Bellefonte, Pa., July 2, 1926.
: SHOES.
(Continued from page 6, Col. 4.)
Hampton came alone, and even Solo-
mon, in all his glory, was not arrayed
as Hampton!
But the Girl continued to wear the
blue serge and the broken shoes, even
though Tony, wincing, had heard
Hampton tell her that she’d be a
knock-out in a black velvet gown and
satin slippers. Even though Hamp-
ton had gone into alluring details as
he described the second-act gown of a
certain leading lady—one whom the
Girl had long worshipped, and from
afar.
“1d like t’ see you in a party dress,”
Hampton had said. “Say, you'd be
there, kid—there. An’ I'd like t’ see
them pretty feet of yours dancin’ th’
daylights outer silver shoes with buck-
les t’ ’em.”
The serpent in Eden? Maybe he
wore a checked suit and looked pity-
ingly at the ten pink toes of Eve. Who
can say!
A more stupid man than Hampton
would have rushed the Girl, hoping to
dull her brain with the glitter and the
thrill of life. But Hampton was in
no way stupid. His staying away
from the shop for two long weeks
was a sign of his supreme subtlety.
Even Tony grateful though he was
for the interlude, felt a strange fore-
boding. And the Girl, coming in
nearly every evening, was nervous
and restive. Twice she mentioned
Hampton to Tony.
“That guy—you know, wit’
ring,” she asked, -“d’you guess he
moved outer this here neighborhood ?”
And again: “He had coin, the
boy—" she mused. “I guess he could
show the girl he liked a good time,
all right Y
Then with an air that proclaimed
success and ready money even as a
fanfare of trumpets would proclaim
victory—Hampton came back. Came
back one evening, and seated himself
beside the Girl with an easy laugh and
a bit of gay badinage as casual as it
was deadly. And from the Girl's sud- |
den excitement—that she either
couldn’t or didn’t try to hide—Tony
knew that the absent treatment of
Hampton had heen successful. He
was not surprised to see them walk
together out of the door. To see them
stand talking, under the glare of a
street lamp, before they separated
to go their opposite directions. He
was glad, in a dull way, that they did
separate. But he—even as he knew
that he had long watched a losing bat-
tle—could vision the approaching end.
That night, as he fastened the door
of his little shop, as he went slowly
in the direction of his lonely lodgings,
Tony moved wearily, stiffly, as an old
man moves. And the eyes of him—
wistful as the eyes of a stray puppy,
and as warm as old wine—were cloud-
ed with the tears he could not shed.
It was the next day that the Girl
i pill
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th’,
made a date with Hampton—the very
| next day. Hampton was leaving the
' shop as the Girl came in, and Tony
heard him speak. in the assured tone
of a man who had won.
' “Tomorrow,” he said—and in his
| voice was the note of authority that
{ Tony had heard him use to the ser-
"vile men who no longer followed him
into the shop—‘tomorrow we'll step
out a bit, see?” But first we'll do some
shoppin’.” His narrowed eyes swept
"over the Girl’s shabby figure. “I got
some swell friends, an’ we might run
inter ’em. And—well, they won’t get
no chance t’ say I'm a bum picker.
| An’ besides—"
| The Girl laughed, but beneath her
laughter Tony could sense a creeping
note of hysteria.
| “Say,” she rallied, but weakly, “I
‘never let no—no feller—buy clothes
(fer me. I—It aint right! You
| ain’t—" Suddenly pride flared into
"her face. Her head, with its heavy
crown of twilight hair, was lifted.
“You ain’t ashamed of—of me?” Her
tone held more than a question. “No
matter how I'm dressed—you ain’t
. ashamed 7”
The man’s voice was all at once
soft. The man’s hand was suddenly
i lying upon the hand of the Girl
| “Ashamed of you,” he murmured,
and almost—for a moment—Tony
thought Hampton was telling the
truth. “Say —how ’d you get that
way? It’s only that 1 want you t’
have things.”
{ The Girl’s head drooped. It was a
[long moment before she spoke. And
then, “Where’ll I meet you?” she ask-
ed.
| Hampton laughed. And it was the
, confident note of his laughter that
rmade Tony’s hand tighten on the
| blacking brush he held.
“Better meet me right here,” he
said, “as close t’ six as you can make
it.”
He turned, with never a backward
glanee, to the door. Tony left, tne
coin that he had tossed lying upon the
dusty floor and went methodically
about the work of cleaning the Girl’s
slippers. They were so thin in spots
that he was afraid to rub hard. As
words of warning and advice. It was
only as he reached for the dingy rag
which supplied his art’s final touch
that he summoned up the courage to
speak.
“You an’ him~—" he queried, and no
listener could have guessed the tu-
mult in his mind as he jerked his head
in the direction of the door through
which Hampton had passed, “you an’
him—will you be marry? Yess—7”
The Girl's slim, tired hand flew up
until it rested against one hot cheek.
She did not answer at once. But her
voice scarcely held a tremor when
when finally she spoke.
“If you wasn’t so dumb, Tony,” she
said at last, “I’d say you was fresh.
But—well, you ain’t meanin’ any
harm, I guess . ... No— me an’ Mr.
Hampton ain’t goin’ t’ get married.
He’s got a wife somewhere—he says.”
Tony did not make comment. But
something in the -~tense- -set-ef his
shoulders, something in‘the hands that
clenched tight upon the dingy polish-
ing rag, goaded the Girl to further
speech.
“An’ you ain’t got no right t’ think,
Tony,” she cried swiftly, “that he’s
more t’ me than just—" she hesitated,
“a good friends. You ain’t got no
right, Tony! Only—well—” the words
came in a rush, “say, a woman’s got-
ter have pretty clothes. She’s gotter
have ’em. An’ sometimes it don’t
seem that no price is too much t’ give
for ’em. Fat dames with dyed hair—
they come t’ my counter every day.
Wearin’ di’'monds an’ fur coats. An’
I've had these shoes all winter—an’
I ain’t bought a dress fer a year.
Bein’ good is all right in stories,
Tony. But it don’t get you nowhere
in life. Not nowhere! Sometimes I
think I'd sell my soul fer a velvet
dress” (Oh, Hampton, Hampton!)
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he brushed them lightly, gently, he
was longing to ask quéstions, to offer’
“an’ silver slippers with buckles to
em.”
The Girl was crying as she walked
past Tony and out of the door, but
her head was still high.
All during the next morning, all
through the: long afternoon, - Tony
worked like an automaton. With his
hands fumbling at the tasks they us-
ually acompanied so deftly. With his
feet dragging as they walked about
his little shop. But with his brain
leaping ahead to the appointed hour.
“As close t’ six as you can make
it!” so Hampton had said.
Tony’s heart was a burning weight
in his breast when the noon was strik-
ing. By three o’clock his cheeks were
flushed and his eyes fever bright. At
four he spoke his thoughts aloud,
thereby astounding a short and palyid
customer.
“I will maybe keel him!” said Tony
simply.
The customer did not wait for the
final rubbing down of his calfskin
boots.
At five Tony was all a-twitch with
nervousness. At five fifteen he sent
two customers away, telling them
abruptly that he was closing the shop.
At five thirty Hampton came, bland,
smiling, twirling a cane—a cane with
an ivory horse’s head as a handle.
Dressed in a new suit of light grey,
grey-topped shoes, and a pearly-tint-
ed hat. As he seated himself leisure-
ly in the bootblacking chair, he was
humming a little tune.
And Tony? Automatically he
reached for" his brushes. For his
blacking box. For the tools of his
trade. While murder lay in his heart,
he began to rub black paste into the
boots of the man who hummed a tune.
While hate surged through his soul
he asked his usual question.
“You want ’em high polish—yess ?”
he asked.
Hampton ceased to hum. He look-
ed down benignly. into the little boot-
black’s face. He spoke.
“Sure Ido!” he said genially. “Sky’s
th’ limit tonight, Tony!”
His ancestors—bred of the feud and
the vendetta—would have ended the
matter with a curse and a stiletto.
But Tony had drifted away from his
ancestors on the tides of a new world.
Blind with hate, he reached for a new
bottle of liquid polish. It stood on a
shelf at the elbow of Hampton, a tall
bottle and dangerously full. Did
Tony’s hand tremble as he drew it
from its place, or did anger ctnfuse
him, or was it by intent that the bot-
tle slipped from his grasp? Who shall
say! Only, as the sticky contents of
it spread like an ugly spider across
the grey of Hampton’s suit, as flying,
gummy blods of liquid attached them-
selves to the pearl grey of the man’s
hat, Tony stood erect, placid, with a
half-smile—that might have reflected
either bewilderment or triumph—up-
on his lips. As Hampton, with an
ugly snarl, sprang forward, he did not
flinch. As the fist of Hampton, shooct-
ing out, closed one brown, wistful eye,
he made no sound. Nor did he try to
defend himself. Only at the opening
click of a door, only at, the h Girl’s
star cry, did his body quiver.
man in: love does not like to be seen
as a weakling, even though he is a
bootblack. He tried to speak, but his
English vocabulary was so small, so
very small! And then the fist of
Hampton again crashed into his face,
and tke room swam, strangely, in a
black and crimson mist.
Perhaps it was the touch of her
hand smoothing his forehead that
brought Tony back to painful reali-
ties. Perhaps it was the sound of her
voice speaking as if from a distance.
Speaking—but not to him.
“Y! big bum,” the voice was say-
ing. “Sure I blame you! You, with
yer so't voice an’ all, beatin’ up a poor
little guy half yer size. What if he
did Wreck yer clothes? He didn’t
mean to. An’ you got other suits,
ain’t yer? I've a good min’ t’ call a
cop, So I have!”
Threugh the eye that was not cles-
ed and painful Tony could glimpse the
blurred figure of Hampton. Through
ears that strained against the tumult
of returning consciousness he could
hear, tie man’s voice.
“Say, you got a gall,” Hampton was
retorting. “Call a cop—t’ get me?
Try ar’ do it! You little rat from a
bargain basement. In yer old dress
an’ shabby shoes!”
Tony could not see the Girl, but he
could feel the arrogance in her
straigktening figure as she spoke. ~
“You beat it,” she advised tersely,
“while th’ beatin’—Mister—is good.
An’ remember this: it ain’t every girl
that has th’ nerve t’ wear shabby
shoes in this town—see? That has
th’ nerve t’ keep on wearin’ ’em—
You—" the voice shook strangely,
“you beat it!”
The door closed with a slam that
caused the little shop to quiver.
Hampton had gone. And Tony, lying
still,i felt a sudden, new moisture up-
on his bloody face. All at once he
realized that the Girl was crying in
a sileat way that was quite terrible
and at the same time almost splendid.
He sensed, rather than knew, that the
sobs came as much from relief as they
did from sorrow. Struggling to speak
—struggling against his lack of vo-
cabuléry as well as against physical
weakness—he managed a sudden halt-
ing sentence.
“Sometime,” he muttered through
bruisel lips, so faintly that the Girl
had tb bend her head to catch the
words “sometime—you - will - let -
me jake - you - to - a - movie-yes ?”
Alliat once the Girl’s sobbing turn-
ed—it a miraculous way—to laughter.
Her hirth was half-hysterical, per-
haps, but it was not unkind . ...
Good Housekeeping.
Tor Those Country Roads.
When stuck in the mud, the sim-
plest Mlan is to set the emergency
brakeg so as to just bind the wheels
a bit.! This offers each wheel enough
resisttace so that the power dashes
back ind forth from one wheel to the
otheriand is forced to actuate each
one gadually rather than be divert-
ed by the differential entirely to. one
wheel, This is a good tip to recall
during a heavy rain ten miles from
the min road.
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