Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 61, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 May 1936 — Page 27

MAY 21, \m

Today's Short Story —- THE TEN-YEAR DROUGHT By Jules Tharburn

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JOSEPH FRANCES XAVIER MULROONEY pounded the oaken bar with his fist nad bellowed: "I don't believe in ([hosts. Wouldn’t believe In one if I saw it.” The lorn?, hot afternoon wore on. The barroom filled. The argument waxed longer, louder, and more profane as the big hand of the barroom clock whizzed ’round and the little hand plodded after. It was 0:30 of a Saturday night when Mulrooney staggered out of the cloying heat of the speakeasy into the heavy humidity so the night. But Mulrooney had suddenly felt a drunken distaste of keeping company with men who believed in the denizens of the hereafter. He remembered also that Maggie —who had a double task as his wife and cook to the Rollenbachs—. would be- waiting for him in their little cottage on the Rollenbach estate. He was head chauffeur. The station car w’hich had brought Joe to the village that morning had long before returned. He'd have to walk the two miles i home. Walking, in his condition, was no ' easy matter. Nor did the swarms i of mosquitos that zoomed through ! the heavy night alleviate his course. SLAP! He picked a huge mashed skeeter off his cheek. Slap! Another skeet bit Mul- j rooney. _ The remainder of the trip was a j double fight for Joe—the road j wouldn’t stay on the ground and ! the mosquitos wouldn't stay off him.! It was ll:30 p. m. when Mulrooney staggered through the great iron gates of the estate and on down the driveway to his own cottage. Maggie was waiting for him. At 11:35 Mulrooney was headed' toward the gate again. ‘And keep your drunken self away until you sober up,” muttered Maggie. He stopped to consider. j He had it. Slap! A skeet bit him. He had that too! He'd go down to the gatekeeper's i lodge and sleep on Tom Finnegan's cot. Tom’d be glad to have the company. a u tt JOE was almost up to the lodge ; when his feet wobbled. His j steps congealed in their tracks. Did he—or didn't he —sec IT? A floatlug head! A head without a body' There <’ould be no mistaking the fact that a white, bodyless head was bobbing along toward Joe, in the darkening night. Did Joe believe in ghosts? He didn't even stop to consider. "Hoy!” the bodylcss ghost shouted . pt. him. For a being who had been stum- | bling hesitatingly along but a second before Joe seemed to have been | transformed into an agile, quiver- ' ing gazelle. He fled up the drive toward the j great house. He tripped. A roar I deafened his ears. There was a j sting in his legs. He pitched headlong to the ground. He struck his head on a hard object and lay un- | conscious. There was a great hullaballoo on j the Rollenbach estate that night. | The old lady herself took a hand. a it a Honest, Madame, I couidn’t! tell it was Mulrooney.” vowed the gatekeeper, Tom Finnegan.! waving his gun. "I saw what looked j like a drunken man coming down t lie drive. I stepped out to see who it was. When he sa\v me he turned and ran like sixty. Thinking that j a man who ran so fast could run; for no good. I followed and yelled: at him. He kept on going toward the house so I fired." “I'm not blaming you. Finnegan." j said the mistress of the house. "I'll do more than that to him.” When Mulrooney came to. bleery- i eyed and fuzzy-headed, he saw it j again—leaning close to him. The \ ghost's head! "Ow! The saints preserve me—it's the ghost!” he shouted. Gatekeeper Finnegan whipped off the white mosquito netting mask he was wearing. “What’s the matter with you, Joe? I'm no gho§t. It's Finnegan. I Just put this new-fangled thing on my head to keep the pesky skeeters away.” “Oh,” said Joe weakly. m a JOE was pretty sick, physically and mentally. This time Mrs. Rollenbach would certainly fire him —for this was the climax of a long scries of binges. The fatal day arrived. So did Mrs. Rollenbach, looking extremely stem and unforgiving. He squirmed in bed and pulled the sheet up over h:.s whiskers. He. eyed the black garbed little ; woman standing at the bedside. 1

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Dang it all—his head ached from hangover, his leg from buckshot. Words slipped out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying. He wouldn’t touch a drop of drink for 10 years! No Ma’am, not a drink for 10 years . . . “All right, Jce," his employed said, briskly. ‘‘You’ve been with me for 20 years and I don’t want to fire you. But if you don’t stop your drinking I’ll have to let you gef, particularly after all that happened last night. I tell you what I’ll do if you keep your promise Joe thought mournfully that he'd been an awful fool to make such an offer. Not a drink for 10 years? Ten hours w’ould have been more like it. “Joe,” she began. “Joe, If you'll give me your word not to touch a drop of liquor for ten years, I'll give you SIO,OOO. That's SI,OOO a year in addition to your salary. If I die before the period ends, I'll leave that sum to you in my will.” tt tt a CO the promise was made —not because Joe looked forward to a. bonus at the end of a 10-vear drought, but because refusal to accept the proposition would have lost not only his position, but Maggie. Maggie and Joe had been bride and bridegroom when they went to the Rollenbachs as cook and chauffeur 20 years before. The madame had been godmother to their babies. Joe knew that if Maggie had to make a choice now between employer and husband, he'd be the one to suffer. So he kept his promise, and his job, and Maggie. For 10 years, as he put it, he “had kept as dry as the Sahara desert." Occasionally, Mrs. Rollenbach shriveled and shrinking with years—complimented him on his behavior, and reminded him of that future day when the SIO,OOO would be his. “Maybe it wasn’t a bright thing for me to do Joe,” she’d say shaking her sparse gray strands. “You'll be leaving me then.” “Not I, madame.” a a tt AFTER the stock market crash of 1920 Joe and all her other employes knew that things weren’t going so well for Mrs. Rollenbach. But no one realized just how bad her finances were until one morning. just a week before Joe’s tenth anniversary as a dry. Mrs. Rollenbach called the entire staff before her and explained that she was bankrupt, that, her effects were to be auctioned and that each must seek other w’ork. The news of the bankruptcy reached the village before Joe did. “You won't be having that anniversary party you promised,” some one told him. It was then Joe decided to go ahead with his plans for that party. After all, all his friends were dow r n in the dumps. It was the very time they needed a party. He made arrangements for a beerfest at Mike's—the same Mike's he had left 10 years before. The party began at 9. But it wasn't very successful. At 11 it had all the appearances of a wake with Joe acting as chief mourner. Joe wasn't mourning the loss either of his taste for liquor or his SIO.OO0 —although that was a considerable sum for one 65-year-old chauffeur to kiss good-by. He was worried about his bankrupt employer's future—and his own. a a SAY, look at that!” someone ejaculated. A little old lady stood in the doorway—a dried up morsel whom everybody in the barroom knew to be Mrs. Rollenbach. An embarrassed hush enveloped the crowd. Mrs. Rollenbach stepped slowly toward the bar as the men fell away to make an aisle for her to reach Joe. “Hello Joe—l heard all about your party—from Maggie. She said she didn't think it would be a very gay occasion—and it doesn’t look like it." Mrs. Rollenbach's faded blue eyes appraised the quiet audience. No one spoke. She continued: "I suppose I should have told you sooner. Joe. I never forget a promise. That SIO,OOO is yours with interest. I put in in your name in the National Bank nine years ago.' You can get it in the morning.” A ripple of exclamation surged over the gathering. But I can't take it Madame when you need it,” Joe began. “All bosh.” answered the old ladv with her old briskness. “Well, what's become of the party spirit?” She looked at Joe quizzically. He caught the merry gleam. “A little sherry for Madame?" “Thank you. Joe. I think I will.” (THE END)

OCR BOARDING HOUSE

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FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—

OD OLD POODLES! ~ '■f ’IP YOU DOHT WAVT HIM, FOB M EE, IT'S GOOD TO FPOM MR.DOROAH, J WHAT THIS MUTT EATS SARDEW, BUS7ED * PETE'S SAKE.TELL HIM I'VE 1 SEE HIM AGAIN ! JIM \ DOES TT MORE THAW A HORSE, THREE WINDOWS MOVED TO HONOLULU. AMD k BBCTVOBOY !! 00DIP=? mo ) SAY AMD HE RAISED Ik! MY HOTHOUSE FDR THE LOVE OF MIKE, f'J If ™ 1 2 J CAW WnH EVEBV * 2 AMD PIPPED OUR OOkl'T GIVE HIM A PAIR, V -

WASHINGTON TUBBS II

! i WAT foolVC /HELP! SAVE ME'] W&6olN'over";

ALLEY OOP

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BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD MEN

Once more Tarzan sought to stem the tide of bloodthirsty wrath which was rising against his friend Omado. “I will discover the Leopard Man who killed Nyamweigi!” he announced dramatically. The people of Tumbai stared at him in blank astonishment.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

"My nostrils are keen, - ' he continued; “you saw me smell out the skin of the leopard. Now let all the men of the tribe pass before me, and I will tell you which wore the skin!” A murmur of approval rose from the crowd. Sobito was seized with consternation.

With Major Hoople

OUT OUR WAY

! / TW, }^OF I T ALLf A BIG, \ 7 'I GfAMT TRUCK DRIVER WHO \ / OU-N ii:[ g/ts paid tawnt out L -/ tmavjk \ ij , H III; \ TRJJNKS -WE OITS-A QUARTER \ ( YOU- } j| j ' \ TIP/ AND ME, WHO AINT S POSEP fcn T WASjIA / ! I If \TODOIT - I HAFTA HELP HIM. I;\ YOU' / ii AM' I GIT MOTLIJkJ 1 ' ME', A- I J V !l I I ||Y YOUNG, PEAIL SCHOOL BOV-/ ;. ‘ E4IUmL EVEM A THANK J; i ;'f V T. M. *EC. U. s!%AT. OFF. IV/Kv-VTI Lr--r x-rr v/" ’ ' ,T>i93g by ne service, me. ' V\l—jV MOTHERS* GET GRAY' £~— z\ >

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■ —*( ME BEIN' GRAND WIIER’S A B'G Y 'l^l HUH?.YOU Y. BREAK FOR YOU-VOU'LL NOW m \ GUZ'S GRAND ) HAVE LESS GRIEF WITH TH' M WIZER???A ) MONARCH OF MOO. ALL TH' W WELL, FER-.y FUSS YOU'VE HAD WITH GUZ. M Z SAY, WHAT fIN TH' PAST, IS ENDED, WITH if V

“Fools!” cried the witch-doctor. “Do you not see it is a trick? He is Orando’s friend. He will accuse someone else. Any of you might be the victim- Wasn't the leopard skin found in Orando's hut? Is that not proof enough?" The throng echoed, “Enough r

—By Edgar Rice Burroughs

In the excitement someone threw a stone. It struck Orando. By that action the smoldering Are of mob violence was kindled into a billowing, devouring flame. Wrought up by the witchdoctor's harangue, the simple minded villagers rushed at Orandoi

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