Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1917 — Then I'll Come Back to you [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Then I'll Come Back to you

By Larry Evans

ho r o f '" - “ONCE TO EVERY MANj fj

SYNOPSIS Ca’eb Hunter and his sister Sarah welcome to their’ home Stephen O’Mara, a homeless and friendless boy, starting from the wilderness' to see the city. Stephen O’Mara catches a glimpse of Barbara Allison. The girl is rich. The O'Mara boy falls in love with her. She la ten. he fourteen. rue boy and girl are in a party that go to town. The old people watch with concern the youth’s growing attachment for the girt Caleb is much Impressed with the boy’s Ideas on the moving Of timber. He predicts a great future for the lad. ' O’Mara whips Archibald Wickersham in a boyhood fight over Barbara. She takes Wickersb.am’s side, and Stephen leaves for parts unknown, saying, “I’ll come beck to you.’’ Tears later the boy returns as a man. He is a contractor. Sarah welcomes him. Barbara is a beautiful woman. O’Mara suspects there is .a plot to prevent his successful completion of a railroad and that Barbara Allison’s father and Wickersham are in it. O’Mara" meets Garry Devereau, with whom Barbara’s closest friend is in love. O’Mara starts to reform him. O’Mara meets Barbara .Allison, on the road. There Is a play of words in which Doth seek to conceal, their feeling. Wickersham notices that Barbara and Stephen are together a great deal. Miriam Burrell, Barbara’s friend, sees and understands the black rage .that shadows Hip f«■ * | , /

CHAPTER X. "Not a Chance In the World.” ** F course you’ve found Gnrry?” She hastened to swing the conversation to a less personal Quarter. “Is he—will you tell me about it, please?” One small, gauntleted hand made an almost imperceptible gesture toward the unoccupied space beside her on the fallen tree. But he chose the ground at her feet And after he had disposed his long length to his liking he an swered her hurried question—answered It with an amiably lazy deliberation that promised a sure return to a topi of his own choosing, in his own good time. “No,” he stated, and there was something lugubrious in the baldness of the statement. ' “He found me. And it was the biggest stroke of luck that he did. I grow more and more lucky this morning. Wouldn’t you say so?” “But you must have an inkling as to the man’s identity!” she cried. ‘'Why. you’ve got to find that out before he does more harm next time. Haven't you a suspicion even?”’ One foot swung free, She leaned forward in her eagerness, a slender and entirely boyish figure in diminutive breeches and boots and straight lined coat. And the man laughed aloud up into her flushed face, softly and not quite steadily at her hostile indignation, her intuitive feminine curiosity, and most of all. most unsteadily, at his wonder of her herself"Why, yes,” he admitted. “Both Joe and I do believe we know who it was but we aren't sure because we don’t understand yet what that man’s motive might be. I’d tell you only I don't ‘ like to accuse anybody until there is cause for it. But that's what brought me down here this morning—that and because I wanted to tell Miss Burrell that Garry is safe and will continue to be from now oh. I hope. Those were two of my reasons for coming at least. I had a more imper " tant one than either, but”— Barbara did not wait for him to tel her what it was. She was staring at him in unfeigned surprise. “To tell Miriam?” she echoed. “Do you—you can't mean that you knew she cared for Garry?” “Didn’t you?” • The girl shook her head. “Never until just a little while ago. I—do you know, in the last few days I’ve begun to realize how much moie you—other people—observe than I do. I’ve begun to wonder if I haven’t been very blindly self sufficient. For I never dreamed of such a thing until something happened after I left you last night.” Her voice faltered, but her eyes clung resolutely to his. “She came to me and asked me if I knew where he had gone. She had seen him ride away, too, Mr. O’Mara. And I learned it then just from the terror in iher face. But I didn't know until later, how much she cared. “She came into my room this morning, and that, although you can't know it, was more than odd in itself, because I have always been the oue to carry my woes to her. It must have been between 4 and 5, for I had counted a clock striking 4, and yet she was still dressed in her party costume. Have you guessed what she had been doing? Mr. O’Mara, she had been out looking for him! She had slipped out and been waiting because she was sure Ragtime would bolt and—and come back home, dragging him by a stirrup! Wasn’t that a horrible thing to wait for alone in the dark?” , With a little shudder the girl put her hands over her eyes as if to shut out the picture. ■ ~ “She wasn’t hysterical, either. She was just ice and wringing wet and blue with cold. Cool, proud, intolerant

Miriam Burrell! And I’d never dreamed of her caring for anybody until that minute! I sent her to bed, and I think I hated Garry Devereau for an hour or two. Why, Mr. O’Mara, I'd never believed that a girl could care that much for any man!” She sat a long time, nursing one slim knee bptween her palms. “Mr. O'Mara,” she appealed to him at last, “how might one reopen a—a rather difficult subject with —with a suddenly most difficult conversationalist?” Without turning his head he made answer: “I think Fat Joe's method is as good as any,” be suggested. “Joe says the only way to reopen any argument is to take a running jump and land, all spraddled out, right in the middle of it. He insists that such procedure leaves no doubt in the mind of any one that the discussion is about to be resumed.” She laughed a little. “Then shall we consider that I’ve taken the —the jump and landed?” Just when she was wishing most that she could see his face he swung around toward her. Again his gravity was a totally gentle thing. It made ■ her remember the self possessed kindliness with which he had met her un-reasonable-rage the night before. “Twipe I've been bitterly unkind to you,” she began, “once a long time ago and —and once last night. And on both occasions you have just tried to tell me, indirectly at least, that you cared, hadn’t you?” “Indirectly?” he murmured. “Was 1 as obscure as that?” And then whimsically. “Won't you call that explanation enough and let me tell it to you again—so you can't misunderstand?” “I’ve asked you to forgive me the first Offense,” she hurriedly denied his appeal. “And the second, Mr. O'Mara, years ago you told me I didn't think you good enough to—to be my knight. My outburst was only childish temper that day, but did you think last night that I still underrated you ?” Steve finally shook his head when she persisted in waiting for his answer. . ; '

“You just have finished now,” he warned her, however. “I'm not going to tell you one single bit of what I think of you until it comes my turn!” She tried ,to laugh at his stubbornness, but she had trouble with this explanation, which grew' more vexingly intricate and involved the further she went.. “Then we'll say you didn't,” she continued. “I told you last night, less kindly than I might have, that I was engaged to Mr. Wickersham. And I’ve just confessed, too- that I didn’t know a girl could care for any man as unutterably as Mindly and pridelessly, as Miriam cares for the man Garry is That is -the truth. For quite a long, long time it has been understood that I was to marry Mr. Wickersham, I have always admired him —found him above petty things; but, Mr. O’Mara, I have always been sure for just as long a time that the ability to care for any one the—the way I think you believed last night I might care for you tyas left out of me. And so it wasn't you who awoke my contempt, even though I did turn it against you. It was I myself. It was I and not you who was not ‘good enough,’ for even if I the kind of girl who can’t love anybody very much, except perhaps herself. I should at least play fair. Isn’t—isn't that so?” Minute after minute passed, while she sat plaiting the cloth tight stretched over one knee. Lips softly a-quiver, she waited, earnest, eager that he understand from her explanation that whfeh 'She did not yet understand at all herself. Again she wished that he would turn. She wanted greatly to

see whatever there might be behind his heavy silence. “Isn’t it?” she faltered timidlyj And yet when his head did come around she found she. couldn't face him. -■ “Is it my turn now?” he asked. Her answer was barely audible. “If—if you have to—have it. But I’ve told you how useless it is.” “Would you mind looking at me just a minute?” said Steve. The brown head drooped even lower over the restless fingers. It shook ever so faintly. “I’d rather not. I’m listening.” His laugh tilted recklessly in sheer joy at her refusal. (To be continued.)

“Twice I've been bitterly unkind to you.”