Indianapolis Times, Volume 35, Number 210, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 January 1923 — Page 8

8

ALICE ADAMS by BOOTH TARKINGTON Copyright, 1921, by Doubleday, Page & Cos.

Begin Here MRS. VIRGIL ADAMS, although quite anxious about her husband s business future, promises her optimistic daughter, ALICE, that she will be more considerate of the feelings of Mr. Adams, who is laid up in bed as a result of business strain, and speak no further of his work until he is better able to endure it. Alice believes her father worthy of a much better paying position than he has heretofore held. WALTER, employed at Lamb & Co.’s, and the only brother of Alice, causes her some concern because of his utter lack of ambition and much to her mother's surprise Intimates that she believes his companions are not of the best type. GO ON WITH THE STORY "If he’ll give it to me!" her mother lamented, as they went toWard the front stairs together; but an hour later she came into Alice's room with a bill In her hand. "He has some money in hi bureau drawer,” she said. “He finally told me where it was.” There were traces of emotion in her voice, and Alice, looking shrewdly at her, saw moisture in her eyes. “Mama’’ ’she cried. “You didn’t do what you promised me wouldn't, did you—not before Miss Perry!” “Miss Perry's getting him some broth,” Mrs. Adams returned, calmly. "Besides, you’re mistaken in saying I promised you anything; I said I thought you could trust me to know what is right.” "So you did bring it up again!” And Alice swung away from her, strode to her father’s door, flung it open, went to him, and put a light hand soothingly over his unrelaxed forehead. “Poor old papa!” she said. “It’s a shame how everybody wants to trouble him. He shan't be bothered any more at all! He doesn’t need to have everybody telling him how to get away from that old hole he’s worked in so long and begin to make us all nice and rich. He knows how!” Thereupon she kissed him a consoling good-by, and made another gay departure, the charming hand again fluttering like a white butterfly in the shadow of the closing door. CHAPTER 111 Mrs. Adams had remained In Alice’s room, but her mood seemed to have changed, during her daughter's little more than momentary absence. “YVhat did he say?” she asked quickly, and her tone was hopeful. “Say?” Alice repeated, impatiently. “Why, nothing. I didn’t let him. Really, mamma. I think the best thing for you to do would be to just keep out of his room, because I don’t believe you can go in there and not talk to him about it, and if you do talk we'll never get him to do the right thing. Never!” The mother's response was a grieving silence; she turned from her daughter and walked to the door. “Now, for goodness’ sake!” Aice cried. “Don’t go making tragedy out of my offering you a little practical advice!” “I'm not,” Mre. Adams gulped, halting. “I’m just—just going to dust the downstairs. Alice.” And with her face still averted, she went out into the little hallway, closing the door behind her. A moment later she couid be heard descending the stairs, the sound of her footsteps carrying somehow an effect of resignation. Alice listened, sighed, and, breathing the words, “Oh, murder!” turned to cheerier matters. She put on a little apple-green turban with a dim gold band round it. ar.d then, having shrouded the turban in a white veil.

which she kept pushed up above her forehead, she pot herself into a tan coat of soft cloth fashioned with rakish severity. After that, having studied herself gravely in a long glass, she took from one of the drawers of her dressing-table a black leather card-case cornered in silver filigree, but found it empty. She opened another drawer wherein were two white pasteboard boxes of cards, the one set showing simply "Miss Adams," the other engraved in Gothic characters. "Miss Alys Tuttle Adams.” The latter belonged to Alice’s “Alys” period—most girls go through it; and Alice must have felt that she had graduated, for, after frowning thoughtfully at the exhibit this morning, she took the box with its contents, and let the white shower fall from her fingers into the wastebasket beside her small desk. She replenished the card-ease from the “Miss Adams” box; then, hating found a pair of fresh white gloves, she tucked an ivory-topped Malacca walk-ing-stick under her arm and set forth. She went down the stairs, buttoning her gloves and still wearing the frown with which she had put “Alys” finally out of her life. She descended slowly, and paused on the lowest step, looking about her with an expression that needed but a slight deepening to betoken bitterness. Its connection with her dropped “Alys” forever was slight, however. The small frame house, about fifteen years old, was already inclining to become anew colonial relic. The Adamses had built it, moving into it from the “Queen Anne” house they had rented until they took this step in fashion. But fifteen years is a long time to stand still in the midland country, even for a house, and this one was lightly made, though the Adamses had not realized how flimsily until they had lived in it for some time. “Solid, compact, and convenient” were the instructions to the architect; and he had made it compact successfully. Alice, pausing at the foot of the stairway, was at the same time fairly in the “living-room.” for the only separation between the “living-room” and the hall was a demarcation suggested to willing imaginations by a pair of wooden columns painted white. These columns, pine under the paint, were bruised and chipped at the base; one of them showed a crack that threatened to become a split; the "hard-wood" floor had become uneven; and in a corner the walls apparently failed cf solidity. where the wall-paper had declined to accompany some staggerings of the plaster beneath it. The furniture was in great part an accumulation begun with the wedding gifts; though some of it was older, two large patent rocking-chairs and a foot stool having belonged to Mrs. Adams' mother in the days of hard brown plush and veneer. For decoration there were pictures and vases. Mrs. Adams had always been fond of vases, she said, and every year her husband’s Christmas present to her was a vase of one sort or another — whatever the clerk showed him. marked at about twelve or fourteen dollars. The pictures were some of them etchings framed in gilt;

Canterbury’. schooners grouped against a wharf; and Alice could remember how, In her childhood, her father sometimes pointed out the watery reflections In this last as very fine. But it was a long time since he had shown interest in such things —“or in anything much,” as she thought. Other pictures were two water-col-ours in baroque frames; one being the Amalfi monk on a pergola wall, while the second was a yard-wide display of Iris blossoms, painted by Alice herself at 14, as a birthday gift to her mother. Alice's glance paused upon it now with no great pride, but showed more approval of an enormous photograph of the Colosseum. This she thought of as “the only good thing in the room;” it possessed and bestowed distinction, she felt; and she did not regret having won her struggle to get it hung in its conspicuous place of honor over the mantelpiece. Formerly that place had been held for years by a steel-engraving, an accurate representation of the Suspension Bridge at Niagara Falls. It was almost as large as Its successor, the “Colosseum,” and It had been presented to Mr. Adams by colleagues in his department at Lamb and Company’s. Adams had shown some feeling when Alice began to urge its removal to obscurity in the “upstairs hall;” be even resisted for several days after she had the “Colosseum” charged to him, framed in oak, and sent to the house. She cheered him up, of course, when he gave way; and her heart never misgave her that there might be a doubt which of the two pictures was the more dismaying. Over the pictures, the vases, the old brown plush rocking-chairs and the stool, over the three gilt chairs, over the new chintz-covered easychair and the gray velour sofa—over everything everywhere, was the familiar coating of smoke grime. It had worked into every fiber of the lace curtains, dingying them to an unpleasant gray; it lay on the window sills and it dimmed the glass panes: it covered the walls, covered the ceiling, and was smeaxed darker and thicker in all comers. Yet here was no fault of housewifery; the curse could not be lifted, as tho ingrained smudges permanent on the once white woodwork proved. The grime was perpetually renewed; scrubbing only ground it in. This particular ugliness was small part of Alice’s discontent, for though the coating grew a little deeper each year she was used to It. Moreover, she knew that she was not likely to find anything better in a thousand miles, so long as she kept to cities, and that none of her friends, however opulent, had any advantage of her here. Indeed, throughout all the great soft-coal country, people who consider themselves comparatively poor may find this consolation: cleanliness lias been added to the virtues and beatitudes that money cannot buy. Alice brightened a little as shf> went forward to the front door, and she brightened more when the spring breeze met her there. Then all de pression left her as she walked down the short brick path to tho sidewalk, looked up and down the street, and saw how bravely the maple shade trees, in spite of the black powder they breathed, were flinging out their thousands of young green particles overhead. She turned north, treading the new little shadows on the pavement briskly, and, having finished buttoning her gloves, swung down her Malacca stick from under her ann to let it tap a more leisurely accompaniment to her quick, short step. She had to step quickly if she was to get anywhere; for the closeness of her skirt, in spite of its little length, permitted no natural stride; but she was pleased to

be impeded, these brevities forming part of her show of fashion. Other pedestrians found them not wthout charm, though approval may have been lacking here and there; and at the first crossing Alice suffered what she might have accounted an actual injury, had she allowed herself to be so sensitive. An elderly woman in fussy black silk stood there, waiting for a street-car; she was all of a globular modelling, with a face patterned like a frost-bitten peach, and that the approaching gracefulness was uncongenial she naively made too evident. Her round, wan eyes seemed roused to bitter life as they rose from the curved high heels of the buckled slippers to the tight little skirt, and thence with startled ferocity to the Malacca cane, which plainly appeared to her as a decoration not more astounding than it was insulting. Perceiving that the girl was bowing to her, the globular lady hurriedly made sldft to alter her Injurious expression. “Good morning, Mrs. Dowling," Alice said, gravely. Mrs. Dowling returned the salutation with a smile as convincingly benevolent as the ghastly smile upon a Santa Claus face: and then, while Alice passed on, exploded toward her a single compacted breath through tightened lips. The sound was eloquently audible, though Mrs. Dowling remained unaware that in this or any manner whatever she had shed a light upon her thoughts: for it was her lifelong innocent conviction that other people saw- her only as she wished to he seen, and heard from her only wha’t she intended to be heard. At home it was always her husband who pulled down the shades of their bedroom window-. Alice looked serious for a few moments after the little encounter, then found some Consolation in the behaviour of a gentleman of forty or so who was coming toward her. Pike Mrs. Dowling, he had begun to show consciousness of Alice’s approach while she was yet afar off; but his tokens were of a kind pleasanter to her. He was like Mrs. Dowling again, however, in his conception that Alice would not realize the significance of what he did. He passed his hand over his neck-scarf to see that it lay neatly to his collar, smoothed a lapel of his coat, and adjusted his hat, seeming to be preoccupied the while with problems that kept his eyes to the pavement: then, as he came within a few- feet of her, he looked up, as in a surprised recognition almost dramatic, smiled wtnningly, lifted his bat decisively, and carried it to the full arm’s length. Alice’s response was all he could haye asked. The cane in her right hand stopped short in its swing, while her lsft hanW moved in a pretty ges-

DOINGS OF THE DUFFS—

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THEM DAYS JS GONE FOREYER-

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ture as if an impulse carried it toward the heart; and she smiled, with her under lip caught suddenly between her teeth. Months ago she had seen an actress use this smile in a play, and it came perfectly to Alice now. without conscious direction, it had been so well acquired: but the pretty hand's little impulse toward the heaHt was an original bit all her own, on Cbe spur of the moment.

OUT OUR WAY—By WILLIAMS

TILE OLD HOME TOW N-

The gentleman went on, passing from her forward vision as he replaced his hat. Os himself he was nothing to Alice, except for the gracious circumstance that he had shown strong consciousness of a pretty girl. He was middle-aged, substantial, a family man, securely married; and Alice had with him one of those long acquaintances that never become emphasized by so much as live minutes

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

YOU MUST BE MAKING \ A LOT OF MONEY L—TO BE BUILDIN6 /YOU MIGHT HOUSES AND ALL / BETTER SAY, . THAT SORT OF J I HAP A THING* V LITTLE MONEY-

By STANLEY

of talk; yet for this inconsequent meeting she had enacted a little part like a fragment in a pantomine of Spanish wooing. It wits not for him —not even to impress him, except as a messenger. Alice was herself almost unaware of her thought, which was one of the running thousands of her thoughts that took no deliberate form in words. Nevertheless, she had it, and it was

Tom Gives Detailed Direction

WE’RE COMING OVERI\ SOME NIGHT AND CALL y~ N —' on you folks in Your. ] gladTo have new HOME-IF You’re /yoo.charleyNOT TOO WIGHTON ED J J ANY OLD Tl ME, BoT MAKE ,T | -

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Conquer Tliis On Your Cornet

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the Impulse of all her pretty bits of pantomime when she met other acquaintances who made their appreciation visible, as this substantial gentleman did. In Alice’s unworded thought, he was to be thus encouraged as in some measure a champion to speak well of her to the world; but more than this: he was to if 11 some magnificent unknown, bachelor how wonderful, how mysterious she was.

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—B 7 BLOSSER

OUR BOAKDINU HOUSE—By AHERN

She hastened on gravely, a little stirred reciprocally with the supposed stirrings in the breast of that shadowy ducal mate, who must be somewhere “waiting,” or perhaps already seeking her; for she more often thought of herself as “waiting” while he sought her: and sometimes this view of things became so definite that it shaped into a murmur on her lips. "Waiting. Just waiting.” And

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she might add, “For him!” Then, being twenty-two, she was apt to conclude the mystic interview by laughing at herself, though not without a continued wistfulness. (To Be Continued.) Cobbler to Professor /GUASGLOW. .Tan. 11. —Sir Rarr Jones, professor of logic at St. Andrews, began life as a cobble?.

JAN. 11, 1923

—By ALLMAN

—By AL POSEN