Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1919 — Christmas Dishes [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Christmas Dishes

By S. B. H ACKLEY

(Copyright, Ul9. by th* McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)

OR many minutes on the afternoon /that Robertson & Co. marked down their “window suits” to $25 Iva Ellsworth, Elsie Banford’s visitor, watched from Elsie’s automobile with sympathetic eyes a little htme woman who stood before the window and directly in front of a

navy blue coat suit of “chiffon broadcloth.” Delmar Halstead stood at the side of the car with his back to tlje sidewalk and his eyes on Iva’s face. He had made excuse to leave his bookkeeper's desk when he had seen Elsie come in the store and leave her guest alone In the car, so he did not see the little lame woman. “I wish,” said the girl irrelevantly, “everybody could have their dearest Christmas wishes!” Halstead’s smile was a bit wistful. "I echo your heavenly kind thought—

I’ve a big wish for Christmas myself." “Something pretty or useful?” “It’s pretty, useful and good—everything that’s lovely and desirable.” Iva's eyes were on the package in her lap, but she felt that fie was looking at her in unconscious appraisal, and her pulse leaped. “Tell me about it Christmas evening. I mean,” she added a little confusedly, “whether you get it or not.” “Indeed I will!" he promised. Miss Adriana Halstead, elderly and somewhat neglected by her only relatives —her dead brother’s family—gave a glad little cry whei\ she saw her older nephew in her door that evening. Delmaf felt a little prick of conscience as he kissed her. For a few moments the little woman fluttered about him happily, then set about preparing the evening meal she' insisted he must share. While she was out of the room Delmar accidentally dropped his fountain pen in her wastebasket. As he flshed it out, absently smoothing the sheets of crumpled note paper in which it fell, his eyescaught In his aunt’s cramped scrawl; "To Mrs. Miriam Halstead, My Mother in Heaven.” Wondering, he read on: “Everybody but me is thinking of Christmas wishes —gifts possible for them to have —and oh, mother darling, I must tell someone what I know I cannot have, or my heart will break! “I want somebody of my people to sit at my table to laugh and to talk with me, to live with me and love me! In the four years since you and father went away I’ve been lonely—lonely!

“I could not bear it if it were not for Delmar. When he Is here I play he lives with me, and I forget for a blessed hour or so I am alone. x And oh, mother, my roses are going unpruned, my fence unmended and my house unpainted, and my clothes are getting shabbier every day. I am afraid they will' soon not be respectable enough for church. Oh, little mother, I want a new dress. I want—oh, mother, ought I to covet that coat suit in Robertson & Co.’s window —the blue French broadcloth that would just fit me? —I —” x The words ended here. The writer had evidently Crumpled the paper apd thrown it in the basket when she heard his ring. When Delmar went home he walked by the corner and looked at the J>lue suit. Twenty-five dollars represented an engagement ring if Iva Ellsworth would accept it. Iva lived with her coubins in the next state and was used to luxury, and his bookkeeper’s salary | was only $75 a mqnth, but Delihar had rqsolved. On Christmas eve Miss Adriana’s ! doorbell rang to admit Robertson & Co.’s porter with a great box marked “With Delmar’s Love.’’ Under the lid lay a fragrant bunch of violets, a lacy white shirtwaist, a pretty blue velvet toque, a pair of trim shoes-and the

broadcloth suit of the window display. Like one In a happy dream Mias Adriana put on the things and presently Delmar came in wearing his evening clothes. ' Would she go kith him to see the play the young people of the town were giving, “A Rose of Old Dixie.” With her face like the dawn Miss Adriana watched the players. Iva Ellsworth was the Dixie Rose, a witching heroine; Paul her lover. Iva played her. part with brilliancy, but Paul’s heart prompted bls actipg. It was fervent, real. Delmar’s mind was torn with indecision. But near the end of the play he looked at the little lonely woman beside 'him, for the time pathetically happy, and quite suddenly his mind was made up. “Auntie,” he said abruptly to her when they were again in her living room, “will you let me come live with you? Mother doesn't need!me; she’s going to be married soon to Dr. Ashley Wyatt. We’d be company for each other. If you’ll let me I’ll move mydesk and other things over tomorrow.” Miss Adriana’s happiness of the evening, compared with the new joy, was as a drop of water to the ocean. That evening Iva Ellsworth received a bouquet of pink carnations and a note that asked her to pardon the writer for breaking his promise to call, and begging her to accept his congratulations on the success of thq play. “I didn’t get what I wanted for Christmas,” the note ended. “I didn’t dare, in the face of things, to ask for it” ’

For several months the world held no happier creature than Miss Adriana. Then she observed that Delmar had occasional fits of abstractedness, unnatural to him. Gradually It dawned upon her that he was troubled over something. ' “Where is that pretty Ellsworth girl now, Del, do you know?” she asked him tentatively one morning early in December. He started at her question, and she noticed with a sinking heart that the paper he had shook a little. * “Bryce Garth told me yesterday Paul Nelson was married,” he answered her, “and though Bryce didn’t know to whom, I —l think It must be to Miss Ellsworth, auntie.” Later in the day, searching for a lost cuff , button of Delmar’s, she came upon a picture of the girl. . r "He loved her —he gave up asking her to marry him,” her troubled mind reasoned, “to make a home for me. And now he is grieving for her I” As the weeks passed Miss Adriana paled under the weight of her secret trouble. Delmar became uneasy for her, and a few days before Christmas sent her to the near-by city to see one of his friends, a fine young physician there. That afternoon while crossing the street to the railroad station Miss Adriana felt herself caught and pulled back just in time to escape being run over by a heavy truck Jhat came I around the corner. Th© , girl who saved her helped her to the ladies’ sitting room of the station, but when her train came a few minutes later she was too shaken and nervous to i attempt to board It < “Oh, what will Delmar think when I don’t come!” she exclaimed. “Delmar!” The pretty girl’s cheeks grew a deeper pink,'and Miss Adriana knew her to be Iva Ellsworth. “My nephew, Delmar Halstead, with whom I live in Review,” she explained. “Why, Review is only twenty-live miles,” cried the girl; “I’ll telephone him and he can come for you in an automobile.” When she came back Miss Adriana’s lips trembled over a question. “Are you—are you married, my dear?” When Delmar came Miss Adriana was able to smile In wan gaye(y at him. , “Where is the lady that saved you?” he asked presently as he knelt beside

her with his arms about her. "I don’t know how I’ll ever thank that blessed woman!” Miss Adriana took his face between her hands. “Delmar,” she said, “she told me her dearest wish for 1 was a home! She has a little money of her own, but, Delmar, three people could \ live on what we two do, in comfort, in real comfort. I —oh, Delmar, L want her to come and live with us!” Before Delmar could speak the inner door opened and Iwa Ellsworth came in. “I know now why you didn’t ask for what you wanted last Christmas I” she said softly. “Delmar Halstead, how you’ve mlsjudgecf me I Plain living, with—with love, and this dear woman to mother me, would be riches to me I”

Iva Ellsworth Was the Dixie Rose.

“Delmar, You’ve Misjudged Me.”