of coffee. He stared at her in wonder and then as if fascinated at her beauty, as she said softly, sympathetically: “Please wait and I will give you something to last you for supper.” Then, strangely affected although she could not tell why, Ivy turned to fill a bag with some of the dainties she had brought from home. She passed it to the young man with a radiant smile of compassion and interesL His whole face lighted up. He bowed his thanks, a choking aspiration in his throat, and passed on.

“Once, such a face as that, and I would have immortalized it!” he breathed huskily aB he reached the outer air. It seemed to place him in a dreamy mood. It was before him all that day. When he sat down on a park bench at dusk, the face of the lady beautiful was still before him. Gratefully, almost reverently, he partook of the extra meal the dainty hands of the beautiful girl had prepared for Mm He shook out the last crumbs from the bag. Something jangled and glittered upon the bench seat beside him as it came out of the bag. He picked it up. A heart-shaped piece of gold showed, with a tiny sparkling diamond in its center. He traced script letters across its surface, “Mother to Ivy” it read. “Why, it must have torn free from the bracelet the young lady wore who waited on me,” murmured the young man “I must get it back to her at once." When he reached the old lodging house building he found its functions of the day disposed of Two elderly ladies were just getting ready to leave. He approached them respectfully and his gentlemanly bearing impressed thwm. “There was a young lady here, right •t that table,” and the speaker todl-

c&ted the spot In question. “Can you give me her name and address? She lost something and I found it and wish to return it to her." i .“Miss Ivy Winsted, Twenty-two Mowbray Terrace” —over and over the young man repeated the address, fearful of forgetting it. At the end of a four-mile walk he felt his strength giving way. He could scarcely climb the marble steps leading up to the mansion he had finally reached. As he stood catching his breath at the open vestibule door, a sudden faintness possessed him. He had overtaxed his feeble strength. He sank to the railing to recover himself. A young man about his own age ran smartly up the steps. “Hello—l say!” he hailed the strange visitor. “What’s this —sick?” “If you please, I have a message for Miss Ivy Winsted,” spoke the caller, with difficulty arising to his feet, but forced still to cling to the balustrade for support.

“Oh, you have, indeed T” retorted the young man dubiously. “Miss Winsted lost a bracelet pendant," was the faint explanation. "I found it. Please give it to her —” “Hello! Hold on! I declare!” and Jerome Winsted, the brother of Ivy, caught the other just in time to prevent him from going hurtling headlong down the steps. “You need attention, you do. He’s gone under!” and young Winsted bodily carried thfe insensible burden into tlje house, depositing him on a couch in his own cozy private study.

At length the convalescent opened his eyes. The first object his dazed vision took in was an oil painting hanging upon the wall opposite him. He stared, he forced himself to arise. Wonderment, joy, pride commingled in his eager face. “Why," he cried, “that is my picture!”

“Out of his head, poor fellow!” soliloquized Jerome Winsted, but indulgently he aloud: “Your picture, eh?” “Yes. I am Paul Rivers,” declared the other, almost wildly. “You will find my initials in the lower right hand corner: ‘P. R.’ It was before I got so ill. I had to sell it to Moreau, the picture broker. He said it was a daub, but gave me ten dollars for it —out of pure charity, he said.” “The infamous scoundrel!” cried young Winsted indignantly. “Why, it took the prize at the art exhibition and I gave two thousand dollars for it. See here, my friend, you’ve got a story to tell and I want to .hear it.” It was over a refreshing meal that the life of Paul Rivers was told. Artist struggles, sickness, a swindling picture broker, almost starvation! One thing Paul did not tell—that he had been in “the bread line,” and Winsted asked no questions as to how he had found the bangle.

Jerome Winsted adopted the artist as his protege. It was for his pictures. Ivy had gone on a long visit to relatives. In the bright, happy, welldressed Paul she never recognized her pensioner. But she did find an ideal. One beautiful evening, as they sat on the cool shaded porch, Paul told her his love. Her eyes encouraged him. Then he held hex' hand, as he said: “Ivy, I have a confession to make,” and he told her the whole story. “What do you say?” “Oh, that I love you more dearly than ever after all your sufferings!” she said simply, and with truth.

“Why,” He Cried, “That Is My Picture!”