Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1920 — WHITE MAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHITE MAN

By George Agnew Chamberlain

Author of "Room." “Tkroush Stained "John Bouardua," etc.

Oopyrtsht, 1919, The Bobba-Merrill Company SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I.—Andrea Pellor, handsome daughter of Lord Pellor, impecunious aristocrat. Is doomed to marry an Illiterate but wealthy mfddle-agrea diamond mine owner. She disconsolately wanders from her hotel in South Africa and discovers an aviator about to fly from the beach. Impulsively, of course imagining that the trip will be merely a pleasant excursion, and a welcome relief from thoughts of her impending loveless marriage, sho begs to be taken for a flight, although she 'does not know him. He somewhat unwillingly agrees, and they start. CHAPTER ll.—When she realizes her unknown aviatoa is not going back Andrea in desperation tries to choke him with one of her stockings. He thwarts her and they sail on into the very heart of Africa. Landing in an immense craal. Andrea finds the natives all bow in worship to her mysterious * companion. She is given a slave boy, "Bathtub,” and the White Man sets about building a hut for her. CHAPTER Hl.—Andrea is given a glimpse of the home which is to be hers, and wonders at its completeness. White Man invites her to dinner that evening, and in spite of the fact that he has, refused to take her back to civilisation Andrea accepts his invitation, but be continues deaf to her pleading that he restore her to her friends. CHAPTER IV.—Andrea is awakened from sound sleep next morning by loud pounding on her doorway and is fold to prepare for a day’s hunt with White Man. She thoroughly enjoys the exciting trip and begins to understand more of he “host’s’” character and the reason for his apparently ruthless slaughtering of animals. He is providing for the force of blacks he employs and who look to him for sustenance. CHAPTER V.—Andrea, worrying over her deplorable lack of change of clothing, is surprised and delighted when a trunk, loaded with everything in 'the way of clothing dear to the feminine heart. Is dropped at her doorway by stalwart natives and she is told by White Man that they are hers. White Man by a skillful shot saves her from the attack of a sable bull and she Is fast becoming reconciled to her fate after eight days in the craal. CHAPTER Vl.—On another expedition the donkey on which Andrea is mounted runs away with her and she is for a moment made ridiculous. White Man explains the African method of wife purchase, "obolo.”’ She Is horrified. Afterward she listens to the report of native runners that a herd of elephants la In the district and is invited to the hunt by White Man. They start down a croco-dile-Infested stream for the scene of the hunt CHAPTER Vll.—After a tedious tramp three bull elephants are sighted and Andrea is transfixed by the excitement of the chase. Overcome by the spectacle of the killing of two elephants Andrea suddenly finds herself in the warm embrace of White Man. To her surprise she Is by no means Indignant. Andrea learns that another white man is encamped near their craal, but when she declares she would like to see him White Man, warns her she must never try to see or communicate with the stranger. He refuses to give his reasons, and Andrea resolves to meet the other man.

“You were cold,” he -said, as he tucked her in; then he knelt beside her, took her hand in both of his and suddenly laid his face in her open palm, still moist with her tears. Andrea drew a long whimpering sigh and nestled down against the warm furs. Her eyes gazed impersonally and a little wonderingly at M’sungo’s bowed head; then they wandered about the room. So this was where he had lived and worked during many months! It was a bachelor’s room, arranged at once for comfort, utility and sloth. On one side was his cot, permanently inclosed in mosquito netting and having at its head a lantern for reading in bed. Next to it, came a high draughtsman’s desk roughly made of packing cases. On each end of it, guttering candles, still lighted, rose from mysterious pedestals, empty bottles, disguised under cascades of molten wax. In the shadow of the high desk stood the one utterly Incongruous bit of furniture, a glistening mahogany phonograph. Andrea’s eyes passed it and then went back to linger for an instant in vague wonder. Why had M’sungo never brought it out? Never played it? She was not interested enough to ask aloud. Andrea’s eyes finished their slow circuit of the room and came back to the white man’s bowed head. He had not moved and she herself had lain very still, more through languor than by volition. She had been in that state of subdued consciousness which sweeps troubled humanity back to the borderland of childhood, but now her mind awoke. A deep flush stained her neck and crept up through her cheeks, carrying with it to her eyes a look of sudden age. Her hand, imprisoned under the man’s cheek, doubled and contracted Into a hard little fist. He looked up quickly and saw the transition that had come to her face. “Don’t give In to it,” he said, throwing one arm across her knees. “Don’t‘give in to age. Do you think I am so blind that I don’t know where I found you? Why do you think I am on my knees? It’s in reverence before the glimpse that I caught of the girlhood of Andrea Pellor. My arms'are trembling because they have to carry her clean youth, soft and warm as it Was before the touch of the world and years, and my hbart is aching with a memory that will neveg die.” “White Man.” said Andrea, her face

unsoftened, “would you pay three pounds for meJ" He stared at her, leaped to his feet and started pacing up and down beside the couch, a look of thunder on his brow. "No," he'iald, “I wouldn't” Without looking at her he went to the' bookcase and, after a moment, drew out a worn volume; then he placed a chair close to the couch so that the light of the lantern would fall over bis shoulder, sat down and began to read aloud. Very gradually the hardened and cheapened look in Andrea’s eyes died out They grew wide again and dwelt dreamily on the man’s slim figure. She saw many things about him she had never noted before. His hair was crisp and touched with premature gray at the temples; his shoulders were broad and his hips very narrow. He had a good “boot leg," but his feet were small enough to preserve balance even there. In spite of his height, he was well-knit by grace of the life he had led. “He Is very strong,” thought Andrea as she remembered how lightly he had swung her into his arms. Then she began to think of other things about him. He never was too tired to shave before the evening meal. He had shown an almost uncanny tact in foreseeing and preventing the embarrassing situations that one would have thought inevitable under the circumstances of their life together. He never forgot. He had called her “my dear girl” once and she had shown that she hated it. It was enough. “How old are you, White Man?” she asked. “Thirty-four, normally,” he an< swered Instantly, and went on with bls absorbing reading almost without a break. Andrea fell silent, even her thoughts stopped talking. Gradually the flowing voice possessed her, picked her up lightly, bore her away and away. In other words, she slept as children sleep when put to bed in the g<sod old way. When she awoke, hours later, the, room was heavy with the acrid smell of lanterns burned too low, but to make up for that, the rain had ceased and sunlight poured In through the open door. M’sungo was sitting as he had sat, reading as he had been reading. The ffow of his voice was exactly the same as though he himself had been caught; in a current that would not let him stop. Andrea drew a quivering breath. She saw instinctively the workings of his mind. He wished her to awake without awaking—to come to the new day with the selfsame smile In her heart that had been there when she slept. He called upon her to, play the game through and she decided to do it. She stretched her bare arms, yawned, nibbed her eyes with doubled fists, laughed and then threw out both bands to him. “Take me back,” she said. The book fell from his hands. He turned and stared at her with the hungry eyes of a man who sees for the first time one of the rarest of God’s creatures —-namely, a woman whose youth stands by her in the disheveled morning, defies the ugly finger of gross slumber her lovely beyond the limits set by the wrinkling seams of coarser and less blessed fabrics. For a moment his gaze wavered as though before too strong a light, then it steadied and his face grew stern. He arose. “Come on,” he said. She threw her arms about his neck; he picked her up, sarong and all, and passed solemnly the length of the covered way. He could feel her face pressed hard against his shoulder and her loosened hair was like a cloud beneath his chin. Her arms clung to him tightly, her body trembled, her

eyes twinkled and her lips murmured audibly, “Remember, Andrea Pellor, you’re just a kiddle.” x , ; He dropped her on her: cot with .a thud that surprised the six straddling legs of that sturdy campaigner into stringent protest and incidentally startled, one young lady. t “There you are, you little devil,” he strode from the room

with the satisfied air of a dog who has just carried home eight pounds of prime roast Intact Andrea watched him go, then she arose, took the cord from her bathrobe and advanced upon the door to the covered way. She closed it, let down the bar and with the cord bound it in place. She tied knot after hard knot, and as she .drew each one of them tight she said, “Just to give you time to think twice, Andrea Pellor." (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“Remember, Andrea Pellor, You're Just a Kiddie.”