BY LAVID BELASCO. The story is a direct narrative of a fancied Incompatibility be- tween a self-made, iron-willed man and the humble, home-loving wife of his early struggles. CHAPTER I. Daniel Slade sat reading the evening newspaper in the handsomely appoint: ed library of his spacious home. To all intents he was a man at peace with the world. He had money and power. He had advanced from a penniless miner to a millionaire figure in the business world. At fifty his were the fruits of a well-spent, energetic life. Handsome and immaculate in his per- fectly tailored evening clothes, he fit ted into the beautiful room with its rich tapestries and oriental rugs with all the ease and naturalness of a man born to culture and wealth. Every now and then his eyes wan dered from his newspaper to the fig: ure of his wife sitting at the other side of the richly carved table. The tiny, unimposing little woman in her badly cut, dun-colored gown was the one in- congruous detail in the room. She was like a shabby little prairie flower suddeniy transplanted to a conserva- tory where brilliant orchids and lovely roses bloomed all about her, her faint little fragrance overpowered by their heavy sweetness—her delicate loveli- ness completely submerged by very contrast with the radiant beauty of her surroundings. To Slade’s critical eyes, the dowdy little figure, with the work basket in her lap and her head bent over the stocking she was contentedly darning, was an actual eyesore. He had fitted ' up a magnificent home that would have made a perfect setting for a prin- | cess, and his wife's appearance had not changed a particle from the days when they lived in a tumble-down cot- tage and he worked in the mines in his shirtsleeves. With the getting of vast amounts of money he had acquired a veneer of manners and tastes that at times failed to conceal the rough and brutal instincts of the real man. His social horizon was enlarging, but within it his wife seemed to find no place. He wanted, beyond this and everything, to climb the political tree and pick the fruits thereof. His wife seemed not to know that there was such a thing as a political tree to climb. With herself, her husband and her work she was contented and happy. The wives of other men of his po- sition were social queens noted for their beautiful gowns, their entertain- ing and their clever wit. He alone was shackled to a woman he would have been ashamed to introduce to his friends. Only he was tied to a wife he could not force either by pleading or argument to enter into the life which meant so much to him. Tonight as he rehearsed in his mind his many unsuccessful efforts to | make Mary advance and take an inter est in his life as it was now, rebellion surged in his heart. He had struggled | year after year to attain his present standing, his present position in the world, and Mary, the one loved thing of his life, insisted on hanging like a millstone around his neck, : Why, oh, why, couldn’t the woman progress? Why hadn't she developed as he had done? Why was she com- placently sitting there satisfied to re- main just as she had been twenty years ago, hopelessly behind the times? And if she wouldn't advance—why should he consent to be held back by her? If she wouldn't go on with him —he would leave her behind. The thought and the resultant decision had their birth suddenly but positively in the man’s mind. He would make one more argument, one last appeal. If Mary wouldn’t meet him half way, Mary could stay behind with her ever- lasting darning and her eternal knit- ting. She could wash and cook and stew and sew, if she liked, but she couldn’t do it in his mansion. But Daniel Slade was no more un- comfortable at having her there than Mary Slade was at being obliged to live in this great, elegant house, with its crowds of servants and its routine, absolutely foreign and well-nigh hate- ful to her. She knew she didn’t fit info her surroundings. She realized, her own inharmony. Her attempts to look natural and feel comfortable were pathetic. She felt lost without the task of overseeing the Monday's washing. She was heart-broken be- cause she couldn’t personally superin- tend the making of Dan’s coffee. Her life was incomplete because a hired cook made the bread that was served on the table and because Dan never seemed to miss the evenly brown. loaves that had been her especial! pride in the old days. Mary Slade was as commonplace as a cup of boiled tea. She was a plain, ordinary, everyday woman, who loved Allice Bradley? Play £4 GERTRUDE STIVINSON ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE STAGE PRODUCTION COPYRIGHT, 1/5, (PUBLICATION FIGHTS RESERVED) a simple, unpretentious life, with the neighbors dropping in for a word or two, exchanging recipes for muffins and debating the proper way to sea son a stew. There was neither charm nor com: fort for her in the vista of rooms open- ing out from the spacious library. The brocaded chairs were straight and didn’t rock. They were high-posted and stilted compared to her own low: seated little rocker in the cottage. When she sat back in them, stiffly and awkwardly, her feet didn’t even reach the floor, but dangled restlessly, above the priceless rug that was one of her husband's newest purchases. All big crises in life are the re- sults of trifles. It took the merest incident to crystallize Slade’s thought into action. Mary had picked up a portion of the paper after it had dropped from her husband’s hands. She started to read the printed page with all the serious importance of a little child trying to do something very big and grown-up. Suddenly her eyes lighted with pleasure and a tender smile of pride and delight illuminated her features. In turning the pages she had sud- denly discovered a picture of her hus- band, under which she read a simple but significant line: “Daniel S. Slade, a Possible Gover- nor.” “Oh, Dan,” she cried, happily. “Isn’t this a fine picture of you. I could almost imagine it was going to speak to me.” Then she paused a little wistfully and doubtfully before she asked: “But do you really want to be gov- ernor?” “Want to be?” Slade caught his breath as he re- peated her question. Want to be—when every aim and ambition the last few years had been made in the one direction, toward the one longed-for goal—political power! Want to be—when years be- fore he had turned his eyes on the i governor's chair and had been bat- tling grimly, silently, persistently toward that end ever since! Want to be—when that was his one ambition, the one thing he had yet to achieve! He sighed wearily to himself. That Mary could ask that question was the best proof of how irrevocably they had drifted apart. Living in the same house with him, eating at the same table, day after day at his side, the little woman knew no more of his real self or his ambitions than the merest stranger. “It's a nice story about yer, Dan,” Mary went on, all unconscious of the struggle going on just a few feet away from her—the struggle between the heart of a man that calls out to the | companion of his youth, the sharer of his joys and struggles and the brain She Was a Shabby Little Prairie Flower Transplanted to a Conser- vatory. of a man that demands the glory of power and the fulfilment of ambition. “But, Dan,” questioned Mary's gentle little voice, “who's The Gover- nor’s Lady?” “His wife, of course,” snapped Slade. “What does it say about you?” He reached over and took the paper from her hands, leaned forward ea- gerly toward the light and frowned es he read: “Should Daniel 8S. Slade, the ex- miner, ex-town marshal, ex-sheriff, ex- United States marshal, ex-land boomer * she answered: and multimillionaire. arrive. it will be interesting to see the governor's lady dusting the gubernatorial chair—orob- ably the only occupation congenial to this kind-hearted and plain little woman.” “Dusting the gubernatorial chair,” Slade repeated mockingly, cut to the quick by this public allusion to his wife’s plainness and lack of social | graces. That simple little phrase, stinging as it was brief, was as a match flame to dry timber. It was all that was necessary to bring the hot rage surg- ing through him to the boiling point. The sweetness of the little woman’s expression, the tenderness of her eyes whenever they rested upon him, the plaintive softness of her voice meant noth’ng to him then. Through angry eyes he saw only the lack of smart- ness in her somber brown dress, only the note of absurdity she struck amid the exquisite surroundings of the room he had furnished for her. He thought of nothing but the sorry spec- tacle she would make at a brilliant dinner or smart function where beau- tiful women in fashionable chiffonc chatted freely and easily of men and things in the progress of the nation. “This is some of Wesley Merritt's, tin-horn - tooting writing,” growled Slade. “D——n his dirty work!” As her husband muttered to him- self, Mary had calmly resumed her endless mending of socks, long years of thrift and saving making it impos- sible for her to throw away even a well-worn pair in spite of the fact that the nced for repairing had long | since passed. | Slade found himself looking at the little woman who had been his wife for twenty years, through lean years and hard years, as faithful and pa- tient then as later, when success first began to come his way, very much as he might have scrutinized an entire stranger. For a ‘moment the tragedy of their present state caught at his soul, and he felt the infinite pathos of the woman's predicament. A softer note came into his voice as he asked glowly: “Say, haven't you got any clothes, Mary? Haven't you any of the things other women wear at night—silk or lace or ruffles or—whatever they are?” “Yes, I've got ’em,” Mary replied, | indifferently, “but it’s too cold to wear ’em, and those silk stockings you told me to buy—I can’t wear them, either—they tickle my toes. Satin slippers made me uncomfort- able, and—" she finished with a bub- | bling little laugh, “I guess I wasn’t made for those things, Dan, dear. I'm too much of a home body.” Her very self-satisfied complacency | nettled her questioner. The very | sight of the darning needle in her fin- | gers maddened him. “Good God, Mary,” he exclaimed, “can’t you ever stop this endless | mending? Haven't I begged you, day | and night, not to mend my socks. 1! won't wear socks all over darns— they’re uncomfortable.” Just a suggestion of a smile played around Mary Slade’s sweet mouth as “They’re yours, Dan. It’s the only thing left that I can do for you—now. I can’t bear to see strangers touch your things—” and her voice trailed off in a wistful sigh, a sigh which might on any other occasion have made its appeal to the earnest-faced man now gazing at her so grimly. The lightness of her tone showed how little she realized the seriousness of the situation—how little she under- stood how inadequately she was fill- ing her position as his wife. She loved her husband with the devotion of a slave and the reverence of a wor- shiper at a shrine, but, like many an- other good woman, she wanted to show her affection in her own way and not in his. Because she wanted to do for him with her hands, she turned a deaf ear to his pleas that she use her head. She wanted her husband to be happy and comfortable, but she wanted to make him happy and comfortable according to her own ideas of what ought to make a man satisfied. She had seen him rise grad- ually at first and then by leaps and bounds. Now that he had become wealthy and successful she wanted to decide for him that he ought to let well enough alone. To her it seemed foolish to bother about being gover. nor, absurd for him to fret about the way she dressed and did things, So, for awhile they sat in silence and the fire dying down left the room chilly, so chilly that Mary started up to get a shawl. Halfway to the door, she was peremptorily called back by her husband, who, ringing for a maid, dispatched her for the wrap, while Mary, humiliated and with something of the air of a martyr, went sighing back to the big, uncomfortable chair to resume the mending that was such an irritation to her husband. “Why can’t you learn to be waited on, Mary?” her husband asked, not un- kindly. “Other women do.” “I'm slow—slow and old-fashioned,” the woman answered, quietly, but with an air which plainly showed that she was perfectly satisfied with herself and that she thought he ought to be. “I've never been with women who knew how to do these things. You didn’t know any such people until lately. I don’t want to know them,” she concluded with an engagingly con- Ading smilg. “But I can’t go everywhere always alone,” Slade expostulated. “A man’s wife ought to go with him and meet the right kind of people—otherwise he’s an outsider. What do you think I built this house for? I don’t work in the mines any longer with my hands. I've got to use my head. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t dissipate—keep yachts and horses—or women. A man’s got to do something. Im going into public life. and I want [Continued cn page 7, Col. 1.] RAY-0-LIGHT OIL. RAY-O-LIGHT OIL: I Go HITTING NGive the {Children their 1Chance Can’t expect the children to stand high in their classes unless they get their lessons done properly. And they can’t do night study without proper light. The best light to study by is that which beams from a Rayo Lamp filled with slow-burning Atlantic Rayolight Oil. It gleams soft, white and mellow — doesn’t flicker. It's a wonderful light for studying. Won't strain the children’s eyes and so they study the better. And they learn the quicker. And you'll sew with less effort, and father will enjoy his paper the more if you keep the house generously lighted with Rayo Lamps. Rayo Lamps are handsome —add to the appearance of any room. They're easily cleaned and last a lifetime. Your dealer can show you a full assortment of Rayo Lamps priced from $1.50 up. But to get the best light from a Rayo Lamp, you should burn ATLANTIC Rayolight That's the kerosene that neither smokes nor smells, that burns brightly and yields a great heat, but always at a low cost; use it in every lamp in the house, in your heaters and in your oil stoves. Atlantic Rayolight Oil is the one kerosene you can ask for by name —that never varies in quality. And soit is especially desirable for domestic purposes —for polishing furniture, for keeping away moths, for removing rust and the many other uses hundreds of housewives tell us they have found for it. . Ask your dealer for ATLANTIC RAYOLIGHT OIL by name, you can buy it at any store that displays the sign: —costs no more than the unknown kind ATLANTIC REFINING COMPANY, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh useless Question. “Would your wife vote for you as a candidate for office?” “1 don’t think there’s any use of my bothering my head about that,” re- plied Mr. Meekton. Henrietta would let me run in the first place.” : Meat Market. (Get the Best Meats. You save nothing by buying poor, thin or gristly meats. I use only the LARGEST AND FATTEST CATTLE and supply my customers with the fresh- est, choicest, best blood and muscle mak- ing Steaks and Roasts. . My prices are no higher than poorer meats are elsewhere. I alwavs have —— DRESSED POULTRY — Game in season, and any kinds of good meats you want. TRY MY SHOP. P. L. BEEZER, 34-34-1y. Bellefonte, Pa Fine Job Printing. FINE JOB PRINTING o—A SPECIALTY—o0 AT THE WATCHMAN OFFICE High Street. There is no style of work, from the cheapest “Dodger” to the finest BOOK WORK, that we can not do in the most satis- factory manner, and at Prices consist- ent with the class of work. Call on or communi with this office’ Flour and Feed. CURTIS Y. WAGNER, BROCKERHOFF MILLS, BELLEFONTE, PA. Manufacturer, Wholesaler and Retailer of Roller Flour Feed Corn Meal and Grain Manufactures and has on hand at all times the following brands of high grade flour: WHITE STAR OUR BEST HIGH GRADE VICTORY PATENT FANCY PATENT The only place in the county where that extraor- dinarily fine grade of spring wheat Patent Flour SPRAY can be secured. Also International Stock Food and feed of all kinds. All kinds of Grain bought at the office Flour xchanged for wheat. OFFICE and STORE—BISHOP STREET, BELLEFONTE, PA. MILL AT ROOPSBURG. 7-19 “I don’t believe i Compare this issue of the “Watchman” with other county "papers, and note the difference. : Dry Goods, Etc. LYON & COMPANY. AFTER Inventory Sale We have finished inventory and find we have too large a stock of Winter Goods. We cut prices again in order to move this winter stock at once. SUITS. 22 Suits, ladies’ and misses’, value from $15, to $25, now $3.50. COATS. All Winter Coats in cloth, corduroy, Persian lamb; all sizes and colors including black; must be sold at $7.50. See these bargains and you will be convinced they can not be manufactured at these prices. Spring Showing We have just received a line of Spring Coats and Suits. La Vogue styles speak for themselves. New Silks. New Silks for dresses and waists. Everything new in woolens, lawns, organdies, ginghams, etc. Neckwear. Spring Neckwear here for your inspection. Shoes. Shoes. Sale of Shoes still on. Men’s, women’s and children’s Shoes that sold from $2.50 to $3.50, price $1.98. Lyon & Co. .... Bellefonte
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers