Hammond Times, Volume 1, Number 223, Hammond, Lake County, 9 March 1907 — Page 8

PAGE EIGHT

THE

C0N03JEST

By BOOTH TARKINGTON,

Author of "Cherry. "Monsieur Beaucaire." Etc.

COPYRIGHT. 1903, BY ICO.tTrNUED. x?!th me except Norbert, aDd he didn't say ranch, but" lie was Interrupted by nn uncontrollable cackle which Issued from ihs mouth of Mr. Arp. The colonel turned upon him, with a frown, Inquiring tha cause of his mirth. "It put me In mind," Mr. Arp begaa .promptly, "of something that happened last nisht." "What was It?" Eskew's mouth was open to tell, but be remembered just In time that the grandfather of Norbert was not the audience properly to be selected for this recital, choked a half born word, coughed loudly, realizing that he must withhold the story of the felling of Martin Tike until the colonel had taken his departure, and replied: "Nothln to speak of. Go on with your argument." "I've finished," said the colonel. "I only wanted to say that It seems to me a good action for a young lady like that to come back here and stick - to her old friend and playmate." "Stick to him!" echoed Mr. Arp. "She walked up Main street with him yesterday. Do you call that stickin to him? She's been away a good iwhile; she's forgotten what Canaan is. You wait till she sees for herself jest tvhat his standing in this com" "I agree with ' Eskew for once," interrupted Peter Bradbury. "I agres because" "Then you better wait," cried Eskew, allowing him to proceed no further, "till you bear what you're agree-

In' to! I say you take a young lady heard a footfall on the stairs end imlike that pretty and rich and all eul- mediately relapsed into a chair, foldtured up, and it stands to reason that iu her hands again in her lap, her exshe won't" J pression composing itself to passivity, "No; it don't!" exclaimed Buckalw for the step was very much lighter

impatiently. "Nothing of the sort! I tell you" Eskew rose to his feet and pounded the pavement with his stick. "It stands to reason that she won't stick to a man no other decent woman will epeak to, a feller that's been tho mark for every stone throwed in the town ever since ho was a boy, an outcast with a reputation as black as a preacher's shoes on Sunday! I don't care if he's her oldest friend on earth, she won't stick to him! She walked with him yesterday, but you can mark my words, his goose is cooked!" The old man's voice rose shrill and high. "It ain't in human nature fer her to do it! You hear what I say you'll never see her with Joe Louden again In this livin world, and she as good as told me so herself last night. You can take your oath she's quit him already! Don't" Eskew paused abruptly, his eyes widening behind his spectacles. His javr fell. Ills stick, raised to hammer the pavement, remained suspended in the air. A sudden color rushed over his face, and he dropped speechless in his chair. The others after staring at him In momentary alarm followed the direction of his gaze. Just across Main street and in plain Tiew was the entrance to the stairway which led to Joe's office. Ariel Tabor, all in cool gray, carrying a big bunch of white rosea in her white gloved hands, had Just crossed the sidewalk from a carriage and was ascending the dark stairway. A moment later she came down again empty banded, got Into the carriage and drovo away. "She missed him," said Squire Buckalew. "I saw him go out half an hour ago. But," he added and, exercising a self restraint close upon the saintly, did Dot even glance toward the heap which was Mr. Arp, "I notice she left her flowers!" Ariel was not the only one who climbed the dingy stairs that day and read the penciled script upon Joe'3 door; - "Will not return until evening. J. Louden." Many others came, all exceedingly unlike the first visitor. Some were quick and watchful, dodging into the narrow entrance furtively; some smiled contemptuously as long as they were In view of the street, drooping wanly as they reached the stairs; some were brazen and amused, and some were thin and troubled. Not all of them read the message, for not all could read, but all looked curiously through the half opened door at the many roses which lifted their heads delicately from a water pitcher on Joe's desk to scent that dusty place with their cool breath. Most of these clients after a grunt of disappointment turned and went away, though there were a few, either unable to read the message or so pressed by anxiety that they disregarded it, who entered the room and sat down to wait for the absentee. There were plenty of chairs In the ofEce now, bookcases also and a big steel safe. But when evening came and the final gray of twilight had vanished from the window panes all had gone exceptjone, a woman who sat patiently, her eyes upon the floor and her hands folded in. her lap, until the footsteps of the last of the others to depart bad ceased to sound upon the pavement below. Then with a wordless exclamation she sprang to her feet, pulled the window shade carefully down to the sill and

enrrrmv fy m in J$ the entry. It wasn't Joe Louden's . I A Dreadful Insinuation. i j '

I "Vou know his step?" Ariel's eyes TW IF7 1 U H 1 r- - fl wer bent upon the woman wonder- i" '"'A Y&r. 7 I I r ' "-SXtv t ill"'' I R V-itr-'!"'" " ' - ' fTft 0$ p?

r P A A h M 1 " tonight," was the an- 'J liifP ' k tf Ii M A & I swr, dollvoml with a harp and pain- , ) fMr V2P S3 f , I - J$$f JL yj Url HiPk V ? rul .Igghs ! Kot plenty reason A jhf l Ll M - L TZ.1

HARPER BROTHERS A lady beautifully dressed in ivhlte dimity appeared in the doorway. when she had done that struck a match on the heel of her shoe a soiled white canvas shoe, not a small one and applied the flame to a gas jet. The yellow light flared up, and she began t9 pace the room haggardly. The courthouse bell rang 9, and as the tremors following the last stroke milsed themselves into silence shn than Joe's. A lady beautifully dressed in white dimity appeared la the doorway. She hesitated at the threshold, not, apparently, because of any timidity (her expression being too thoughtfully assured for that), but almost immediately she came in and seated herself near the desk, acknowledging the other's presence by a slight Inclination of tho head. This grave courtesy caused a strong, deep flush to spread itself under, the rouge which unevenly covered the woman's cheeks as she bowed elaborately in return. Then furtively, during a protracted silence, she took stock of the new comer from the tip of her white suede shoes to the filmy lace and pink roses upon her wide white hat, and the sideloug gaze lingered marvelIngly upon the quiet, delicate hands, slender and finely expressive, in their white gloves. Her own hands, unlike the lady's, began to fidget confusedly, and, the silence continuing, she coughed several times to effect the preface required by her sense of fitness before she felt It proper to observe, with a polite titter: "Mr. Louden seems to be a good while comin." "Have you been waiting very long';" asked the lady. "Ever since G o'clock!" "Yes," said the other, "that is very long." "Yes, ma'am, It cert'nly is." The Ice thus broken, she felt free to use her eyes more directly and, after a long, frank stare, exclaimed: "Why, you must be Miss Ariel Tabor, ain't you?" "Yes" Ariel touched one of the roses upon Joe's desk with her finger tips "I am Miss Tabor." "Well, excuse me fer asking; I'm sure it ain't any business of mine," said the other, remembering the manners due one lady from another. "But I thought it must be. I expect," she added, with loud, inconsequent laughter, "there's not many in Canaan ain't heard you've come back." She paused, laughed again, nervously, and again, less loudly, to take off the edge of her abruptness, gradually tittering herself down to a pause, to fill which she put forth, "Bight nice weather we be'n bavin'." "Yes," said Ariel. "It was rainy first of last week though. I don't mind rain so much" this with more laughter "I stay in the house when it rains. Some people don't know enough to, they say. You've heard, that saying, ain't you, Miss Tabor?" "Yes." "Well, I tell you," she exclaimed noisily, "there's plenty ladies and gen'lemen in this town that's like that" Her laughter did not cease. It became louder and shriller. It had been until now a mere lubrication of the conversation, helping to make her easier in Miss Tabor's presence, but as It Increased in shrillness she seemed to be losing control of herself, as if her laughter were getting away with her. She was not far from hysteria when she stopped with a gasp, and she sat up straight in her chair, white and rigid. "There t" she said listening intently. "Ain't that him?" Steps sounded upon the pavement below, paused for a second at the foot of the stairs; there was a snap of a match, then the steps sounded again, retreating. She sank back in her chair limply. "It was only some one stooDiu to light his clear in

THE

the entry. It wasn't Joe Louden's step anyway." "You know bis step?" Ariel's eyes wh'i) bent upon the woman wonderin gty, "I'd know It tonight," wa3 the answer, dt'Uwred with a s-harp and painful u!gi "l got plenty reason to." Arir-l did not renpoud. She leaned a littt i loser ti the roses upon the desk, lotting thorn touch her face and breathing dooply of their fragrance to neutralise n perfume which pervaded the room, an odor as heavy and cheapsweot ns the face of the woman who had saturated her handkerchief with it, a sot'nt which went with her perfectly and made her unhappily definite; suited to her clumsily dyed hair, to hor soiled white shoes, to the hot ml hat smothered in plumage, to the restless stub fingered hands, to the fat, plated rlng.v of which she wore a great quantity, though, surprisingly enough, the large diamonds in her ear3 were pure and of a very clear water. It was she who broke the silence once more. "Well," she drawled, coughing genteelly at the same time, "better late than never, as the saying Is. 1 wonder who it is gits up all them comical sayings?" Apparently she had no genuine desire for light upon this mystery as she continued immediately: "I have a gen'leman friend that's always gittin' 'era off. 'Well,' he says, 'the best of friends must part,' and 'Thou strikest me to the heart' all kinds of cracks like that. He's real comical. And yet," she went on in an altered voice, "I don't like him much. I'd be glad if I'd never seen him." The change of tone was so marked that Ariel looked at her keenly, to find herself surprised into pitying this strange client of Joe's, for tear3 had sprung to the woman's eyes and slid along the lids, where she tried vainly to restrain them. Her face had altered, too, like her voice, haggard lines suddenly appearing about the eyes and mouth as If they had just been penciled there the truth Issuing from beneath her pinchbeck simulations like a tragic mask revealed by the displacement of a tawdry covering. "I expect you think I'm real foolish," she said, "but I be'n waitin' so awful long, and I got a good deal of worry on my mind till I see Mr. Louden." "I am sorry." Ariel turned from the roses and faced her and the heavy perfume. "I hope he will come soon." "I hope so," said the other. "It's something to do with me that keeps him away, and the longer he Is the more it scares me." She shivered and set her teeth together. "It's kind of hard waitin'. I cert'nly got my share of troubles." "Don't you think that Mr. Louden will be able to take care of them for you?" "Oh, I hope so, Miss Tabor! If he can't, nobody can." She was crying openly now, wiping her eyes with her musk soaked handkerchief. "We had to send fer him yesterday afternoon" "To come to Beaver Beach, do you mean?" asked Ariel, leaning forward. "Yes, ma'am. It all begun out there leastways It begun before that with me. It was all my fault. I deserve all that's comin' to me, I guess. I done wrong! I done wrong! I'd oughtn't never to of went out there yesterday." She checked herself sharply, but after a moment's pause continued, en couraged by the grave kindliness of the delicate face in the shadow of the wide white hat. "I oughtn't to of went," she repeated. "Oh, I reckon I'll never, never learn enough to keep out o trouble, even when I see it comin'! But that gen'leman friend of mine Mr. Nashville Cory's his namehe kind o' coaxed me into it, and he's right comical when he's with ladles, and he's good company, and he says. 'Claudine, we'll dance the light fan tastic,' he says, and I kind o' wanted something cheerful. I'd be'n workin' steady quite a spell, and it looked like he wanted to show me a good time, so I went, and that's what started it." Now that she had begun she babbled on with her story, at times Incoherent ly, full of excuses made to herself more than to Ariel, pitifully endeavoring to convince herself that the responsibility for the muddle she had made was not hers. "Mr. Cory told me my husband was drinkin' and wouldn't know about it, and, 'Besides,' he says, 'what's the odds?' Of course 1 knowed there was trouble between him and Mr. Fear that's my husband a good while ago, when Mr. Fear up and laid him out. That was before me and Mr. Fear got married; I hadn't even be'n to Canaan then; I was on the stage. I was on the stage quite awhile in Chicago before I got ac quainted with my husband." "You were on the stage?" Ariel ex claimed Involuntarily. "Yes, ma'am livin pitchers at Gold berg's rat'skeller, and amunchoor nights I nearly always done a sketch with a gen'leman friend. That's the way I met Mr. Fear. He seemed to be real struck with me right away, and soon as I got through my turn he ast me to order whatever I wanted. He's always gen'lemanlike when he ain't had too much, and even then he vurry, rurry seldom acks rough unless he's jealous. That was the trouble yesterday. I never would of gone to the Beach if I'd dreamed what was comin'! When we got there I saw Mike that the gen'leraan that . runs the Beach lookin' at my company and me kind of anxious, and pretty soon he got me away from Mr. Cory and told me what's what. Seems this Cory only wanted me to go with him to make my husband mad, and he'd took good care that Mr. Fear heard I'd be there with him. An' he'd be'n hangin' around me every time he struck town jest to make Mr. Fear mad the fresh thing! You see, he wanted to make my husband start something again this Mr. Cory did, and he was fixed

letting them touch her face and breath- UKO FXll . r K JXKM 1 A'TI

for it. Be Continued!

LAKE COUNTY TIMES

4ymm life mmm hm M4

Chatty Old Gentleman (as they pass the asylum) We get an excellent view of the asylum from the railway. Escaped Lunatic Ah, but yo ' ought to see the railway from the asylum! S'-etch.

There was a young lady from Claire, Who wore a big rat In her hair. Said a wee little mouse, 'Bout as big as a louse: "Just see her climb onto that chair!" Uncle By.

YOUR STATE STREET haoe mACXjpw

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GIVEN THE TAILOR

YOUR TAILOR SHOULD BE PARTICULAR. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT. ASK MAYMIE, :S The Hammond Daily Capacity,

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