_ Bellefonte, Pa., October 29, 1926.
EE EE.
THE LAND OF “PRETTY SOON.”
I know a land where the streets are paved
With the things which we meant to achieve
It is walled with the money we meant to
have saved ;
And the pleasure for which we grieve
The kind words unspoken, the promises
broken.
And many a coveted boon
Are stowed away there in that land some-
where—
The land of “Pretty Soon.” |
There are uncut jewels of possible fame
Lying about in the dust,
And many a noble and lofty aim
Covered with mold and rust.
And oh, this place, while it seems so near,
Is farther away than the moon,
Though our purpose is fair yet we never
ing strand
To the land of “Pretty Soon.”
The road that leads to that mystic land
Is strewn with pitiful wrecks,
And the ships that have sailed for its shin-
ning strand
Bear skeletons on their decks.
It is farther at noon than it was at dawn,
And farther at night than at noon;
Oh let us beware of that land down there—
The land of “Pretty Soon.”
—By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
THE TYRANT.
All the way up Avery Madden had
had a hard grim fight. Right out of
high school she’d shouldered far more
trouble and responsibility than usual-
ly falls upon a seventeen-year-older.
That was when her father, Lundy
Madden, sports writer and genial
waster, came home one night com-
plaining that he did not feel well. At
ten o’clock he was in hideous spasms
of pain. At eleven he was in the hos-
pital and the surgeons were busy. At
twelve he was dead of peritonitis. His
paper paid for his funeral and gave
the widow and her daughter a month’s
salary, six hundred dollars. It was
lucky that the paper was so generous,
for Lundy Madden had no life insur-
ance and his assets amounted to five
dollars and sixty cents in cash, the
furniture in the apartment, and a pair
of diamond cuff links that had belong-
ed to his great-grandfather.
Mrs. Madden was a frail little blue-
eyed woman who had lived only to
pleasure and spoil her roistering,
good-looking husband. After his death
she lost every grain of sense she'd
ever had and could do nothing but lie
in bed and cry. So it was to Avery
that the problem of her own'life and
her mother’s was presented for solu-
tion— to Avery with all her youth,
her inexperience, her ignorance, her
grief and bewilderment.
Avery took hold bravely—but the
next seven years of the Maddens were
spent in constant shadow. Avery left
high school and the weekly ‘art class
that wads her gregtest joy, moved her-
self and her mother to two cheap
rooms in what Mrs. Madden rightly
called a slum, and went to work in a
candy factory, for that was all she
could find to do.
Yet the candy factory held a bright
gleam for Avery—Edna Galey, a
brand-new welfare worker, a college-
trained young woman with theories
to burn on uplifting the working
classes. Imagine with what joy Avery
welcomed this new friend who told her
that there was a way out from her un-
accustomed nauseating drudgery.
Classes! All that Avery asked of her
changed world was that she might go
on studying art. She didn’t mind
work, she didn’t mind her mother’s
perpetual moan, she didn’t mind the
hole they lived in, she didn’t mind
anything if she need not face a future
which held no paints and crayons.
Edna Galey, along with her im-
practical notions, had a few practical
ones. "She saw, to begin with, that
Avery must have lighter work in bet-
ter surroundings. So she went out
and got her a minor job in a publish-
ing house. The . hours were shorter
than in the factory and Avery had en-
. ergy enough left after work to get
dinner when she got home and then to
dash madly out to the thing she loved,
her art class.
Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twen-
ty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-
three, twenty-four! Seven years of
the hardest kind of hard work. Only
once had she interrupted her art study
just long enough to learn shorthand
and typing, since she could earn more
money as a secretary. Then back to
pencil and brush. As soon as she
could she began to use what she had
learned. Lamp shades, decorative
boxes, hats, scarfs, Christmas and
birthday and place cards, picture
frames, trays—she did them all with
a fantastic charm and a technique
which struck just the right mean be-
tween splash and niggle. She sold
some of these things to the girls at
the office and they begged for more
and brought her orders. Then she
took a sample tray and some candle
shades to a decorator. More orders.
Avery was twenty-four when she saw
that she could actually support her-
self and her mother by her painting.
Her faith in herself was rewarded by
commissions for two screens and an
over-mantel in the first month of what
her mother called tearfully her “ob-
stinate idleness.”
Other commissions followed. She
found she could drop the little things,
boxes and the cards and the lamp
shades and oh, how thankfully she did
so. Then came the order of her first
room. That crazy-rich Mrs. Doerrs
saw a yellow lacquer screen that
Avery had sold through a decorator
and she tracked the artist down.
“I want a room for bridge in my
Florida house,” she ordered. “Apple
green with pagodas and storks and
junks and foo-dogs and peonies and
bamboos in gold and black and scarlet.
Hurry it up; it must be done in two
months or I won’t pay for it. If it is
done in two months, and I like it, you
can name the price.”
It was done in two days less than
two months and Mrs. Doerrs’ check
was a generous four figures. “I love
it,” she declared. “I'm mad ahout it.
I'll show it to everybody and every-
body will want one, but you must nev-
er do another like it.”
“Pll do what I please,” answered
Avery, “but I hope I’ve got ideas
enough that Ill never have to use the
same one twice.” :
Mrs. Doerrs looked at Avery, who
was skinny and pale from overwork,
red-haired and spunky by nature, and
had on the shabbiest serge dress and
the dirtiest old cotton smock. Mrs.
Doerrs laughed. “You'd be rather
good-looking if you had clothes worth
the name,” she said.
“Qh—clothes! I don’t care about
clothes.” ir
“Don’t say silly things. Of course
you care about clothes. And if I send
for you to come to Florida and paint
rooms for half a dozen of my friends,
don’t come looking like a scarecrow.”
Mrs. Doerrs kept her word about
showing her bridge-room—she could
hardly help it since she played prac-
tically every night and all night, and
Avery found herself in Florida with
orders for two more rooms to be paint-
ed directly on the walls, and while she
was doing them she picked up a com-
mission for a couple of screens and a
set of overdoor panels. Mrs. Madden
went south with Avery and they lived
in the cheapest boarding house they
could find, which wasn’t so very cheap.
All day long Avery worked and at
night she and her mother walked out
in the magical Florida nights of blue
chiffon ragged out with stars far larg-
er and brighter than stars have any
business to be.
One afternoon, as she was reluct-
antly putting the last touches on a
room designed to bring indoors the
great tropical garden just outside, she
heard a man’s voice speaking behind
her. He said—and she never forgot
the words nor the voice— “It’s glor-
jous! The artist should be given a
banquet of roasted flamingo, served
on a dish of lapislazuli.” -As she
turned slightly, and the speaker per-
ceived that the one he’d spoken of was
present, he added, smiling, “I beg your
pardon—but it’s true. This is be-
yond imagination.” in
Avery smiled a polite, stiff little
smile and made the slightest half nod.
Her rich patrons ignored her social-
ly,.so she had become equally remote.
But this man sounded different, in-
teresting. She watched him stealthily
as he looked over the room, and the
woman with him fluttered and ex-
claimed. He looked real, and he look-
ed strong, and he looked proud.:
He was gone in ten minutes, but he
stuck in Avery’s memory. She won-
dered if the tinkling bepearled little
blonde with him was his wife. Prob-
ably. The thought was unpleasant.
That man deserved something better
than a piece of tin. . . . She gave her
work a last critical survey—and was
through. The check was already in
her pocket.
Now suddenly she was discontent-
ed. She walked back to the boarding
house haunted by a perception of the
great gaps in her life, of warmth and
beauty and human relationships she
had never known, and the limitations |
en><acks imposed off her. Sh nt-
ed ghmething—she wWlsn’t quite’ sure
what it was—but she wanted it. She
counted the money she had made, and
the sum crystalized her vague long-
ings into action.
“Mother,” she said to Mrs. Madden
as soon as she reached the boarding
house, “I'm going to Paris for a year
or two and study and see things. You
can come along, or you can stay in
New York, wherever you think you'll
be most comfortable and happy.”
Although Mrs. Madden prompily
turned on the usual fount of tears and
declared that she would now have to
die in a strange place and among alien
people, she wouldn't have missed go-
ing to Paris for several large blocks
of Florida real estate. Rather to her
chagrin she proved an excellent sailor,
and didn’t have the pleasure of lying
in her berth and moaning with sea-
sickness. Once in Paris she actually
began to cheer up, even though she
considered French coffee a personal
offense and shuddered at the price of
a comfortable fire. In spite of these
grievances the magical city bewitched
her. She began to make friends with
such Americans as she counld find.
Mrs. Madden was, though loath to ad-
mit it, having the time of her life.
So was Avery. She had enough
money saved for two years at the
modest rate she and her mother were
living, so that she was not hag-ridden
by poverty. Something of the natural
gayety of her youth came back to her,
and the cleverly dressed French weo-
men were a challenge to her dowdi-
ness. Avery had not been in Paris
two weeks before she was buying
clothes, not expensive, but delightful,
intelligent clothes. Avery in straight
russet crepe, with a whopping gilt
buckle on a shiny black leather belt,
a cape of russet wool, a rowdy little
shiny black hat on her red hair, was
a figure to make heads turn along the
boulevards. Avery in the evening in
a slip of reseda green and a string of
beads that pretended to be crystal but
were only clear glass (but oh, how
superlatively Parisian was the pre-
tense)—this Avery was a personage.
After a little she began to study un-
der the stiffest martinet in the whole
art world of Paris, a man who believ-
ed that drawing is the backbone of all
art, and who was reputed to say his
prayers to Michelangelo. Though
Avery had little French and M. Rou-
laix no English at all, he saw that
here was a pupil who had the engery
and the will to work, and the intelli-
gence to guide it. With M. Roulaix
her staleness vanished, her confidence
returned. She began to think of mur-
als, and to work toward them.
Avery was well established in this
routine when Mrs. Doerrs descended
on Paris for her season’s wardrobe
and her season’s round of the restaur-
ants and dancing places. Things im-
mediately began to happen. She sum-
moned Avery and shrieked for joy
over her appearance. “I knew it! I
knew it! I told you so! What a little
fool you were to wait so long!” That
was her frank comment. Whereupon
she invited her to lunch at the Ritz,
introduced her to various Americans
resident in Paris, and browbeat one of
them into letting Avery do the music-
room in her big apartment on the
Avenue Kleber.
Other commissions inevitably fol-
lowed, but they did not have to be
rushed and jammed and hurried over.
Avery worked steadily, but she found
time now to hear music, to go to the
theater, to make social contacts, and
she brought to it all the keenness that
comes from being previously starved.
Mrs. Madden had begun to hope that
they were settled permanently in
Paris when Crane Kiehler, the archi-
tect, chanced on some of Avery's work
and urged her to come back to Amer-
ica and join forces with him.
“It’s time you get out of here,” said
the great Kiehler. “If you stay too
long Paris will do something queer to
you, just as it has to a lot of other
Americans with talent. There’s no
future here for you—you’ll get more
rooms to do, you can exhibit, and so
on, but with that youre done. In
America you can have the big things,
the public buildings, the new sort of
business buildings—you’ll be in at art
in the making there. Come along
with me and do things. I've been
hankering to get a lot more eolor into
architecture, but I never found the
person. to put it over. You can. «
To go back to America with the
prestige of an association with Crane
Kiehler was to go trailing clouds.of
glory. = With all her reluctance to
leave Paris, Avery knew that such a
chance comes but once in a lifetime.
At their table. on the boat Avery
and her mother found a pallid little
honeymooning couple from Detroit, a
fat man from California and to the
other chair came a man protesting to
an apologetic steward that he had or-
dered a single table weeks before.
“But for dinner to-night, sir—”
“Every time I sail on this line the
same thing happens—"” began the
man, but he spoke lower as he neared
the table. That voice—it stirred
memories in Avery. She glanced up
at the speaker as he pulled out the
chair beside her own. It was, surely,
he of “flamingo served on lapis-
lazuli.”
And at the conventional exchange
of names he said, “I’m sure I've met
you, or seen you, Miss Madden.”
“We've never met, I think,” said
Avery. She wasn’t going to remind
im.
Presently she was rewarded. “I
knew I'd seen you. You did a room
in the Palm Beach house of a cousin
of mine and my sister and I went in
one day, and you were working there.
Afterward I asked Mary Townsend
about you, and she said you’d gone.
So I never had a chance to tell you
what a stunning piece of work I
thought it was.”
His voice was more deep and de-
lightful than she had remembered.
“I’m either going to be seasick or I'm
falling in love with him,” she thought,
and added scornfully, “I must be stark
staring crazy.”
In the morning when she came on
deck Robert Fraser was waiting for
her.
They walked. Avery was silent,
and willing to listen. She learned
that he had but one sister, married
and not very happy. There seeme
to be ‘many cousins.’
The whole fabric of his life unroll-
ed before her. He had been every-
where, done everything that had to do
with sports, hunted, flown, explored,
played about with all sorts of people
everywhere. He touched deliberately
on these things. Avery, listening,
smiled. He was telling her what he
could offer her, and there was an en-
at
Te
“But, Avery—" he began, and then
stopped.
They had agreed that his first even-
ing must be with his sister, but as he
left Avery at the hotel, he said, “I'll
be here early to-morrow. We'll have
the whole day together.”
This startled her into reality. “Oh,
Robert—TI’ll have to be at Kiehler’s of-
fice to-morrow early. I promised him
1I’d not lose a minute, and I haven’t
the least idea how long I'll have to
stay. Let me telephone when I'm
through.”
His look of shocked remonstrance
shocked her also. “You forgot my
contract,” she added. “I've got to
keep it.”
He hesitated, looked with distaste
about the dingy lobby of the Veda.
“This isn’t the time or the place to
discuss, well, what we must discuss.
I'll phone you to-night. We must
come to some sort of understanding
about—certain things.”
Yes, Avery was sure they must.
She went on up to her rooms with the
feeling of one who has been making
a long and beautiful air flight and has
suddenly landed on a cobbled street.
It had been such a small thing,
Robert’s look, but the unspoken feel-
ing behind it was so great. He did
not understand, he actually resented,
her work. He had said that he was
glad she need not keep on working.
Not keep on working! That life, the
life of her former patrons, a network
: of trivialities exalted into duties, of
strict laws as to where one lived, of
what one wore, of how one spoke and
smiled, of the people one knew—what
had she to do with this life? Noth-
ing, nothing at all. And yet this was
Robert’s life. If she became Robert’s
wife she’d be a Fraser, too. With a
shock she realized that she had
thought “if” instead of “when.”
“I might have considered all this be- |
fore,” she told herself. She did not
reflect that this was the first moment
she had been out of the glamour of
Robert’s presence.
A great basket of flowers was at
that moment delivered at her door. It
brought Robert back to her with a
rush. Good heavens, what was all her |
worrying about! What did anything
matter but Robert? She glanced at
the clock—it was not quite six. She
would just call up Crane Kiehler’s of- |
fice on the chance that he’d be in so
late and tell him that she’d got her-'
self engaged, that she was going to be
married very soon, and that their con-
tract was off. |
The words never left her lips.
“Great Caesar, young woman, I'm |
glad you're here,” shouted Crane
Kiehler as soon as she gave her name. |
“Stick on your hat and hustle down |
here on the double quick. I've got the |
most interesting thing that’s been in
the shop for a thousand years. It's.
the chance of your life.” ca
His voice brimmed and boomed with
enthusiasm as infectious as laughter.
And once in his office, the long tables,
the shirt-sleeved, eye-shaded men
stooping over them, the blue prints,
the drawings, the very instruments
sd lights .made her. feel at home.
is was the world she knew, this was |
her place. For the moment Robert
Fraser simply didn’t exist. 3
“It’s a bank,” announced Kiehler
with no preliminary greeting. “A big !
bank, and when you see the chance
for decoration you’re going to get
down on your knees and thank the
. Lord and Papa Kiehler.”
They went over the plans, Kiehler
! gave her a lift, restored her. It swung
her away from emotional disturbance,
put her on the heights of confident
creation. ;
She snatched a sandwich and a glass
of milk at the nearest lunch counter
and commenced her search for a
studio. She must get that first.
There were endless stairs to be
climbed, endless janitors and superin-
tendents to be waited for. From this
she went back to the old Veda House
at seven, tired to numb stupidity.
Robert was waiting—with a bunch of
orchids. Orchids, when all she want-
ed was a bath, a bowl of hot soup and
her bed! Tired as she was, it made
her want to laugh.
He was angry when he saw her
drawn face, her dull eyes. “Why
didn’t you tell me—all this is so per-
fectly unnecessary. I've two people
in my office who do nothing but tire-
some commissions. To-morrow you
must take them and after they've
weeded out the impossible places, you
can go and see what’s left. If you'd
told me!”
“I'm so unused to having anyone
take care of me I never thought of it.”
He set his jaw and did not answer.
Avery dressed as quickly as she could,
whipping up the remnants of her en-
ergy to do it, but when she got into
the waiting car she sighed with fa-
tigue. Fraser heard and was silent,
only took her hand and held it gently
on the way uptown. He had already
ordered dinner and it was promptly
served.
“I told Nancy about our engage-
ment, Avery. She wants to come and
see you as soon as you'll let her; I
could hardly keep her from rushing
down here to-day. What time to-
morrow can she come?”
She tried to think. The remem-
.brance of tinkling, trivial Nancy, and
' the prospect of her unlimited compan-
ionship, dismayed and irritated her.
“Tt will have to be in the evening. I'll
be all morning at Kiehler’s, and look-
ing for a studio again in the after-
noon. If your people should find any-
thing, you've no idea how much it
would help me.”
“Why can’t you put off your studio
until the day after and see Nancy to-
morrow and have dinner with her and
me in the evening?” ]
“Qh, but, Robert, I can’t lose a sec-
ond getting into that studio. If you'd
see the gorgeous piece of work Kieh-
ler’s got for me.”
He faced her squarely. “Do you
mean that nothing else matters but
your work? ‘What am I to think?
Avery, you must give it all up. Where
will you find time, my dear? We've
got so many things to do together. I
want to take you traveling all over the
world, I want to do everything all over
again with you—we’ll have a yacht
on the Mediterranean, and play round
the Riviera, we’ll go camping up in the
Canadian Rockies, and then there’s
Southampton and the farm in Virginia
—you’ll love it. We'll take a house in
town, too, if you like. Don’t you see,
darling girl, what fun we’ll have, and
what it will mean for us to be togeth-
er doing all the jolliest things in the
world 7”. : TE
With every word he became more
alien to her. “Robert, don’t you ever
work ?” she asked at last.
“Why, of course I look after the
estate, and that’s not such a small
job, you know. But it’s not especial-
ly exacting. I can direct everything
by wire or cable just as easily as if !
I were on the ground.
competent people.”
And I've very
dearing quality in his thus showing explaining, Avery listening, studying,
her his possessions, a sort of humility, | with such biinded interest that neither
as if he had said, “I'm not so much | of them saw the outer office lights
myself, but maybe Jou 11 like what | gimmed, the draftsmen leaving. At
goes along with me. {last the telephone on Kiehler’s desk
So he was stark staring crazy, too.
She had only to put her hand, only to
buzzed so long and so persistently
that he heard it.
“But my work is the sort no one
can do but me.
I must work it out, actually shape it
with my hands.”
“Yes, but, dearest, there isn’t the
slightest necessity for you to go on
I must think it out,
from my work. It is my life, it is
me.”
“But, Avery, be reasonable. And
don’t talk about us parting, for we're
not going to. I’m trying to under-
stand you, but you give me a ridicu-
lous part. I'm to sit at home and
wait until you're through with your
daily toil, and if you're not too tired
we might go out, or entertain—oh,
Avery, that’s all so absurd. It isn’t
marriage, my dear.”
“It isn’t your idea of marriage, I
know. My work isn’t ridiculous, I
don’t see how it can make you so. But
that’s no matter. It’s just that you
want something I have not the power
to give you. My work, my necessity
to work—I wish I could make you see
—it’s as relentless as thirst, or hung-
er, or passion, and as strong. It’s the
fox that gnaws the Spartan boy—
only, if it gnawed me, I'm afraid I
wouldn’t be very Spartan.” She smil-
ed at him wistfully, but there were
tears shining behind the smile. “Oh,
Robert, why didn’t you fall in love
with a woman who hasn’t a taskmas-
ter like mine? We'd better part right
now, cut everything off clean, let it be
as if we’d never seen each other. I’d
rather make you—and me—a little
unhappy now than a great deal, later.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“I must mean it.”
He said no more but called the wait-
er and paid him. They went out to
the car. Once in its seclusion he
spoke again: “You really mean,
Avery, that when we are married, I'm
to have only the scraps and edges of
your time, that painting the walls of
banks and courthouses and so forth
means more to you than the interest-
ing, divesting—and devoted—life I
can give you? If you do mean that,
I know that you don’t love me.”
“I do mean it, and yet I do love you.
I can see you'd never be content, that
it would always be a fight between my
work and you. I couldn’t live like
that, Robert.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
Avery gave a long weary sigh. She
must choose, and having chosen she
must hold fast to her choice. - But it
was very hard. “We're going to tell
each other good-by,” she said at last.
“I've worked too long, Robert; it’s in
my bones, it’s in my soul. I can’t
: stop.”
“But, Avery—I can’t let you go—
my dear—"
“Oh, don’t! It isn’t any use.”
As the car stopped at her hotel he
put his hand over hers, and the warm
firm touch set her trembling. But she
held her voice steady. “Good-by,” she
said, “thank you for—everything.
Good-by.”
Oh, it was hard. She did not dare
look after him for fear she would call
him back, he looked so proud, so an-
gry, and yet so lonely and so hurt.
She hurried in, away from him. To
get away, to cry, to let her heart
break in solitude, that was what she
wanted. It killed her, this parting.
And yet, through all the pain, she
knew an exultation. The way was
clear again, there would be no more:
clutter and fret of emotion, no pulling
back from her task, no compromising:
her greatest need. If she was less
woman, she knew, more artist. She
reached her tired arms skyward in a.
gesture of winged triumph.
“Now,” she said, “now, I can work.”
—By Sophie Kerr.—From the Wo-
man’s Home Companion.
ee—— ems.
Loss of Millions in Coal Fields.
Reasons for the loss of millions of
dollars worth of business annually in
the Central Pennsylvania coal fields.
i were given in an address made by
Charles O’Neill, secretary of the Coal
Operators’ Association, before the Al-
make one least gesture of understand- “Good lord!” he said, as he put it
ing. But she did not do this. She down, “I forgot all about my wife's
waited, content. party tonight. I’ve got to travel three
‘There was fair weather. He was | jles uptown and dress before eighs
with her every moment of the day. |o'clock. Well—you be on hand at
On the last night out Avery and {10:30 to-morrow and we’ll finish up
Robert Fraser walked the shadowy { and then you better rent a studio and
deck together. % {fly to it.”
“I can’t pretend any longer, “he! “Avery looked at her watch. It was
said. “You know what’s happened, | twenty minutes of eight. On the way
don’t you? - i back to the hotel she realized that she
Why—of course. . | had not said a word to Kiehler about
“I've said to myself that I was her marriage. She hadn’t had a
crazy—" = ys . | hance, she assured herself—but she
You're not original; I said it too. | knew that the truth was that she had
His arms were around her. “We re { forgotten it. And in further bleak
going to be married as soon as We honesty she admitted that she wouldn’t
land. Avery, tell me we are. Say you give up the chance to decorate that
love me. ; . i bank for anything—or—anybody.
“I do love you.” She hesitated. | With this she found herself back at
“And I’ve never been in love before. the hotel, listening to her mother:
with it. I couldn’t bear the idea of toona Rotary Club.
you slaving away in a smelly studio | Mr. O'Neill gave as one of the rea-
at the beck and call of any architect ' sons for this enormous loss of busi-
who's building something and wants | ness, the lack of standardization of’
you to decorate it. It’s not suitable the freight rates in the eastern sec-
for my wife.” ‘tion of the country. He also stated
I can’t quite believe it, even now.”
“Neither can I. I've been so afraid
—you're so different from all the wo-
men I know. You're so marvelous—
oh, how I wish there were other words
to tell you in, Avery. I say ‘marvels
ous’ and ‘wonderful’ and ‘glorious’ an
all the other hackneyed old stuff be
cause I’m not clever at the poetry an
romantic sort of thing, but I feel the
other words, words made of starshine
and color and fragrance.” §
“Dear Robert, I don’t want words.
Just your loving me is enough.”
“That—that seems nothing to offer
you.
thing to me because I can give you the
things you haven’t had, the things you
ought to have; I can make it possible
for you to stop your work—"
A pang of dismay shook her hap-
piness.
“But I could never—” she began,
weakly, and he did not hear her. He
was raving on in the fashion of happy
lovers the world over. She listened
and forgot the phrase that had start-
led her.
But the next day as they were leav-
ing the pier, he said, “My car will be
here; I'll take you wherever you go.
By Jove, Avery, I don’t even know
where you do go.”
“I thought we'd stop at the old
Veda House until I find an apartment.
We've been there before; they know
us.’
“My dear, you musn’t go there—it’s
a grubby old hole.”
‘I can’t afford the big places.”
“But just for a few days—it’s not
suitable, the Veda, I mean. I can’t
tell the family you're there.”
Still she did not take alarm. “Don’t
be bossy,” she said, smiling. “The
Veda isn’t elegant, but it’s respectable,
almost painfully so. I simply can’t
pay the prices at those others.”
u. You know, Avery, I've never
cared about money, but now it’s some-
i | Mr. Fraser’s telephoned half a dozen
times; he’s afraid something’s hap-
pened to you. I didn’t know where
you’d gone.” :
The telephone, ringing again, si-
lenced her. It was Robert. “Oh,
Avery, my dear, I've been frantic. If
vou hadn’t been back when I phoned
this time I was coming right down
and notify the police, search the hos-
pitals—"
His painful distress, his solicitude,
tempered her answer. It was sweet
to be cared for, to mean so much to
him. But what a fuss about nothing,
as if she were a child or a pet dog.
“I’m terribly sorry. I was at Kiehler’s
and I forgot the time, his plans were
so wonderful.” !
There was a strained pause, then
his voice again, angry, cold. “It’s|
beastly to say so, but I’d almost rath
er you'd been in an accident.” i
Avery took the slap slightly. “Don't |
be cross with me; you do like me bet:
ter with all my arms and legs and
teeth intact, I'm sure. You'll have to
put up with my defective memory.”
His voice was now very miserable:
“P11—TI1l call you in the morning.” !
The morning brought more flowers
from Robert, and then his voice, con-
trite and eager and anxious on the
telephone. ‘I'm ashamed of the way I
spoke to you last night. But it seem-
ed as if you'd gone away from me, |
that you'd forgotten all you said and
all you promised on the boat, that
there wasn’t any reality in it. Tell:
me I’m a fool, tell me it isn’t so. I
want to hear you say it.” |
“Of course it isn’t so.” She had to
say it, but—was it true?
He went on explaining, apologizing,
excusing himself. Toward the end of
it she began to feel impatience. She
did not want her emotions played on. '
i
The morning with Kiehler, a repeti- think it will kill me to part from you, !
tion of the hour of the night before,
, with
' strength, all your power, all your de-
“voti ing it as honest and as
Votion to moling it as 1, this State may also be one of the
She waited again before she an-
swered, and though she spoke to him
it was as much to herself, slowly, a
shaping and an expression of her
deepest feeling: “We're as far apart
as the poles. I love you, yes, I do love
you, but we don’t speak the same lan- |
guage. You say things that seem so
monstrous to me that I know you have
no conception of what they mean.
You speak of my work as if it were
a sort of convenient meal-ticket, as if
I worked only because I have to sup-
port myself, as if I ought to be glad
to get rid of it, almost as if there were
something to be ashamed of in it. It
wouldn’t be suitable for your wife to
work. There are, in your world, suit-
able hours for this and that, little con-
ventional laws and rules you must
live by. Oh, all very well. You're
used to it, you accept it, it doesn’t irk
you. Only—it doesn’t happen to
my world. In my world there's only
' one rule, one law, and that is, if you
‘have any gift—and I have, I know I
have—you must not cheat it or play
it. You must give all your
great and as beautiful as you can.
think my world is a better world than
yours. Robert—I can’t do it. Every
moment since I landed I’ve known I
couldn’t.”
She was very pale and her hands
trembled, but her voice did not. He
was pale too. :
“You mean,” he said at last, “that
you can’t give up your work ? Why,
Avery, what sort of marriage will we
have if you don’t?” !
“If conditions were reversed, if you
had zn exacting, jealous, hard profes-
sion you'd not think of leaving it be-
' cause you married. You aren’t going |
to give up the management of your
property because you marry.”
“No, of course not. That’s different.
You can’t argue from that premise.”
“Talent has no sex, Robert. And I
will tell you this: I've had a poor
meager life compared to yours, I sup-
pose, but it taught me what I can do
without, and what I must have, I
can no more give up my work and be
only a contented casual traveling com-
panion, a hostess for your friends in
your big houses, a well-dressed smil-
ing wife, and if we have children, a
thoughtful attentive mother, than—
than I can see like Galli-Curci. I
but I know it would kill me to part
| that there is great competition from
i the West Virginia coal fields, opera-
| tors in that district being able to ship
: their product to eastern markets more
“cheaply than those in the Clearfield
ior other Central Pennsylvania dis-
| tricts.
Statistics presented by Mr. O’Neilt
! show that where the Central Pennsyl-
! vania coal fields once produced 60
‘million tons of coal a year they are
‘now producing only between thirty-
| five and forty million tons. This con-
‘ dition is due largely to the fact that
t local operators cannot compete with
| lower prices of West Virginia coal at
the markets. These lower prices are
| possible because it costs operators
lless to ship their coal to the consum-
‘er. These markets are the New York
| harbor and Long Island Sound. The
' same is true of coal shipped to Lake
be | Erie ports for transhipment to Canada
and the northwest by way of Duluth
i and Wisconsin.
Blame for this state of affairs is
laid to the indifference of the Inter-
state Commerce Commission in whose
power rests the solution of the whole
thing. Lack of representation from
causes as there has never been a mem-
ber of the I. C. C. from Pennsylvania
since the founding of that body.
At a hearing before the Commis-
sion, held in New York City on
! October 6, the Hon. David A. Reed,
United States senator from Pennsyi-
i vania fought for the operators. It
.is hoped that some solution to the
i problem may then be reached.—Moun-
| taineer Herald.
23 Accidents Every Minute.
One person in every nine in the
United States meets with an accident
| every year, and one out of every ten
deaths is chargeable to accidental
, causes, according to a newly complet-
' ed survey just made public. The sur-
| vey figures show that there are up-
wards of 12,000,000 accidents every
year in this country, 23 every minute
and 1,380,000 every hour.
Annually more than 100,000 per-
sons lose arms, feet or hands as the
result of accidents. In New York
| City alone there are some 36,000 crip-
! ples—half of them under 16 years of
| age.
i SThe annual economic loss to the
United States is estimated at more
than five billions of dollars.