Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 June 1936 — Page 16

Son of

ARIAN took the fraternity pin ; and looked at it in the glow of the hall light. She had just come in with Edward from a long, romantic drive through the summer moonlight. After a moment she gave the pin back to him. “I can’t wear it,” she said. “Why not?” he demanded harshly. “You must have understood from the beginning of this summer that I—that when I have gone back and finished my last year in college I will want—" “There's something you must do first.” Marian touched his sleeve. “I think you are splendid, my dear, but—but you must do this one thing before we can—mean more to each other.” . Bewildered, Edward pleaded with her to tell him what she wanted. How could he know if she made a mystery of it? He tried to laugh at her, but he couldn't. " » »

FTER he left her, he walked slowly across the tiny, sleeping town to his home, and went to his room. It was a poor, bare room, kept meticulously clean by his mother’s dogged industry—the industry that had kept her working in people's kitchens to put him through high school, that had set him an example to follow when he went to the city to work his way through college. He sat down on the edge of the bed and wearily began to undress. There had been searing moments when he was ashamed of this house " and of his mother, bitter periods when he stood solitary, watching others enjoy themselves, and resenting any move to include him. He didn’t want pity. . But he had thought all these moments were past. Naxt June, he would be a graduate engineer, with a job waiting for him. The certainty of that promised job had emboldened him to approach Marian in the first place. : : "2 ” ” OW, he wondered miserably if she had just\been bored at the prospect of a long summer in a small town. He buried his head in a pillow. ‘What was it she wanted him to do? Nothing—the answer drummed in his head. It was just her method of getting rid of him. The summer was almost gone. She would be going away soon—perhaps to some fellow . .. The next morning he was up before 5 o'clock, weary with sleeplessness. He put on the uniform he wore at the gas station.

gS ® = WHLE he shaved his lean cheeks, he looked sternly. at his mirrored image and determined to treat Marian as lightly as she wished. His mother watched him pretend to eat his breakfast. When he stooped to kiss her as he left, she clung to him and whispered that he was not to feel so miserable. + “You take everything too hard,”

she said, “No, I don't,” he answered brusquely. “Not any more. I'm—

“I'm not worried.” Dully, he went about the task of opening the filling station for ‘busiless, ‘ » ” sn 'E had not been happy it col- % lege, where he found only work © and loneliness, No one knew how he hated his life there, not even his

“mother. He'd made her think he was a fraternity man—popular, in

By Virginia Woodall—

go , ety AA

demand socially. She didn’t know he had found the fraternity pin that he flaunted during the summer months in his little home town. Toward noon, a sedan nosed into the driveway before the gas station. Marion was alone in the car. Edward swaggered up, briskly sardonic. : -t “Gas? Oil? Water? Or maybe you'd like some air—" “Have you thought about what I said last night, Edward?” she asked gravely. : “Sure! But the summer is almost over, and your method of calling us quits is pretty elaborate for the short time®* we have left.” He gripped the windshield. “Can’t you be honest for a change and just tell me, ‘Godd-by-it’s-been-fun-bu I'm-through?’” The car suddenly shot. forward, out of the drive, down the street. = = 2

ITTERLY, Edward returned to

and sat down before the grimy oilstained desk. Wasn't good enough for her, was he? After all, his, mother had been cook for Marian's aunt, and nobody married the cook’s son. “Edward!” She was standing in the doorway, one of her gloved hands resting lightly on the facing. “I had to come back to——to find out if that is all you have to say to me? I must know, Edward!” ~ So she wanted to see him grovel. She couldn't quit clean and leave him in peace. “If you want me to say something,” he began hoarsely, “I'll say it. Plenty! I—I was ‘crazy about you. So what? So nothing! I'm sick of letting people walk all over me. I'm through being pitied, letting people be kind to me so they can wipe their feet on me! “My mother may have been a cook in your aunt’s kitchen but—but I'm proud of her! That suit I had on last night was cut down from one of your uncle’s. You didn’t know, did you, that you went out with your uncle's old suit? Well, you know it now! : “That fraternity pin I offered you wasn't mine, either. I found'it. I'm not a fraternity man. I said I had a swell time in college. I didn’t. I don’t expect to have one this year, either. “All right. Beat it! And tell everybody in this darned town, and laugh. I'm leaving and I won't be back, and I don’t give a darn what you or anybody else thinks of me! You—what are you crying about?” “I'm not crying!” Marian moved close to him, and slipging her arms around his neck, forced him to kiss her. “You don’t know how I've waited for. you to—to wake up and stop. pretending to be what you aren’t. What you are is so—so much more wonderful I wouldn't take that pin because I knew it wasn’t yours. My cousin goes to your college and belongs to that fraternity.

you to stop lying to me. Nobody looks down on you. They'd all like you so much if—if fou’'d only let them. And,” she®laughed softly, “I thought you looked ever so much better in my uncle’s suit than he did!” rE a “But—but what did you want me to do before you—" “You've done it! You’ve confessed that you are not really ashamed that your wonderful mother was a

cook!” THE END

(Copyright, 1°36 hy _TUinited Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

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