Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 223, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1915 — Page 2

Folk We Touch In Passing

By Julia Chandler Manz

THE GIRL AND THE SCREEN ""hF When The Mother entered the combination delicatessen shop and ice cream parlor a group of girls seated at a table were so much absorbed in their discussion that they had even forgotten the refreshments before them. Nor did they see The Mother as she stood waiting for one of the busy clerks to come her way. “Why, we've just got to find a way to keep her out I tell you we can’t have her in the sorority. She would spoil all the fun. Every last one of you know how rude and unfair she is capable of being," and little Miss Bright Eyes, who had the floor pro tern, mixed in a name with her spirited protest which sent the hot blood to The Mother’s temples and made her leave the shop without making the purchase for which she had entered it For you see the subject of all the talk was The Girl —the listener's own young daughter. And what was worse The Mother knew in her heart of hearts that the criticism she had heard was true.

Throughout the afternoon of the crisp November day The Mother sat alone in her sewing room. The work she had begun lay untouched in her lap, nor did she stir in answer to either door or telephone bell. Her gaze was riveted on the expanse of lawn which circled her pretty home, and as she watched the little dead leaves blown away into hollows and corners and trenches for their long winter’s sleep her thoughts ran back

offer all the sixteen years of The Girl's life, and, as though it had happened yesterday, the scene of the child's first quarrel came with grave importance to her memory. _

The Girl had been to blame. She had been intolerably rude to Little Neighbor; beastly unfair, and when her small guest had stood out against her The Girl had burst Into a storm of tears which so touched The Mother’s sympathy that it quite ran away with her judgment. From that day on The Mother had been nothing better than a screen behind which The Girl might find protection.

From this far-away picture of the first quarrel of The Girl The Mother’s thoughts came back to the group of serious young faces in the ice cream parlor where her schoolmates were discussing ways and means of keeping The Girl out of their sorority, assigning as their reason that she was “rude and unfair.'’

The words rang through The Mother's mind with the persistency of some IHting- tune from a musical comedyThey seemed to dance away with the scurrying leaves out on the broad lawn, and then come back to sear their way like a burning brand into The Mother’s brain. She remembered innumerable instances when, in her dealings with her companions. The Girl b«d shown no sense < f justice, and as many others in which her domineering egotism and intolerable selfishness had appalled The Mother’s Iteart, but each time the adoring parent had believed that only she saw jtfco hideous faults of The Girl, and so bud gone on from year to year screening them from the public eye, or at f— thinking that she did, for

© AUCLURS NewSWPCR JifflWCATt'

“Oh, Mother, I Have Got In So Wrong."

today it w-as quite obvious that shs had not wholly succeeded.

The Mother sat in her sewing room, the work she had begun immediately after lunch lying untouched for hours in her lap. She heard The Girl open the front door; lay her books on the library table, and come slowly down the hall. When she opened the door of the sunny little sewing room The Mother had picked up the work in her lap and was plying her needle industriously. To The Girl she gave a. smile and went on with her work, ignoring the troubled look in the young eyeß as they watched her from the doorway. There was obviously something wrong, but The Mother, for the first time in her life, made it difficult for The Girl to tell her.

“Oh, mother, I have got in so wrong!" finally from The Girl, who, in the sudden memory of the embarrassing time she had been having, did not notice The Mother's unusual silence. “I called that little Mrs. Lee a perfect dowd today, and she I was talking to Marjorie Mason about the party for which Mary Lee has sent out invitations and I had no idea her mother was within a mile around, when I suddenly turned and saw her standing back of me when I had just said that it was a pity for Mary to have such a dowd for a mother. “You’ll make it alright with her won’t you mother?’ ’ended The Girl in keen distress.

The Mother regarded her with grave, calm eyes—this pretty young daughter who had never learned to

guard her tongue because she had never had to suffer the consequences of its sting. And the Girl, amazed at the slowness of The Mother's consent to “make it alright with Mrs. Lee," reiterated her question.

It was almost duss when The Girl left the sewing room to wash her tearstained face. The Mother watched her dejected steps take their way down the street toward the home of Mary Lee, and her heart ached for her. Even now The Mother's impulse was to rush out of the house, overtake The Girl and save her the painful apology to her neighbor. She had been a screen for so long that the thing had become habitual, and it was only the realisation that The Girl’s womanhood would be permanently dwarfed if she did not begin at once to do a little fighting on her own aocount that held The Mother beside the window watching for the returning steps. The Girl’s feet almost ran along the street as they brought her home. Her head was held high; red spots burned her cheeks, and when she threw open the door of the room in which The Mother waited there was a glorious light of conquest In her eyes which argued happily for her growth.

Vicar for Six Gets $4,500.

The living of St. Alphage, London Wall, England, which recently became vacant. Is a sinecure. There is no congregation, the average number of worshipers on Sunday being about six. The stipend of the incumbent is $4,500 a year, and it has been suggested that the church should be amalgamated with another and the salary of the vicar put to better net within the church. _ V

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, INP.

On the Lighthouse Rock

By H.M. EGBERT

(Copyright. IMfi. by W. G. Chapman.) Maida stood still and looked at the black object upon the beach. At first she thought it was a seal, washed ashore after the groat storm that had whipped up the shingle in great ridges all around the lighthouse rock. Then she saw that it was a man.

She held her breath in terror. Presently she ventured to draw nearer. It was a young man, with dark hair and a pale face, the tan of the neck ending in a V where the open shirt' collar disclosed the white of the skin beneath. For a moment Maida did not know what to do. Then, moved by compassion, she knelt beside him and rested his head upon her knees, while she tried to revive him, chafing his hands and dashing sea water upon his face.

All the while her heart beat furiously. She had never seen a man before, except some occasional sea captain, grizzled and bowed, who rowed out to the lonely lighthouse, and the man who brought oil and provisions in his motor boat.

Malda’s mother had kept the lighthouse ever since Maida was born. She had lived there alone, tending the light ceaselessly, a worn and shriveled, hard-featured, taciturn old woman, who seldom spoke. She had bought books and taught her daughter to read and write. Often Maida had spoken of her desire to see the world outside; but the very suggestion aroused the mother’s fury to such a degree that Maida had dome at last to acquiesce in her lot as inevitable.

The sea captains, though they looked at her pityingly, had been afraid of the grim old woman, whose loneliness had turned her brain. They spoke to

She Held Her Breath in Terror.

Malda hurriedly, and always watched to avoid the old lighthouse keeper’s anger. The young man opened a pair of dazzlingly blue eyes on Maida. “Am I dead and are you a fairy?” he asked.* “No,” answered Maida “This is Inch Rock.” He groaned. “I remember,” he muttered. “Let me see If I can stand.”

She helped him to his feet and stood beside him, wptcUng him anxiously. No bones were broken. But he was very weak, and the chopping sea made any thought of putting out impossible. “If mother finds you she will kill me,” said the girl. “Why?” inquired the young man, regarding her curiously. “She hates men. She never means me to marry or see a man. Oh, I don’t know wliat to do, sobbed Maida

“Isn’t there some place where I can hide until an opportunity comes for going away?” asked the young man. “Yes,” answered Maida “The base of the tower. You can stay there and I can bring you food. Mother leaves me to carry up oil from the storeroom. But you will go soon, won’t you?” “As soon as I can,” answered the young man, groaning. “I think,” he added, “something is broken after all —in my side. It feels as if a rib had gone.” Maida got him to the base of the tower and made him comfortable upon some sacking. The young man stretched himself out at ease. He told her how he had been on the bark that had gone ashore two miles away the night before. He had been the only survivor when the lifeboat swamped. He had clung to it until the waves washed him ashore off Inch Rock. Then he had remembered nothing V- ? Haida listened to fascination as he told her his story. He was the only son of a rich wine importer, an Englishman who had settled in the Canaries and married a Spanish lady. He, too, had been tired of his island. His father, reluctant to lose his only child, had at last granted him permission to sail on a voyage to Boston. Ho spoke of his own island home to

terms which aroused every dormant desire in the girl to trarsL HU owa father had spent hie yo*?th to the United States, and, strangely enough, not far from the lighthouse—at Seabnry, on the Maine coast “Maida! Malda! Where am yon. child ?” Maida started in terror and ran np the lighthouse stairs as her mother summoned her. "Where have you been, Maida?" "On the shore, mother," faltered the girl, and she lowered her eyes, unable to meet her mother's piercing gase. “Aye, dreaming of sweethearts, 111 warrant All my words to you for nothing. Didn’t I refuse a handsome young fellow, and rich, who loved me to distraction, because I had learned all men were villains?" “Yes, mother." “You’ll stay with your old mother, Maida?” The voice was pleading now, and it was the first time Maida’s mother had ever pleaded with her. The girl’s eyes filled; she nodded and turned away.

But those stolen hours were the sweetest in which the girl had lived. They loved each other at sight, she and the young man in the basement of the lighthouse. They planned a thousand things. When he got well he was to confront Maida's mother boldly, and demand Maida by natural right. If she refused, they two would go away together in the next sea captain’s boat that touched at Inch Rock. Maida listened with beating heart while he told her of his home in the Canaries, of his father, who would never reject the choice his son made of a bride; of the tropical trees and palms in that Island paradise. So three nights and days passed The young man had recovered from his injury. And they ever planned the method of breaking the news to the crazed old woman above. Maida feared her mother no longer. She seemed to have unfolded from girlhood to womanhood in those three days; and, as if sensible of it, her mother’s demeanor toward her had insensibly altered.

On the fourth night a mild air and £& brilliant moon tempted them from the cellar. Above, they knew the old woman would be seated, as Bhe always sat, beside the light, thinking — of what Maida never knew. It was safe if they kept under the tower. They wandered on together, and her lover’s arm sought Maida’s waist and held her, and their lips met in a happy kiss. Insensible of the passage of time they wandered on.

Suddenly a slight noise startled and awakened them. Before them stood Maida’s mother, frantic with rage and grief. She shook her fist at Maida and babbled incoherently. “Come, mother," said the young man, "I own we played you an unfair trick, but it wasn’t my fault that I should have got washed ashore upon an island where the dearest girl In the world lives.”

“Aye, you’ve stole her from me,” sobbed the old woman. “But I’ll hold her. I’ll kill you both first. I’ll burn the tower and you—” “Now, mother, be sensible,” pleaded the young man, laying his hand on her arm. “You haven’t thought that Maida would grow up to womanhood some day, that marriage is her right, as love is. You haven’t treated her rightly.” “Rightly?" cried the old woman. “What right has a girl in the world today? Who is there to care for her except her mother? Listen to me, and I’ll tell you something that not even Maida knows.

“You’ll laugh and sneer when I tell you that in my day I was the belle of my native town, not many miles from here. Among all my suitors there was just one I gave my heart to. He was handsome —Oh, yes, hr was handsome. I was just a girl, and I didn’t know that the young, quiet Englishman, whom I laughed at, because he was afraid to look me in the face, was worth twenty of my false lover. I trusted him.

“He was coming back to marry me very soon, and so nobody need know. And I had faith in him—the faith a girl has. And I waited, and he never came. And the folks found out my shame, and where everybody had sought my company I was despised and outcast, and I had nobody, nobody at all to ask advice of before Maida was bora. That’s the sort of chance a girl has. And now you know, do you still want Maida, knowing what she is?”

Maida shrank back, hardly understanding the passion of bitter memory that lashed her mother, but the young man drew her to him. “I do,” he answered. “I learned too late what false hearts men have," continued the mother. “There was just one that stood by me —the young Englishman who had loved me. He wanted me still, he wanted to care for Maida. But I couldn’t let him. I knew it would be pity and not love. So I came here. If there’s another man alive like him i might trust my girl to him, but to none other. And there could only be one Geoffrey Hale in the world.” The young man, who had listened attentively, started and then sprang forward. “My father!" he cried. “You are Louise Troy. He has often spoken of. you. Look at me, mother. Don’t you see my father’s face in me?” Incredulously the old woman seized him by the shoulder and stared into his eyes. Suddenly a mask seemed to fall from her face. “I have—lived for this day,” she said solemnly. “Be good to her. I—I—” He caught her as she stumbled forward. But he knew that, having her day, she could ree’upeacefully till has night ended. : -7 _

RED CROSS AND KHAKI

By DOROTHY DOUGLAS.

Mama Wilson was glad to see old London after her six weeks among the wounded in Belgium. Lieut Cyril Blaker, too, was glad to see London after being in the thick of the fighting for two long months. Neither Marna Wilson nor Lieut Blaker knew that the other existed. It was an amusing surprise then for the young officer to see his own and Miss Wilson’s pictures boldly printed in the middle -section of the Mirror. The heading connecting the two pbbfograph was “Military Wedding.” Blaker was half annoyed and half amused at the mistake made in the newspaper office. In the same page there appeared the photograph of Lieutenant Cameron, at home in Kent recovering from wounds. There was a photograph also of Miss Jane Cartright, Red Cross nurse. Blaker saw immediately that the four pictures had been confused. “Nice sac Wilson’s,” was the officer’s decision after long contemplation of the face beside his own in the paper. "I fancy she won’t mipd the mistake any more than I do.” When congratulations began to pour in on him by letter and telegraph, together with much good-natured chaff, his anger decreased while his amusement grew. The situation served as a pain forgetter and oblivion temporarily to the scenes of the battlefield.

The little Red Cross nurse was completely at a loss to know why telegrams and letters reached her congratulating her on her forthcoming marriage. She had not seen the photographs in the daily paper nor had she heard the name of Cyril Blaker. It was not until she received the letter from Captain Gordon of the Queen Victoria Rifles, a Young officer whom she had nursed back to health in Belgium, that the mystery was partially solved.

"Cyril Is a fine chap,” Captain Gordon had written. “I have been at his diggings, Dunkirk, in Mottingham, Kent, often. Long life and great happiness to you both.” Marna realized that it had cost Captain Gordon much to write those words. The captain’s love had been hard to refuse. She smiled,'however, for his letter gave her the cue she wanted. She would write now to Lieutenant Blaker and ask him to solve the riddle for her.

Being a delightfully sunny day and not a long trip into Kent, Marna dressed herself with unusual taste and took the train for Mottingham. There was no reason why she should not go. Her life among the wounded soldiers had taught her that prudery is a thing unknown to the Red Cross nurse.

Her trip through the meadows of Kent was delightful. When she reached Mottingham she stepped into the little lane leading from the station and inquired her way to Dunkirk. If the walk was not too long she preferred to take it, for the summer was in full and fragrant bloom — a tonic for ragged nerves. Dunkirk was a rambling old house that lay in a tangle of rose arbors. Lieutenant Blaker, lying in his invalid’s chair, glanced up from his reading at the sound of light footsteps approaching.

He drew a surprised and wonderfully exhilarating breath when he saw the slim figure making its way through an arbor of roses in his direction. For just a second his glance was puzzled. _____ ——— — He would have risen save that Mama’s quickened step and xAised hand prevented him. “I will not come if you attempt to stand,” she admonished with dainty command. “I know an invalid when I see one.” Her smile so radiated her face that Blaker felt slightly -Jealous of all the invalids she must have smiled upon. Her picture, he told filmself, in no way flattered her. Mama seemed surprised that there was recognition in his eyes for to her the young, bandage-enclosed officer tn the chair was a complete stranger.

“I suppose you have come down to talk about the wedding?” he questioned laughingly, when she had seated herself beside bim. Then beckoning to a maid in the window, he ordered tea brought into the garden “But, you see, lam in the dark. I haven’t the slightest idea what has prompted all my friends to make this ab—this mistake.”

“I thank you for leaving out the word absurd,” Lieutenant Blaker said, and Mama blushed with charming promptness. “Haven’t you seen this?” he asked, handing her a sheet from the daily paper. “No!” she said softly, and continued to blush when she saw her own and the young officer’s photographs and the headline above. “I haven’t looked at the papers much. I —this is rather —amusing,” she faltered, at which Blaker laughed heartily. “I’m very glad you’re not angry> Captain Gordon’s letter to me made me more than anxious to meet yon,” he explained. “These papers make a lot of blunders, but this is a happy one for me. I want you to meet my mother Sad sisters. We will all have a cup of tea.” And that was the odd beginning of an acquaintance which in time ripened into something far more interesting. Both the lieutenant and the litf!e Red Cross nHrse returned to the fighting line, but as man and wife. (Copyright, 1915. by the IfcClore News' paper Syndicate.;

THE REASON

Dr. Knott—How is it that Emdee has such a fashionable practice? . Dr. Kurenon —One reason is that he calls every case of rheumatism he attends the gout.

RIGHT PLACE FOR HIM

Miss Brightone—When you return from abroad, is it your intention to go into business? Gayladde —No, the governor thinks I’m too much of a fool! I’m going into society.

HEARD IN BOSTON

Aunt Hester —Did 'OO play kissing games at the party? Emerson Highhed—Well, they participated in osculatory pastimes, whichsl consider a rather uninteresting and juvenile diversion.

TROUBLES OF PRESENT TIME

Rev. Goodleigh Goode —Young man. what are your hopes for the future? Jack Harduppe—None just now. Tomorrow' is my girl’s 'birthday, and I’m worrying a good deal about the present.

GETTING USED TO IT

“Is your daughter improving in her playing?” •Either that or I’m getting used to it.” ;.v ••• . ‘