Indianapolis Times, Volume 38, Number 152, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 October 1926 — Page 24

PAGE 24

SONIA

A Story of Dangerous Love

(Continned From Page 1) jald ring on her hand- I like emeralds, Joe, better than diamonds- And my hands aren’t bad.” ■ She sent them, like frail messengers, to his lips for a kiss. “Sonia, when yon talk like that, you seem like somebody else. I’m half afraid of yon. Why are you so different from other girls?” “How could I he like them?” she asked, 'frankly. “I’ve never had any of the things they’re used to. -Think how miserable I’d he if I tried to imitate them. 1 have had to be myself, Joe, and live in my own world. While they go a\yay to summer camps or to the mountains where it’s cool, I have been at home washing dishes!” “Pknow and it’s a darned shame ...” “Oh, don’t! I wasn’t asking for pity. I don’t <vant that from anybody.” She drew herself proudly erect. “I am seeing visions while I wash the dishes, you see. And. 1 have my own ideas and plans for the future. No one need be sorry for me.” ,• * * They had reached her door now. As if by common consent, they drew closer together and lowered their voices. “I’ll bet your ideas are pretty grand, aren’t they?” “It will take a whole loUof money to carry them out. I can tell you that.” He said, wistfully, “I suppose that lets me out. You don’t see a little bungalow down across from the garage in that kind of a dream!” She slid her hand into his. “I’m afraid not, Joe. No bungalows in my uretaus. But I like you au awful lot.” “You liked to kiss me? he asked timidly, hopefully. Sonia laughed. “I think I might have, but in the grand uproar that followed I was too stunned to notice whether I liked it or not.” Ho put both arms about her slender young body. “Sonia, kiss me again.” But she drew away. “A kiss,” said Sonia, with infinite wisdom, “is like lobster. One must be in just the right condition for one ” “You mean you aren’t now?” “Exactly!”' “But you were tonight in that dark room, with the noise and singing going on outside?” “It was exciting waiting in the dark for you to find me. There was kick to that.” “Sonia, you little devil . . . there’s kick to it now. Kiss me, Sonia! I’ll guarantee the kick.” But she eluded him, ducking easily from his embrace. During the scuffle, there was the sound of a window being raised. “Sonia!” * / “Yes, Mother.” “Come on in, now.” “All right! Joe, you’ll have to go.” “Sonia, please!” “No,” she cried, impatiently. He said, with the bitterness of 17, “I suppose you’ve kissed ■o many fellows nothing to it for you.” “You lie, Joe Carter.” “What do you mean, lie? “I mean,” Sonia flared, “that the kiss you gave me inSidney’s bedroom tonight was the first kiss I’ve had from a boy —ever. And I hate you! ” Leaving the boy astounded by both her violence and the information Sonia ran up the steps and banged the door. # * # As she turned on the light she stared at the ugly untidiness confronting her. The sewing machine littered with silk scraps and a pin cushion, bursting with pins, symbol of her mother’s profession. Sonia hated that pin cushion. In those dreams of hers she had cut it into shreds, burned it, thrown it into the river. Her mother had ft way of mumbling, with her mouth fulLof pins, “Sonia, hand me my pin cushion!” There was a battered leather couch which Sonia had , adorned with turquoise silk pillows. The 'color gave her a thrill of exquisite joy, as did the Japanese print she had selected, famingo red. But an ironing board stood beneath it with a cold iron. Mrs. Stillwater’s now foulard dangled on a hanger from the bracket? light. “I hate it I—hate it!—hate it!” muttered Sonia, throwing her coat on a chair. i Her mother stood at the sink in the kitchen, stacking dirty dishes. “I didn’t expect you home so soon,” she said, in her colorless voice. “It isn’t 11 o’clock.” “You told me to come in,” evaded Sonia. “Yes, I didn’t want you hanging on the front steps with that boy. But how did the party happen to be over?” “Oh, Mother! Why is a party ever over? Don’t ask me! It's over, that’s all.” Anna Marsh stood for a moment, hands on her hips. -“What’s the matter, Sonia? Didn’t jmu have a good time?” “Os course I did. Why?” “I don’t know. But evidently you didn’t. I wish you’d talk to me more. There are a lot of things about you I don’t understand.” # “Now mother ” “Why shouldn’t you have a good time with girls and boys your own age? It wasn’t your dress. That’s perfect. I’m willing to say there wasn’t a girl there with a prettier dress than yours.” She eyed the lines of the shell pink chiffon, admiringly. “Right you are, darling!” Sonia answered, gratefully. “My clothes are always perfect. If I’m not a social success you certainly are not to Where’s father?” “Where is he always when you’re having a date?” • • • Sonia went to the back porch and peered out. VDaddy?” “Yes, honey!” She opened the screen door apd' slipped out to the steps. “You can come on in now. Your wandering child is home,” * He puffed at his pine before he answered, gently, “Does it maks you mad because I sit up and wait for you?”

By VIDA HURST

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“Oh, no 1 It makes me feel fine to know you’re out here on the back steps worrying about me all the time I’m gone.” “I’m not worrying about you, honey. You know your Dad thinks you’re the finest girl that ever lived.” Sonia smiled. “It’s just that I can’t get used to the idea that you’re old enough to go out alone with the boys at night.” “Well, I’m out of high school now. I guess that ought to be old enough. Dad, I want to go to work.” lie rose, rather heavily for so short a man, and re-entered the kitchen. Sonia followed him. “Daddy, did you hear what I said? I want to go away from here and get a joh. I could be a bookkeeper. I was head of my class.” “I can’t let you go away fro mhome, honey. You’re too young.” The face he turned to her was lined with the years of his futile struggle to get ahead. “But if you want to find something to do here in Stockton ...” “Never! I’ll die first. I won’t stay in this town another month.” White-faoed, they stared at each other. “Sonia, what do you mean? “I mean I hate it. I hate the narrow-minded, suspicious people. I hate this house, the disorder, the dishwashing. I hate myself and the things I find myself doing. . . . ” “But, Sonia, you’re not going away. I won’t let you. You can’t. v “I will!” she cried, passionately. “I’m going to Sar. Francisco, where I can live my own life. And I’ll hate you if you try to stop me.”

Saipt amid Simumer By ANNE AUSTIN 1

CHAPTER £VII “Mrs. Ettleson?" Faith echoed in amazement, unreasoning- desire to protect her parents from knowledge of Cherry's foolish philandering with a married man and to shield Cherry —greedy, selfish, lovely little Cherry —from the consequences of her escapade, no matter how far it had gone, forced an artificial smile of welcome to her lips, honeyed her voice with a false sweetness. “Oh, Mrs. Albert Ettleson—of course! I’ve heard Cherry speak of >oh. I am so sorry she isn’t in right now—she’s out with a friend of tho family—a Mr. Hathaway, isn’t she, Mother? Did she say when she would be back?”

THE INDIANAPOEB3 TIMES

OUT OUR WAY—B? WILLIAMS

The corners of Mrs. Lane's mouth drew down in the stubborn expression that Faith knew so well. . Her frowning eyes darted suspiciously from her daughter to the stranger who had certainly not come to pay an ordinary social call. “I don’t know when she’ll be back.” she snapped. don’t know what all this mystery's about. Faith, but if this—this woman—” her voice was acidly emphatic. Insulting “has come to make trouble for Cherry, though I must say If Cherry knows her or ever heard of her she’s kept mighty quiet about It—” “Please, Mother!" Faitb begged, her voice smothered in pan!a "I I thipk I'd better with Mra-JEJt-

BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES—Bj. MARTIN

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—By BLOSSER

tleson, alone— ’’ “I didn’t come here to make trouble between a mother and daughter,” Mrs. EtUeson interrupted, her thin hands twisting together in painful embarrassment, her pale, greenishgray eyes—the eyes of a timid, weak woman at last aroused to the fighting point—wide with fright and righteous anger. “But I think your iriother has a right to know. Miss Lane, that your sister has come between me and my husband. I have every reason to believe they’ve run away together today.” In the stunned, dreadful silence that followed, both Faith and her father moved instinctively toward Mrs. Lane. Cherry’s mother rose, a vast upheaving bulk, from her chair, her dropsy-puffed hands gripping the arms of the wicker chair so that the yielding, dry cane creaked—a loud, nerve-scratching sound in that awful silence. Faith on one. side of her, Jim Lane on the other, flung their arms around her, but she shrugged her heavy shoulders, as if to shake off their protecting love. “You’re a liar!” Her voice, hafsh and trembling with wrath, shattered the silence, made poor, insignificant, shabby little Mrs. Ettleson cringe, as if the words had struck her. “How dare you? Get out of my house, or I’ll kick you out, you sniveling, whimpering hussy! Get out, I tell you—” “Mother! Please, Mother! You’ll kill yourself, Mother!” Faith begged brokenly, her arms straining to pull her mother back into her chair. “She has a bad heart, Mrs. Ettleson.” She turned wild, imploring eyes upon the frightened woman who was cowering against the table. “Won’t you go outside? I’ll talk with you there —please! Oh, Dad!” she cried shrilly, as her mother’s body sagged suddehly, lurched heavily toward the floor. “She’s fainted! Call the doctor quick, quick!” “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Mrs. Ettleson moaned helplessly. “Get some watdr—the kitchen—straight back!” Faith panted, while her father ran to the hall to telephone. Faith never afterwards clearly remembered Just what was said and done In those dreadful twenty minutes before the doctor arrived, but tears of shame and gratitude always stung her eyes at the remembrance of how poor, bewildered little Mrs. Ettleson hgd risen to the occasion. In those twenty minutes she lost her identity as a wronged wife, assumed, with quiet dignity and efficiency, the role of ministering angel. It was Mrs. Ettleson who bathed the purple face of the unconscious woman while Faith answered Bob Hathaway’s

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promised telephone call. It was Mrs. Ettleson''who chopped he in the kitchen, to fill the ice cap for the stricken woman’s head. It was Mrs. Ettleson who deftly undressed her and eased the heavy, inert body into a clean white nightgown. “Bob!” Faith, sped telephone. “Can you come—at once?” Something dreadful has happened. No—Cherry’s not sick. Something else. I can’t explain. Mother has fainted—Cherry’s gone—oh. Bob!” “I'll be right there, Faith, dear!” Bob's voice, sweet, comforting, in spite of the terror in it. was like a kiss on Faith’s ice-cold lips. As they worked over her mother. Faith marveled, for the thousandth time in her life, at her father’s gentleness and tenderness toward his wife. She was vast and ugly In her cheap, unadorned nightgown, with her graying, thin hair straggling over the pillow, her thick, purplish lips puffing out grotesquely on her gusts of hard-won breath. But Jim Lane’s knuckly, toil-hardened jiands touched her thick, freckled arms, her heavy, sagging, purple-veined cheeks with all the reverent gentleness that a' bridegroom w'ould have shown to his lovely young bride. Faith, weeping silently as she waited for the doctor and for Bob Hathaway, looked at him as if she had never, seen him before—this rather shy, hen-pecked, gentle man who would soon be old—and realized that to him t*he woman w'ho lay helpless and fat and ugly on the bed they had shared for so many years was the girl who had been his bride. His love for her had burned steadily ffwough twenty-five years of married life, of child-raising and poverty and ill health. George W’ould have been like that—and she hated herself that she could think of her ow r n affairs while her mother lay unconscious and gasping for breath. They arrived almost together—the doctor and Bob Hathaway. She had Just shown the doctor to her mother’s room when Hathaway, without knocking, opened the screen door of the living room. "Is to die. Dr. Atkins?” Faith whispered in terror, as the doctor shook his head over her mother's condition. “I hope not,” he answered gravely. “But I’m afraid another attack like this will be the end. You must protect her against shocks, excitement of any kind.” Mrs. Ettleson rose from her place on the edge of the bed, where she had been stroking Mrs. Lane’s wrists, and hurried, blinded with tears, from the room. f

OUR BOARDING HOUSE—By AHERN

"Faith!” It was Bob's voice, calling her in cautious, low tones. She was so white, so terrified, when she came walking Jerkily toward him that Bob Hathaway sprang to her side, and put his arm around her shoulders. “What is it, Faith? I’ll do anything in the world —tell me." "Bob,” and Faith raised her head with that sudden, proud gesture which he was coming to associate with her, “this is Mrs. Ettleson Mrs. Albert Ettleson. She came here today to tell us that Cherry—that Cherry has run away with her husband. We’ve got to stop her, Bob —if it isn’t too late.” “Oh. my God!” His tall body doubled suddenly, as if he had been struck a knockout blow. “I wish to God I’d never comer’ Mrs. Ettleson began to weep, gaspingly, like a child. “Albert isn’t worth it all. If I’d known about her mother—oh, I'll kill myself if poor Mrs. Lane dies!” “We mustn’t waste time,” Faith said sharply, because she was so torn between pity for Mrs. Ettleson and Bob Hathaway and her anxiety for her mother and for Cherry. “We’ve got to get Cherry back — right away, ,Bob! The doctor said another attack might ” she choked on a sob that tore her throat. “Mrs. Ettleson, won’t you tell us just what you know?” Bob Hathaway, sensing Faith’s need and terror, got hold of himself miraculously. “Let’s try to get at this thing sensibly. You may be entirely wrong, you know. Please tell us exactly what you know about Cherry and—your husband." Mrs. Ettleson dabbed at her tearstreaked cheeks with tho back of thin hand. “Albert—Mrs. Ettleson — and I live in Indianapolis. He’s a traveling salesman for the Tip-Top Gas Range Company, and he comes to this town once a month. I help him with his reports. I used to be a stenographer before I married, and they know me at his office. They let me have his mail to forward to him, or to answer, if it's something I can attend to,” There was a curious ripple of pride in the dead, flat tones of her voice. "About two months ago he got a letter in a girl’s handwriting from this town. I —l didn’t worry much” —her listeners knew, with an acute pang of pity, that she had worried terribly—“because I know how—how traveling men are. Most of the time they don’t mean any real harm. Albert was always good to me—ln his way, and I hadn’t had any real cause to be suspicious. But when—when the second letter came, I—l steamed It open Wore forwarding it to him*” • , V

oct. ju um

How It must hurt her to tell all this. Faith told herself sickly. "It was from—Cherry?” Bob prompted the faltering narrative. "Yes, from Cherry Liane,” Mrs. J3ttleson nodded. "It was a love letTer. He had promised to help her go on the stage—ln New York ” "Oh!" Faith breathed. That explained so much! Selfish, scheming, vain little Cherry! "She kept harping on the subject," Mrs. Ettleson went on. "She believed every word he told her. Albert talks big," she explained, ashamed, deprecating. "He’s a good mixer—makes friends in all the towns on his route. He goes to New York every six months or so. The company has Its factory in Indianapolis, but its main offices are in New York. He'd —he’d evidently promised her, if she'd —If she’d be his —his—be him,” she supplied desperately, Puritanism locking her Ups on ugly word she had tried to use, “that he’d get her a tryout In a musical comedy. Albert couldn’t do like that, really," she hastened to assure them, with pitiful apology for the four-flusher she tvas married to. "Then what, Mrs. Ettleson?” Boh demanded impatiently. His eyes were like bits of blue ice caught in the frozen paleness of his cheeks. Faith wanted desperately to put her arms about him, cradle his head against her breast. “There were three other letters,” Mrs. Ettleson went on, twisting her handkerchief between trembling fingers. "I —I sent them on to him. I was afraid not to. Then, yesterday, I was at his office, helping him make out his reports, and I found a telegram that had accidentally got mixed up with his orders. It was from - from your sister," she said to Faith, “and it —it said she would be ready to go with him, if he’d wire her some money. "She had to get some clothes, she said. She was to meet him at Darrow, fifty miles from here. He must have seen her in between or had a letter from her at some town on hi.-i route, for the telegram didn’t say when they'd meet. But last night— I was going to face him with It—he didn't come for dinner, like he'd promised. He was supposed to home for a week, between trips, know. I —l havefi’t seen him but I found out he’d bought a ticket for Darrow. He’d gotten his clothes out of the house while I was shopping—” "Faith!” Bob Hathaway sprang to his feet. “We’ve got to drive over to Darrow —right now! I hope to Clod we’ll be In time— for your motbfr’s sake!”