Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1917 — Then I'll Come Back to you [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Then I'll Come Back to you

By Larry Evans

SYNOPSIS Caleb Hunter arid his sister Sarah welcome to their home Stephen O’Mara, a {homeless and. friendless boy, starting from •ihe 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 fa ten. he fourteen. rna boy and girl are in a party that go to town. The old people watch with con- . oern the youth’s growing attachment for the girl. 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 « boyhood fight over Barbara. She takes Wlckersham’s side, and Stephen leaves for parts unknown, saying, “I’ll come back to you.” Years later the boy returns as a man. He is a contractor. Sarah welcomes him. Barbara is a beautiful woman. tTAiara 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'Mgra 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 both 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 bls face. O’Mara daily becomes more convinced that some one is trying to stir up trouble among his men. Wickersham and Allison have a conference. They agree that Harrigan, their tool, has messed things trying to stir up trouble among the men, O’Mara assures the men that as long as they work for him they need have no fear He checks an incipient strike. O’Mara cheers Devereau with the Information that Miriam Burrell cares for him despite his unhappy past. “I’m going up there tomorrow. Mr. Wickersham has asked me to ride with him in the morning.” She waited a moment or two. “That —that’s why. I came out here tonight. We’ll be going back to town the next day or two, and I wanted to have a chance to bid you goodby before I le’ft Morrison for the winter.” He had known that she would not tie likely to remain in the hills much longer. He had realized that eaen day which he checked off, always hopeful that the next might open the way for him to see her again, was steadily bringing nearer the date of her departure; But lie had not let himself think that it wouid come so soon. There was no doubt this time about the heaviness of his voice. “I see,” he said. “I see.” There came a long silence. Rising ‘ out of it, Barbara's voice sounded very, very little. “I’ve never known a sky in which the stars were so thick. They’re—[they’re like a field of buttercups. And have you ever seen such an irrepressibly happy creature as Miriam was tonight? She was radiant, positively shameless. Did you know that Garry knows” —

“I told him myself,” said Steve sim--ply. The girl faced around in her surprise. “You?” “Most certainly. Why not?” His voice was not quite so unenthusiastic now. “It’s one of the few unmistakable opportunities I’ve ever had to make two people permanently as happy as Miriam was tonight. I’d fee) guilty all ‘my life if I didn’t help all 1 could, knowing how happy I am going to be myself.” Thus did he work around, quite without abruptness, to a renewal of that discussion which she had thought to close weeks before. “Are you trying to infer that I am to be a part of that happiness?” she asked none too promisingly. “You ought to know. I said 'all my life.’ ”

And there suddenly Barbara laughed. “I suppose now they’ll marry and live happily ever after!” she exclaimed, with an attempt at airiness“Most certainly,” asserted Steve, although her mirth puzzled him. “Why is it funny to you?” ' “It isn’t, but—yes, it is too. now that it’s no longer a thing one need worry about. That’s always the trouble with emotions which are too intense. They’re either very sad to contemplate or very, very absurd. And they will persist in exchanging faces, to the confusion of the onlookers. Garry was so dangerously in love with Mary Graves, you see.” “He was in love with an idea,” the man contradicted flatly. “He was in love with just that. And it is not safe for any man to live alone with an abstract conception of anything. He’sbound sooner or later to lose his grip on tangible things if he does. He's likely to start destroying property to further the cause of labor or liable to turn to shooting men who were born to jobs I’m certain some of them never wanted—kings and that sort, I mean—figuring on solving the social problems of men and women who must solve that problem themselves. Perfection Is a fine thing to anticipate; expectations of it are dangerous.- And women aren’t made that way.”

“No?” Her voice slid coolly upward. “No,” be told her and smiled with that serenity she had come to know so well. “Not even you, though I suppose I’d about annihilate any one else if he ever hinted at it.” He chose to be didactic in tonb. “No, you’re not perfect. You’ve too much intelligence for that. Why, right now you’re fighting with your brain against the dictates of your heart, and if you were above mortal error in judgment you'd know that you are wasting your time." “Your opinion has the merit of sincerity,” she Said, “although, back upon a—a certain day, I can't help but wonder whether you haven't been guilty of mouthing pretty nothings for my poor ears.” “That proves my point right now.” He was imperturbable. “You’re begging the question to gain”— “You 'said”— she Hashed and then, grew red. “I said I’d let you ask no pardon of me. I said I’d let myself find no flaw in you. But how does that embarrass my present argument? Flawless perfection would be a mighty difficult" thing to live with day in and day out. Living with a woman who never made a mistake could have no appeal for me. She’d always be emphasizing my own shortcomings. You become consistent and you’ll catch me yawning some day; grow logical and you 11 almost scare me off! Why, you’re a girl!” Her laughter was like a bell on the Still air.

“And you—you still sit there and insist that perfection has no attraction for you? When you’ve just described without knowing it the—the sort of a girl you think is. perfect.” His lips curled in a way to quicken any woman’s pulse. “You have me beaten,” he laughed. His eyes, dark as was the shadow upon his face, made her breath unsteady. “I would like to watch you play poker with Fat Joe. Your game would puzzle him more than a little. Yes, you’ve surely left me without a leg on which to hobble off, because it would be small spirited in me, wouldn’t it, if I were to tell you that you are the exception that makes my general rule hold sound? I wouldn’t, however,'prescribe such a degree of perfection for any other man’s daily diet. It wouldprove his destruction.”

“Your own superiority, of course, rendering you immune?” “Maybe.” At least, whether she knew it or not, she loved his sO’fenity. “Maybe—and maybe I'm an exception too.” He sat very still. She had turned away once more. “You’ll be back again in the spring?” he asked with that gentleness he saved for her alone. “I hope—l think so.” The smallness of her voice angered her. She feigned a short, carefree laugh. “Unless I am too busy. Getting married seems to become a more and more complicated prohlem of proper costuming, doesn t it, with every passing season?” She couldn’t have told why she said it. She was trying to think of something else to say which would be kinder by far. And then, half lifting her. he had swung her around to him. For a moment he held her, face close to that small, frightened face buried in its deep collar, while she struggled uselessly against those hard arms, which tried not to hurt her. Her Ups continued to rebel long after her eyes had closed—long after body and brain were quiescent. “You mustn’t!” she gasped. > “Oh, I can’t, let you—the moon-—we —we're sure to be seen!” His lips on hers silenced that last incoherent resistance,. . She sat, wavy brown head bowed, when he had set her free.

“I was going to ask you not to forget!” There was no weariness now in his voice. “I had planned to ask you just that a little ago, and it would have been a weak and useless request, wouldn't it? Any man who has to beg to be remembered is not the sort to re main long in any woman’s brain. So I have taught you to remember instead. You aren’t going to forget ever now! You’re coming back in the spring, and you're coming to stay! And now I’m telling you goodby. It’s time you were asleep.” He helped her to her feet. Together they turned —and Archibald Wickersham, tall to gauntriess in the moonlight, was coming across toward them from the direction of the cabin. The girl’s slim body stiffened, but Steve saw her chin come up. His own body grew lazier still it seemed in length and limb. *

Wigkersham’s approaching steps were crisply precise. He stopped an arm's length in front of them, and his words were an echo of that last sentence of Steve's. , • “It’s time you retired,” he said, ignoring the other man’s presence entirely. “It’s cold, and you have a long, bard ride ahead of you tomorrow.” For a barely perceptible moment, with the eyes of both men upon her, Barbara kept her place. Neither of

them saw that her teeth were tightly closed over one full lip: neither knew that she had closed her eyes dizzily for an instant. And then without a word she put her hand upon the arm which Wickersham offered her. But Steve, on the other side, walked with her that night as far as the door of the storehouse shack. Miriam herself opened the door and snatched Barbara within and then laughed with her consummate impudence into both men’> faces. v “G’lang wid ye's now.” she flung at them, “an’ quit disturbin' dacint folks that likes to sleep o’ nights!” She slammed the door upon them. They stood there a second or two. Wickersham an inch or more taller and inches narrower in shoulder and girth of chest. Perfunctorily they nodded each to the other and wheeled silently upon their heels. It was the next evening when Barbara re-entered the house beyond the hedge. There was a streak of light running out across the floor of the dim

hall from within, and the girl lingered on her hurried way to her own room to bid her father good night. But she found Wickersham alone when she pushed wider the door. The light was behind him, and she could not see bow distorted was his face, yet as she paused on the threshold and a thin and pungent odor crinkled her nostrils she. sensed somehow that he had not been long alone. • “Father gone to bed?” she called. “Well, that’s wise. You’d better come. too; it’s time you were asleep.” She did not remember just then that other night when he had addressed those same words to her. She only knew that his features became suffused with purple even before she bad finished. And then she realized quickly that it was alcohol she smelled; knew, too, that it was not Wickersham wb » had been drinking, even though Wickersham had trouble with his tongue. And while she waited, puzzled and frowning, the man gave up an attempt at his usual nicetj’ of phrase and blurted out all that which had been many days hidden behind his impassivity. “We haven’t yet set a certain date for our marriage, Barbara.” His voice was strained. “Don't you think it is high time we did?”

The girl colored. It was, at least, very unexpected. “Why, no. we haven't.” she admitted “But we can if you wish it Have you thought of a day you’d prefer?” “I have,” he stated. ’“Would the first day of May be too early for you?” Often afterward she wondered at her humility of that night, for whatever the quick thought might have been which made her reach out one hand to touch the door frame beside her her words were merely mild. “It is, rather. But I think I can manage it if It will please you.” Wickersham had come to his feet, but he would not turn so that she might see his face. He spoke with eyes averted. “It would,” he answered with an effort, “and —and in the Interim I am

going to be very sure now that no thoughtlessness of- yours will be derogatory either to my profound Te»;<eet for you or your own respect for yourself.” The small hand closed then until it was clutching whitely the woodwork beneath it She understood at last how much Wickersham had seen; she was never to understand entirely her mood

of that moment, for had' she waited she wviLd hate left him with huger ringjess. Instead, she wheeled without a won! and climbed, white lipped, nnsssir*. (To he continued.)

"You mustn't!” she gasped. “Oh, I can’t let you —the moon —we —we’re sure to be seen!”

She Understood at Last How Much Wickersham Had Seen.