Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 2, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 March 1936 — Page 37

MARCH 13,1936

Daily Short Story THE HANDICAP

PAULA looked at the gulls. “I shan’t look at the man again,” she was firm with herself. But she wanted to, the worst way. He was tall, h!s dark hair, grayed a little over the ears, face strong and seatanned. Not a ladles’ man. But a man for a woman. For one woman. What a man! Paula couldn’t bear it. She looked, and found him looking.

Talking to Cousin Irene, but looking at Paula. Paula felt as if great flowers were blossoming Inside of her. She looked at the seagulls. Life seemed to be like this, that when she found such a man as this, Cousin Irene had to be sitting on a bench with him, her dark eyes vividly following every little move he made, her greao eyes beseeching him for love, for life. But, as luck would have It, Paula found herself, when they were seatmi £he table under the rase trellis, directly across from the man. He still talked to Cousin Irene. All the guests raised a great chatter of talking, none bothering about Paula. Paula only was filling in. f>om@ one had sent last-minute regrets. So Paula had a chance to notice that, for all his animated conversation, the man’s eyes wandered now and then abstractedly down the green terraces to the blue lace of the Sound. m m npWICE Paula lowered her eyes -*• hastily when he suddenly shifted his glance to her. And it was at her that he smiled, when Aunt Madge, whose smile was all for Cousin Irene, invited him to stay at the house while he had his yacht at Goldport. “We’ll give you a party, Tom,” Aunt Madge offered, smiling with all her new teeth. But he refused. Aunt Madge hid her teeth with a weight of sympathy. “Such a shame,” she sighed, "that a wife can cause a man such sadness.” Paula looked 8t the seagulls. So he had a wife. “It isn't that,,’’ she heard him say diffidently. “I just don’t care for the fanfare any more. I'd like to come here often, if you’ll let me be just one of the family.” “Then,” said Cousin Irene, archly, “come back for lunch tomorrow.” “I’d like to.” Paula quit looking at the seagulls. Even if he had a wife and even if Cousin Irene adored him anyway, Paula could smile and let him know that she wished he could be happy. He smiled back. Then Aunt Madge spoke very, very sweetly: MMM “TyAULA, dear, I kmow you’re- * anxious to get back to your lovely sewing!” And to the others. “Paula’* sewing is simply divine!” The next day at lunch time, needless to say, Aunt Madge sent no invitation to come down. Instead, she sent a dress to the sewing room to be mended at once. And Paula, stitching, had to be careful to let none of the tears fall on the soft silk. Chaotically, her mind roamed back over the trail that had brought her to this little workroom in the <;reat mission. It led from a demure little house in a. town named Hillview, in Indiana, from a gallant and resourceful little mother, who seemed always to have a thimble on her middle finger. “As rich as your Aunt Madge Denniston,” she would say, as other people would say, “As rich as Croesis.” “Mummie, tell about Aunt Madge's houre at Goldport." And mother would describe marbled porticos, hroad gardens, “and a. ballroom almost as big as the First Methodist Church.” “Mummie, where is Goldport?” "Near a very large city, dear, named New York.” It M M WHEN mother had influenza, and died, a telegram came from Goldport for a Paula who was 20. “It,’* a great opportunity,” cried the minister’s wife. But Paula hesitated. If, as the message urged her to rfo" she closed out the little dressmaking business that had been mother's and could now profitably be hers, and went to Goldport to live. “I’d have the handicap of being a poor relation in a rich home. And I'm accustomed to independence, and it’s a good thing to have, even with poverty.” 'But it's your father’s dear halfsister who is asking you to live with her!” Dear? Paula wondered. No help had ever come for mother from Goldport. The minister’s wife had something else to say, though. “These are the only relatives you have in the world.” she pointed out. “And it would certainly be improper for such a beautiful young girl as you to be living alone.” Arriving then at Goldport, Paula met luxury that awed her. She couldn’t understand how Uncle Phillip, a neatly jolly little man of SO, took the Oriental rugs and the painted ceilings as matters of course. “I say, we’ll show you off at the Shellfish Club tomorrow,” he said at once. And Cousin Irene, a vivid, nervous, little brunette, said, “Dad, let’s give her a luncheon at the Yacht Club!” But Aunt Madge rebuked them in dovelike sadness. m m a "T>AULA is in mourning,” she * said, and to Paula: “Out of sorrow for your dear mother, I’m sure you’ll prefer to be left to yourself.” Paula swallowed tears. Aunt Madge looked solicitous. “To avoid brooding, dear, you might like to occupy yourself with a bit of sewing.” The young girl grasped this opportunity to show her gratitude to her father's half-sister, who smiled as kindly as anybody could with a face so nearly like that of a hawk. “Tomorrow, then, dear, the butler will show you where the sewing room is. You can do a little sewing for me and Irene. And you can fill in whenever one of our guests sends last-minute regrets. I'm sure you want to make yourself useful.” “I’ll be glad to help in any way I can. Aunt Madge." So eight months passed. Then Aunt Madge arranged the great ball for her cousin Irene's birthday. And though timfc could not dim the memory of her mother, Paula had come out, of her mourning.” “I want you to save me at len.it. one dance.” twinkled Uncle Phil one morning, Paula having been I summoned to the library to repair!

a tiny hole in the rug. On her knees, working, she smiled spiritedly. “You shall have two dances, Uncle Phil!” she said. M M M A UNT MADGE smiled *rom a comfortable armcha “But what have you to wear to e ball, Paula? All the others w wear handsome gowns and jewefs. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be a wall-flower, would you, dear?” Uncle Phil looked annoyed. "Oh. Madge, buy her a gown, why don’t | you!” Aunt. Madge only smiled, i £be held the purse strings, not Uncle Phillip. Now an inconspicuous feature of | that famous ballroom was a high, ; narrow balcony at one end. useful I at times for the arrangement of decorations. On this night t screen of smila and great yellow enrysanthemums covered it entirely. No one saw a pair of wistful blue eyes peering through this foliage. From here Paula, her hair that was like sun-ripened honey lost in j the shadow, glimpsed the gowns, : t,he jewels, the flowers. From here, and wearing no party dress but her little sewing apron, Paula heard the music. It is not surprising that the next 1 she ran away. She had no money. So she walked, carrying a small but heavy handbag. She walked three miles to the ferry. m n m A UNT MADGE had arrived in one of her cars, i “So this is the way you repay me for what I’ve done for you! You ungrateful little snip! Do you want the family dragged in newspaper headlines? Did you imagine that I, with as much money as I have, could be outwitted by a penniless little half-wit like you?” “And now I’m 30,” thought Paula, stitching Aunt Madge's dress that needed mending. She wiped tears with the back of one slender hand. Noting the time, she supposed that now they would be sitting down at the table, bringing their cocktails with them. Now, perhaps, the crabflakes were being served. Finally the licqueurs. She was sure of it when the butler came into the sewing room door. “Miss Paula, Mr. Deninston dpsires you to bring a needle and some dark thread down to the terrace at once.” Paula did not hurrv. Aunt Madge, very likely, had ripped her stocking. But on thp terrace, it was not Aunt Madge who was in trouble. Cousin Irene, laughing, said, “Tom tore his sleeve, and he •wanted to know if we had anybody in the house who could mend it at once.” n m m T>AULA blushed. The man not only had not left, but was smiling directly at her and holding out a blue serge sleeve with an ell-tear near the cuff. Did he want her to sew it while he had the coat on? She thought of his wife. But her heart would not behave anyway. Aunt Madge, however, was smiling benignly. “Take your coat, off, Tom dear, so she can mend it.” But Tom Steadley co.’ld smile, too. “Take me into the library. Miss Paula.” he directed, “where I can take off my coat.” She had a giddy feeling that none of this was real, more so when, in the library, he did not take off his coat. A kind of embarrassment came over him. With constraint that his usual ease made astonishing, he gazed out of a farther window while he talked. And his remark | seemed strangely irrelevant. “It would be fun, wouldn’t it, to | head for the Mediterranean Sea by ' w?y of the Bahamas, the South American coast, then Africa, Teneriffe, all that.” n n NOW silence grew between them, not difficult, but like a magi? spell, and because she would not break this enchantment she would not speak. But fingering the spool of dark thread in the pocket of her sewing apron, she wondered why he had wanted to speak with her alone. Possibly he needed her advice. Possibly he wanted to ask Uncle Phil on a cruise, but without Aunt Madge, and didn’t know how to go about it. Tom Steadley, however, made the matter plain. A glance smote her from farseeing eyes. He reddened, but, “I,” he said, "never beat about the bush when I see what I want.” He came to the point at once. "Can you,” he asked abruptly, "sail with me next week?" “I?" She trembled so violently, and it ; was from sheer joy. that she dropped the spool and it. rolled noisily un- : drr the table. But then, in a small voice cold with pain: “It's not kind of you. Mr. Steadley, to make a joke of me." m a m NOT kind, and even insupportably cruel that after these years of her loneliness this should be offered, this only. How could the man have the impudence to look hurt? "Why did you say that?” he demanded. It was difficult to answer what he must already know’. “How can I sail with you,” she faltered out, “when I have not. been invited by your wife?” She turned away, hiding tears. But when he spoke again, the tears were like the dew that catches the first, rays of the sun. “My wife." he said, “ran away with another man. She divorced me nearly a year ago." On the terrace, Aunt Madge was not smiling. “Irene, you’re in love with Tom Steadley and for a year I’ve been trying to marry you to him. Will you tell me why you tore his sleeve with that salad fork. You thought I didn’t see. But I did.” Irene gave a mute shrug, and then: “Tom is not a nervous man, but after you told him. Mother, that Paula had not cared to come down for lunch today, I saw him trying to tear a button off his coat. I thought I knew why.” Her father looked at her, and with rpvercnce: "You have greatness in you, Irene." he said. THE END,

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

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FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—

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WASHINGTON TUBBS II

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ALLEY OOP

\iyi-7 COur / /AWRIGHT, MEM!') I AL gS° ETHE^

BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

THE TARZAN TWINS

While Doc was trying vainly to persuade Paabu to bring weapons., two gruff Bagalla warriors came and took Bulala a -'••ay to be slain for the fiendish cannibal feast. His departure was a bitter blow to the boys, for they had come to have a real affection for the big, amiable black.

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

As he was led away, the two guards at the prison hut followed. They did not wish to miss the festivities, and they had no fear that the remaining three captives would escape. The village palisade was sufficient barrier, and beyond was the dreadful Jungle night.

—By Ahem

mm llijgfe/ a PENNY lid TMga&,\ f A BiG MAMD ANcTA ! ‘ l ! UAH ? WELL, \OU \ / A LTTIE WOLE \ KNOW very WELL I JUST AS GOOD I Efef THAT'S *STEAL!N', 1 AS A / A AN' IP VOU HAD A V CCNSOENJCE J OOOD CONSCIENCE, / BET7&S.' L A, , „„ TME WORgy WART /

I was) 3LORY ( sltt i never Vme "(oh, it's plain enough/ Y SHOCKING BLARKS/AN' so was’ loaded a &<jn neither./ while we were at the —-—>, } as ===uJi/i WT BLANKS IN/—y— T HOTEL, eating supper / ME LIFE. y/ I MAG-LEW OR SOMEBODY, \ Irr />/ V went to the gun rack

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Now Doc called Paabu Into the hut. “Look,” he whispered, and drew his knife from his loincloth. Paabu Jumped back, for he feared the “big medicine” which Doc had used in his sleight-of-hand tricks. “I will give it to you,” Doc said; “and you will be a witch-doctor.”

OUT OUR WAY

. T. M. KEG. U. S. PAT. Off. A

—By Edsfar Rice Burroughs

Paabu leaned forward eagerly. “But first vou must bring the weapons,” Doc demanded: After a short silence, the black boy answered: “I bring!” “Attaboy!” the American lad exclaimed gleefully. But there was still small cause to cheer. He was traveling a dangerous path!

-COMIC PAG*

—By Williams

—Bv Blosser

—By Crane

—By Hamlin

—By Martin