Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 182, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1919 — Eleventh Hour Pete [ARTICLE]

Eleventh Hour Pete

By KOLA FORRESTER

r* (Copyright, l»i>, by McClure New** paper Syndicate.) They had called him “Eleventh Hour Pete" at home long before he had ever gone into training camps all through his leisurely boyhood days and later through his ’teens when he helped his father at the old sawmill on the side of Rocky Knob. “Randy’s purty slow going," old Halsey would say, watching his overgrown, lanky son toss slabs out the side door to the big pile on the sloping hillside. “But he’s as steady as the river. It goes down and it ain’t good for nothin’ half the year, but when it does start off it makes up for lost time." The other boys at school had nicknamed him “Eleventh Hour Pete” as soon as they discovers! his propensity for landing right at the last minute. Ju.st before the hell rang at' nine, Randy’s bare feet would get over the doorsill <*f the entry. .Just a minute before the teacher was ready to mark him down a failure, he would spell the word right, and as Elva laughingly said, “Just when a girl thought he didn’t have nerve enough to kiss a rag baby, he’d grab you around the neck and kiss you rougher than any of the other boys." Anti Elva was somewhat of a judge when it came to methods, even at twelve. “Reckon you’ll marry Elviry Wilson some day. won’t you. Randy?” his mother would ask tentatively, and Randy’d look self-conscious and dodge the direct issue with a smile. But all the years at home Elva had led his fancy by a golden cord. Just the sight of her dancing ahead along the country road was enough. Her liair was red, not bright carroty red, but a shiny sort of chestnut, and it hung in tong, thin, home-tended curls below her waist. Then her eyes were hazel, cat’s eyes, the other girls called them, and there was a provocative lift to her upper lip that started even Randy’s slow blood to moving faster. Yet he enlisted without asking her to marry him. and went overseas with everybody at the Knob prophesying Elva would marry somebody else while he was gone, and asking why on earth he hadn’t taken her, when she was willing. “Of course I’d marry Randy,” she said flatly and proudly, when they teased her about him. “Why not? He’s the only fellow on the mountain with any good looks or nene.” “Didn’t have nerve enough to ask you. just the same," Tuck Phillips chuckled. “He had nerve • enough not to, didn't he? Randy isn’t the sort to marry a girl so as to give her an allotment and then run the chance of leaving her a widow.” Elva’s big eyes were bright with anger. “And, say. Tuck, just because you’re over age is no reason why you can’t enlist. They’re taking them in the marines. you know, bigger and older than you are.” Two years later Tuck drove down to the county seat after a marniage license. No news had come from Randy after the first year, and he had been reported missing after the big spring drive. When the troops began coming home, Elva watched every day for news of him. but the days passed and months until Tuck found her in a tired, helpless mood one day. Her father had had a stroke after one of TiTsuSUiiT electionfights? ’EIeCTIOTi oti' Rocky Knob was something more than a mere form of government. It was the one day in the year when custom almost commanded all loyal citizens to uphold their personal principles and prejudices against all comers, and the judge was famous for his election tilts’. But this day they had carried him back up the mountain a quiet, limp old figure, and Elva had cared for him. ’ Tuck came daily. In his way he was gentle and tactful, and the judge liked him. There were three hundred and some odd acres of land to look after, and all the timber besides. “I’m gone by, Elva.” he said. “Better get a man you can trust to look after things. Tuck's right next to us, and he's been a good neighbor. I give my consent right now.” “But Randy may come back.” “He ain’t never had the gumption to ask you, has he? Ain't you got any Dride at all for a girl that don’t have to pick up with the first one that comes along?” Elva had winced, and when Tuck asked her again that night, she had nodded wearily. “Only just one thing. Tuck,” she added with a flash of her old spirit. “I think I ought to tell you this. There ain’t any man on earth ever can be to me what Randy was.” “Well. I guess I don’t have to worry over that. He ain’t on earth.” he told her slowly. . / “He’s never been lifted dead.” Tuck toed the ground industriously and looked at the pattern he traced. “I didn’t want to tell you. but Harley Evans came back last night, and he was Randy’s bunkie for months after they went over. He says he.saw Bandy die just before they picked him up to take to They left Bandy behind.” rie stopped short. She had dropped her face Ln her two hands 'and her stillness startled . him. He laid ,his hand on her shoulder appealingly. *l'll good to jrouf Elva.”

-- ~The day before the wedding she Mt with her father in the sunny little side room whose windows overlooked the valley, (Jhe byone the Women neighbor. 4 ,' dropped in and her girl friends.' buT"Elvaji4fs like “one called” as <Hd Miss farter put it. “Got a look in her eyes never was on land or sea. Bet two cents to a collar button she’s sorrowing after Rand.v yci?’ It was nearly terrllmt night when sb<* slipped out of the house. It was a good mile down the valley road to the sawmill, but she followed it easily in the moonlight. It was just to take a last look at 'his home, at the river winding through the valley meadows where they had played as. children, and the falls whose music she had always loved. Th, !'■ was a point of land that Jutted out ttbove them with a clump of short, scrub pines on it, and a little curve. of sandy shore. Here Randy had always kept his boat, an old. red. flat-bottomed one, add they had rowed out in it, she baling water With an old sardine can, he tipping it up as he stood on the stern seat, and fished for perch and sunfish ami the slippery pickerel. She went down to the beach and found his boat half burled in the drifting sand, and while she knelt there, her head against it, she heard Randy singing far down the valle> road. It came'to her like a dream, the clear boyish lilt. And it was no new song he sang, but a little old melody they had both known years ago. “Take the long, long road with me, dear. And I’ll be true to you, For I'm going far away, dear, Upon the. waters blue!” “Rand.v!” She held her hands against her breast, the tears blinding her. as she stumbled out of the pines to face him. and Randy covered the last lap on the homestretch in quicker time than he ever had any march abroad. “Thought I’d get here in time," he said finally, releasing- her and holding her away so he coirfrt- see Tier face. "Dad wrote me you were going to marry Tuck, and the blame letter followed me around till it hit me finally just as we were leaving the last hospital.” “Why did he tell me you were dead?” “Maybe he thought so,” Randy grinned happily. “I found out how to play 'possum good many years ago, tell him.”