Buna adam
Bellefonte, Pa., January 6, 1928
HAL WEES.
FRONTIERS NEW.
Fog, the murky might of winter
in the north Pacific, hung over harbor
and hills of the city as the dun gray
of afternoon drifted into the duller
drab of twilight. Beneath it lights
began to glimmer in blurs of steel-
blue from street arcs, of yellow from
windows of shops and houses. Street
cars, darting up and down steep thor- | hi
oughfares, clanged through it with
muffled clamor of gongs. From ships,
hidden beneath the blanket of moist-
ure, rose throaty blasts of signals—
signals of goings and comings of lin-
ers from the Orient, of coastwise
steamers from San Francisco and
Vancouver, of ferries, of fishing
boats, of the myriad and motley craft
of the Sound. It was a world of hear-
ing rather than of sight, an eerie
town through which the home-going
crowds of the early evening moved
like shadows, and David Burt felt
something of its clammy mistiness
clouding his own usual blitheness of
spirit as he started up the hill.
From its beginning the day had
gone ill with him. Margie hadn’t
wakened in time to get his breakfast,
and he had quarreled with her while
he had dressed in the dingy room.
He had fasted until noon. The office
auditor had found a mistake in his
ledger. At the lunch-counter in the
market he had met young Barry, all
ready to sail in the morning to China
and thrilled to the soul by his chance
for high adventure.
“Come on with me, Davy,” the boy
had urged him. “There’s a chance for
another man. A fellow dropped out
last night. You can get it if you
try. Come on!”
He had refused curtly, not daring
to explain the ties which held him
lest they snap under the pressure of
defending them. Margie and the baby!
All his life he’d have to think of
them before he thought of himself—
and he wasn’t two years older than
Barry, who had the wide world be-
fore him!
Through the long afternoon he had
pored over involved statements of
shipments which meant nothing to
him except in the luring names of
their destinations, Singapore, Malac-
ca, Melbourne, Auckland, Colombo,
Bombay. Conning them, he pictured
the places, ports of call for the way-
farers of the seven seas. Other
Burts, going out from New Bedford
in days long gone, had known them.
His grandfather had known them in
his boyhood. Back on the Michigan
farm to which he had come when the
Civil war was over, he had told Davy
of their wonders. His father, going
from the Great Lakes country to the
prairies, had never seen them, but
they had been the dream of Davy’s
youth, a dream he had forsworn with
his freedom when he had promised to
love and honor and cherish Margie.
Well, he couldn’t have them now. Fac-
ing the prospect of the dreary furn-
ished room of their habitation, he
tried to whistle back the courage
which had brought him to the north-
west, but even the whistling died away
as he opened the door to the place
he tried to call home.
Margie was sitting in a chair be-
neath the swaying bulb of the elec-
tric light, reading. Her short, light
hair, elaborately curled, haloed her
thin, petulant face with its too rosy
cheeks, its too red lips. She looked
over her shoulder at David, acknowl-
edging his greeting only by a raising
of her clipped eyebrows. On the floor
amid a pile of newspapers which she
was tearing to shreds, the baby
played. She lifted her arms to her
father as he turned to her, and he
lifted her, kissing her with an in-
tensity of tenderness which he hardly
realized had flooded him out of the
sense of contrast between his child’s
environment and what his own had
been in the spotless little farmhouse
on the Nebraska plains.
“When do we eat?” he asked Mar-
gis, trying to keep his voice cheer-
ul
“Whenever you take us out,” she
said, swinging her silken-clad leg over
the arm of the chair.
“Why can’t we eat in?
stove, isn’t there?”
“Well, if you can make a meal out
of a stove and nothing else, you're
welcome to try.”
“Why didn’t you get something ?”
“How could 1?”
“Why not?”
“It takes money to buy food.”
“But I gave you two dollars this
morning.”
“Well, I had to eat at noon, didn’t
I? 1 suppose it’s nothing to you if
the baby and I starve, though.”
“But two dollars would—"’
“Two dollars! What’s that?”
“You must have gone to the Wash-
ington and ordered terrapin.”
“Well, I guess I had to buy stock-
ings. I didn’t have one pair without
runners.”
“If you bought something that
wasn’t cobweb, they’d last longer.”
“Oh, yes, I know what you’d want
me to wear. Well, anyhow, there’s
nothing in, and I'm tired of cooking.
We can go to the Chinaman’s.”
“You know the kid oughtn’t to eat
Chink food.”
“Why can’t she?
noon.”
“Do you mean to say that you take
her there every day?”
“Do you mean to say” she mim-
icked him, tossing aside her book,
“that. you expect me to stay a priso-
nex in this room all day while you're
out?”
“I'm working.”
“Well, I'd work, too, if I knew a
place where I could park her.”
“You will not!”
“Well, what do I get out of life?
You said when you married me that
you were going to be rich in no time.
You wouldn’t take a job in Miles City,
where I knew everybody and every-
body knew me. No, you had to come
farther west! All your folks moved
west every generation, you said. Well,
we've certainly come to the edge of
things, all right. If you want to go
There’s a
She eats it at
any farther, you’ll have to choose |
Alaska. But I won’t go with you. I
can tell you that right here and now.”
“I’m not asking you to go any far-
ther,” he said sullenly. “I guess this
is about the jumping-off place.”
“Then we’d better go back to Miles
City.”
“My folks never turned back once
they started west.”
“Oh, you make me tired with your
folks,” she snarled. “You'd think
they had an option on pioneering.
What do you s’pose brought my gang
to Montana?”
“I've often wondered,” he said.
The baby, crying, crept close to
m
“There’s no use in fighting like
this,” he said dully. “Put on her
clothes, and we'll go out.”
She sprang out of the chair with
the quickness of triumph and set
about getting ready for departure. In
an instant all her anger had evapo-
rated, and with the magnanimity of
victory she began to recount to him
the petty details of her day. He
listened apathetically as he put on
the baby’s bonnet.
“lI wonder where you'll go from
here,” he thought as he stared at the
child. “It’s lucky you’re a girl,” he
decided. “It'll be hell for a boy when
there are no new places left.”
He lifted the baby and stood, wait-
ing, for Margie’s primping to end.
“Can’t we go to a movie after we
eat?” she asked him from the mirror
of the battered dresser.
“We can’t go to a movie with her.”
“It won’t hurt her.”
“It’ll hurt here eyes.”
“Oh, she’ll go to sleep.”
“You know she won't.”
“Well, if she can sleep through the
shrieks of your old radio, she can
sleep through anything.”
“That’s different.”
“Oh, yes, it’s different because it’s
yours. If I had something that I
spent all the time and money on that
you do on that, I guess you’d make
racket enough. They could hear your
roar up to Bellingham.”
“You know why I spend money on
it.” He faced her over the baby’s
shoulder. “You know that I'm get-
ting it in shape to do something that
nobody else has done. I’m going to
get London on that radio yet, I tell
you!” His voice rose to conviction,
and his eyes blazed. “I'm going to
have a radio that’ll beat them all!”
“What good’ll it do you?” she
taunted.
“Good? What good did it do Mar-
coni to make the wireless? What good
did it do Maxwell to discover what
he did? What about Pupin? Didn’t
all those fellows have to dream, and
plan, and test, and tinker, and think
before they ever got anything? What
good? Why, if I can raise the Crys-
tal Palace on that baby there, I'll
have got through what nobody else
ever has—fog, and mountains, and
storms, and ocean! Think of it, all
the way across the United States and
the Atlantic Ocean!”
“Well, Pll believe it when I hear
it.
“You're going to hear it,” he said,
but the flame had died down with her
taunting grin. “Ready?” he said
shortlv.. |
“Reddy.”
The baby moved her soft hands
over his face as he bore her outward.
“Daddy loves you,” he assured her
in a tone lowered so that Margie
could not hear it. She smiled at him
and cuddled her head down on his
shoulder.
“This is no night to take her out,”
he grumbled.
“Well, it’s your own fault,” said
Margie. She moved beside him airily,
her spirits rising as they moved with-
in a zone of clustered lights merg-
ing in the fog. “Let’s go down the
hill to Christensen’s,” she urged.
“] can’t afford it.”
“You spent eight dollars for that |
go she reproached him. “I saw the
ill.
“Look here,” he told her, “if I can
make that radio do what I think I
can, we’ll all be riding the gravy
wagon.”
“I'm sick of tomorrows,” she said.
“That’s all I’ve ever had since I mar-
ried you.”
“Love you, baby
crooned.
“I love you,” he told her.
“It’s a cinch he doesn’t love me,”
Margie told the child.
Daddy,” the
She led the way into the chop suey
parlor, showing toward a table near
fhe wall and calling the waiter sharp-
vy.
Under the spell of listlessness
which he could not explain David
fell silent while Margie ordered
their dinner without suggestion from
him. As she frowned over the card
with its mixture of Chinese and Eng-
lish names he studied -her furtively.
She was just as pretty as she had
been when they married, he decided.
She hadn’t changed much, not even
in her assertiveness. He had known
that quality in the days of their
courtship, but it had amused him
then, since it had not been trained
upon him. No, she was just about the
same, and he wasn’t much different.
What was it, then, that had come be-
tween them? Not the baby. They
both loved her, each in a different
way, to be sure, but devotedly. What
was it? The circumstances of life?
That was it, he reasoned. Neither of
them was the sort for this haphazard,
furnished-room existence. Margie had
come from a home back in Montana,
not elaborate, to be sure, any more
than his own had been. They were
both Americans, come out here to
the end of the country, and what was
it giving them? A sudden doubt as-
sailed him with the memory of some
long-forgotten words of his grand-
father. “No country can give a man
anything unless he gives it something
first,” he remembered. Perhaps that
was why he hadn’t made good in
this land. He wasn’t really giving
anything. He wasn’t a hewer of wood
or a drawer of water. He wasn’t
making a home for his family. They
were drifters, that’s what they were,
and it was his fault more than Mar-
giz’s. She was nothing but a girl.
But his time was coming. If the
radio—
“You stick to me, old kid, and you’ll |
wear diamonds yet,” he told her sud-
denly.
She raised her thin eyebrows. “All
the diamonds I'll get from you will
come from the ten-cent store,” she
said. “Here, Baby, don’t eat that
salt. Why can’t that waiter hurry?”
David fell back to his musings.
What was the matter with the set:
anyhow? With the seven tubes it
had the volume for raising any sta-
tion. He'd tested them and retest-
ed them for strength. He'd tightened
every screw until there wasn’t an-
other millimeter to be twisted. He’d
brought in WEAF all the way from
New York above the local stations,
above Denver, above a jazz orchestra
in Omaha, above a concert in Chicago,
higher than KDKA in Pittsburgh; but
others had brought in New York, and
Springfield, and Schenectady on other
instruments which he knew could not
do what his creation might do. If
only he could cut out the blur, if only
he could swing through the static
which the fog held down like a blank-
et over the coast, if only he could get
London! That was the test. If he
could meet it, he knew a dozen men |
ready to back him for the manufac- |
ture of the sets. Fortune—but it
would be only the beginning. Other
triumphs waited just beyond, just as
new countries had waited for his
grandfather and his father. If only
he could win just once, he’d know
himself for one of his blood, one of :
the crew of pioneers. If only—
“Well, why don’t you eat it now
that it’s here?” he heard Margie ask-
ing him.
“I was thinking,” he said stupidly.
“Well, it’s about time somebody
thought,” she retorted. “Don’t eat
that egg, Baby,” she warned. “I be-
lieve you'd let her eat leather,” she
told David.
“Say, Margie,” he said, putting
down his fork, “would you be glad to
live in a regular house if I could make
the grade?”
“Would I?” Her blue eyes, lifted |
swiftly, were so hungrily wistful that |
they hurt him. “Would a fish swim? |
But what’s the joke?”
“Margie, if this thing goes through,
I'll be able to get money enough right
away to pay the first instalment on a
house. How about the new subdivision
out on the hill ?” :
“Toward the lake ?”’
“That’s it.”
“Oh, David!” Longing throbbed in
her voice. “But what’s the use? I
can’t bank on things the way you do.
We've been living on ‘if’s’ for nearly
four years.”
“Don’t you believe in me?”
“I wouldn’t have married you if
I hadn’t,” she choked, “but, honest,
I get so tired of it all that I think I
can’t go on. We're not much good,
David, either of us, I guess. I know
my faults, but I know yours, too,
and one of them is counting your |
chickens before they’re hatched. You |
are a dreamer, and I’m not.” |
“Well, it’s the dreamers who do the
big things.” |
“Some of them,” she said, “and
they’ve been the alibis for the rest |
of you, I guess, ever since the world |
began. I'm sorry, Davy,” she sail!
more gently, seeing the hurt in his
eyes, “but you can’t get me excited
any more about how you're going to
set the world afire. Baby, drink your
milk!”
“I'm sorry, too,” he said, and could
say no more. :
When they had ended their meal,
he picked up the baby and started for
the door.
“You can leave us at the movie,”
Margie told him, “if you're going to :
work.” |
“She shouldn’t go,” he objected. i
“Oh, let’s not fight any more,” she |
said drearily. “I’m sick of fighting.”
“Then why—” i
“Oh, I can’t sit in that room day in |
and day out, and night after night. |
I'll go crazy if I do. I hate it. You've |
got some place else to go. I haven’t |
any place but a restaurant or the |
movies. I don’t know a soul in this |
town, and even if I did, what could I |
do? I couldn't ask them to see us,
and so I wouldn't go to them. If it
wasn’t for the movies—”"
“I'll take you,” he said.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said,
mollified by his offer. “I know you're
dying to be tinkering at that radio.
Well, you’ll have it to yourself for a
couple of hours. Say ‘by-by’ to Dad-
dy,” she admonished the litle girl as
they joined the crowd in front of the
little motion picture house.
“You'd better buy some oranges for
the morning,” she reminded him as he
turned away after buying her ticket.
He went back to the room, but with
a lighter heart in spite of his con-
tinued battling with Margie, for the
knowledge of two unbroken hours for
his testing cheered him. He whistled
blithely as he sat down in front of
the instrument, and shouted with de-
light at the sound of the roar which
greeted him as he pulled out the plug.
“Attaboy,” he triumphed. “Now
we’re going to go!”
He twisted the dials with expert
fingers as sounds of music, of
speeches, of ship signals blared forth,
filling the little room with strange
echoes of distant places. Strains of
an orchestra from San Francisco, of
a band from Calgary, of a reader
from Kansas City. of a chorus in Dal-
las crowded each other. He was tun-
ing in on KYW from Chicago when
the staccato call of an S. 0. S. clam-
ored from a ship out at sea, driving
all the coast stations from the air.
Through Chicago he worked eastward,
lifting New York at last. A tenors
voice, exclusively lovely, sang through
the horn in heart-melting balladry,
but David Burt, pushing toward tri-
umph of his own, recked nothing of
the artistry of what he heard.
“She’s coming in fine,” he mur-
mured, his fingers caressing the deli-
cate instrument. “We'll get through,”
he told it. “We'll make the grade.”
Minutes sped as he labored, heeding
nothing except in its relation to his
ultimate object. His jaw set with
the tension, and his eyes grew glazed
in his effort. “I've got to get through,”
he told himself over and over again.
The rasping harshness of interfer-
ence set him swearing bitterly, and
ee
he twisted and turned until he had
blotted it out. Carefully he re-exam-
ined condenser and transformer, wire
connections and batteries. Searching-
ly he studied the comparative glow
of power in the tubes. Tentatively
he cut from the seven to the six-tube
strength, only to swing back again.
“That ought to get it,” he thought,
but a tiny ray of discouragement had
crept into his tone. “Oh, Lord,” he
nuttered, “if it’d only clear, so that
I could beat this static!”
Then, with the grimness of the
pioneer, he went back to the dials.
Every possible permutation and
combination of condenser dial and
wave-length trembled under his lithe
hands. Station after station, some
big, some little, some on the Pacific,
some on the Atlantic, some on the
Gulf, some on the Great Lakes, some
in Oklahoma others in Georgia stayed
in long enough to inform him of their
call numbers, then faded out under
his restless twisting. A magician of
the air, he sat upon his throne of
skill with the genii of science speed-
ing to his summons, bringing to him
such wonders as Alexander and Caes-
ar, Genghis Khan and Napoleon never
dreamed. For him the cities of the
world were sounding their souls, and
he, as had his people through the gen-
erations, was pshing on to new
frontiers.
“I'm going to get London,” he
banged. “Come on, boy, come on!”
The tenor still sobbed, however,
through WEAF, defying him to get
past the outposts of Manhattan. More
wearily David went over a group of
logs, his own and a set of newspaper
clippings, striving to fit in the London
wave-length with others he had al-
ready brought in. Narrowing down
the radius of his search, he went over
the dial with such steadiness of touch
as a safe-breaker would have envied.
“I might take to breaking ’em open
if this doesn’t come,” he thought
whimsically.
thing, or we’re going smash.”
The thought of Margie, intruding
itself for the first time since he had
come back, pulled him out of his con-
centration. The poor kid was having
a hard time of it, he decided.
no fun living this way—not for a girl,
anyhow. He had his hope, his tool,
his ambition. She had nothing to
entertain her but the baby, and he
supposed any one got tired of a baby
after twenty-four hours a day.
glow of generosity toward her he de-
cided that hers should certainly be
the first fruits of his success.
“We’ll get that house,” he planned,
“I've got to do some-
It was
In a
AER
He couldnt get it. He couldn’t get
anything. He was a dud. What was
there in life, anyhow?
“Oh, hell!” he muttered, shoving in
the plug and staring ahead of him
sightlessly.
“What’s the matter?” Margie’s
voice came sharp across his musings.
“Nothing.”
“Something is.”
“No, there isn’t.”
He turned away his head that she
might not see his face, but he knew
that she had put down her book to
watch him. Suddenly she rose, and
came across thie room to him.
Dav, are you sick?” she demand-
e
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“Nothing—new.”
“Well, what’s the old?”
“Oh, the same old thing.
good, that’s all.”
“What?”
“I said it, what you’ve been think-
ing ever since you married me. What’s
the surprise in that?”
“I never said it.”
“You thought it.”
“I never did! Davy, what’s the
‘trouble? Is it that? Her glance went
to the radio.
{ “Oh, that’s part of it. I thought I
could make a go of it, but I can’t.”
{ “Why not?”
I “I don’t know.”
| “You're tired out,” she said. “That’s
what’s the trouble. You work all day
long hard at one thing that you don’t
like, and you try to stay up all night
{ working on something you do.”
“But what else can I do? It’s
the only chance a fellow has to get
| on.
“I suppose so,” she admitted. She
stood in the yellow light, her lips
moving restlessly. “Davy,” she went
on, “I’ve been thinking a lot, too. Do
you think you’d get on better if Baby
and I went away?”
“Where 7”
“Well, I could go back to Miles
City. Pa’s kind of lonesome since Ma
died, and I guess he’d be glad to
have us.”
“And leave me?”
“Well, I guess you could stand it.”
Her tone was desolately flat. “We
haven’t made much of a go of it, and
you wouldn’t mind much.”
“Do you—want to go?” He was
trying to keep his voice steady.
“Well, I don’t ache to go, but I
don’t want to stay when I'm not
wanted.
| “It’s because you know I can’t
make good,” he declared.
I'm no
then forgot everything else in a new :
idea which sprang at him.
He was deep in it when Margie
came in, carrying the little girl. She
looked tired and a little bedraggled.
“Good show ?” he asked her.
“Fair,” she said. “Say, she’s get-
ting heavy.”
“She’s asleep.”
“Sure, she is. You don’t suppose
they’d let me keep her through the
whole show if she hadn’t dropped off ?
Lucky for me she did.”
She began to undress the child, who
awakened in the process and cried
sleepily.
“I wish you’d turn that off for a
while,” Margie complained. “She’ll
never get to sleep with it going full
blast. I don’t see why you can’t use
headpieces. Other people do.”
“I’ve told you fifty times,” he said
impatiently, “I’ve got to have so much
volume for distance that the head-
pieces would blow off the top of my
head.”
He shut off the plug, however, and
sat a model for a statue of restrained
| desire as he waited for her to put the
baby to bed. The child sank back
into sleep almost as soon as her head
touched the pillow, and Margie drew
up a chair under the light and re-
sumed the book she had been read-
ing when he had come home.
“Can I start now?” he asked her.
“Go ahead,” she said apathetically.
Once more he swung back into the
wide circuit of sound, but once more
the object of his struggle evaded him.
“It’s in there somewhere,” he
thought, frowning over the apparatus.
“I've got the volume for it, and the
range, and it ought to come.”
Again he filled the room with ev-
ery variety of noise, while Margie sat
motionless, apparently immersed in
her novel.
“Don’t you want to go to bed?” he
stopped long enough to ask her.
“What’s the use?” she said. “I
couldn’t sleep. Getting anything ?”
“Not yet.”
Her silence suddenly became more
eloquent than the air-filling sounds of
the room. So she thought he couldn’t
do it? Well, he’d show her! - With
the passionate wish for justification
urging him he kept on, but in vain.
Moment after moment sped by, bring-
ing nothing of greater accomplish-
ment. Wearied, he began to sag.
What was the use? kept ringing in
bis ears under the medley of jazz.
Some ‘one would do it some day, per-
fecting an instrument which would
go beyond his own and accomplish
the goal. After that—well there
would be other heights to be scaled,
but he would have failed in his first
great one, and the zest of climbing
could not be the same. He was get-
ting older, and all over the world
boys, boys free to do as they pleased,
were crowding up to him. He sighed
in the thought, and his fingers moved
more slowly.
A blur of sound wave, breaking
through the music, galvanized him
into hope for an instant, but it died
away, and he fell back into the widen-
ing pool of discouragement. Perhaps
it couldn’t be done.
to think that he’d be the one to do it,
when the coast was full of men and
boys who had the same hope. If only
he could be free to work night after
night upon it! If only he weren't
held to the other job of bread-win-
ning! He could starve if he had to,
he could get along on next to nothing
while he worked, but with Margie and
the baby, what could he do? There
was no use in trying to hold out. He
might just as well give in that he was
a failure. He looked down to the
radio set, gleaming in coils and wires,
shining of dial board, and saw them
He was a fool |
“You know it’s not.” She whirled
around to face him. “You know that’s
a lie. I've stood beside you through
everything, and you know it. Have
we ever been anything but poor?
Why, I haven’t had but three new
dresses since we were married, and I
got them at sales. Maybe I do want
stockings, and movies, and eating out-
side this one room. Who wouldn't?
Maybe I do want a home for the baby
and me. Who wouldnt? But I've
stuck, and I've been willing to stick
as long as I saw you wanted me. You
don’t want us any more, though.
Can’t I see it?” {
“That isn’t true,” he said dully.
“Yes, it is. Haven’t I eyes? Don't
I see how you treat us? The only
thing you love in this room is that
radio. You think about it all the time.
You don’t think of us except when
we're right in front of you, and not
even then when you're sitting there.
I suppose you think that if it wasn’t
for us, you could do anything with
that. Well, I'll give you the chance.
Just give me the fare back to Miles
City, and you’ll never see me again.”
“Margie!” Fear and pain made
poignant his cry. “Why, what'd I
do without you both?”
..“You’d get on—better.”
“I wouldn't. Why, I'm doing all
this for the two of you more than
I'm doing it for myself.”
“No, you're not,” she said. “You'd
be doing this and more if the.two of
us weren’t in the world at all. No,
I know how you feel, and I know how
I feel, and I'm not going to live this
way all the rest of my life.”
“But if I make the grade—"
“You get me straight,” she said.
“I ain’t quitting you because you’ve
failed on this. Maybe you won't fail.
'I think you'll win by keeping at it.
But I don’t care if you do, except for.
. yourself. What I mean is that I won't
stick around where I'm not wanted.”
| “But I want you!”
|. “You don’t,”
! “I do.” He lifted his eyes, still
tear-wet, to her. “I know I’ve been
la fool,” he said. “I know I've tink-
‘ered with this thing when I should
, have been seeing that the baby and
i you had a little recreation. I've spent
{ money on it we couldnt afford, and
i I've—yes, I do love it. I love the
| thrill of it. I love the feeling that
‘maybe in another minute I'm going
| to get something big. But it hasnt
, come between me and you. Why, I
do love you, Margie, just the way
I loved you when I met you back
there in Montana. And I—I don’t
i want to be free,” he lied valiantly,
so carried away by his own emotion
that he believed he told the truth. “I
“never wanted to be free again. What'd
‘anything matter to me if I didn’t
have you folks to share it with? Oh,
be yourself, Marge!”
i “I am,” she persisted. “There’s no
use in fighting about it now, Davy.
i Pve seen this coming a long time.
| Don’t you suppose I know it when T
‘see it? Didn't Pa used to get like
that every spring until he got too
old? Wasn't he always wanting to
go to new places?”
“That’s it,” David cried. “It’s in
our blood. All of us Americans do
want the new places, I guess. My
folks wanted them, and they took
them. But the new places are gone,
Margie. This is our way. We're try-
ing to shove out into something we
haven’t known. The air—that’s our
new frontier. I'm fighting forward
in it just the way your father and
my father fought into the West. Don’t
you suppose your mother knew what
he was doing? My mother knew
what my father felt. She stuck. Your
1 mother stuck. Aren't you going to
stick to me?”
mist before the coming of his tears. |
a
“My mother stuck all right.” Her
voice wavered. “It killed her, though,
in the end.”
“My mother’s alive.”
“Maybe your father’s different:
from mine. Maybe—are you like:
your father, Davy?”
“Some ways. Oh, Marge, be a
sport! This can’t go on this way. I
—TI'll tell you what I'll do. I'll sell
the radio tomorrow for anything it'll
bring, and you can buy yourself a
dress, and—any maybe we could get
a flat somewhere and buy a little on
the instalment plan, and—”
“I won’t let you sell it,” she pro--
tested. “It’s your way out. You're
right about it. It is new country. And’
I guess we're pioneers. And—and if
my mother could stand it when Mon--
tana was what it was when she came,.
I guess I can stand it.”
“Margie!” He jumped up to catch
her in his arms, pressing her too-
rouged cheeks close to him, and lift-
ing her face then to kiss her too-red:
lips. “I love you,” he said brokenly..
“Well, how do you suppose I feel
when I'm staying?” she tried to say
lightly, but her voiee broke. “On, r
love you, Davy,” she sobbed. “I love
you enough to do it, if you want me-
to go.”
“I don’t want you to go,” he said,
and knew that he spoke the deeper-
truth of life. He didn’t want free-
dom now, if it had to be bought with:
the baby and Margie. He’d make good"
for them, somehow, even if it weren’t
on this line. “Life wouldn't be living:
without you,” he told her.
She smiled up at him, then slipped’
out of his embrace. “Don’t you want
to try agaih?” she asked him. “You're
going to get it sometime, honestly,
Davy,” she soothed him as she some--
times promised sweets to the baby.
“You'll bring it in.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, but-
the weariness had gone from his:
voice. “Maybe some night when the-
fog isn’t so heavy—”
“You’ll hear it roar, and then some---
thing’ll snap, and the announcer’s
voice’ll say—"
“Crystal Palace.”
“One-two-three—XY.”
“Two LO London!”
“You'll get it, Davy, tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
They stood, smiling at each other im
anticipatory joy. “I'll cut down that
C battery,” he said. “Maybe four--
and-a-half’s too high for it. Il try”
it one less.”
“I bet that'll do it, Davy—dear.”
She moved out toward the window,.
lifting the shade, and David snapped
off the light. Below them lay the:
lower streets of the city, and beyond:
that, the harbor. In long streamers.
of cloud the mist which had hidden.
the Sound and the hills was floating-
away. A crescent moon shone dimly
through the fleecy whiteness. Lights:
of street arcs twinkled bright blues.
lights of houses gleamed yellow.
Searchlights on steamers flared over:
the water. David put his arm over
Margie’s shoulders as they stood, .
watching.
“Fog’s lifting,” he said. “StaticIl
be better.”
“Tomorrow’ll be clear,” she told
him.
“Who cares about tomorrow now?”
He drew her closer. “Tonight’s ours.”
“Ours,” she said, and closed her
eyes under the fire of his kisses.
RE
Old-Fashioned Football Game Thing
of the Past.
Hard, straight football of the old-
fashioned type is disappearing and
trickery is taking its place, in the:
opinion of Dewey Graham, Norwich
university gridiron coach.
He believes that the new rules are.
responsible for less interesting foot-
ball for the spectators, a loss of the
body contact element and inferior
play in several phases of the game.
“The game is more of a puzzle than.
a pleasure for the spectators,” Gra-
ham complains. “Penalties inflicted’
in former years were nearly all un-
derstoed by the spectators, but this:
year there are numerous weird rules
calling for penalties that are entirely
unknown to the average fan.
“The: new rules tend to distract at-
tentien of players: from the game..
Too much is being left to the judg-
ment of officials. Good officials are
few. A great many games will be
unjustly’ won or lost by decision of a
referee, umpire or head linesman,
rather than an opponent’s errors or
luck. The players had enough rules
under: the old’ system”
Tenant Has No Right te Make Re-.
pairs on Flat,
Very often a tenant will assume to
make repairs without authority from
the owner or his agents and deduct
the cost from the rent. This he can-
not do and maintain his action.
The courts have ruled that a lease
being an instrument under seal, the
agreements and intentions of the
parties become merged in the instru-
ment itself, and any evidence as to
understanding and intention to aid its
construction cannot be used to vary
the terms of the lease itself.
Where the lease contains a specific
agreement between the parties as to
certain: repairs: to be made by the
lessor it would he binding upon the
landlord, but under no other condi-
tion..
——— ee e———————
Divorces Exceeding Marriages.
Divorce has registered another in-
crease in the United States, census
bureau figures for 1926 reveil.
Divorces advanced 31.1 per cent last.
year over 1925, and marriages only
1.2. If allowance is made for in-
crease in population during the pe-
riod, an actual percentage drop is
shown for marriages while divorces
gain.
Marriage vows were taken by 1,-
202,079) couples in 1926, or 10.26 mar-
riages for every 1,000 inhabitants.
The year previous the average was
10.30: weddings. The rate for divorce
was 1.54 in 1926 against 1.52 in
1925, judges having untied 180,868
knots last year besides granting 3,823
annulments.
——The “Watchman” is the most
readable paper published. Try it.