The Saturday Evening Post 1923-12-29: Vol 196 Iss 26

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“THE SATURDAY — | POST | x ranklin Volume 196, Number 26 eet dhe Y “eo Af 5c. THE copy 10c. in Canada Beginning THE PRICELESS PEARL-By Alice Duer Miller

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el MC ta CLOTHES Kuppenheimer Dress Clothes impart tc the wearer an air of distinguished refinement and the graceful ease of a fauitless appearance. They are authentic in design, tailored with skill and precision, and superbly finished in the finest materials.

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST Westclox Big Ben 7 inches tall, 42-inch dial, Runs 32 hours, Steady and intermittent alarm, $3.50. In Canada, $4.50. To start the new year HEN you are sound asleep it is hard to remember your New Year’s resolution to be on time mornings. A Westclox alarm will keep it in mind and call you punctually at whatever time you want to get up. Use your resolution on these dark mornings to rise promptly at the call of your Westclox. You will find an assortment of West- WESTERN CLOCK CO., Factory: Peru, Illinois LA In Canada: Western Clock ¢ clox alarms in plain and luminous dials in various sizes, styles and prices. Every one must prove its ability to run on time, ring on time, stay on time, before it is allowed to wear the trade mark Westclox on its dial and six-cornered, orange bor- dered, buff tag. For time to and from home, and in be- tween, a Westclox watch in your pocket will match time with the home clock. SALLE, ILLINOIS, U.S. A. »., Limited, Peterborough, Ont Westclox Westclox Westclox Westclox Westclox Westclox Baby Ben America Jack o° Lantern Sleep- Meter Pocket Ben Glo-Ben 334 inches tall. 234-inch 6% inchestall. 4-inchdial. s inchestall. Luminous dial sinchestall. Nickeledcase. Anickelplated watch. Stern Nickel plated watch. Stem dial. Runs 32 hours. Steady Nickel case Runs 32 and hands, Back bellalarm. 4-inchdial. Back bellalarm. wind and set. Neat hands wind and set. Black face and intermittent alarm, hours. Top bell alarm, Runs 32 hours, $3.00. In Runs 32 hours, $2.00, In and dial Dependable luminous vial and hands, $3.50. In Canada, $4. 50. $:.50. In Canada, $2.00. Canada, $4.00 Canada, $3 $1.50. In Canada, $2.0 $2.50. sn Canada, $7. ¢

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29, 1925 MUNITY PLATE ] ve | ") 4 : : , ( , J ‘ _- ‘ ee MOUS We Oe a AR LO WD onsion Sortrvtora re e be

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Published Weekly The Curtis Publishing Company Cyrus H.K. Curtis, President C. H. Ludington, Vice-President and Treasurer P.S. Collins, General Business Manoger Walter D. Fuller, Secretary William Boyd, Advertising Director Independence Square, Philedelphia London: 0, Henrietta Street Covent Garden. W.C EDITOR Chussein Williams, F. S. Bigelow, at the Post Office ot Philedelphia. Under the Act of Founded A’D' 1728 Sy Benj. Franklin Copyright, 1923, by The Curtis Publishing Company in the United States and Greet Britain Title Registered in U. S. Petent Office and in Foreign Countries George Horace Lorimer A.W. Neall, Thomas B.Costain, Thomas L. Masson, Associate Editors arch 3.1879. Additional Entry at Columbus, O., St. Lowis, Mo., Chicago, HL, Indianapolis, Ind., Seginew. M ch., Des Moines, la. Portiand, Ore., Milwaultee, Wis.. and St. Poul, Minn Entered es Second-Cleoss Matter at the Post-Office Department, Ottawa, Canade Volume 196 Se, 22 coer * 10c. in Canada PHILADELPHIA, PA., DECEMBER 29, 1923 $2. oo THE YEAR by Subscription Number 26 gs me “al an AR THOP rad icks (AAA BROWN ‘I’ve Always Liked You, Horrie; But I Have No Use for Your Sex — Especially as Employers; They are Too Emotionat"’ HE girl is simply too good-looking,” said 9 ° Bunner, the office manager, in a high, com- By Alice D wer Mi Iler plaining voice. ‘She is industrious, intel- ligent, punctual and well-mannered, but simply too good-looking—a disturbing element in the office on account of her appearance. I made a grave mistake in engaging her.” The president, who had been a professor of botany at a great university before he resigned in order to become head of The Universal Encyclopedia of Necessary Knowledge Publishing Corporation, was a trifle deaf, but had not as yet admitted the fact to himself; and he inquired with the patient, slightly contemptuous surprise of the deaf, ‘‘But I do not understand why she is crying.” “It isnot she who is crying,” answered the office manager regretfully; “it is Mr. Rixon, our third vice president. He is crying because he has most unfortunately become inter- ested in the young woman—fallen in love with her—so my stenographer tells me.” The president peered through his bifocal lenses. He did not wish to be thought one of those unsophisticated scientists who understand only the plain unpsychological process of plants. He inquired whether the girl had encouraged the third vice president, whether, in a word, she had given him to understand that she took a deeper interest in him than was actually the fact, “‘the disappointment of the discovery being the direct cause of the emotional outbreak which you have just described.” Q Bunner hesitated. He would have liked to consider that Miss Leavitt was to blame, for otherwise the responsibility was entirely his own. In his heart he believed she was, for he was one of those men who despise women and yet consider them omnipotent. ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR WILLIAM BROWN “T can't say I've ever seen her do more than say good morning to him,” he answered rather crossly. “But I believe there is a way of avoiding a man with her appearance. You have probably never noticed her, sir, but 4 “Oh, I’ve noticed her," said the president, nodding his old head. “I've noticed a certain youth and exuberant vitality, and—yes, I may say beauty—decided beauty.’ Bunner sighed. “A girl like that ought to get married,” he said. “‘They ought not to be working in offices, making trouble. It’s hard on young men of susceptible natures like Mr. Rixon. You can hardly blame him.” No, they agreed they did not blame him at all; and so they decide d to let the young woman have her salary to the first of the month and let her go immediately. “That will be best, Bunner,” said the president, and dismissed the matter from his mind. But Bunner, who knew that there was a possibility that even a beautiful young woman might not enjoy losing her job, could not dismiss the matter from his mind until the interview with her was over. He decided, therefore, to hold it at once, and withdrew from the president’s room, where, as a directors’ meeting was about to take place, the members of the board were already beginning to gather. Bunner was a pale fat man of forty, who was as cold to the excessive emotion of the third vice president as he was to the inconvenient beauty which had caused it. He paused beside Miss Leavitt's desk in the outer office and requested a moment of her time.

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST She had finished going over the article on Corals and was about to begin that on Coronach—a Scotch dirge or lamen- tation for the dead. She had just been wondering whether any created being would ever want to know anything about coronach, when Mr. Bunner spoke to her. If she had fol- lowed her first impulse she would have looked up and beamed at him, for she was of the most friendly and warm- hearted nature; but she remembered that beaming was not safe where men were concerned—even when they were fat and forty—so she answered coldly, ‘Yes, Mr. Bunner,” and rose and followed him to his own little office. Miss Pearl Leavitt, A. B., Rutland College, was not one of those beauties who must be pointed out to you before you appreciate their quality. On the contrary, the eye roving in her neighbor- hood was attracted to her as toa luminary. There was nothing finicky or subtie or fine-drawn about her. Her features were rather large and sim- ple, like a Greek statue’s, though entirely without a statue’s immobility. Her coloring was vivid—a warm brunet complexion, a bright golden head and a pair of large gray eyes that trembled with their own light as they fixed themselves upon you, much as the reflection of the evening star trembles in a quiet pool, But what had always made her charm, more than her beauty, was her obvious human desire to be a member of the gang-—-to enjoy what the crowd en- joyed and do what was being done. It was agony to her to assume the icy, impassive demeanor which, since she had been working in offices, she had found necessary. Butshe did it. She was hard up. When Mr. Bunner had sent away his stenog- rapher and shut the door he sat down and pressed his small fat hands to- gether. “Miss Leavitt,” he said, ‘‘I am sorry to be obliged to tell you that during the summer months when so many of our heads of departments are away on their vacations, we shall be obliged to reduce our office staff; and so, though your work has been most satisfactory—we have no com- plaint to make of your work—still I am sorry to be obliged to tell you that during the summer months, when so many of our heads of departments 3 He did not know what was the matter; the sentence appeared to be a circular sentence without exits. Miss Leavitt folded her arms with a rapid whirling motion. Of course, since the first three words of his sen- tence she had known that she had lost her job. “Just why is it that I am being sent away?” she said. Sulky children, before they actually burst into tears, have a way of almost visibly swelling like a storm cloud. It would be wrong to suggest that anything as lovely as Pear! Leavitt could swell, and yet there was something of this effect as she stared down at the office manager. He did not like ber tone, nor yet her look. He said with a sort of acid smile, “‘I was about to explain the reason when you interrupted me. Although your work has been perfectly satisfactory, we feel that during the summer months He wrenched himself away from that sentence entirely. ‘It is the wish of the president,” he said, ‘that you be given your salary to the first of the month— which I hereby hand you—and be told that it will not be necessary for you to come here after today. In parting with you, Miss Leavitt, I wish to assure you that the quality of your work for this organization has been in every respect ~ “IT want to speak to the president,” said Miss Leavitt. She did not raise her voice, but no one could have mis- taken that her tone was threatening. She vibrated her head slightly from side to side, and spit out her ?¢’s in a way actually alarming to Bunner, who was a man sus- ceptible to fear. “Our decision is quite final—quite final, I’m sorry to say,” he said, fussing with his papers as a hint that she had better go and leave him in peace. “Thet’s why I want to speak to him.’ “Quite impossible,” answered Bunner. “The board is meeting at present in his room “ The Wife of the Editor Refused to Allow Such Dangerous Beauty So Near Her Husband, and Peart Lost Her Second Job ARTHUR. Wittiawm BR Own — ““What!"’ cried Pearl. “‘They’re all there together, are they?” And before the office manager took in her intention she was out of his office, across the main office and in the board room. Like so many people destined to succeed in New York, Pesrl came originally from Ohio. She was an orphan, and after her graduation from an Eastern college she had gone back to her native state, meaning to make her home with her two aunts. It had not been a successful summer. Not only was it hot, and there was no swimming where her aunts lived, and Pear! loved to swim, but two of her cous- ins fell in love with her—one from each family—and it became a question either of their leaving home or of her going. So Pearl very gladly came East again, and under the guidance of her great friend Augusta Exeter began to look for a job. She had come East in September, and it was now July hardly ten months—and yet in that time she had had and lost four good jobs through no fault of her own but wholly on account of her extraordinary beauty. She was not in- sulted; no one threatened her virtue or offered to run away with her. It was simply that, like Helen of Troy, “Where’er she came she brought calamity.” Her first place had been with a publishing firm, Dixon & Gregory. When Pear] came to them the business was man- aged by the two sons of the original firm; the elder Dixon was dead, and the elder Gregory, a man of fifty-six or eight, came to the office only once or twice a week. A desk for her had been put in his private room, as it was almost always vacant. It ceased, however, to be vacant as soon as he saw Pearl. He had nv idea that he had fallen in love with her— perhaps he had not. He certainly never trou- bled her with attentions; as far as she knew he was hardly aware of her existence. His emotion, whatever it was, took the form of quarreling with anyone who did speak to her— even in the course of necessary business. When at last one day he met her and the younger Dixon going out to lunch at the same hour and in the same elevator, but purely by accident, he made such a violent and inexplicable scene that the two younger partners, after consultation, decided that the only thing to do was to get rid of the girl quietly- get her to resign. They were both very nice about it, and themselves found her another place—as secretary to a magazine editor—a man of ice, they assured her. She never saw the elder Mr. Gregory again, and a few months December 29,1925 later read in the papers of his death. Her new position went well for several months. The editor was, as represented, a man of ice; but, as Hamlet has observed, being as pure as snow and as chaste as ice does not protect against calumny, and the wife of the editor, entering the office one day to find her hus- band and his secretary bending over an illegible manuscript, re- fused to allow such dangerous beauty so near her husband, and Pear! lost her second job. Her next place was with an am- bitious young firm which was put- ting a new cleaning fluid on the market. At first, in a busy office, Pearl seemed to pass almost un- noticed. Then one day the two partners, young men both and heretofore like brothers, came to her together and asked her if she would do the firm a great favor sit for her portrait to a well-known artist so that they might use her picture as a poster to advertise their product. Pearl consented she thought it would be rather good fun. The result was success- ful. Indeed, the only criticism of the picture—which represented Pear] in tawny yellow holding up asaffron-colored robe at which she smiled brilliantly, with beneath it the caption, Why Does She Smile? Because Her Old Dress is Made New by—was that it would have been better to get a real per- son to sit for the picture, as the public was tired of these idealized types of female beauty. But the trouble started over who was to own the original pastel. It devel- oped that each partner had started the idea from a hidden wish to own a portrait of Pearl. They quarreled bitterly. The very existence of the firm was threatened. An uld friend of the two families stepped in and effected a reconciliation, but his decision was that the girl must go. It did not look well for two boys of their age just beginning in business—to have as handsome a woman as that in the office. People might talk. It was after this—some time after—that Pearl took the place with the Encyclopedia company. Her record began to tell against her. Everyone wanted to know why she changed jobs so often. She thought she had learned her lesson—not to beam, not to be friendly, not to do anyone favors. She had made up her mind to stay with the En- cyclopedia forever. She had had no hint of danger. She hardly knew the third vice president by sight—someone in the office had told her a silly story about his crying one day, but she hadn’t even believed it. And now she had lost another job—-and in July, too, when jobs are hard to find. Heretofore she had always gone docilely. But now she felt she could bear it no longer—she must tell someone what she thought. It was four o’clock on a hot summer afternoon, and round the board-room table the members were saying “aye” and ‘‘no” and “I so move,” while their minds were occupied with the questions that do occupy the mind at such times —golf and suburban trains, and whether huckle- berry pie in hot weather hadn’t been a mistake—when the +3 .glass door opened and a beautiful girl came in like a hurri- cane. She had evidently been talking for some seconds when she entered. She was saying, ‘‘——— are just terrible. I want to tell you gentlemen, now that I have you together, that I think men are just terrible.” She had a curious voice, deep and a little rough, more like a boy’s than a woman's, yet a voice which when you once knew Pearl you remembered with affection. ‘This is the fourth job I’ve lost because men have no self-control. I do my work. I don’t even speak to any of you—I’'d like to—I’m human, but I don’t dare any more. I attend to business, there’s no fault found with my work—but I’ve got to go because some man or other can’t work in the office with me. Why not? Because he has no self-control—and not ashamed of it—not ashamed, that’s what shocks me, Why, if a girl found she couldn’t do her work because there was a good- looking man in the office, she’d die rather than admit she was so silly. But what does a man do? He goes whining to the president to get the poor girl dismissed. There it is! I have to go!” And so on, and so on. The board was so astonished at her entrance, at the untrammeled way in which she was

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striding up and down, digging her heels into the rug and flinging her arms about as she talked, that they were like people stunned. They turned their eyes with relief to Mr. Bunner, who came hurrying in behind her. “‘Miss Leavitt has been dropped,’’ he began, but she cut him short. “I’ve been dropped,” she said, ‘‘ because “Will you let me speak?”’ said Mr. Bunner question. He meant to speak in any case. “No,” answered Pearl. ‘Certainly not. Gentlemen, I have been dismissed —I know— because some man in this office has no self-control. I can’t identify him, but I have my suspicions.”” And she cast a dreadful glance at the third vice president. ‘‘Why should I go? Why shouldn’t he? Crying! Whoof! How absurd!” “Leave the room, Miss Leavitt,’ said the president; but he weakened the effect of his edict by leaning forward with his hand to his ear so as to catch whatever she was going to say next. “‘T haven’t shed a tear since my mother died,” said Mr. Rixon rather tearfully to the man next him. “This is not the time to discuss your grievances, Miss Leavitt,” said the treasurer, wondering why he had never kept in closer touch with the office; “but if you feel you have a just complaint against the company come to my office tomorrow afternoon « ‘“*T’ll not go near your office,”’ said Pearl, and she began again to stride about the room, occasionally stamping her right foot without losing step. ‘I shall never again go into any office where men are. I won't work for men. They're poor sports; they have no self ¢ “You said that before,”’ said the treasurer. ” control,”’ Pearl went on, for people in her frame of mind cannot be stopped. ‘‘Why shouldn’t he go? But no, you have to be protected from a girl like a herd of sheep from a wolf—a girl who hasn’t even looked at you, at that. If I had ever spoken to the man 4s “Leave the room instantly, Miss Leavitt,’’ said the president, and this time he spoke as if he meant it, for he was afraid the identity of the third vice president might be revealed. Little it mattered to Pearl what the old man meant. “T wouldn’t mind so much,” she went on, “if you did not all pretend to be so brave and strong—-to protect women. You protect each other—that’s who you protect.” “Come, come,” said a member of the board. “This isn’t the way to keep a job, you know.” ’ ” a rhetorical am 7 “ «3 “I Wouldn't Mind So Much if You Did Not All Pretend to be So Brave and Strong —to Protect Women. THE SATURDAY EVENING POST “I don’t want to keep this job. I want you for once to hear what a woman thinks of the men she works for —a lot of poor sports —and not industrious—none of you work the way girls work for you. Slack, that’s what I call you, and lacking in self-control.” And she went out as suddenly as she had come in, and slammed the door so hard behind that those members of the board sitting near it ducked their heads into their collars in fear of falling glass. There was a minute’s pause, and then the president said with a slight smile, “‘Well, Mr. Bunner, I think we all see what you meant when you said this young woman was a disturbing element in the office.” ‘‘There has never been anything like this before,”’ said Bunner; “never anything in the least like this anywhere I have ever been.” “Well,” said the treasurer, “‘I don’t suppose we need distress ourselves about her finding another job.” There was a certain wistful undercurrent in his tone. “No,” said Bunner, slightly misunderstanding his mean- ing. ‘She is competent and industrious.” “She ought to get married, a pretty girl like that —not go about making trouble in offices,”’ said the president. “‘T have always been of the opinion,” said the third vice president, ‘“‘that it would be much simpler to run the office entirely with men.” “Oh, it would be much better—much better, of course,” said Bunner; ‘‘only women are so much more accurate about detail, more industrious and less expensive.” And as there was no woman present to inquire why the men were so much more desirable, the question dropped, and the president recalled the board’s attention to the subject of the paper to be used in their next edition —the topic under consideration when Pearl made her entrance. It was rather hard to take any interest in it now. And so Pearl began once again to go the round of agen- cies, to interview or be interviewed by office managers, and hear that if she came back in October there might be a chance. But October was three months away, and she could not live three months on something less than a hun- dred dollars. She even began to scan the columns of the newspapers—-from clerks, through stenographers, ushers, and finally winders —she never found out what winders were. If her dear friend and sage adviser, Augusta Exeter, had been in town she could have shared

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You Protect Each Other — That's Who You Protect"*

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29, 1925 RGIVING MINUTE 2 oe zeros in token of the first hundred miles, Marvin Gedney’s mind had given itself over to the duel between speedometer and clock. Wheel and brake and throttle were in charge of hands and feet that were all but automatic. Without interest or attention, his eyes were aware of the oil-stained stripe of concrete that dipped and rose and swerved toward them, of the aggressive signboards adver- tising tires and gas and oil, the curiously frequent shanties where soft drinks and hot Frankfurters were for sale, the litter of wind-blown, weathered refuse scattered wherever the roadside offered space and shade for picnic meals. These things, like the other features of the restless landscape, registered only on the outer fringes of Gedney’s notice, He was a little more conscious of the increasing traffic that trespassed now on a highway that had been com- fortakly his own. He frowned at the irritating deliberation with which huge trundling trucks yielded passage room in reaponse to angry hootings, at the gregarious habit of other cars traveling northward in crawling processions of three or four, always overtaken, it seemed, just where a blind curve or rise made passing dangerous. Even this recurring annoyance, however, was hardly more than subconscious. Gedney’s interest was intent, as always on these longer drives in open country, on the com- bat between those black dials inset in the dash; and as always he was a partisan, almost a participant, his sympa- thies heavily inclined to the left-hand dial, where the changing totals of the mileage and the wavering arc of the speed indicater raced against the plodding, inexorable hands of the clock at the right. He felt something like a personal hatred for the clock’s round, stupid face; such a helpless animosity, alniost, as he had known for the players of a hostile football team, obstinately crowding his college eleven back toward their goal line, overcoming speed and brillianey with dull brute force. It wasn't a fair fight. A hundred trivial causes could slow or stop the humming tires whose pace was measured on the dials, but nothing in earth or heaven could interfere with the relentless progress of the force behind that placid, unhurrying clock. Marvin Gedney scowled at the thought of the framed motto over his desk at the office: B: NINE o'clock, when the dial displayed three parallel SLL If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run You couldn’t; nobody could; no amount of cleverness or dogged perseverance could hold a man’s own against that minute; you had to concede eventual victory to the clock and content yourself with petty triumphs, such as holding a fortyfive-mile speed on the straight, level stretches, knowing in advance that curves and grades and traffic would presently help the clock to overtake and pass you. Steering with one hand, he fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette and lighted it, without lessening the pace, at the incandescent tip of the electric lighter attached to the dash. The feat ministered to his discontent. In the old days he would have had to slow down or stop to strike a match whenever he wanted to smoke. This lighter must have saved him a good many of those unforgiving minutes since he’d bought the new car. He relaxed a littie. After all, the cleck didn't have things its own way any more. All over the world men were thinking out such ingenious tricks to cut down its advantage over time-enslaved human beings. This car, for instance, with its troubleproof engine, its trustworthy tires—a very different thing from the clumsy old machines that were always breaking down. The paved road, the wayside filling stations at convenient intervals, If He Could Hotd This Lead, Add to it a Little Here and There, He Might See Frannie Before Dinner, Might Have the Whole Thing Settied Today By Hugh MacNair Kahler USTRATEDO arY DONALD the multitude of minor aids to travel—men couldn't beat the clock, now or ever, but they were learning how to get a run for their money. A lifetime ago this trip to Northport must have needed a week or more instead of the ten or eleven hours which, with any luck, would be enough today. Even the railroad, with its roundabout route and clumsy connections, required sixteen hours of travel. The comparison drew Gedney’s thought to the man be- side him; he risked a quick, apprehensive glance at the formidable profile. Andrew Bidwell hadn't liked the idea of driving up, had pointed out the likelihood of mishaps along the way, the relative certainty that the night train would arrive on scheduled time, had yielded to Gedney’s preference for the car with a shrug and headshake of un- conviction. If anything went wrong he'd think and look “I told you so,” even if he managed not to say it. “Good idea, that lighter.” Bidwell shifted his position restlessly, but his tone was approving for the first time since their early start. “‘ Ever strike you that you always used to slow down for a smoke just when you ought to make your best time? Noticed it about everybody I ever drove with—wait for a nice straight stretch of open road and then waste it.” Marvin Gedney realized the justice of the reproach. He had prided himself on his ability to get a light without stopping the car, when in reality he had been carefully choosing the least efficient way of doing it. His respect for Bidwell deepened, and he listened with a sense of humility to compressed elliptic elaboration of the theme. “Doctors have the wrong idea—trying to lengthen life. Suppose they could do it—make a man reasonably sure of a few extra years beyond eighty or so. Mighty few men'd be much use then. Right way to lengthen life is to speed up the good years.”” Bidwell chuckled. ‘I’m sixty, and I’ve lived four-five times as long as my grandfather, who died at ninety-four.” There was a long silence while Gedney meditated on the truth of this. Bidwell'’s grandfather, he knew, had spent his century somewhere in a backwater in the hill country to the north. In fancy Gedney seemed to envision that exist- ence, static and futile, a dull parade of days and years unutilized for accomplishment or pleasure. Bidwell was right; better one year of his kind of living than a century of that slow decay. There was, however, an undertone of something like feat in the reflection. Twenty-four suddenly ceased to stand for youth and became the third part of a lifetime—half, perhaps, wasted in preliminaries; Marvin Gedney had hardly begun to live. He felt the car leap as his foot re- sponded to the thought, and the new figures that quivered into view on the speed indicator only mocked his sharpened hunger for haste—an extra mile or two in the hour's travel seemed, after all, a pitiful achievement when you remem- bered that a plane could add a hundred to the figure; thi8 earth-bound crawling wasn't very much faster than the pace at which horses had gone ten thousand years ago. TEAGUE ~ ) ‘ tee Bidwell was talking business now. Gedney heard him inattentively, his mind preoccupied again by the duel on the dash. He was familiar with the topic, too; Bidwell’s notion about buying the Rayford plant was perfectly sound, but there wasn’t any need of going all over it again now, when they'd have to wait almost a year before Mar- vin Gedney’s trusteed inheritance could be invested in the purchase. “Of course, you can’t get your money till you're twenty-five,”’ said Bidwell, as if in answer to the objection; “‘but there must be a way we could borrow on it now. Must have been asleep not to think of it before.” The word caught at Gedney’s interest with a hint of magic. His respect for Bidwell had its focus in the man’s uncanny ability to use other people’s money as mercilessly as he used his own. In spite of his understanding familiar- ity with the phenomenon, there was still a touch of mys- tery for Marvin Gedney in the spectacle of a dollar, hard driven at a dozen different trades for as many different pockets. It was all part of the battle against calendar and clock, a device that let you reach out into the future and put money at work years before you owned it, let you put it simultaneously at many tasks, so that you used your present minute not merely once but over and over again. Gedney had watched Bidwell juggling with his loans, had learned a little of the trick himself, approved utterly of the principles that made use of every possible dollar of cash and credit, gave no penny a moment’s unproductive holi- day; but, till Bidwell’s latest suggestion, he had been resigned to the necessity of waiting for his own money, tied up in trust at a contemptible average of 4 per cent. If there was really a way of using it at once —— Again the speed of the car increased in sympathy with his mood, as if Bidwell’s plan could be hurried into execu- tion by the addition of a few more revolutions per minute to the pace of the spinning crank shaft. Buying into the company now instead of next year—a place on the board of directors, power, success, wealth, all brought within easy reach, instead of demanding to be purchased by a deep inroad on the ever-dwindling capital of time! His hands tightened happily on the wheel as a new figure danced gayly into the picture, incredibly near and real and attain- able; he seemed to hear Frannie Bidwell’s breathless little laugh. He could talk to Frannie now if this idea of her father’s proved practical. His ninety thousand dollars, invested in the company and earning 10 or 12 per cent a year, would yield him nearly three times his present income, even if the transaction did not lead at once to a better position and a better salary. His glance twisted shrewdly to the man beside him as he foresaw the chance to bargain about this. Bidwell wouldn’t hold up that Rayford deal over a thou- sand or two of salary, especially if Frannie —— The dials informed him that he had gained nearly five miles on the avevage he had fixed for the trip. If he could hold this lead, add to it a little here and there, he might see Frannie before dinner, might have the whole thing settled today. Again he felt the car quicken under him, saw the fifty-mile mark quivering at the edge of the gap in the dial. Remotely, somewhere in the background of his thought, he resented this sharpened appetite for speed. He had just gained a full year on his life schedule, he was well ahead of his mileage on the day's run, and the combined effect of these things was to heighten his desire for haste. Fvi- dently it wasn’t enough to fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—it simply proved that you must have underestimated the value of a second. Bidweli’s voice broke in on these meditations.

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“Too bad they haven’t built a decent road across through Seaver’s Notch—save fifteen or twenty miles if you could turn east at the Corners.” He pointed to a gap in the rim of hills where a barely visible score straggled across the face of a seemingly ver- tical bluff. “How bad is it? This car doesn’t mind grades much, and I’ve got shock absorbers that smooth out the bumps.” Gedney was tempted; fifteen miles, even over rough going, was worth considering. “Might try it then. Probably isn’t any worse than it used to be.’’ Bidwell chuckled harshly. ‘Show you where I was born if you go that way.” Something in the tone stirred Gedney’s curiosity; there was an edge to Bidwell’s voice, an effect of anger and con- tempt. Gedney thought that a man might have spoken so as he passed the outer wall of a prison frem which he had escaped. He nodded. ‘We'll take a chance then.” At Bidwell’s bidding he turned away from the paved road at a straggling settlement, followed a rutted track past a dingy station where the smell of new pine boards hung over the siding, and the men who were loading rough lumber paused to stare. Beyond the rails the road was a narrow strip of white clay, flanked by tall weeds streaked and stained with rain and dust, and inclosed between crowding thickets of low brushwoods; here and there a little field of grassland showed green and level; more often the old pastures had been abandoned to the encroaching scrub, and deserted farmsteads faced the road with empty windows that were like the eyeholes of a bleaching skull. “Thinning out.’’ Again Bidwell’s voice seemed to acquire a cutting edge. ‘‘I remember when this was all farm land—good men wasting their lives scrabbling with rocks. Might have happened to me.” Gedney chuckled at the absurd suggestion. Andrew Bid- well, tamely following a plow and swinging a scythe in this stingy wilderness! Frannie, toiling at stove and tub like one of the women who stared at the car from their kitchen doors! “‘T guess not,” he said. “‘They’d have had to tie you up to keep you here.” “Didn't have to tie Eb Stafford.” Bidwell spoke with sudden heat. ‘‘ Makes me see red every time I think of it a man that might have made anything he wanted of him- self, buried alive up here just because it’s where he was born. That was the whole trouble with Eb—he was just plain homesick and knuckled under to it.”” He laughed shortly. ‘‘Suppose it looks crazy to you—the notion that THE SATURDAY EVENING POST anybody with good sense could like this country. If you’d been born here you'd see it differently. Hardly believe that it looks good to me this minute, would you? Well, itdoes. That’s what makes me sore. I know better—lI know it’s just the God-forsaken end of nowhere, but I egged you into coming through this way all the same.” “*Natural enough,” said Marvin Gedney tolerantly. ‘“‘What about Stafford? Do you mean the man that started the business—that E. B. Stafford? I always thought he was dead.” “About right too. Might as well be dead. Selling out a half interest in the firm just when we had the world by the tail and a downhill pull! Wouldn’t have mattered if it’d been anybody but Eb. I tell you, Marvin, there was a man with the kind of a business head that doesn’t happen once in a hundred years. If he’d stayed with us we'd be the biggest firm in the country by now. Thirty-two years of a man like that wasted on—on this!"’ Gedney followed the sweep of his gesture. They had climbed well above the floor of the valley and emerged on the road that crept across the breast of the slope, a hundred feet, perhaps, above the stream that fretted among naked bowlders at the bottom of the cleft. The hillside overgrowth of young woods was not high or thick enough to mask a widening view of opposite hills with the narrow ribbon of tilled flatlands at their feet, a panor2za divided, length- wise, by the concrete highway on which a broken stream of traffic flowed south and north, the cars and trucks dwarfed by distance to toys that seemed barely in motion. Except for the dimmed noise of its forced draft, the freight train in the farther background might have been standing still. To Marvin Gedney an effect of unreality lay upon the scene, reminiscent of dreams in which everything moved with the grotesque deliberation of trick motion pictures; he had a sense of having climbed into a fourth dimension where even time had paused. The clock gave the lie to the fancy. Gedney saw that he had already lost the greater part of his gained mileage, and with a frowning impatience he centered his attention again “Guess You're Laughing Inside. Geo to Preach at You upon the road and the wheel, mak- ing what speed he dared against the curves and ruts and rises, only remotely conscious of the angle which shut out the broader view and gave entrance to an up land glen where, except for the crude wheel track itself, no sign of human presence disputed the sov- ereignty of the woods that clad the slopes. The stream climbed abreast of the car and the air was cool and wet with its breath. Gedney was unprepared for the sight of the concrete dam across the cleft, the sawmill clinging to the steep bank at its end, the group of white- painted barns and house beyond a cleared space of meadow; they ap- peared so suddenly that he almost resented them. “That's the old place.” Bid- well’s tone was casual, impersonal “Sold it to Eb when he pulled out. Hasn't changed much since I lived there.” “Stop?” Gedney slowed the car as they neared the homestead. Something in the serenity of the old square house under the elms tempted him, stirred his curiosity about the man who had chosen to live here. The road ran close to the retaining wall. He saw a jointed fishing rod leaning beside the open door of the kitchen. A sheep dog raced around the end of the barn, barking, and Gedney had a glimpse of a woman, drawn to the doorway by the clamor. “Stop?” he asked again. Didn't “No.” Bidwell spoke with a sort of anger. “ Wasted enough time coming this way. Ought to have known better.” Gedney drove on without debate. It was true enough that the short cut would probably cost something in point of time, but he would have liked to see Stafford neverthe- It would have been interesting to find out something about a man who turned his back on everythjng worth while and buried himself alive up here. The picture of the farmstead dwelt in his mind as he drove, touched now with an element of mystery. What could such a place offer to a man like Eben Stafford to offset the price he had paid? Bidwell must have exaggerated his ability, Gedney decided; less Continued on Page 30 His Eyes Rose From the Book and Rested, Understanding and Content, in “atherine's

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST le as Black an December 29, 1925 = > ab.4ab t> PHOTOS. PROM RWING GMLLOWAY, M. ¥. ( A Bridge and Factory at Flaumont as the Germans Left Them to the ululations of the European propagan- dists on the subject of what Germany can or cannot pay to France, and on the question of whether France did or did not do a wise thing in entering the Ruhr in order to make Germany pay what she owes, he sooner or later picked out from the bedlam of sounds the following scraps of information and misinformation: By entering the Ruhr France is ruining, has ruined or will ruin the world it was only by the occupation of the Ruhr by France that Germany could be made to realize that she had been defeated France's object in entering the Ruhr was not to obtain reparations, but to wreck Germany economically. France's sole object in entering the Ruhr was to obtain the reparations to which she is entitled. The hatred engendered in Germany by the French occu- pation of the Ruhr is of such nature that within fifty years at the most Germany will push France into the Atlantic Ocean When France gets through with Germany there won't be enough of Germany left to push anyone anywhere. Germany is bankrupt. Germany is the richest country in Europe with the ex- ception of Russia France’s policy toward Germany is forcing Germany into the arms of Russia, which will probably result in the communizing, bolshevizing and agonizing of all Europe, and possibly of all the world. Ludendorff and his supporters are anxious to bring about the overthrow of the soviet government, and have per- fected their military plans for capturing Moscow in a two months’ campaign. All the Germans are starving. German merchants, manufactur- ers, bankers and workmen are wealth- |: DURING 1923 a person listened carefully hill today; and the rough road leading to the top is sprin- kled and edged with the peculiar whitish, elongated, knob- ended stones that are known locally as rognons de silex stones that look singularly like bones, and that might lead even a stranger, wholly lacking in knowledge of the recent history of that neighborhood, to think that the entire hill of Notre Darne de Lorette had once been a huge graveyard. In the center of the plateau that forms the top of the hill rises a high square tower, freshly erected, at the top of which, day and night, burns a light that is visible to travelers on the plains of Artois for miles in every direc- tion. This is the Lanterne des Morts, or the Lantern of the Dead. And at the base of the tower, flowing out in seem- ingly endless ranks to the plateau’s farthest edges, is row upon row of white crosses; thousands on thousands of them; so many that when one stands at the edge of that sea of crosses and looks across it the crosses on the far side merge into a solid white horizon line. As one turns his back on the Lanterne des Morts, rising from its ocean of white crosses, and looks out ever the plain below, one sees here and there upon its vast surface towns whose appearance suggests little piles of children’s blocks that have been swept into tidy, widely separated heaps on the surface of a rug by a careful housewife. These towns and portions of the plain will not be for- gotten as long as there are histories to record the virtues and the follies of the civilization which now exists—such names as Loos and Lens, Souchez, Ablain-St.-Nazaire, Cabaret Rouge, Neuville St. Vaast, The Labyrinth, Vimy Ridge, Bethune, Arras, Carency. The Same Bridge and Factory After They Were Rebuilt by the French By Kenneth L. Roberts The towns seem very neat and peaceful; and the smooth and smiling plains around them are rich with the crops of the thrifty French peas- ants. Nearest of all the towns is Lens, heart of the coal fields of Northern France. Here and there through the town rise the high chimney stacks and pit heads of the mines; and around them nestle the thousands of red-roofed cottages of the mine workers, as spick-and-span and or- derly as the houses of a model town. But if the film of the years is rolled backward for a space and then unreeled once more by way of refreshing the memory, one gets a different picture of Notre Dame de Lorette and the country round about. The Desolation of War ARLY in October, 1914, the Germans, driving the French before them, took possession of Notre Dame de Lorette, Lens and the near-by territory. Here, stopped by the heroic resistance of Alpine troops, the Germans dug into the clay soil of Artois. The French followed suit, and both sides settled down to the filth, horror and misery of trench warfare. In the plain the Germans transformed the villages into fortresses, fortifying the houses and connecting them with underground passages. The countryside was crossed and crisscrossed with a network of trenches, boyaux, under- ground shelters, flanking works, chevaux-de-frise and deep lines of interlaced barbed wire. The hill itself was covered with deep trenches protected by cement, steel plates, barbed-wire mazes, moats, pali- sades, redoubts, advance works, casemates and shelters thirty-five feet deep. The plain, the villages and the towns, and even the hill and the spurs of the hill, were a welter of mud in which the men stood to their ankles, their knees, ier than ever before. Germany can't pay the amount that France wants her to pay. Germany can pay the French de- mands twice over. If the Allies will tell Germany what she ought to pay she will pay it willingly. Germany will pay only so long as she is forced te pay, no matter how small the sum may be. Propagandists F ONE listens to enough of these conflicting stories he must con- clude that one set of propaganda artists are liars and automatically reject everything that they say; or he can conclude that both’ sets are liars and discard everything that both of them say—which is by far the wiser course to follow—and take a little tour of his own. I first climbed to the summit of the flat-topped, plateaulike hill known as Notre Dame de Lorette, which rises from the flat plains of their waists; into which they van- ished. From the very beginning of the trench-warfare period the French sought to wrest the commanding heights of Netre Dame de Lorette from the Germans. The hill was pounded by artillery fire; furious hand-to-hand struggles with knives, grenades and bayonets were daily occurrences. The hill became a char- nel house, a welter of dead bodies and fragments of bodies. In mid- May, 1915, the French pushed the Germans from the hill. Affairs went more slowly on the plain below. It was here that the French made their first grand offen- sive, with the intention of recaptur- ing the two important mining centers and railway junctions of Lens and Donai. Early in May, 1915, the French deluged the German lines with hundreds of thousands of shells, and then broke through the German lines—broke through too rapidly, unfortunately; so that before the French could bring up reénforce- Artois in the French province of Pas de Calais. It is a bleak and barren Coal Miners’ Cottages in Lens ments the Germans had rallied and pushed them back.

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‘ } THE SATURDAY EVENING POST v The fighting went on for days, for weeks; horrible fighting. The mud covered everything. The unceasing artillery fire churned the earth to soup. Houses crumbled away and van- ished. Factories sank down into the mud. Trees became gaunt and leafless poles. Grass and flowers and bushes ceased: to exist. In September, 1915, the British and the French to- gether started another drive for Lens. Countless heavy guns on both sides pounded the plain with terrific shell- fire. The trenches and the waste spaces between them were filled with dead and wounded. The drive was repulsed and the French and British were thrust back to their mudholes. For over a year the armies remained in their positions Fy When, then, one stands on the summit of Notre Dame de Lorette and looks across the ocean of crosses, and sees here and there a black- clad Frenchwoman kneel- ing in prayer beside amound of earth or placing a cluster of flowers against a cross, and when one then turns and looks down to the town of Lens and its neighboring towns and the plains whose every inch has literally been sprinkled with human blood, one ceases to worry his mind over the claims and the figures and the ar- guments of the propagan- dists, and stops trying to sense the truth and the fals- ity of the statements that surge from the folk who are anti-this and pro-that. There is only one line of thought that is open to the person whose mind is free on the plain, battering each other with their artiliery, but otherwise motionless in an empire of mud and death. In April of 1917 the Canadians and the British forces concentrated their guns on the German lines, blasted them to pieces and swept forward to the great victory of Vimy Ridge and to the outer suburbs of Lens. All through the remainder of that year the British and the Canadians fought their way into Lens, house by house and street by street, while German batteries on the east of the town pounded the houses to powder. As a final caress to this region of death, destruction and despair, of stench and flame and filth and awful turmoil, the Germans again pounded it with their heavy guns in their great offensive of March—July, 1918; then in July the Allied counter offensive began, resulting in the shat- tering of the German lines, the final liberation of Lens and the Armistice. A Scene in Lens, 1923. Wanton Destruction of Coal Mines URING the German occupation of Lens the Germans worked the mines for their own benefit. When they were finally forced out they completely destroyed everything that had not been previously destroyed or sent back to Germany. Mine props, stays, supports and girders were smashed with explosives; the drums of the pit winding machines were blown up with dynamite; the compressors, fans, pumps, drum shafts and boilers were similarly treated; the chimney stacks were pulled down. Pit heads were destroyed by cutting the cables and sending the cages and the wagons crashing to the bottom of the shafts. In this section of France the mine shafts descend through some 500 feet of water-soaked clay and earth; and in order that the mines may not be flooded the shafts are protected by a water-tight cast-iron sleeve. Before leaving Lens the Germans exploded dynamite in nearly every shaft, so that the iron sleeves were shattered and the mines flooded. Consequently, wandering Frenchmen, working down to the south during the early months of 1919 with their At the Base of the Left-Hand Smokestack are Two Bomb«Proof Shetters Made Into Cottages — the Only Reminders of the War to be Seen discharges in their pockets, found Lens a sprawling smear of rubble and shattered timbers. The town was pulverized. Nothing remained of the great mine buildings or of the thousands of workmen's cottages except tumbled masses of stone, across which danced little wraiths of plaster dust. The population had vanished so completely that among the ruins there was no one to direct wanderers on their way across the trench-scarred, shell-torn, corpse-littered wilder- ness to the next rubble heap that was once a thriving town. But a little over four years later, at the end of the summer of 1923, the pit towers of Lens had again reared themselves against the sky, like ungainly giants from an- other world. Thousands of snug homes of brick, cement and tile had aligned themselves with military precision along the level streets. Schools, churches, dispensaries, hospitals, shops, restaurants—all the appurtenances of a thriving town—were in operation. Coal was coming from the mines, and the people of Lens were going about their business as they went about it before the town descended into the hel! that engulfed it for four long years. The town itself had been decorated with the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre, with the citation: Glorious City, which may be cited as an example of heroism and patriotic faith. Falling into German hands at the beginning of the invasion of 1914, was in turn, for four years, both witness ana stake in a merciless struggle. Organized by the enemy into a formidable defensive stronghold, partially liberated by an Allied offensive, mutilated and crushed in the course of incessant fighting, never doubted the country’s destiny. Other coal-mining towns in the vicinity had risen from their rubble piles as well; and between them and beyond them the wheat fields and the clover fields were unmarred by trench or shell hole or barbed wire. Here and there the wheat grew close up around the sides of a German pill box of such solidity that it had defied removal, but other signs of war had vanished. from warps and kinks, and this is it: The Germans came and destroyed. It was through no fault of France that they came; but none the less they came and laid a peaceful land in ruins. When they had gone France raised money from her war-impoverished people and repaired the destruction without fuss, flub- dubbery or tom-tom beating. If anybody was ever en- titled to anything, France is entitled to collect from Germany the money that she has spent in repairing the things that Germany destroyed. The Case of Black and White F WHITE’S next-door neighbor, Black, without provo- cation, were to beat down White's side door with an ax, kill a few of White’s children, smash his furniture, slash his rugs and pictures to ribbons, and carry away his silver tea service, nobody would be able to think up any reason why Black shouldn't pay White in full for the damage he had done. The case of Germany and France, in the mat- ter of reparations, is as simple as that of Black and White And at this juncture a few words should be inserted for the benefit of the celebrated world travelers who returned from Germany at the end of the summer of 1923, emitting troubled cries that another war between France and Ger- many is inevitable because of the occupation of the Ruhr by France Now it is perhaps inevitable that one day there will be another war between France and Germany; but that war, if it comes, won't be the result of the French occupation of the Ruhr. German bitterness against France is noisier and more outspoken.than it has been in some time because of the occupation of the Ruhr; but it is no more determined than it was before the occupation of the Ruhr was con- templated. During the winter of 1919 and again during the winter of 1920 I had occasion to cross Northern Ger- many from Cologne in the west to Bentschen on the Polish frontier; and on each trip I found the same determination Continued on Page 74 PHOTOS. FROM EWING GALLOWAY, N.Y. C. A Bridge in a French Village as it Appeared When the Armistice Was Signed, and as it Appears Today

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST son in the world of whom Sheriff Adlai Kutz was afraid was the man whom he had just overwhelmingly defeated. Adlai’s soul was iarge and valiant, but his body was small and silent. He had no guile, and he could not cope with guile. Hence it was that the small sheriff and his large roan both shied violently one afternoon as, passing the duck farm of Simeon Ofendahl, defeated incumbent in the recent election, Ofen- dah! himself spurred from his driveway directly across their path. Ofendah! drew sharp rein as his loose, rather wild eyes focused upon his recent opponent. “And how was our new sheriff a’ready? A-lookin’ around fur to ketch your first pris’ner mebbe? Let’s see now. It’s some two months back a’ready since you got your job off the woters, ain’t it?” For a second Adlai’s mild blue eyes car- ried their pain to the horizon; his thumbs fumbled with the reins. But his tone was valiant as he replied: “Two months, I give youse, the woters has been payin’ at me in the taxes. And I ain’t fetched them no pris’ner yet. But mebbe you was furgittin’ to remember where I was out from my head them first three weeks, according to the lick that there robber fetched me in the jail cel- lar?"’ His fingers strayed tenderly over a discolored temple. His wide, anxious stare searched the ex-sheriff, ‘‘ Was you sure fur certain, Brother Ofendahl, you ain't left nothing at the jail cellar when you was movin’ out? Some such piece pipe like a—well, like a letter S’? Like a letter S it was, that thing where up’t and swang onto me that first night we was movin’ in és Ofendahl’s buzzard crest of coarse hair vibrated with his laughter. “Was we leavin’ pipes lay? Well, I should guess anyhow not! Us we wasn't ever usin’ the jail cellar fur nothing. But it wonders me why wasn't you ketchin’ the robber then? You're callin’ yourself sheriff, ain't? Now me, I would have got the feller by the leg and I would have drug him 23 “How could I make with his leg when I never knowed there was no leg there?” cried the goaded Adlai. ‘I heard some such noise at the cellar, yes; but I says to Tippie, ‘Rats!’ Just like that—‘Rats!’ And I clim the stairs down with a candle at, a-gapin’ fur such rats. And then somepun that S thing-—up't and swang onto me till I was all which ways at my head. But I'm a-goin’ to find sy “This here is prob’ly how it went with you: I would bet, anyways, there wasn’t no robber there total]. You was scared and you overstepped yourself and busted your head at the stairs,” “Wasn'tnorobber!" Adlaibounced indignantly. ‘‘ Don't git me hot by such insinooations! I seen that pipe thing from that there candle, and I never seen noth- ing like it, and I would know it still if I seen it at Jeeroosylum. And I'm a-goin’ to find it and I'm a-goin’ to find the feller where fetched me the lick if it takes me till the doomday!”’ “Mebbe you could ketch the county a rat encet in so often anyways.’’ The defeated can- didate twitched at his reins. ‘Well, I give you good-by, Brother Kutz,” The Adam's apple in Adlai’s throat rose high and stuck as he sat staring. “Don’t leave him make a worry fur you with his foolishness! Mister is too much fur his blab that way!" Adiai turned his horse about. His old schoolmate, Sarah Hottenstein Ofen- dahl, was billowing over the front gate, her face a full moen of concern. * All the time your man puts it out where the county has hired a rat catcher in place of a sheriff!’ Adlai burst out bitterly. “That there makes a laugh in the town ower me, Sadie.” “Don’t leave him sling his head around youse!"’ Sarah grasped the pickets wrathfully. “Mind to this now: Plenty enough times when we was sheriffs, that ther» jail was empty fur us, yes, and fur weeks on stretches. If there wasn't no crim'nals to ketch, you couldn’t up’t and ketch them, I should guess anyhow.” Yes, well, but—others does.” Adlai’s eyes mused de- jectedly. “Sheritf Hock ower in Andore County keeps his jail full anyways. My gosh, Sadie! I wisht if I could learn a les- son off that feller! They do say now how he is the best sheriff in the state.” [: WAS of course absurd that the only per- By Oma Allmona Davies ILLUSTRATED ar ToNnr SARG “Don't Cry Noth+ ing Now, Sadie!"’ Adtailmptored in Alarm “Yes, I guess he is some reputatious,”’ admitted Sarah. “But here’s somepun else ag’in. Andore County ain’t Buthouse County. Plenty folks ower in Andore ain't even Bible Christians. And here in Buthouse you ain't hardly got nothing to work on but Ewangelicals. And Ewangeli- cals don’t give jailbirds.”’ “That's what I says to Hock. Ower the tellyfone he come ten days back a’ready and he says would I be a-lookin’ out fur such stills, or what you call it.. He says he has got his county cleaned up, all, and yet the liquor is a-dreenin’ through some such way. You ain’t, now, ever December 29,1925 suspicioned nobody of no bootleg, ain’t you, Sadie?”’ “My lands, no!” gasped Sarah. ‘‘ There ain’t no such thing as a Ewangelical bootlegger!” “He says yet I could mebbe nose somepun out if I keep my smeller a-workin’ good. So here I am, a-ridin’ at my horse from daylights till dark a’ready, a-smellin’ the county ower; but I can’t seem to scurritch up nothing.” “Bootleg now,” considered the literal Sarah. “That there must give a smell somepun near rubber, ain’t?”’ “Well, I wouldn’t ketch nothing fur the woters if I am a-settin’ here gab- bin’.’’ Adlai squared about in his sad- dle. “Git on upnow, Millie. Come see us oncet when you come to town ower.” “But I ain’t comin’ to town ower. Not any more than I kin otherwise help.” Sarah laughed. “Och, my! It did, now, go good fur me when you fetched the wotes ower Ofendahl! I couldn’t never home myself so in that there jail. This herenow’’—sheswung her arms widely—‘‘this here is what I am natured to. I ain’t squinched up here. And my ducks! Look oncet! Here comes the purty things! Behind four o'clock always they come from the crick up. But Och, my souls!’’ She caught her apron in her hands and wrenched it in alarm. “What is it at them now?” For the fowls, approaching them slantwise across the road, were behav- ing in a manner unnatural to their genus. Instead of proceeding in their ordinary decorous single file, they were swaying along in twos and even threes; new combinations were continually forming, owing to some of the fowls squatting down in the path of the others. Their eyes had lost their aloof omniscient stare; they winked slowly, dazedly and continuously. Occasion- ally one uttered a raucous squawk, attempted to fly and fell over upon its side, harrying the air with its splay feet. “Och, my!”"’ Sarah’s flat heels spun about in their midst. ‘Och, elend! They must have sick, ain’t?”’ ““What you feedin’ them?” “T ain’t. Mister he went and took them off me.” “Ofendahl?” cried Adlai incredulously. “Why, he was putting it always out how he wouldn’t run after the ducks!” “That he was too. But all on a suddint he won't leave me keep care of them no more. My souls! Look how they make sideways! And would you listen on them yet? They don’t speak natural no more!” “It looks some serious.”” Adlai eyed them earnestly. ‘ But what’s mister a-feedin’ them then?” Sarah gestured disconsolately toward a shed half hidden in the adjacent apple or- chard. “Don’t talk! Everything at the ducks he locks in that there tool shed still, and he hangs the key in the well down, with a string at. I seen him. Ain't it wonderful funny? But och! Do you conccit they will up’t and die fur me now?” Mrs. Ofendahl’s was not an expressive face. The most that can be said of it is that its features suffered displacement in times of emotional stress. Now the general trend was downward. With no warning muscular contraction, round tears suddenly flowed from her round eyes and bubbled down over her round cheeks. “Don’t cry nothing now, Sadie!’’ Adlai implored in alarm, and hastily swung from his horse. ‘“‘We will git these here ducks into their pen and then we will see oncet what mister has got at the shed.” Sarah’s hands flustered in her apron. “Don’t do it! The mad he would git on you!” “The woters hires me fur to keep the peace.”” The small sheriff resolutely rounded up the ducks. “And it ain’t peace when you bust out a-cryin’ that way.” But, after all, they found nothing in the shed from which they might diagnose the untoward condition of the fowls. Upon the shelves which ran continuously about three sides

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of the small room was a sparse collection of tools, crocks and bits of broken harness. All that pertained to the ducks were two articles upon the floor—a crate half filled with their eggs and an earthen jar in which was a quantity of broken yellows and whites. “He must be some awkward fur to busted all them there,’’ Adlai observed as he tipped the latter. “Yes, I give you! Ain’t it scan’lous? But he sells them, busted that way, to the bakery in Andore City. And fur such a price yet! It is now awful the dear price he fetches ower the eggs; I couldn’t fault him nothing there. But dear peace! How strubbly he keeps the place still! Would you look on that pile shavings how he lets them under that there plane! It itches me fur the broom fur to h’ist them out! Och, my! And the ducks! Mebbe now they could all be corpses a’ready!”’ Adlai glanced apprehensively at his companion’s third chin, which was again beginning to quiver. “It itches me fur a swig that there cider!’ With as- sumed jocosity he reached for an earthenware jug in the corner behind the plane. ‘And then I must make hurry. It kreistles Tippie somepun wonderful fur to have the supper draggin’ out.” Sarah eyed in amazement the jug and the chalked scrawl upon it—-CIDER. “‘Ain’t this is wonderful! I ain’t knowing we had no cider. Neighbor Kreider he must have brang it then.” “Henry Kreider?” Adlai’s voice pitched an octave up- ward. ‘Why, I thought him and Ofendahl was bad friends, ower Henry bein’ so opposed against him in the election. Mister is making his talk always how he is going to git his evens with me and Henry fur gittin’ his jeb off him,” “That he is too. But Henry is ciderin’ the apples fur us anyways. Mister was just letting them at the ground—ain’t you seen oncet how they was rotting outsides there? and Henry he come a-hoppin’ across lots onto his crutch that way and he says whether he could cider them at the shares, and mister he give him dare. To be sure’’—the hospitable Sarah started toward the door—‘“‘you could have some of Henry’s cider! And with a rusk at! Wait oncet!”’ Adlai, cork in hand, chuckled as Sarah reéntered with a couple of glasses and a plate of rusks. “Tf a feller went to work and smelled in these here rotten apples deep enough he wouldn't need no cider.” “Yes, well,” Sarah demurred sagely. “But some- ways a body’s lungs ain’t ever the pleasurin’ organ their stummick is.” Adlai took a swallow—and another—and another. “I give you right there. About stummicks, I mean. Such cider I ain’t ever laid tongue to since I was born a’ready.” “ Ain’t it got a nip, though?”’ Sarah beamed at him over the top of her glass. ‘“‘Pick a piece rusk now. They’re warm from the oven yet.” “Cider sure comes handy to Kreider. If I hadn't ’a’ knew he made it yesterday I would have anyhow bet it went hard on you a’ready. It makes you feel so all over funny. Ain’t not?” It appeared that it did. Both began to smile continu- ously, then to laugh. Sarah, in hospitable attempt to fill Adilai’s glass, spilled the greater part of the liquid over the side. But neither noticed. Adlai drained the few drops which landed in the glass and gleefully rubbed his midriff. He stopped suddenly and focused his eyes upon Sarah, Sarah, in Hospitable Attempt to Fill Adiai’s Glass, Spilled the Greater Part of the Liquid Over the Side THE SATURDAY EVENING “What was youse doin’? Was youse tryin’ to drink down a rusk still?” Sarah lowered from her lips an uptilted rusk and stared at it. “Now think! Where was my tumbler then? Was that there yourn? Or was it mine yet?” ““Youse was a-drinkin’ a rusk!” Adlai rolled against the shelf, help- less with mirth. Sarah laughed, too, until she was weak. She felt a sudden desire to sit down. Her prominent eyes strayed over the room and lit upon the jar of broken eggs. She steered toward it, but her sizable foot reached it first. It rolled in a heavy, slobbering circlet. She eyed it ma- levolently. “Go it then! You ain’t so much nohow!”” She made port where two shelves cornered, and buttressed her- self with her arms flung out along them. She gazed upon Adlai, braced in the opposite corner, and observed politely, ‘It’s some funny, but I can see you a-growin’.”’ Adlai was staring fixedly through the door at the pale leaves which were falling from the apple trees. “Them ain’t snow,” he instructed Sarah knowingly. “But if they was snow, if they only was snow now, I would take you on a—on a—well, onto one of them bug- gies where ain't got—where ain't got wheels at 1 “Yes, I mind of them kind. What was they now?” Sarah pondered severely. ‘‘They belled oncet a “That they did,” frowned Adlai. ‘Well, anyways, it don’t make nothing what it was—not fur really; but, any- ways, I would have set up alongside clost under the robe, or what it is is He sidled along the shelf toward his companion, groping toward her outflung palm. But his fingers encountered en route one of the rusks, still warm, and closed over it tenderly. “Now ain’t you fresh, though?” tittered his old school- mate. A dimple, which in her flaxen-braided days had been a pitfall for callow masculine hearts, was digging again into her smooth cheek. “T ain’t a-goin’ to say,”’ breathed Adlai with enraptured gaze upon it. “I ain't a-goin’ to say, but if somebody hadn't ’a’ up’t and got me first Tippie, oncet—well, Tippie now ” His gaze fumbled away; he braced his heels more firmly. ‘‘ Well, what was it Iam speakin’? Oh! It wasn’t snowin’; and Tippie—my gosh, now, Tippie! It wasn’t snowin’, so I guess I better git home along. You can’t never tell when it’s goin’ to go to work and snow in this here climate.” He fixed his eyes upon the door and started for it. Sarah, with more discretion, began to inch her way along the shelving like an amorphous measuring worm. “‘T never in all my life seen such a door!”’ Adlai exclaimed in exasperation. ‘‘Sooner you gits toward it, sooner it goes aways from youse!"’ They made it finally in a dead heat. They jammed thus, then Adlai with determined lunge broke the com- bination and landed without. The key from the lock rang sharply to the floor. “You git it oncet.”” Sarah's gaze wavered from the key to Adlai upon his knees. ‘‘ You're down there anyways, and I don’t feel fur stoopin’.”’ “Tf I git it,”” Adlai bartered solemnly, ‘‘you got fur to put it at the door. I don’t feel fur gittin’ up.” He squared him- self about upon the large flat stone which formed the door- step and stared about him pleasurably. ‘‘The sceneries is grand from here.” Though the keyhole, ac- cording to Sarah's muttered recriminations, was several sizes too small for the key, she locked the door finally and lowered herself to the step be- side Adlai. They sat thus in a freshening breeze for upward of half an hour in delicious reverie of their school days, anent lunch pails, hair rib- bons, arithmetic and garter snakes. The sound of a supper bell from a neighboring farm set Adlai to clutching at the wall behind him. A ~~ Tove a € ra He Landed Full Upon the Ex-+Sheriff's Back “Tippie, oncet!” His eyes swam in alarm. “She's a-makin’ the bell fur me! I must make hurry and git home along.” Navigation was now less difficult, though the unfortunate habit of apple trees to assault pedestrians was trying, to say nothing of the slipperiness of the fruit underfoot, But the two were very happy. Adlai started to whistle, and, failing that, began to sing: “Almost persuaded; doom comes at last.’ Their only serious moment was in discus- sion over the key, Sarah insisting that it be deposited in the cistern, Adlai in the well. Adlai finally threw it into the well. Bread he cast upon the water, also, in the shape of a squeezed remnant of rusk. Concerning the ducks they were in full accord. They leaned upon the pen and gazed casually down upon the fowls, while the fowls within gazed casually up at them. “T never knowed you had such a many,” observed Adlai. “Nor me neither,” pondered Sarah. ‘ Everywheres you look ain’t nothing but ducks. But I guess this here is how it is: They have gone to work and set, still, and hatched off since we seen them a good while back a'ready.” “My, Sadie,” marveled Adlai, “you was so handy with your brains that it is somepun terrible now!"" After vain attempts to mount his horse he remarked, “I never favored such a high horse anyways. Nor neither such a steep one yet.”” His stabbing toes glanced off the stirrup once more, and he turned wrathfully to Sarah, who had sagged down upon the end of the watering trough. “Them woters has got to git me somepun I could git up onto, I should guess anyhow! How could they, now, expect me to ketch them jailbirds if I have got to set h'isted up into the clouds, like such an angel yet?” The horse had shrunk considerably by the time Adlai had covered the two miles between the Ofendatls’ and the jail in Dentonville, in the lower story of which were the sheriff's living quarters. In proportion as the animal had decreased, however, his good opinion of himself had in- creased. He felt very warm and very tall; he thought large thoughts Thirteen years of marital life had schooled him in various signs and portents. It had become his custom, for instance, upon returning to the wife of his vows, to glance calculat- ingly upon the manner of her coiffure. According to the slant of her pompadour he had learned to pattern, largely, his own immediate conduct, If it were reefed tightly beneath the heavy coil of her black hair, Adlai was accus tomed to enter the strait gate and to walk narrowly in the way until such time as it escaped in heartening tendrils about her really handsome cheeks. But upon this occasion, though it was coifed so severely that it drew her eyes upward and backward, he took no note of it. Indeed, he scarcely glanced at her as he strode from the door to the table with the air of one who sweeps all before him. “Fetch on all you got.” He scraped his chair noisily “T’'m in some important hurry.” Tippora, darting like an overheated hornet from the oven to the table, stopped in midflight. Even her ears flushed as though physically boxed by the unexpected tone. But she rallied to her former mood. “In a hurry, oncet! It looks it! Draggin’ in here like such a tomcat with supper an hour behind a’ready! And without no pris’ner yet! Och, my! And Hock a-comin’ tomorrow morning fur to gape at the empty jail!’”’ ‘Hock? Comin’ here?" Adlai's active knife paused for but a second. His brows drew portentously. “‘Why don't Continued on Page 37)

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST UNT IVY, trudging home in the cool of the July evening, paused as was her wont at the top of the steep pitch of the red-shop hill. Not for breath, TLLuUSTRATEDO BY “ l AS E AD By Frederick Irving Anderson J OH WN Js. cURRY December 29, 19235 yD The man De Groot leaned in the doorway, his head bent a little because of his great height, which she had not noted out- side. He watched her, fascinated; his however; it was freely admitted in her family, which had built the Stone House in the days of the second redcoat war, that the hill itself “wasn’t nothing.” The old woman's pause was for retrospect. She never passed this spot without stop- ping to remember the unforgettable night gaze ranged over her shoulder as she moved about the stove, through an open door into the bright room beyond, the room the village said she kept for her son’s home- coming. When she went out to milk he followed her and watched in silence the white ribbons of milk that flowed at her of her wedding feast, when Lean“er Cot- ton, fetching her home as a bride to the Stone House she brought him as a dower, had prudently got down at the foot of the hill to screw fresh calks in the plates of his horse’s shoes before risking so precious a burden on the glare ice of that perilous ascent. She trudged on to the second rise, where the road forked. A worn path edged with a faint wheel track led to the Stone House; the other track was a forgotten road that stumbled on, up and around the shoulder of the Mountain, as far as the resolute ruin of the old Seymour place, where it gave up the ghost. She was crawling through the fence to take the short cut across the overgrown night pasture, when she suddenly shrank down, her hoart skipping a beat. A man in khaki breeches and putties sat on the wash bench by the kitchen door. Duke, the old dog, deaf and half blind, and the house eat idled on the bench beside him; and two adventurous little pigs had crawled through the fence to do the honors in the absence of their mistress. With his stick the man was drawing in the clean gravel of the dooryard, instruct- ing the small porkers in their A B C’s. Chickens were strut- ting about with the dandified air they assume at mealtime. Cossy, the old cow, had come up from the brush on the edge of the woods, where she had been hiding from flies all after- noon, and stood crowding the bars, gazing on the domestic group Aunt Ivy wore the gray she had put on after that black night years gene by when blunt neighbors had brought her word that her husband had backed his cart off the bridge when the river was in flood, and father, son and plunging team had been swept off into the swift oblivion of swirling Now, stepping back into the alders, she was instantly lost to sight, like an animal. She retraced her steps and presently came on the Stone House again, this time through the sugar bush, reconnoitering from the cover of the dilapidated old sap arch. The man was large and raw- ice floes whether the name itself meant anything to her. His eyes were too far apart and his ears set too far back on his head. He was explaining that he would like to buy the place—if it was for sale. She shook her head. It didn’t belong to her; it belonged to her son. He might come home any time. “‘T suppose you have heard that I am expecting my son home almost any time now, haven't you?” she asked, look- ing up at him quickly with so clear an understanding in her eyes that he averted his gaze; and he answered awkwardly that he believed he had been told something to that effect. Aunt Ivy knew just how much he had been told; she knew that any stranger who tarried in the village long enough for the gossips to get his ear would be told the fan- tastic story of Aunt Ivy Cotton, who had been bravely coming and going for years now, with increasing faith that her son was not dead, had not been drowned with his father on that tragic night, but would some day come back to her. They would tell how she kept his room ready for him, the kitchen bedroom, the cozy room of the Stone House; how she would set out his shaving water of a Sunday morning in the same pewter mug his father and her father had used before him; how she would change his clothes in the bureau drawers with the seasons; and how, on cold mornings, she would warm his boots by the kitchen fire. Most of the tale was true, except the manner of telling. She knew how they smiled at her doting foolishness; she was not deceived. The old woman moved across the yard in silence, the clamorous flocks swirling about her feet. When all her creatures were busy over their supper she let herself in and straightway began preparations for her own evening meal. She touched a match to the made fire in the stove, and while she filled the shining kettle at the spring, lazy cot- tony coils of smoke rose like dancers on poised toes from the stove lids and filled the air with the delicious fragrance of fresh kindling. touch, and che creamy foam that rose in the bucket. Inside again, she skimmed off the froth with a single dexterous turn of a saucer and invited the old dog and cat to share this meditative meal of bubbles. De Groot rocked absently in an old chair, to the tick-tock of the clock. “Aunt Ivy,” he burst out abruptly, “I want to adopt you for my mother! I’ve never had a mother—that is, that I can remember, and te “*Fiddlesticks!’’ she sniffed. ‘‘Who ever heard such talk!’”” Busy as a bee, she did not pause, but, passing him, she shot a triumphant look at him and cried out: ‘I know who you are now! You are one of the surveyors down at the hotel.” He nodded; he was the chief of the party. Every few years a surveying squad would appear from nowhere and without a by-your-leave draw a circle of doom above the heads of the village on the hillsides; evenings on the hotel porch they would astonish the natives with wild tales of a reservoir two hundred feet deep with the village lying water-logged at the bottom and tenanted only by fish. Nothing ever came of these visitations; and the village had finally come to regard its suspended doom with a languid serenity. For the past week such a surveying party had been run- ning out flood lines on the opposite hillside. Aunt Ivy behind her curtains mornings had watched for the helio- graphic glint of the sun on their transits; vaguely she had speculated how soon they would cross to this side of the valley; even, she had thought, with a tightening of the heart, they might now be scrutinizing her with the all- seeing eye of their telescopes, taking stock of her, eaves, pane, lintel and sill. De Groot was one of these. “I have been watching you evenings, climbing that hill,” he said. She darted one of her quick looks at him. She said with a queer smile, ‘‘You needn't to waste your sympathy on that hill. It ain’t nothing.” boned, and about the age of her son. But it was not her son. You ng Leander had the imprint of ahorse’s hoof on his fore- head The watcher held her breath, listening. Nothing happened. Only familiar sounds came to her ear the cathedral whisperings of the tall tree tops; the echo of cowbells telling of herds coming home; the musical murmur of the river. Fi- nally, her caution satisfied, she climbed down and discovered herself to her creatures at the gate. At sight of her, pwans of Chinese flattery rose from the as- sembled multi- tude, The man, hat in hand, said his name was De Groot, Peter de Groot, smiling down on her puri- tanly prim little “Gravity over- comes traction on that first pitch,” he said, in the lingo of his craft. “There isn’t an automobile made that could climb it. And yet you climb it every day, Aunt Ivy.” “T expect that's because I ain't never heard about gravity and trac tion,” she retorted with a sly twinkle. “The water will come up to that hitching post in your dooryard, Aunt Ivy,” he ran on, letting his eye search the vista of the open door again. “I'll come in a boat. I will have to live around here forsome time. This will all be water when I get through.” She nodded over her stirring at the stove. “T expect that won't be in our time,’’ she said dryly. figure with a ques- tion in his eyes The Two Passengers Had Dismounted Through the Windshield “I’m serious about adopting

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: Nines seen ‘ i ; ; ' you, Aunt Ivy. I’m going to settle right down in this kitchen.” He looked around, tasting the flavor of it again. “I never saw a woman I'd rather have fora mother. And I never saw a room I’d rather live in. And there’s my valley sitting right out in the dooryard. I’d make it well worth your while.” “Thanks! I’ve got all I want—and more too!”’ The touch of asperity was present in her tones. Yet she must smile again at the absurdity. “‘Couldn’t I be your son, Aunt Ivy?” “But I have a son!” she cried, turning on him. “A big, fine, strapping fellow—as big as you!”’ The men of her family had always been big men, and she had such a woman’s contempt for lesser creatures. Now, as on sudden inspiration, she went to her son’s room and brought back his picture. It was that of a healthy young giant growing up in the image of his father. Leander Cot- ton, the father, was of a different breed from these people of the valley, who had originally been whalers come home from the seas to bury their anchors here, as the saying goes. How he ever happened to be born here was a mystery. He be- longed outside in the big world; all through his life he always talked big of going out; but he never did go, until the river took him that night. But the boy—the mother knew, felt in her heart, he was out there, tak- ing his rightful place among men, a friend tothe four corners of the world. She stood be- hind De Groot looking down on the picture with a fine pride. “If you have been everywhere I expect sometime you have seen my Leander,’ she said, the tinder of hope alight in her eyes. Then to De Groot’s surprise, she drew out a chair for him at the table; and he sat down, bowing his head under her simple blessing. “You've prob- ably forgotten, if “T’ve never known anybody named Cotton,” he said. “Tt is an unusual name I couldn’t forget.” There could be no doubt about the identity. “But he wouldn’t know his name was Cotton,” she said quickly. ‘“‘You see, strangers pulled him out of the river, half dead.”’ She spoke of something real rather than fan- ciful. ‘Poor Leander didn’t know who he was—couldn’t remember. It happens that way, you know. That’s why he hasn’t come back home. Some day he will remember. Then he will come.” Her skilled hands moved ceaselessly. Seated by the table under the lamplight, she opened a stocking bag gath- ered with a gay red ribbon, and unrolled Leander’s socks, stretching heel and toe to the light with one hand inside, looking in vain for a hole to darn. “There was that dealer in curiosin San José,” murmured De Groot, his eyes roaming the rag rug as he leaned for- ward with elbows on his knees. “‘He had a native wife they sold pottery—they said it was dug up from Toltec THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 13 It was going on to nine o'clock; she told him he must go. *‘Come in and sit tomorrow evening,’ Aunt Ivy said as she stood in the doorway with him. Her spare arms folded in her apron, she watched him away into the night; she could follow him across the pas ture by the occasional flash of his pocket torch Inside, she filled the box behind the stove from the wood- house off the kitchen, a cheerful cricket greeting her as she pushed open the door and let in the lamplight among the neatly stacked rows of stovewood. The last time she passed out the door clicked behind her. The old dog clawed at the door once or twice and whined, then sat down, nose to the crack, to wait. 7 PAIR of Devon stags moved up the steep pitch of the red-shop hill with the casual air of the impossible. At their head, inching up the incline backward and addressing them in the stentorian tones of Demosthenes, as he cracked a large bullwhip over their heads, moved Jason Self- ridge, Ausit Ivy's nephew, who though he had a deg ee in technol- ogy was home this summer for the haying. Behind trailed a stone boat laden with a pair of tackle blocks, a coil of rope and a log chain, lashed fast. And still farther behind, trailing in the dust, climbed a tattered little red-eyed old man, helping himself up with a crowbar fashioned from some remote wagon axle. This latter was Gran’- ther Noah Sey- mour, the last of an illustrious line At the top of the rise where theworn path turned off to the Stone House, the cattle contin- ued on up and around the shoul der of the Moun- tain; and when the stone boat at last attained an angle of repose, and floated along like a dinghy in a calm wake, Jason suggested that gran'ther get on you did know him,” said Aunt Ivy, pouring the tea. ‘‘Leander would never stay long in one place.” De Groot picked up the picture again and studied it. “Tf he only had the imprint of a horse’s hoof on his forehead,” he said slowly, “I'd swear—sometime—some- where There was a chap—kicked by a horse! He'd carry that mark to the grave.” His eyes fastened upon her in an effort at remembrance. Aunt Ivy, halting her teapot, responded to his scrutiny with a sudden smile. “It was Louis, the black colt,’”’ she said brightly. She filled his cup and passed it tohim. The old clock seemed to clang through a tense silence, while each held the other’s eyes. “It was three months after that picture was taken,” she said, without haste or emotion. ‘‘ His father wanted he should break the colt for the haying.”” Her eyes strayed momentarily. ‘‘They all said I'd lose him.’’ She shook her head with a wistful smile. ‘‘ But I knew I'd never lose him! He was so big—and strong! He could handle any of them in the village. How they hated him for his strength!’’ She turned to the supper again. ‘‘Won’t you try my pickles? They are called the best in the valley.” De Groot roused himself with a start. He accepted the offering mechanically. He ate in silence, his eyes continu- ally straying to the picture at his elbow. Aunt Ivy chat- tered like a magpie. Afterwards, when she got up and began clearing the table, he took down a dish towel, and while she was pour- ing the steaming water into the dishpan he found his tongue. Jason Used to Stop on His Way By, and Visit With the Oid Man in Silence. Aunt Ivy, Day's Work, Discovered Him Late One Afternoon graves; and they hada collection of little gold gods, about the size of my little finger—virgin gold, as yellow as a pumpkin!” When he paused, musing, she covertly watched him, wait- ing for his words to flow again, as if he talked in his sleep. “Tt was in a side street—near the umbrella tree with the fence around it—not more than a pistol shot from the savanna. There was something about him that " He checked himself. “That what?” she urged gently. “T think not!” he said, as if shaking off some disagree- able idea. ‘‘That chap’s name was Safford—or Stafford I am sure it was the scar of some greaser’s machete.” She stirred uneasily, but said nothing. De Groot rose and paced off the maple boards of the floor to the entrance of Leander’s room; he was looking in, but his eyes seemed to be focused on infinity. “No, that wasn’t the chap,” he continued, turning. “That fellow had a father living. I remember distinctly, because it struck me so curious that he always spoke of his father as if he were an elder brother. Yourson’s father isn't alive, is he?” he demanded abruptly, halting in front of her. She shook her head. “No,” she said with slow deliberation. “He is dead. You know the old saying,” she added, folding her work “**Ghosts can’t cross rivers.’"” She had accepted the fact of her husband’s death. She had put up a headstone for him in the graveyard, because she had never had any diffi- culty in conceiving death for him. and ride. The old gentleman ignored the insult; when he was so feeble he couldn't follow a pair of cattle he wouldn't bother anyone any more, not even the cattle, but would fold his hands and lay himself out It was Gran'ther Noah's thoughts on the approaching hereafter that had inaugurated this expedition, This morning, grinding his adz in the mists of dawn, it had occurred to him it was high time he should go fetch the headstone under which, he had determined long ago, he could sleep peacefully through eternity. He had therefore solicited the aid of Jason and his pair of cattle to get the stepstone of his father’s house. Since only bats and owl now tenanted the old Seymour place, and only ghosts crossed the threshold, Jason readily consented to lend a hand in the sentimental journey. When they finally turned in at the Seymour homestead there was nothing left of the once-busy thoroughfare but a memory that burned in the old man’s eyes as he gazed up at this stubborn relic of the past grandeur of his tine Jason turned the stags loose to graze, noting uncertain paths, probably of deer, stamped in the rank grass of the dooryard. The old man was sitting on the stepstone. “T’ve cracked butternuts on it,” he said. “I’ve skinned bullheads on it! I set here nights, looking at the stars, thinking and listening!’’ He took a villainous-looking toad-stabber and whetted its edge on the smoothed granite that had known so many feet. ‘And now I want to lie under it when I die!’’ announced gran’ther, knocking out Coming Home From the his pipe and going to work Continued on Page 79

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sre—arenanenenemerreraer eam ee LST aT 14 THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29,1923 ACCORDING TO HIS EY! from New York, when Jimmy O’Mar whe same cheerful, red-faced, high-spirited Jimmy he remem- fell on him with laughter and questions and talk that have [ire queer foreshortening of time began in the train bered of things seemed to By C. E. Scoggins ILLUSTRATED Br lL. EVANS PARCELL That night Herman Sauers, driver of Yellow Taxi No. 16, having a little relaxation at rummy in the Hamburger Lunch & Pool Room, remarked between dealing the cards and sorting his hand, ‘“‘ Funny bird, Doe Locklin is.” The player on his left, absently happened yester day. ItwasJimmy who first asked him: “Say, Perry, what about all this glamour of the you read about? They say it gets into a man. You know, ‘They all come back!’ How about it? Anything in it?” And Perry Locklin, thinking of bitter loneliness and pain, an swered lightly, mildly, which was Locklin’s way, “Can't say there's much glamour in uncomfort- and home- sick, Maybe I didn't go to the right place.” In the trailing edge of a summer dusk, a dusk that was oddly long, the train rolled into Muncie. The dark, silent facto- jes were familiar. The bustle at the station reminded him of the night he had slipped away, a fugitive. The tropics being able munching a sand- wich and frowning at cards that wouldn’t match, inquired, ‘‘Doc Locklin? Seems to me I heard he was dead.” ‘‘Naw,”’ said Herman. ‘“‘Came in on Eighty to- night. And I ast him where he wanted to go, and he says, ‘What? Oh! Why, some hotel, I guess,’ like he hadn’t thought about it till that minute. And I ast him which hotel, and he ast me which was the best one. You'd ’a’ thought he was a stranger in Mun- cie. Acted kind of rattled.” “Smart doctor he is, though,’’ said the player on his right. “‘ Didn't he get a medal or somethin’ durin’ the war, for some operation he in- vented or some- thin’? There was a picture in the papers.” “Yeah,” said taxi driver knew him; the hotel clerk seemed vaguely to recognize his name; along Washington Street he knew every house, every old-fashioned carriage block, every window shining through the maples. It was all as he remembered it, this street of homes. Nothing was strange but himself, that he should be walking here like any other man. How long is two years? you spend it. He had wired Emmy from New York, saying little. What could he say except that he was coming home? He knew he ought to telephone before he went to the house, but he didn't. He couldn't. That way her voice would sound far off, placeless, like a voice remembered across four thousand miles. He had lived too long with memories; reality was what he needed in every nerve. He knew how many steps it took to cross the wide, vine- darkened porch, the exact location of the bell. Old Amos Kay himseif came to the door, peering out. “How are you, Mr. Ray? It’s Perry Locklin.” Ray was not cordial, suspending judgment. Emmy’s father Locklin knew every chair, every picture; even the lie of the rugs was hardly changed. How long is two years? He was an alien figure in this familiar room, his thin face burned oddly dark, all spare flesh dried from him, his blue eyes diffident and somber He heard Emmy’s voice, incredibly the same that he remembered “Who is it, father? It’s not—is it Locklin answered steadily for himself, “It’s Perry.” Then Emmy came; flying, as he had dreamed she would! But in the door she stopved, came slowly, one step at a time, her gray eyes questioning. She was uncertain like himself He had almost forgotten that she was so little; boyish and slim and vividly alive as he remembered her, infinitely dear. What right had he to love her? What could he say? He stood silent, humble Only his thin brown hands, in their unconscious bor- rowed Latin habit, turned a little out as if to say, “I have no plea to make. Judge me,” It depends on where and how He was ” Ah, But Men Were Splendid Savages! Her Father and Her Two Lovers, How They Fought for Wert But Emmy knew. Yes, with eyes made for laughter, Emmy had learned to read the brand of loneliness and pain. She smiled; it choked him to see how that smile wavered at the corners; of themselves his hands went out and hers came into them— her own strong little hands. “Perry!"’ she whispered. “Perry boy! You've had a hard time—somewhere.”’ Forgiving, asking nothing! “There are—things I’ve got to tell you.” “No, Perry! Not now. Please let’s get used to having you home again. I won’t have you looking so thin and tired and sad. You're home. You hear? You're home, and nothing matters.” And when he hesitated, this serious, humble man, she clapped her hands upon her hips and tapped her foot and very fiercely scowled; and Perry Locklin laughed and caught her in his arms and knew he had come home at last. Emmy, being a woman, laughed and cried too; but being an American woman, she fished his handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed her eyes and pretended she had only been laughing too hard. “I've got thousands of things to tell, myself, and it’s my turn first. Did you know Kitty and Ed Arliss were married? Yes, little Kitty McDonald; can you imagine it? And listen! You know the tree you used to swear at, the one that used to spoil a long tee shot on the eighteenth hole? Somebody went out there one night and sawed it down. Fact! The grounds committee were fairly red-headed about it, but what could they do? Jimmy O'Mara wants to put up a monument to the unknown villain. [t made me think of you.” Very perfectly he understood her; this was the American way. She sighed and added, “A-—a good many things made me think of you.” “T know. I know.” That was how Perry Locklin came home to Muncie, Oh, there was gossip enough! No mean city is Muncie, In- diana. Forty thousand it claims, and even the cold-blooded census gives it thirty-six; but at heart it is a little town. The fringes of it make a city, but its heart is the village of forty years ago, solid, unchanging, tranquil. A man can’t vanish here and reappear without making talk. Herman. ‘‘Ow! Who dropped that six of clubs?” Yes, there was talk. J.C. O’Mara, manager of McDon- ald’s department store on Walnut Street, said to his wife at supper: “Who do you think I came from New York with? Perry Locklin. Nothin’ different; Perry himself. And say, you ought to see him! Black as an Indian. First I thought he’d been playin’ a lot of golf, and I was kiddin’ him about how many strokes he’d have to give me now. But he swears he hasn’t touched a club in two years. Pass the potatoes, will you, Floss?” “I’m awfully glad,” said his wife, her eyes shining. “Glad Perry’s off his game?”’ “Who said anything about Perry’s game? Glad he’s come home—on Emmy’s account. It isn’t natural, the way she’s never opened her mouth about him. I bet she knew where he was all the time.” “Aw,” said J. C., “there wasn’t any mystery about it. He told me. Been runnin’ a hospital for a fruit company down in Honduras or Brazil or one of those hot countries; I forget.” “Well, why did he keep it so quiet?” **Maybe he don’t like to write letters any better than I do. Or maybe,” said J. C. O’Mara, looking at his wife, “he had reasons.” “You know what I used to think?” “Yeah,” said her husband briefly. ‘‘ And if I was you I wouldn’t go around guessin’ about it, Floss. You don’t want to do Perry any dirt, and you can’t always be sure you're among friends. Talk can do a doctor a lot of damage, you know.” “You think he’s come back to stay?” “Says he don’t know yet what he'll do.’ “T bet you it depends on Emmy.” “Dream on! That boy’s a born bachelor. Used to play around with Emmy because she was a good sport, like a man; that’s all.” “Oh, fountain of wisdom!” said his wife disrespectfully. “You know so much about it, I'll just bet you he’s sitting on her front porch this minute.”’ “What’ll you bet?” “A box of golf balls against ten pounds of candy.” “You're on! ,

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. f ' Innocently they strolled past the house of Amos Ray. Not a sound. Innocently Florence O’Mara cast her hook into the darkness. “Hi, Emmy!” “Oh, is that you, Floss? Hello, Jimmy. Come in.” “Can’t, thanks. Why, hello, Perry! I didn’t see you,” said Mrs. O’Mara truthfully. “Jimmy told me you'd come. How’'ve you been? No, no, we can’t stop. Just walking around the block. What did you say, Jimmy?” “I said sufferin’ catfish!’’ retorted the brazen O’ Mara. ‘Perry, you have done me dirt. You owe me a box of golf balls.” “Give me time!” said Perry Locklin. He understood these people. They were his friends. Why did they seem unreal, the figures of a dream? He knew there would be talk; he was braced for that braced even to admit the truth if they guessed it, and live it down. But courage was no defense against the thing that happened-~-a stranger thing. He didn’t know why he fell into troubled silence. Emmy herself, slim and alive and sweet against his shoulder, tell- ing him homely things, droll things, bravely trying to make him laugh and forget—-not even Emmy could draw him into the peace of home. He did not feel the finger of enchantment reaching across four thousand miles. Only a drifting perfume in the summer darkness, the smell of flowers somewhere. Rincén Moreno, a remote place, lost in the majesty of sky and mesa. An ancient garden in the hills beyond the Suchi range; high stars that blurred before the eyes of memory, and Maura weeping. A queer thing, glamour, that can make a man forget the things he knows. um HIS is the dream that has tricked many a beaten man: Let go, let everything go! Sink into the languorous tropics and be lost. Drift through warm nights and sunny days that slip uncounted; no more struggle, nobody to care, only an easy drifting to an end—some end, somewhere. So pure, beautiful, far off and cool and blue against the sky; infinitely peaceful, infinitely wild. And there was life behind thase hills. There was a trail the feet of men had made before any horse was ever seen on this coast. Sometimes men came down, bringing coffee or a few packs of hides or wool, taking back cotton cloth or mirrors for their women; grave, simple men who thought Ternura was the metropolis of the world. Surely, out there somewhere a man could lose himself. Month after month he dreamed of that, as he never dared now to dream of Muncie, Indiana; as he never dared to dream of Emmy Ray. Sat and gazed and dreamed, and only that. Perry Locklin at,thirty was a beaten man, alive by habit, not by his own will. It was a small thing that set him in motion in the end, a foolish thing; but Locklin’s nerves were stretched beyond endurance. The shipping season was about to begin; a boat was due soon. It did not tempt him; no escape that way. Ports were full of people—people like Hale, who never forgot he was a white man; people like Foster, too fat and stupid to have nerves. “Up a dollar. Up again. That's good!” Three-handed poker is a dull game at best, and on this night Foster was more fatly monotonous than usual “Up two dollars. Up three. Up five. That’s good, dammit!” Five light cards are not much to throw, but Locklin did his best. They sailed erratically past Foster's aston- ished ears. “Hey! What's the matter, doc?”’ “Up! Up! Up!” raged Perry Locklin. ‘“‘We don’t want your money, you fat fool! We want a game! A game! How can anybody play poker with a parrot?” “Oh, I say now!” Hale, sweated and burned to whale- bone and leather, was always slow and conservative in speech. “TI say now, doctor, this won’t half do. You're not yourself, you know!”’ THE SATURDAY EVENING POST iS This was the exact truth, of course; the truth, which no man in Locklin’s condition could endure. He turned crazily on Hale, mocking the Englishman's flat accent. Hale sat still and watched him. Hale had seen men crack before. “Of course, if you feel like that,’’ said he,.‘“‘there’s only one thing to do. I shall send out for another medico as soon as the boat comes; but I’m afraid you'll. just have to keep a grip on yourself until you are relieved.” “Have to? Have to? I don’t have to do anything I'm through! I’m through now! I’m going out on the first boat!”’ “What? You can't, You have patients in the hospital, man !”’ “Quinine! Catharties! Quinine! Any fool can do it You can; or Foster; or your stirrup mozo, I'm a surgeon, not a pill peddler. I’m going!’’ “You can't,” said Hale with the cold finality of con- tempt. ‘It’s the sort of thing that simply isn’t done.” This was Hale's religion: A white man stayed on the job until it was finished or until he was relieved or until he died. It had been Locklin’s too. Yes; once he had stayed on a job until it was finished, and this was all that was left of him—a thing in the haggard shape of a man, who cracked because it was too long between boats, yet was unable to endure contempt. He waited till the boat came. Then, stonily calm, he put the hospital in order and turned his back on Ternura; not by boat, but horseback, riding inland to the hills. By sundown the jungle had thinned and fallen away; he rode on, climbing, climbing, the wild bulk of the Suchi range rising higher and higher before him. He was neither tired nor hungry. He did not feel the cold of thinner air; all night he climbed toward the stars. Surely, out here where white men never came, a man could lose himself! No man can lose himself. Let him ride fast and far, himself rides runs the dream. It was in Ternura that Perry Locklin had tried to lose himself. Ternura—the man who named the place must have done it in a fit of irony. The word means tender- ness. Oh, Ternura has warm nights and sunny days. Seven months of the year the sky is cloudless. Drought? No. There is the sea at your elbow; there is the moist breath of the jungle, like invisible steam; even sweat never dries ex- cept inthesun. And when it rains it rains for weeks on end; some- times a slashing fury of water that rips the banana trees to ribbons, sometimes only a pouring from never-emptied skies, shutting men in until they hate one another. True, it makes things grow. You can almost see them grow. A ba- nana tree grows many feet in a season, and is cut down for its sin- gle bunch of fruit, and grows again. Yes, life is plentiful. It sings in the air at night; the water you drink is full of it, invisible. That is why the fruit company has a hospital at Ternura, Hale and Foster— these were the important men; they got out the bananas. They accepted Perry Locklin because he made a third hand for poker; they took quinine when he advised it; but they never asked him where he came from, or why. Old-timers in the tropics do not ask personal questions. A queer beggar, this doctor, Hale would have told you; quiet, unassuming, a gentleman when his nerves were right; at times im- possible, lapsing into sullen shift- less moods. The work made little demand on Locklin’s skill—per- manganate for insect bites, quinine and cathartics for malaria—or even on his time. Most of his idle hours he sat gazing at the distant hills. They quieted him. Behind him lay the past and failure and the sea. Here was the dull and ugly truth Ternura, where there was no ten- derness. But inland, high above with him—anywhere under the stars; even, perhaps, beyond mm — means corner, nook, a remote place. The long white walls of Rincén Moreno lie snug under the hills that shelter them. The storms sweep harmless over- head; the rains fall gently there; the days are very like the sweetest of spring days in Muncie, the nights cool like autumn. It is a healthful place, too high for the fevers of the lowland; a pleasant* place of farms and rolling mesa dotted with feeding herds, know- ing little of the world and needing less. Yet a curse came on it, Even the good padre admitted it before he died. A strange sickness; at first only a sneezing and an aching of the bones; then cold that blan- kets would not warm; then fever; and if the sick ones lived they were the color of dead men, without strength. Mostly they died —the strongest first The padre, for instance, was not only good, he was fat, the picture of health. When he fell down in chapel they carried him to bed and gave him the best of care; four days and nights the door was shut to keep the air from him—-it is well known that air is deadly to sick or wounded men-—the room weil warmed with braziers of glowing charcoal; but he died. Many of those who cared for him died too The dry and useless suffered least. Vaqueros, horsemen of bronze and steel who feared no living thing, felt terror and took horse and fled; but the hand of Ged reached after them, spreading the sickness. Don Luis, the young master, was sick, dying with no priest to pray forhim. Old Joaquin Ynclan, the mayordomo, was sick; and Maura, his daughter, one morning woke with stinging in her dainty nose. Maura was afraid to tell anyone that she had sneezed, She powdered her nose to hide the the line of rank green growth and swift decay, the Suchi range rose “I Have Suffered,’’ He Said Quietly; “But Not Too Much"’ telltale redness; she dressed her Continued on Page 46)

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16 CADDIES After the Drive the Players and Caddies Ceme menced the Descent, But the New Boy Achieved it Most Successfully ARTIN TOMBES came M into the men’s lounge of the Appletree Golf Club waving fragments of a newspaper in such a manner that all present knew he had read something therein not to his complete satis- faction. “Listen to this,"’ he bellowed. “Of all the nitwit yodels, this car- ries off the finger bowl.” “Well,”’ asked Weevil with ir- ritating placidity, ‘‘what is it?” ‘Caddies{’’ exclaimed Mr. Tombes, “Whatever it says about 'em is true-—whether it is or not,” said MeWhinney. ‘It says,’’ declared Mr. Tombes, “that it’s immoral and degradin’ to be a caddie, and there ought to be a law to prevent it.” ‘*Who says it?’’ de- manded Mr. Wills, getting to his feet with the deus intention of searching out the slanderer and attending to the matter then and there “Some female member of a Society to Prevent Cruelty to Clay Pigeons or some- thin’,”” said Tombes. “She says caddies are on the hila- rious skidway to damna- tion. She says they hear bad language and learn to amoke and get idle habits and lose forever what chance they got to be- come valuable citizens. She says associa- tion with loafers who haven't got anything 4 better to do than all pelt a_ pill around a field is THE SATURDAY EVENING POST necessarily demoralizin’, and that in the vain and vile pur- suit they lose all sense of honor and decency and never learn anything and get to be bums. She also says boys of that age need exercise.” “Exercise?”’ gasped MceWhinney. “That was the word.” “*What does she call carrying a bag with ten clubs in it for a matter of eight or nine miles a day? Eh? Say! I suppose she kind of looks at that as a mental pastime like layin’ in a hammock guessin’ riddles.” “*Mebby I’m a loafer,” said Perry Flagg, “but if forty year of hard labor don’t entitle me to an afternoon off in my declining days, then the reward of virtue ought to be a coat of tar and feathers. And I’m a vestryman too.” “Huh,” grunted Old Man Arkwright; “about the cussin’ part. What I want to ask, b’jing, is this: Hain’t it better for a boy to be with eddicated men that know how and goes at it scientific, than to learn his cussin’ from the ignorant masses?” “‘Demoralizing!"’ snorted Weevil. ‘What's the basis of golf anyhow? It’s ethics. Yes, sir. There’s more ethics and decorum and that kind of wham- mus in golf than there is in anything else going. Why, if every man lived his life by the rules in the golf book he’d come pretty close to bein’ perfect.” “And don’t we take an in- terest in the boys? Why, I got three ex-caddies working for me now--and doing good too.” This from Absalom Parkes, the official complainer of the club. “Also about honor and de- cency and them intangibles,” said Old Man Arkwright—‘‘ you jest let a kid caddie for a couple years and see if he hain’t got no- tions of them things that would curl your hair. Yes, sir. I never see no class of folks so particular about them things than caddies is. Yes, and where'd them cad- dies be if they wasn’t caddyin’? Somebody tell me that. Shootin’ craps, by heck! I tell you they git idees instilled into them that’s good for ’em.” “Boys is boys,” said Martin Tombes profoundly. “They’re wise birds,’’ said McWhinney. “I'd rather have the opinion of the caddies of this club about the character of a man than the best report of a commer- cial agency. And they know what’s what, and why it is.” “The trouble with these reformers,” said Weevil, ‘‘is that they’re runnin’ out of raw material. It’s a kind of a disease that’s got to break out some place, and it don’t care where so long 's it’s painful.” “Every decent club super- vises its caddies,” said President Olney. “If we haven't a well- behaved lot of kids here, then I don’t want a cent.” “They earn good money and have a good time and form asso- ciations that’re dog-gone useful to ’em if they got any ambition,” said Wills. ‘‘ What more can you ask? I s’pose every player ought to read the Elsie books to his caddie between shots.” It was asunny Oc- tober noon hour, and Weevil and Wills and MeWhinney wan- dered out of the December 29,1925 By Clarence Budington Kelland rTrELUVU FS TRA TE DO Br mM. BLUMENTHAL lounge to smoke in the pleasant outdoors before starting their afternoon foursome. They sat down on a bench at the left of the locker house not far from the caddie pen; indeed, the fence and hedge shutting in the youngsters were almost at their backs. The trio did not intend to eaves- drop, but shrill young voices carry, and anybody will listen to an interesting conversation if it comes to his ears free of charge. “Who was you carryin’ fer this mornin’, Pink?” a voice asked. ““Waddy Brown.” “How much ’d he, now, tip you?” “Half a buck; but, say, I’d rather carry for any of them quarter guys that ain’t so stuck on theirselves. He’s too fresh. Nothin’ ain’t never his fault. Alibi Ike, that’s him.” “I was carryin’ for North.” “New member, ain’t he?"’ “Yeh. Dunno how they, now, let him in. “What ails him? Grouch?” “Anything else but. P’lite, that’s his line. One of these apologizin’ guys. But say, Pink, if the caddie master hollers for me to git his bag ag’in I won’t do it—not if I’m sent home for good.” “No tip?” “Dollar.” “Wow! If you don’t want his bag you can, now, hide behind a bush and I'll git it. Dollar guys ain’t so thick in this club.” “When a caddie gits a dollar tip it’s for somethin’. I got a five-dollar tip oncet, but that was all right, ‘cause Weevil he, now, busted ninety the first time in his life and went nutty. But this here dollar was ’cause North thought I seen him—and I did.” “Seen him what?” “Drop a ball!” There was a hush, then an indignant voice: ‘‘ How come? He didn’t neither. A member wouldn't drop a ball.” “I seen him, and he done it.” “Was they money up?” “They was, but that don’t make no difference, does it, hey? Now what difference if they was money up? They was playin’, wasn’t they? And he dropped a ball, and whether they was a bet don’t count.”” MeWhinney nudged Weevil at this point. It showed a surprisingly nice ethical discernment. “T never knowed of a man, now, droppin’ a ball before,”’ said a bated voice. ‘‘ They’d make him resign.” **Sure.”” “You hadn’t ought to have said that about a member if you ain't pos’ tif.” “I tole you I seen it. It was on the fourt’ hole and he drove into the woods. We all lined up and looked fer it, but it wasin them dead leaves you know.” “Yeah.” “Well, we looked for p ten minutes, and then ©** » this here North he, now, walked out on the fair- wey, and I seen him drop a ball down his leg, and then he hollers out, ‘Here she is! Must ’a’ hit a tree and bounded onto the fairway.’”’ **Mebby ‘twas hisn.”’ “} was caddyin’ for him, wasn’t 1? Think I wouldn’t know his ball? This ’n he dropped had a nick in it where he’d topped it.” “What'd he do then?” “Kind of apologized for findin’ it, like he was sorry it didn’t stay lost, and then he won the hole with a four and collected three syndicates.” “He’s a dirty crook!” “*Tain’t none of our business anyhow. We’re nothin’ but caddies.” “It ain’t, hey? You gimme a pain, Whity! S’posin’ he done somethin’ like that and one of us got blamed fer it, eh? S’posin’ that. S’posin’ he done somethin’ crocked and got caught, and blamed it onto his caddie. S’posin’ it got to be knowed he was a crook, wouldn’t members think kids that caddied for him was crooks tou? How’d you like it, now, if members was to say you teed your man’s

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ih Se gen ball up for him in the rough or improved his lie, or some- thin’? S’posin’ that!” “Specially when he tips a dollar.” “They ain’t nothin’ we kin do about it.” “I tell you what I’m goin’ to do, and you jest watch me. You jest keep your old lamp peeled, that’s all. Just you look at me if ever he pulls a thing like that on me ag’in. I ain’t goin’ to stand for it. “No, sir; you jest watch me. I won’t say nothin’ to nobody, but I’ll lay down his ole bag and go to the club- house. That’s me.” ““What’ll you say to the caddie master? “‘Nothin’.”’ “You'll have to. He'd fire you.” “Then he'll haf to.” “Huh, I see you tee up a ball oncet—for McWhinney.” “‘T didn’t know no better. It was, now, the first week I caddied, and that was three years ago. McWhinney he caught me at it too. Say, there’s a good guy. Kind of ” “‘ Anyhow, if I ever, now, ketch a kid here monkeyin’ with his man’s ball I’m a-goin’ to kick the stuffin’ out of him.” Weevil and Wills and McWhinney arose and stole softly away. “T don’t suppose there’s any questioning the evidence,” said Wills. “No,” said McWhinney; “Jacky got the goods on him.” “How'd he ever put it over on those sleuths on the membership commiittee?’’ Weevil wondered “‘Maybe that’s not the sort of fellow he is,” said Wills charitably. ‘Possibly it’s one of these one-time things. He might have fallen for it on the spur of the moment, and have worried his heart out about it ever since." ‘Like McWhinney did in the finals of the President’s Cup a year ago—when he finished the thirty-sixth hole and found, or thought he found, he'd been playing somebody else’s ball.” “I don’t think yet it was mine. I must have played six holes with it.” THE SATURDAY EVENING POST i7 merciful members figured that Providence would be acting only fairly if North lost a couple of legs in a sawmill. But nothing happened to North, who continued to win golf matches and bets and tournaments—for he was a first- class golfer “There’s always a way out,” said Weevil. “‘My grand- father used to say there were more ways to get off « man’s pants than by trying to pull them over his head.” “He isn’t the resigning kind.” ‘What if a committee waited on him and asked him to vamoose?”’ ‘He's the sort of oily bird to stand on his rights. He'd demand trial and vindication. That 'ud be him.” “And, of course, we haven't hanging evidence.” “Not unless we call caddies as witnesses—and that wouldn't do, But we know.” “The caddies know. It’s their chief article of conversa- tion.” “Um,” said McWhinney speculatively. Weevil anc Wills and McWhinney Arose and Stole Softly Away tight, and gits awful sore when his game goes back on him, but a good guy.” Weevil punched MeWhinney. “He ain’t got no game to go back on him.’ “That's all you know. The’s days when he, now, plays golf! If he’d quit edgin’ in front of his ball. He’s got to keep it off his left toe or he can’t hit nothin’ but the grass behind it. But McWhinney’s a good ole guy. He caught me at it, but he didn’t say nothin’ then, only I seen him muff a shot deliberate and jose that hole.. He had a right to bawl me out right there, but he never done it.” “What'd he do?” “He waited till we come in, and then he give me my tip and asks me if I’m a new caddie. I says I am, and he takes me in his car and rides me to town, and all the way he talked to me, not bawlin’ me out, but kind of, now, ex- plainin’ things, and how a feller was a good sport or he wasn’t, and how to play the game was to play it as it come, and that it was bad medicine to tee up balls or any- thin’ that was cheatin’, and that reg’lar guys never done it, and all that, I got the idee.” “Some fellers ’ud ’a’ made b’lieve they never seen you.” “‘And some’d ’a’ bawled you out and got you fired.” “T thought we were going to have to send you to a sani- tarium,”’ said Wills, ‘before you could get in touch with the tournament committee and Wiggins. Wiggins was a sport though. He wouldn't play it over.” But it seemed that Mr. North’s fall from golfing grace was not one of those one-time things. Whispers began to be heard in the locker room and in the lounge and on the fairways. Nobody had caught him red-handed, so to speak, but suspicions were flashing about like heat light- ning of an August evening, and the Appletree Golf Club was decidedly upset. It hoped, as a matter of fact, that Mr. North would not be caught with the goods, because that would mean a report to the green committee and to the board of governors, a hearing of evidence and the expulsion of a member. This would be very embarrassing indeed, for no club wishes the world to know that it elects the sort of member who must be expelled for unfair prac- tices. Of course secrecy obtains in such affairs, but never- theless there is always a leak, and some version, garbled or accurate, trickles through to the gossips of the vicinage. However, everybody had a feeling that something must be done about it. Prayers were offered that Mr. North be summoned permanently to Timbuktu on business; less They were just starting for the first tee. McWhinney’s bag was being carried by Jacky, a pert, bright-eyed youngster whose knickerbockers, handed down from a larger brother, dangled about his shoe tops. Whity had Weevil’s bag, and a tiny kid called the Microbe was carry- ing for Wills. As they walked down the fairway after their drives McWhinney spoke rather loudly to Weevil. “It’s a bad thing,” he said, ‘for a golf club te have a man in it who cheats.” ‘Did you just think that up,"’ Weevil asked, “‘or did you read it in a book?” “A man like that ought to be gotten rid of,"" McWhinney said; ‘‘ but sometimes it is impossible for the board of gov- ernors to do it. And if they could it would make the kind of talk no club likes.”’ “Yes, yes. Go on.” “The slickest way, in such cases, is to make that man want to resign from the club.” “How?”’ “That’s the question. But I'll tell you what, Weevil, if I were a caddie in a club, and I knew one of the members was cheating, I'd see to it he resigned. Might get a caddie Continued on Page 72)

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HERE opened for Eunice a ([semaniabie period of her life, and yet one which does not lend iteelf easily to narration he- cause its flow was so even. She became for a time that rare thing—a secure woman. Mattis had long been merely a looming figure on the horizon of her past; now he had fallen below al! her horizons as a harbinger of storm. In that réle he would come no more. Io was in school by day, and new occupations and contacts made of her a very sleepy person by nightfall. Drake was away. Eunice could sit still for a little and look out at life. As the months passed she smiled more and more often, sometimes with only her eyes or only her lips, but on rare occasions with a glowing itlumination of all her features. Certain events transpired, of course, to break this calm, one of which was of indisputable im- portance, But as for the rest, with what yardstick shall one measure tne interest in mere hap- penings? Such, for instance, as the almost simultaneous passing of the judge’s mother and Tom's ancient horse, Alexander, in the spring of 1904. Here are two occurrences of a striking disparity. Is there a doubt as to which was the more important? There is--according to the point of view. The judge grieved genuinely for his mother, but to [o at ten and Drake at sixteen, her death meant nothing at all, occupying as it did but an infinitesi- mal point in their private histories as they sat spellbound on the steps of Rattling Run Fields and listened to Tom. “Yes, sir,”” he asseverated, a solemn expression on his bearded face as of one who contemplates in. recollection something prodigious, ‘‘no other horse ever did it before him. Yousee, it was this way: He grew fatter and fatter solid. When you rubbed him down, press as hard as you mighi, you couldn't make a dent in him anywhere. I tried cutting down his feed, and he ate the manger and grew fat- ter than ever on that, One night he must of just gone up to the fence and pushed it down with settling his weight to it. Then is when he did the thing I’m telling you. He picked out the-apple tree with the most blooms on it. Like a great bouquet it was, round and fat as himself, only sweeter smelling. He leaned up against the trunk of that tree, fixed his legs just so and died standing up. Stiff as a grand piano when I found him—yes, sir—standing up!"’ Tom stared wide-eyed at the children and they wide- eyed at him. What was Mrs. Alder’s death tolo? Nothing. But the picture of her supercilious friend Alexander, moun- tainously fat, sleek as a mirror, jet-black, miraculously upright in death, unique to the last as he leaned stiff-legged against the stem of a mighty, sweet-scented bouquet of sheltering apple blessoms—that picture would live as long as she; perhaps pass down to her children and her chil- dren’s children, This was the summer of Drake’s return from his first year at school as a boarder; and owing to an exceptional circumstance, he proceeded, not to the judge’s house but directly to Rattling Run Fields. With him went Io in charge of Nora, a maid who had been long in attendance on the late Mrs. Alder, but who was now delivered hand and foot to a sort of gaping allegiance to her new charge. She did not so much minister to Io as stand by and gasp. The exceptional circumstance and the event of indis- putable importance previously mentioned were one and the same, and are summed up in the advent of William Alder, Jr., a8 son and heir to the judge. Presumably all babies create a commotion upon arrival, but the effect of the coming of this particular infant seems to present some un- usual features. Let it be conceded that Drake took only one look, turned his back and dismissed the newcomer with the statement that he was too red; that the judge, troubled by what seemed a first close contact with the miraculous, went to war in his mind with the fact that in spite of his sensations millions of other men were also fathers; that Io, filled with a devouring curiosity, asked all those questions which have stumped and convulsed endless generations. Concede all that, and then look at Eunice, regarding her latest born as something phenomenal, in some subtle man- ner disconnected from her own or anybody else’s past. By George Agnew Chamberlain rEeLrvuvues TRA TF E DO Yr 1 ® Undaunted, Io Crept Down the Limb, Breaths ing in Little Gasps and Chuckling as She Went Here was a child who arrived out of a cerulean sky into an untroubled bourn; who came more to assuage than to demand, completing the empty gift of peaceful hours. Nothing to do but attend upon his needs; bathe him, clothe him and, with caught breath and a gasping prayer, watch him grow. ‘Not too fast; bea baby; stay just asa baby for a while!’ There had been an element of fierce- ness, almost primitive, in her possession of Drake and Io, but not a vestige of it tinged her attitude now. She shared this wonder, this animated plaything—and playmate. She was one of an admiring circle who regarded him with spell- bound eyes, and at his cry she would look around with a quizzical uncertainty before snatching him up, as if she needed to be reassured that he was hers. Behold Io and her mother alone with the baby. “Mother, when I’m thirteen will you tell me where you got him?”’ Eunice, a puzzled look in her eyes: “‘ Why, I'd tell you now if 1 knew. I’m not quite sure he’s mine. What do you think?” “T think he’s my half brother, and so does Nora. is, then he belongs half to me, doesn’t he?”’ “No,” said Eunice solemnly. ‘He belongs, I suppose, half to the judge and half to me. Out of my half, you and Drake get each a third, and a third of a half is one-sixth of a whole. So when he gets to be sixty you will own ten years of him.” “If you don’t mind,” said Io with her most winsome smile, “I'll take the first ten years.” “Oh, no!” cried Eunice, gathering up William Alder, Jr., taking both his crinkly feet in one of her hands and staring into his unfathomable eyes. ‘‘ Not the first ten!” Strange complexities are women; they feel the truth and talk nonsense. Enough has been said to indicate that the judge’s home was a happy one, in rare accordance with its aspect from without. To see him pass up the walk from the maple- fronded street, pause halfway and bare his head, was to perceive a man in an unconscious act of reverence to which halting tongue could never have given expression. A big square house with lowered wings, looking like a hen cover- ing her brood. Never had looked to him like that before. High white pilasters flanking the door, giving it the dignity and strength of a portal. Spaced upon the lawn, two great If he ERNE SS TF December 29,1923 blobs of box, round as the terres- trial sphere in which their im- memorial roots were set. Such were the stately adjuncts of an unobtrusive peace like unto that which reigned in Judge Alder’s face. There is a cruelty in contrasts which transcends the odiousness of comparisons, and it is more than unkind to leap from contem- plation of the haven which had given Eunice refuge to a glance at the latest of the residences of Tryer Mattis, for he permitted neither box nor grass to grow be- neath his feet. He built to sell there was nothing he would not sell; and upon looking at some of the monstros- ities of cement and gewgaws of which he disposed at a profit, one is tempted to add that there was nothing he could notsell. Here was the contradiction of the man at its worst. He who could tell the period of a bit of airy furniture with his eyes shut, put up half a dozen houses hideous to behold by reason of the very factor which made them attractive to himself and to certain others—-namely, their reénforced strength. Ivy cannot hide them; they will never rot nor bow to anything short of dynamite. In one of these unlovely settings Tryer lived with his two children and a maid of all work. His bearing to- ward Jimmy was that of any fafher toward a rather colorless son of twelve, but not so his attitude toward his daughter Lessie. How explain that this hulk of a man, who vaguely perceived in his daughter the struggting embodiment of all the un- developed qualities of greatness which he himself contained, had been goaded into detesting the sight of her? Who had goaded him? Lessie! By a not unusual twist of inherited blood she had certain manlike attributes, among them a sense of elemental jus- tice which led her to take uncompromising sides with her mother. Unfortunately, she had been old enough to under- stand the indiscreet and pitifully ineffectual rantings of Elizabeth against Tryer’s casual infidelities; and where he was apt to behold himself in the light of a conquering hero, as she grew older she saw only the talk of the town to whom all skirts were alike. Deeper, however, than this clear- sighted scorn was embedded another dominating motive she knew that she was the daughter of an unloved wife. Precocious? Yes. Well, given the necessary environment, all girls are precocious. But there was more to Lessie than the premature development of the faculties of perception. She was Tryer Mattis’ own daughter, and she despised and hated him. Given that premise, studying her strong, well-formed nose, her almond-shaped eyes and her mobile mouth, it takes little effort to imagine with what slicing words she managed to unflesh him in his own estimation or with what barbed darts it was her wont to arouse him to impotent fury. Afraid of him? Not since babyhood; certainly not since she had shrewdly instilled in his equally shrewd mind the belief that her ambition was to drive him to the point of doing her a lasting physical injury, thus placing in her hands an everlasting two-edged sword. One hesitates to state that both she and Tryer found morbid enjoyment in these bitter conflicts, not because tke assertion is untrue but because such psychological phenomena are not easily explained even when understood. The fact remains that when Tryer, after the shock of losing Eunice, recovered through the avenue of hard work successfully accomplished to an empty physical well-being, and plunged into an orgy of ignoble conquests to salve his self-esteem, Lessie was stirred to such a white heat of anger that she advanced on him, tore open his coat, and, before he realized her purpose, snatched out his well-filled wallet. With trembling hands which he dared not seize she opened it, pulled out a wad of papers— memoranda, notes written oe.

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in illiterate hands, souvenirs, railway passes—and scat- tered them scornfully on the floor. She sorted out all the money, flung the empty case in his face and walked out of the door, never again to reénter it. She was seventeen years old. Drake, returning from graduation and the passing with honors of his entrance examinations to college, stopped for a chat with his mother and Io, and then proceeded as a matter of course to Rattling Run Fields, where the pre- ceding summer, owing to the fortuitous advent of William Alder, Jr., had definitely established him. Eunice watched him go with a little twist to her lips and an unreadable gleam in her eyes. She was wondering if, baby or no baby, things would have been any different —if she would have dared give battle to Rattling Run Fields in ary case. “Drake,” said Io as she drove him out to the farm in her pony cart, “do you remember Lessie Mattis?”’ ““No—yes,” said Drake. ‘Yes, I remember her. Long nose and yellow hair.” “Well,” said Io, “she’s run away from her father. I guess they quarreled awfully, and perhaps she didn’t like him.” Drake smiled. **Perhaps she didn’t,’’ he agreed. An hour later he was in conference with Tom Bodley. “Well, Tom, what’s the news? What’s happened?” “Nothing,” replied Tom, out of a subdued glow of con- tent. ‘Nothing around here to mention. All folks has got to talk about when they ain’t working is that Tryer Mattis fought once too often with that girl of his and she run off.” “Yes, I heard about that,”’ said Drake indifferently. “Well, it’s anybody’s secret,’’ commented Tom. “I'll say that for her. She’s got so little to hide she does all her talking to him by wire, and he sends the money by return post. Thinking back, I guess he’s downright glad to be shut of her. Queer girl. You can’t rightly talk to girls; they don’t know how; but I would of liked to of talked to her more than to her mother or even Tryer at his best.” Drake’s interest was aroused. “Why?” he asked wonderingly. “‘Because she’s queer,” said Tom placidly. ‘ Never pass up a chance to talk to anyone that’s queer —queer being the vernacular for original.” *“What do you know about the vernacular, you old wine barrel? Come on out, Let’s go over the place—every inch of it.” They came upon Io conversing with the annual calf, which she promptly abandoned to follow them. Presently she thrust her hand into Drake's and left it there when his fingers closed lightly upon it. The three wandered from point to point, Tom showing what he had done in the way of cleaning things up, «::d Drake busy with speculation as to just where and how he might best apply the savings from his slender allowance. “‘Drake,”’ said Io, breaking into his reverie, stirring her hand and gripping his fingers with all her strength. “What is it?”’ “T want to stay here all day and all night. Please, Drake; please. Perhaps tomorrow too.” While his senses had been apparently unconscious of her the small hand in his had been doing its work. He looked down at her eager face and found there a note which rang true to the predominant chord in his own heart. “This is your home and mine, lo. Don’t ever forget it I guess you can stay here whenever you like later on, but I don’t know about tonight—not without mother saying so. So you trot along back.” A few hours later Tom, as he prepared supper, remarked that lo must have taken asnack before she went. At nine o’clock, when he and Drake were seated on the front steps laying plans for the morrow, the judge, with Funice beside him, drove up and came to a halt before them. “Where's Io, Drake?” asked Eunice in a low voice “Io!” cried Drake, springing to his feet. ‘‘Why, she went back hours ago!” ** Are you sure?” “No; I’m only sure I sent her. Tom Tom was already on his way to the barn and acknow!l- edged Drake’s call only with a grunt over his shoulder. Presently he returned. “Cart’s in the barn,” he said; “pony watered, fed and bedded, and I guess Io is too. I told Drake I seen signs of her having took a snack.” With Drake leading the way, Eunice and the judge en- tered the house and went upstairs. The moon was striking at a long slant into the room which had been the children’s and now was Drake’s. On a chair were Io’s little dress petticoat and stockings, neatly folded; beneath it her shoes. On the big bed, lost and yet not lost in its midst, was Io herself, one bare arm outthrown, the other doubled beneath the dark blot of her disheveled hair. She was asleep, immersed, profoundly still. THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 19 There was a long silence. No one moved, but Eunice’s eyes took on a startled look as they wandered along the walls from bed to window, from window to low ceiling and door. How strange was everything, and yet how poign- antly familiar, embedded and rooted in recollection! Take a trunk and pack into it old clothes, things you don’t mind mussing; it becomes bottomless, miraculously capacious. This house was like that, packed with memories, old memo- ries; for Drake and Io all the memories since the world began; for her By a visible effort she broke the cur- rent of her thought just short of that other room and War- ner, and of the flakes of snow like great white tears. She turned to Drake “Where will you sleep?”’ she asked quietly. “Oh, Tom will fix me up,” replied Drake, never taking his eyes from Io. “I can bunk anywhere.” On the way home Eunice said half to herself, half to the judge, “‘Is it possible that both of them love a place more than their mother?” He frowned and did not hurry to answer. “That isn’t right, Eunice,” he said finally; “you've missed something. Just think a minute. When they are in that house those children don't feel as if they were away from you. They — well, they can't.’ XXX F THE attitudes of a thousand assorted mothers toward their daughters between the age of thirteen and the day of marriage could be run through a clarifier and exposed to the mind’s naked eye, a curious world would gasp at the variegated exhibit, and decide that “mother,” after all, is not a generic term. The experiences of boys under mater- nal observation run, for the most part, along fixed parallel lines; but those of their sisters present a crisscross design amazing in its diversity. The reason is not far to seek. Grant that men are readable and women unreadable, even to each other—is that the answer? Only part of it Behind that generality lies a morass of complexities out of which we may pick the tendency of every mother to assume that her daughter’s girlhood is one with her own; that the same fears, questions, impulses and dangers which beset the path of her own youth attend the adolescence and bud- ding into womanhood of her girl. The assumption is just true enough to add bewilderment to confusion. The truth remains that a mother may know all the ins and outs of all Continued on Page 61 For a Long Time Neither of Them Spoke. Io Was in One of Her More Kindly Moods of Silence. She Was Dreaming, Drifting, Indifferent to His Presence

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20 THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29, 1925 SKOOKUM CHUC THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABRUPT TERMINATION LL the morning following the ad- A venture of the temporary pirate, X. Anaxagoras remained below decks closeted with the man who had so strangely arrived in the St. Lawrence skiff. To- ward noon he came on deck, closely followed by the newcomer. The latter had lost some- thing of his nervous tensity, but his eyes still burned deeply in their sockets. Only when they rested on the Healer of Souls did their expression soften some- what and a faint and vague bewilderment film their brightness He watched Anaxagoras much as a dog watches ite master “TI have persuaded Mr. Norcote that he will best reach the end of his journey in our com- pany,” announced X. Anaxagoras cheerfully. “He fee's that, though it is too late to have any practical effect, it is due the world and the relatives of those aboard to learn how the Maru perished. We will have lunch, and then hoist the dinghy aboard. We will tow Mr. Norcote’s boat.” Under this arrangement they journeyed all the daylight hours of the next two days, dropping anchor in snug coves at night. The stranger had little to say, except to Anax- agoras, with whom he spent much time in the pilot house. He slept at odd periods and waked at odd periods, like Noah, with whom he spent queer night hours on deck. Marshall and Betsy, under instruction from Anaxagoras, did not press him with company, but treated him casually. They had talked it out the first evening of their journey. The anchor was down and all stowed. “I'll borrow your boat to get some water, if you don’t mind,”’ Anaxagoras said to Norcote. “Just have an eye to see if the anchor bites, will you? Want to come along?”’ he asked Marshall and Betsy with a significance that caused their instant acceptance. They beached the boat, took the water cans, and walked toward a little ravine where possibly water might be found. Once out of sight of the Kittiwake, however, Anaxagoras sat down on a log. “ Now listen,” said he; and gave them their directions. “Is it possible he might turn dangerous?” Marshall suggested. “Dangerous? Why?” “He's crazy, isn’t he?” “ Boards of }unacy would call him’so, and commit him to an asylum. And that would be as great a crime, in its way, as the one he talks of. As a matter of fact, he is not at all crazy. His mental processes are quite clear and logical.” “But his story eS “That does not happen to be based on fact,” acknowl- edged Anaxagoras, “but it is not at all crazy. Indeed, it is perfectly sane in its logic and its sequences; remarkably so. He remembers it with great accuracy, just as it occurred,” “But it didn’t occur!" objected Marshall. “Oh, yes, it occurred. But it occurred inside rather than outside, The only little point of confusion in Mr. Norcote’s mental processes is that he has forgotten that fact.” “But I don't quite see how " began Betsy. “Suppose, for example, that this experience had been a very vivid and detailed dream,” went on Anaxagoras, “or perhaps an invented story, a flight of the imagination. And suppose Mr. Norcote were aware of that. He would detail it to you, quite as interestingly, and as an experience that had happened to himself. Only he would tell it as an experi- ence that had happened inside him, and not outside. In the present case he has merely, and quite sincerely, con- fused the location of his experience.” “IT see your point,"’ conceded Marshall, ‘‘but in the one case a man appreciates the fact that he is inventing a story, piece by piece; and in the other case incidents present themselves to him ready-made and without his inter- vention,” “Not necessarily. The subconscious is quite capable of seizing on a tiny fragment, and with it as a starting point of building a complete and elaborate and entirely logical TELUS TRATE DO By Stewart Edward White Br CLARK \ * At Once on Mooring to the Float Betsy and Norcote Disappeared structure. Furthermore, it can and does accomplish this entirely beneath the threshold of the conscious attention. Then when that finished structure is finally presented to the conscious self, it appears to be complete and ready- made from outside the person, That happens constantly in the case of those in the artistic professions. “That, I conceive, is what happened in this case. Some little thing—perhaps that sentence in the Coast Pilot, perhaps an anecdote or story—started Mr. Norcote’s sub- conscious to work. Following, subterraneously, the logical sequence, it evolved this experience. I have not yet come to the point where I dare touch upon Mr. Norcote’s ante- cedents; but I hazard the guess that he is a writer of some sort. At the moment when normally this experience would have revealed itself to him as an inspiration for a corking good story, some aberration caused it to appear to him as a thing that happened. The rest is a mere matter of recollec- tion and of the narrating of that recollection.” “Isn't thac being crazy?” demanded Marshall “So the lunacy boards would hold,” repeated X. Anax- agoras, “but there is here no cerebral degeneracy or lesion, no essential confusion of process, no mistake even of reality—for thoughts are realities also, though of a differ- ent kind. It is a mere mistake of identification.” ““What prevents more mistakes in identification?” asked Marshall. “And why isn’t that lunacy?” “A pertinent question. More mistakes might occur; and it would be lunacy, so far as lunacy may be defined as a failure to codrdinate with material surroundings in approx- imately the same fashion that other human beings codr- dinate. And they will occur, unless not only the fact of this mistake can be brought to Mr. Norcote’s consciousness but also in a reasonable manner an explanation of exactly why = mistake occurred. Then in all probability he will be nafe.”’ “‘Psychoanalysis,”” observed Betsy. “Exactly; and a most interesting case.”’ “‘I see brother has another patient,’’ said she. u B hea after noon of the third day they arrived at Alert Bay. The Indian village—with its community houses and totern poles, the sawmill at one end, the salmon can- nery and hospital and wireless and white men’s houses at the other—offered a strange and interesting contrast. At once on mooring to the float Betsy and Norcote disappeared. “‘Sheis taking him to Doctor Matthews, who is the hospital head here, together with an explanatory note from me,”’ said the Healer of Souls. “‘I have asked him to enact the part of wire- less chief for the occa- sion, and to listen to the man’s story. It will re- lieve his mind of what he conceives to be a duty; so when he re- turns he will be at ease. I know Matthews well, and can rely on him to understand and to carry out my intention.” “T think I’ll look over the village,” suggested Marshall. “If you will kindly wait ten minutes,” re- quested Anaxagoras, and went into the cabin. Supposing that he wished to accompany him, Marshall thought nothing of it. In two minutes, however, he heard his name called, and descended the com- panion ladder to find himself once more in the presence of the white- clad professional. So long had it been since the last of these formal consultations that he experienced a slight shock of surprise. “Please be seated,”” X. Anaxagoras requested him for- mally. “Do you recall the day of the month?” Marshall calculated rapidly. “Why, it must be the twenty-second,” said he. “Precisely. Do you realize that today is the last of our three months’ agreement?” “Why, so it is! I hadn’t realized it.” “So our experiment is at an end. There remains to take stock of ourselves and come to a settlement.” Marshall reflected. Instantly he saw what course he intended to adopt. He remembered well the fantastic terms of the agreement —that in event of a cure he was to pay nothing but expenses, in event of a failure he was to pay ten thousand dollars. He tried to tell himself that he could not state positively whether or not he had sloughed off the old dead and exhausted indifference. To be sure, he now enjoyed the incidents and accidents of the cruise with a zest he had thought would never return to him; but the cruise must come to an end sometime; and then what? He could not on the spur of the present moment determine what he would want to do next. If he had been quite honest with himself he would have admitted that this didn’t worry him in the least; but he did not intend to be quite honest with himself. He had a strong desire that X. Anaxagoras should have that ten thousand dollars. WL.te these thoughts passed through his mind the Healer of Souls had picked up a sheet of paper. “Let us take up the matter of expenses first,”” he sug- gested, ‘“‘and clear all that away for a discussion of essen- tials. Here we are: “an iasoline and oil Provisions FAY Ty . $381.25 “Tf you want an itemized list of them, I have it.” “‘Not necessary,” disclaimed Marshall. “To hire one bootlegger with beat . $900.00 “That was really cheap for Bill,”’ said Anaxagoras aside. “You see, it took him off his regular run, where he could have made much more.” “I beg your pardon,” interrupted Marshall blankly, “but what was that last item?” “For Bill. You remember Bill. course. He lost a trip.” “Go on,” said Marshall grimly. “To hire Silas Dolliver and boat; one-halfday . . . . I had to pay him, of $35.00 “Silas really didn’t want to charge that, but I told him his time was worth something, and he ought to be paid for the risk, even if it was only slight.” “Who is Dolliver?”’ demanded Marshall.

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1 } “He’s the fellow who was off Graham Bank in the nor’- wester. You remember.” “Oh, yes; I remember! So that was a fake too!’ “It was arranged.” “T suppose you hired the red cod and the cat,” said Marshall sarcastically, ‘and perhaps my big salmon!” The Healer of Souls leaned forward interestedly. “T had already identified and recorded the cat and the salmon as indicating points of progress,”’ said he, laying his hand on the fever-chart affair. ‘“‘But what is this about a red cod? That seems also spontaneously to rise in your mind as significant.” “Ask your sister,”’ advised Marshall shortly. “No.” Anaxagoras went back to Marshall’s previous statement. “‘The only other item that might be there is for Tim. When I had explained the situation to him he refused absolutely to take a cent. As he based his reason on much the same grounds as I should myself have adopted in the same situation, I could not but acquiesce. I want you, however, to appreciate both his effort and his sacrifice of woodsman’s pride.” “What may you mean by that “In falling his tree so as to allow it to jam.’ Marshall rose angrily to his feet. “In other words, I’ve been fooled like a child! I’ve been made sport of by a stage-set mummery for which I am now expected to pay, by Jove!”’ ‘Sit down!’’ commanded the Healer of Souls authorita- tively. “‘You do both me and yourself injustice. You have been accorded the best treatment within the compass of my skill. I have used my ingredients as an allopath uses his drugs; and like the allopath I have procured them to fit my requirements. If your physician fails to discover in the food you normally eat the medicinal properties he desires you to have, he does not hesitate to have recourse to the nearest pharmacy. I have made you permeable to life, and I have done so by exposing you to living. When the succession of normal days did not bring to my hand what I have required, I have not hesitated to supply a laboratory compound.” Marshall hesitated; and finally reseated himself. “‘ At first,’’ went on the Healer of Souls equably, “‘it was necessary to administer doses more frequently, and of a 9" more drastic nature than later. Your shell needed crack- ing. No life-giving waters could penetrate. And those doses had to come at what I judged to be the appropriate crises. Why should I not make them happen when I needed them, instead of depending on a thousand-to-one chance of their occurring of themselves?” Marshall for the moment could find no reply “And mark you,” continued X. Anaxagoras, “I have given you no synthetic and unnatural compounds. Bill does run liquor, and he is an object of pursuit by the rev- enue officers, and he does not want to be caught. In.all fairness you must admit that the nor’wester was quite a genuine bit of scenery, and that the situation was in all truth both serious and dangerous.” Marshall’s anger returned as this thought was thus deliberately brought to his attention. “You came within an ace of smashing both boats; and if it hadn’t been for your sister I should have been drowned,”’ accused Marshall bluntly. ‘Do you think yourself justi- fied in deliberately hazarding life in any such fashion as that?” “T do,” stated the Healer of Souls with equal bluntness. “Your condition was then serious enough to warrant dan- gerous remedies. And,” he concluded his former argu- ment, “you saw on Tim’s mountain only what comes occasionally to all hand-loggers. It is the hardest work of all the industries on this coast. I wanted you to see how hard it could be. ‘All these things I showed you were, to be sure, arranged to happen at the time I wanted them to happen; but they were genuine life, for all that.” He paused. “The results were gratifying,” he went on after a mo- ment. “Like any competent physician, I discontinued the drugs the moment they became no longer necessary. Once the initial breaking up was accomplished, I could safely stand aside, except for an occasional directing touch, applied rather to yourself than to your correspondences. Life itself, in its normal flow, could be left to do the work Do you still find the items of my expense account un- justified?”’ **Well—-no-—I suppose not,” admitted Marshall grudg- ingly, ‘‘but I hate to think I have been made a fool of.” THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 21 “T should hate to have you, for such is not the case I am confident that private reflection will convince you of that.” Not only was Marshall's resentment passed but he was even beginning to see a little humor in the situation, ‘I hardly know what to believe in!” ‘You didn’t arrange that potlatch, did you?” X. Anaxagoras laughed. “No sane mind could have conceived that potlatch,”’ said he. “No; I have submitted all my account. The financial situation, I believe, is clear.” “Not quite,”’ negatived Marshall, who had regained his original point of view. “‘ There is the ten thousand dollars.” “That,” Anaxagoras pointed out, “I was not to receive except in the event of failure to cure you.” ‘IT do not consider that I am cured,” stated Marshal! flatly. X. Anaxagoras surveyed him for a moment “1 consider my powers of observation sufficiently acute,” he said at last, “‘and my knowledge of psychic symptoms quite adequate. It is my measured opinion that you are at this moment an entirely normal young man, with quite your share of interest and zest in what life offers. You owe me nothing.” “*At this moment,’ you said repeated Marshall “That is true. But, as I pointed out to you some time ago, the question is not of the present moment. The circum- stances in which I find myself are unusual. I cannot go on for the rest of my life cruising with you on the British Columbia coast in search of adventure. I must lead a life of my own. As to that future, I am still in my former state of complete indifference. I owe you ten thousand dollars.” The eyes of the Healer of Souls twinkled “T can have little to say in contravention of your direct statement, except to repeat my belief,” said he. ‘In final analysis the decision must rest with your own acknowledg- ment. But the agreement between us has still several hours to run. If by three o'clock this afternoon you are not will- ing to admit a vivid and continuing interest in the future, I shall acknowledge my failure.” “That seems fair. But my opinion is little likely to change in that space of time.” Continued on Page 78) he confessed As He Was About to Ascend the Companionway, X. Anaxagoras Spoke. “Wait a Minute, Jerry,"’ Said He

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20 THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29, 19235 SKOOKUM CHUC THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABRUPT TERMINATION LL the morning following the ad- A venture of the temporary pirate, X. Anaxagoras remained below decks closeted with the man who had so strangely arrived in the St. Lawrence skiff. To- ward noon he came on deck, closely followed by the newcomer. The latter had lost some- thing of hia nervous tensity, but his eyes stil! burned deeply in their sockets. Only when they rested on the Healer of Souls did their expression soften some- what and a faint and vague bewilderment film their brightness. He watched Anaxagoras much as a dog watches its master. “TI have persuaded Mr. Norcote that he will best reach the end of his journey in our com- pany,” announced X. Anaxagoras cheerfully. “He feels that, though it is too late to have any practical effect, it is due the world and the relatives of those aboard to learn how the Maru perished. We will have lunch, and then hoist the dinghy aboard. We will tow Mr. Norcote’s boat.” Under this arrangement they journeyed all the daylight hours of the next two days, dropping anchor in snug coves at night. The stranger had little to say, except to Anax- agoras, with whom he spent much time in the pilot house. He slept at odd periods and waked at odd periods, like Noah, with whom he spent queer night hours on deck. Marshali and Betsy, under instruction from Anaxagoras, did not press him with company, but treated him casually. They had talked it out the first evening of their journey. The anchor was down and all stowed. “T'll borrow your boat to get some water, if you don’t mind,’ Anaxagoras said to Norcote. “Just have an eye to see if the anchor bites, will you? Want to come along?” he asked Marshall and Betsy with a significance that caused their instant acceptance. They beached the boat, took the water cans, and walked toward a little ravine where possibly water might be found. Once out of sight of the Kittiwake, however, Anaxagoras sat down on a log. “Now listen,” said he; and gave them their directions. “Is it possible he might turn dangerous?” Marshall suggested, “Dangerous? Why?” “He's crazy, isn’t he?” “ Boards of lunacy would call himso, and commit him to an asylum. And that would be as great a crime, in its way, as the one he talks of. As a matter of fact, he is not at all crazy. His mental processes are quite clear and logical.” “But his story ¥ “That does not happen to be based on fact,” acknowl- edged Anaxagoras, “but it is not at all crazy. Indeed, it is perfectly sane in its logic and its sequences; remarkably so. He remembers it with great accuracy, just as it occurred.” * But it didn’t occur!’ objected Marshall. “Oh, yes, it occurred. But it occurred inside rather than outside. The only little point of confusion in Mr. Norcote’s mental processes is that he has forgotten that fact.” “But I don’t quite see how ” began Betsy. “Suppose, for example, that this experience had been a very vivid and detailed dream,” went on Anaxagoras, “ or perhaps an invented story, a flight of the imagination. And suppose Mr. Norcote were aware of that. He would detail it to you, quite as interestingly, and as an experience that had happened to himself, Only he would tell it as an experi- ence that had happened inside him, and not outside. In the present case he has merely, and quite sincerely, con- fused the location of his experience.” “I see your point,”’ conceded Marshall, ‘‘but in the one case a man appreciates the fact that he is inventing a story, piece by piece; and in the other case incidents present themselves to him ready-made and without his inter- vention.” “Not necessarily, The subconscious is quite capable of seizing on a tiny fragment, and with it as a starting point of building a complete and elaborate and entirely logical TLEOLU STRATE O By Stewart Edward White Br CLARK At Once on Mooring to the Float Betsy and Norcote Disappeared structure. Furthermore, it can and does accomplish this entirely beneath the threshold of the conscious attention. Then when that finished structure is finally presented to the conscious self, it appears to be complete and ready- made from outside the person. That happens constantly in the case of those in the artistic professions. “That, I conceive, is what happened in this case. Some little thing—perhaps that sentence in the Coast Pilot, perhaps an anecdote or story—started Mr. Norcote’s sub- conscious to work. Following, subterraneously, the logical sequence, it evolved this experience. I have not yet come to the point where I dare touch upon Mr. Norccte’s ante- cedents; but I hazard the guess that he is a writer of some sort. At the moment when normally this experience would have revealed itself to him as an inspiration for a corking good story, some aberration caused it to appear to him as a thing that happened. The rest is a mere matter of recollec- tion and of the narrating of that recollection.” “Isn’t that being crazy?’’ demanded Marshall. “So the lunacy boards would hold,” repeated X. Anax- agoras, ‘“‘but there is here no cerebral degeneracy or lesion, no essential confusion of process, no mistake even of reality—for thoughts are realities also, though of a differ- ent kind. It is a mere mistake of identification.” ““What prevents more mistakes in identification?’’ asked Marshall. ‘‘ And why isn’t that lunacy?” “A pertinent question. More mistakes might occur; and it would be lunacy, so far as lunacy may be defined as a failure to codrdinate with material surroundings in approx- imately the same fashion that other human beings codr- dinate. And they will occur, unless not only the fact of this mistake can be brought to Mr. Norcote’s consciousness but also in a reasonable manner an explanation of exactly why oo mistake occurred. Then in all probability he will be safe.” “Psychoanalysis,” observed Betsy. “Exactly; and a most interesting case.” “T see brother has another patient,” said she. uw dt after noon of the third day they arrived at Alert Bay. The Indian village—with its community houses and totem poles, the sawmill at one end, the salmon can- nery and hospital and wireless and white men’s houses at the other— offered a strange and interesting contrast. At once on mooring to the float Betsy and Norcote disappeared. “‘Sheis taking him to Doctor Matthews, who is the hospital head here, together with an explanatory note from me,” said the Healer of Souls. ‘‘I have asked him to enact the part of wire- less chief for the occa- sion, and to listen to the man’s story. It will re- lieve his mind of what he conceives to be a duty; so when he re- turns he will be at ease. I know Matthews well, and can rely on him to understand and to carry out my intention.” “T think I'll look over the village,” suggested Marshall. “Tf you will kindly wait ten minutes,” re- quested Anaxagoras, and went into the cabin. Supposing that he wished to accompany him, Marshall thought nothing of it. In two minutes, however, he heard his name called, and descended the com- panion ladder to find himself once more in the presence of the white- clad professional. So long had it been since the last of these formal consultations that he experienced a slight shock of surprise. “Please be seated,’’ X. Anaxagoras requested him for- mally. ‘‘Do you recall the day of the month?” Marshall calculated rapidly. “Why, it must be the twenty-second,” said he. “Precisely. Do you realize that today is the last of our three months’ agreement?” “Why, so it is! I hadn’t realized it.” ‘So our experiment is at an end. There remains to take stock of ourselves and come to a settlement.” Marshall reflected. Instantly he saw what course he intended to adopt. He remembered well the fantastic terms of the agreement—that in event of a cure he was to pay nothing but expenses, in event of a failure he was to pay ten thousand dollars. He tried to tell himself that he could not state positively whether or not he had sloughed off the old dead and exhausted indifference. To be sure, he now enjoyed the incidents and accidents of the cruise with a zest he had thought would never return to him; but the cruise must come to an end sometime; and then what? He could not on the spur of the present moment determine what he would want to do next. If he had been quite honest with himself he would have admitted that this didn’t worry him in the least; but he did not intend to be quite honest with himself. He had a strong desire that X. Anaxagoras should have that ten thousand dollars. While these thoughts passed through his mind the Healer of Souls had picked up a sheet of paper. “Let us take up the matter of expenses first,’’ he sug- gested, “‘and clear all that away for a discussion of essen- tials. Here we are: FAY 4, ¥ “Gasoline and oil . Provisions 232.40 “If you want an itemized list of them, I have it.” “Not necessary,’ disclaimed Marshall. “To hire one bootlegger with boat . $900.00 “That was really cheap for Bill,’ said Anaxagoras aside. “You see, it took him off his regular run, where he could have made much more.” “I beg your pardon,” interrupted Marshall blankly, “but what was that last item?”’ “For Bill. You remember Bill. course. He lost a trip.” “Go on,” said Marshall grimly. “To hire Silas Dolliver and boat, one-halfday ... . I had to pay him, of $35.00 “Silas really didn’t want to charge that, but I told him his time was worth something, and he ought to be paid for the risk, even if it was only slight.” “Who is Dolliver?” demanded Marshall.

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“He's the fellow who was off Graham Bank in the nor’- wester. You remember.” “Oh, yes; I remember! So that was a fake too!’ “Tt was arranged.” “IT suppose you hired the red cod and the cat,” said Marshall sarcastically, “and perhaps my big salmon!” The Healer of Souls leaned forward interestedly. “T had already identified and recorded the cat and the salmon as indicating points of progress,” said he, laying his hand on the fever-chart affair. ‘‘ But what is this about a red cod? That seems also spontaneously to rise in your mind as significant.” “Ask your sister,”’ advised Marshall shortly. “No.” Anaxagoras went back to Marshall’s previous statement. “‘The only other item that might be there is for Tim. When I had explained the situation to him he refused absolutely to take a cent. As he based his reason on much the same grounds as I should myself have adopted in the same situation, I could not but acquiesce. I want you, however, to appreciate both his effort and his sacrifice of woodsman’s pride.” “What may you mean by that “In falling his tree so as to allow it to jam.’ Marshall rose angrily to his feet. “In other words, I’ve been fooled like a child! I’ve been made sport of by a stage-set mummery for which I am now expected to pay, by Jove!” “Sit down!’’ commanded the Healer of Souls authorita- tively. ‘You do both me and yourself injustice. You have been accorded the best treatment within the compass of my skill. I have used my ingredients as an allopath uses his drugs; and like the allopath I have procured them to fit my requirements. If your physician fails to discover in the food you normally eat the medicinal properties he desires you to have, he does not hesitate to have recourse to the nearest pharmacy. I have made you permeable to life, and I have done so by exposing you to living. When the succession of normal days did not bring to my hand what I have required, I have not hesitated to supply a laboratory compound,” Marshall hesitated; and finally reseated himself. “At first,” went on the Healer of Souls equably, “it was necessary to administer doses more frequently, and of a 9 more drastic nature than later. Your shell needed crack- ing. No life-giving waters could penetrate. And those doses had to come at what I judged to be the appropriate crises. Why should I not make them happen when I needed them, instead of depending on a thousand-to-one chance of their occurring of themselves?”’ Marshall for the moment could find no reply “And mark you,” continued X. Anaxagoras, “I have given you no synthetic and unnatural compounds. Bill does run liquor, and he is an object of pursuit by the rev- enue officers, and he does not want to be caught. In all fairness you must admit that the nor’wester was quite a genuine bit of scenery, and that the situation was in all truth both serious and dangerous.” Marshall’s anger returned as this thought was thus deliberately brought to his attention. “You came within an ace of smashing both boats; and if it hadn’t been for your sister I should have been drowned,” accused Marshall bluntly. “‘Do you think yourself justi- fied in deliberately hazarding life in any such fashion as that?” “TI do,” stated the Healer of Souls with equal bluntness, “Your condition was then serious enough to warrant dan- gerous remedies. And,” he concluded his former argu- ment, “you saw on Tim’s mountain only what comes occasionally to all hand-loggers. It is the hardest work of all the industries on this coast. I wanted you to see how hard it could be. ‘All these things I showed you were, to be sure, arranged to happen at the time I wanted them to happen; but they were genuine life, for all that.” He paused. “The results were gratifying,’ he went on after a mo- ment. ‘‘Like any competent physician, I discontinued the drugs the moment they became no longer necessary. Once the initial breaking up was accomplished, I could safely stand aside, except for an occasional directing touch, applied rather to yourself than to your correspondences. Life itself, in its normal flow, could be left to do the work. Do you still find the items of my expense account un- justified?” “‘Well—-no—I suppose not,” admitted Marshall grudg- ingly, ‘‘but I hate to think I have been made a fool of.” THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 21 “T should hate to have you, for such is not the case I am confident that private reflection will convince you of that.” Not only was Marshall's resentment passed but he was even beginning to see a little humor in the situation. “IT hardly know what to believe in!" he confessed. ‘You didn’t arrange that potlatch, did you?” X. Anaxagoras laughed. “No sane mind could have conceived that potlatch,” said he. “No; I have submitted all my account. The financial situation, I believe, is clear.” “Not quite,”’ negatived Marshall, who had regained his original point of view. “ There is the ten thousand dollars.” “That,” Anaxagoras pointed out, “I was not to receive except in the event of failure to cure you.” ‘I do not consider that I am cured,” stated Marshall flatly X. Anaxagoras surveyed him for a moment “I consider my powers of observation sufficiently acute,” he said at last, ‘‘and my knowledge of psychic symptoms quite adequate. It is my measured opinion that you are at this moment an entirely normal young man, with quite your share of interest and zest in what life offers. You owe me nothing.” “*At this moment,’ you said,” repeated Marshall “That is true. But, as I pointed out to you some time ago, the question is not of the present moment. The circum- stances in which I find myself are unusual, I cannot go on for the rest of my life cruising with you on the British Columbia coast in search of adventure. I must lead a life of my own. As to that future, I am still in my former state of complete indifference. I owe you ten thousand dollars.” The eyes of the Healer of Souls twinkled “T can have little to say in contravention of your direct statement, except to repeat my belief,”’ said he. ‘In final analysis the decision must rest with your own acknowledg ment. But the agreement between us has still several hours to run. If by three o’clock this afternoon you are not will- ing to admit a vivid and continuing interest in the future, I shall acknowledge my failure.’ “That seems fair. But my opinion is little likely to change in that space of time.” Continued on Page 78) ag He Was About to Ascend the Companionway, X. Anaxagoras Spoke. “Wait a Minute, Jerry,"" Said He

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22 THE SATURDAY EVENING POST THE SATURDAY EVENING POST REG. U. 6. PAT. OFF FOUNDED A‘D! 1728 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY INDEPENDENCE SQUARE PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A. GEORGE HORACE LORIMER, EDITOR Five Cents the Copy From All Newsdealers. By Subscription: To the United States and Possessions, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rice, Cube, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Isle of Pines, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Repubiic of Honduras. Selvedor, Spein and Uruguay, $2.00 the Year. Remit by U. 8. Money Order, Express Money Order, Check or by Draft, payable in U. 8. Funds To Canada --fy Subscription, $5.06 the Year. Single Copies, Ten Cents— Canedian or U, 8. Punds, Other Foreign Countries in the Postal Union: Subscriptions, $6.00 the Year Remittances to be by Draft on a bank in the U. S., payable in U. S. funds PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER 29, 1923 You Asked for It MAJORITY of those who are protesting against the high cost of living have no rea! cause for complaint. They asked for it, voted for it, or assented to it by not voting When you elect free-and-easy spenders to office, you The only way in which this can be done is by taxation. There must provide plenty of money for them to spend. are tax-exempt bonds, but no tax-exempt citizens. Soak- the-rich taxation sometimes does soak the rich, though not nearly so hard as our legislators hoped and planned, but it infallibly sweats the poor. Last week we had something to say about Federal taxes, but state and city taxes are quite as deserving of attention. When there are three rings under the big top in which stu- pendous and death-defying feats are being presented at the same time, the eyes of the spectators are naturally focused on that ring in which the feats seem most stu- pendous and death-defying. But though the somersaults in midair of the Federal Troupe keep one gaping, the stunts of the State Sisters on the slack wire and the juggling with knives by the City Fathers are no less hazardous. It has long been accepted as a commonplace that a na- tion of home owners is a strong nation and that a stake in the land makes for good citizenship. But our tax-layers are steadily driving home a new lesson. It is that the man who owns the house in which he lives is a fool, It is true that taxation is invariably passed along to the renter, but he at least has a hope and a chance, for by jumping from house to house, from city to suburb, and from one suburb to another he may at least lower his taxes. There is, of course, another surer and less troublesome way to accom- plish this purpose, but the average voter is usually too stupid or too lazy to look into it. Instead we read of angry householders storming city halls to protest against increased real-estate assessments and taxes, of mass meetings of in- dignant citizens who are enraged at the prices of commod- ities. They can protest until they are purple and resolve until they use up all the whereases in the dictionary, and they will get nowhere. They asked for it. These groups are largely composed of men and women who went te the polls and voted for higher prices; or who stayed away from the polls and so assented to them; or of boosters who are merrily boosting the cities of their affections along the road towards confiscation. The booster, with his noisy cheering for the immediate develop- ment and overdevelopment of everything, is America’s most expensive and wasteful citizen. Now at a time when the country is staggering under a burden of unavoidable Federal taxation, due to the war, when every common-sense consideration calls for sound finance, retrenchment and careful examination of all new expenditures, we find Congress half-willing to pass up a chance to cut taxes and almost openly eager to pass measures that will increase them. We find the states planning overambitious projects that call for new taxes and great bond issues that finally must be met by still further taxation. We find the cities virtuously asserting one year that there will be no raise in taxes, but that as- sessments must be jumped; and the next year declaring piously that there will be no radical changes in assess- ments, but that the tax rate must be increased. So up go assessments, up go taxes, up go rents, up go prices, and up into the air goes the worthy citizen. Taxation is the keystone of the high-cost-of-living arch. There is no use chipping here and picking there at prices until that keystone is loosened and brought down from its proud eminence. Only intelligent voting can do that, though watchfulness and firmness can accomplish some- thing, even now. For another election is coming, and where the fear of God will not move a politician the fear of voters will—when enough of them stand together for more than a few days at a time. Heretofore every class, except the taxpayer, has lined up at one time or another for some selfish class purpose. When the taxpayers—and that means everybody —stand together for the single pur- pose of reducing taxes, we shall get them reduced. These temporary spasms of rage against the confiscatory taxation of real estate are usually an affair of the owner, not of the renter of property. But we heard the other day of an intelligent woman who bore down on an assessor to protest against an increase in the valuation of a house that she was renting, because during the past ten years the rent of that house had been increased from fifteen to eighty dollars a month, following periodic increases in assessments and taxes. The woman renter had found the source of her trouble. If she will analyze her other living costs she will find that taxation is the largest single factor in their advance. Take any city—your city. Take any voter—yourself. Take any election-—the last one. What happened? Fither you did not register and vote you have no cause for complaint about anything that is happening to you—or if you did vote the chances are ninety in a hundred that you voted for exactly what you are getting. Only a few of those who went to the polls had any real information about the fitness of their party candidates or by whom, how and when they were selected; or they voted on the theory that easy spending, even with graft and waste, is “ When you went into the booth and examined your ticket you probably found on it a proposed loan bill for anything from a hundred thousand to a hundred million, according to the size of your community. The chances are that you had not studied and analyzed that bill in advance; that you voted yes on it without reading it; or that if you read it you voted yes anyway, because it was for public im- provements that you thought would be paid for out of some vague fund or impersonal bond issues. The chances are that the items were not separated in such a way that you could approve some and disapprove others. You had to take them as a whole or leave them. You voted yes. “They always vote yes,”’ as a cynical politician put it the other day, ‘because it does not occur to them that they are going to pay for these public improvements out of their own intensely personal pay envelopes and bank accounts.” Public improvements are a good thing, but before you order them you should ask yourself the same questions that you ask when you are considering a private purchase: Do I need them and can I afford them? If you decide that you can afford the public improvements it is up to you to see that you get your money’s worth, for you will personally be putting a large percentage of your income into them. The voters’ attitude has always been that the country is and in that case good for business.”’ December 29,1923 rich and that it can stand it. Are you rich enough to stand it? For you are the country and you pay the bills. The rent that you pay for your house is affected and raised not only by municipal taxes but by Federal and state ones as well. Also the price of steak is unfavorably in- fluenced from the buyer’s point of view by the gasoline tax, the anthracite tax, the mercantile tax, the personal- property tax, the income tax, the corporation tax, and all those other taxes that the butcher must pay either directly or indirectly, add to his overhead and pass over to you —the ultimate consumer and ultimate goat—wrapped up with your three-pound sirloin. You reply that your butcher does not have to pay either a corporation or an income tax. Perhaps not, but the packer does. And a part of every tax that he pays is added to the cost of every side of beef that goes into the butcher’s shop. He, in turn, must hand over to you with every steak and lamb chop a part of those taxes and a part of his own, plus a little extra for good measure. A little extra in the shape of taxes is the only thing that anyone can afford to throw in nowadays. One would suppose that even a glimmering of the facts about taxation would stir everyone of voting age to try to protect his pocketbook. But many people are mentally too lazy to try to comprehend these things and physi- cally too lazy to walk to the polls. The voting strength of the country is divided into three groups, irrespective of party. First, the so-called machine politicians. Controlled by them is a strong body of voters, organized and held together by office, promise of office, sinecures, jobs, favors, more or less “‘ honest graft” and vari- ous forms of easily understood self-interest. No matter how competent a candidate may be, he must usually, especially in our large cities, compromise to some extent with this group if he wants to hold office. It is the minority group between elections, but almost always the majority one at the polls, because all its members vote to order and carry along with them a number of fatheads who vote by ear men who strut proudly forth to the polls at the turkey call of the orator, or to the beguiling notes of the political propagandist. The second—and it is the majority group—is made up of the unorganized, inarticulate and too often unregis- tered. It includes those who are too proud to vote, too busy to vote, or too stupid to vote. It tries to work from the top down and not from the bottom up. It will vote for a President, but not for a councilman. ately concerned over the League of Nations, cancellation of war debts and ovr duty to Europe, but it has small time for primaries, taxation and our duty to our town. It is swayed by professional reformers and theorists, but a businesslike proposal by a business man that would better the condition of everyone leaves it cold. The members of this group may be either Democrats or Republicans, but :t does not make much difference what they are. Under the stress of some unusual outrage or too high-handed abuse of power by a boss they may rise and rave, or even vote in numbers, but this is not often, because the boys are usually fairly circumspect and give us much better government than we deserve or have any right to expect. When there is one of these uprisings, these futile folk may elect a few men, a mayor or a governor, with a machine-controlled council or legislature that promptly proceeds to hamstring the executive, if he is worth the trouble, or leaves him to stew in his own juice if, as is often the case, he is simply a pretentious sham, with the imposing front of a moving-picture set. Then there is the submerged tenth—a small but in- creasingly active group working inside the parties on party lines, that is tired of bunk and yearns for business sense in government. They know that what happens before the primaries is more important than what happens after them; that what happens at the bottom may be more im- portant than what happens at the top; and that it is quite as important to get able councilmen and state representa- tives as a good President. They are trying to build up an informed electorate and not a voting machine. They are neither shocked nor surprised when taxes and the cost of living go up. They know that as long as we remain so ignorant economically, and so indifferent politically, we are simply asking for it. It is passion-

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PIG should have strips of lean, on both his port and starboard sides, Eng- lish bacon eaters now say. Where- fore, as I write this, certain farmers and packers, consoled by a picked squad of pig trainers from our Department of Agriculture, are meeting out at Minneapolis under a flag of truce. The Danes, it seems, are again to blame. Ever since that North Pole spoof, they’ve been getting even with America. Their last offensive was to run us out of the bacon trade in London. Till lately that business was all ours—worth millions a year. But the bacon Uncle Sam peddled in London was thick and fat, made from corn-fed hogs, hogs gorged till they could hardly waddle from trough to mudhoie and back again. In our bacon there was no lean strip, such as now delights the palate of London epicures. The crafty Danes, discovering this, saw their chance to compete. They produced a huge stout pig with strips of red laid evenly along his plump sides. From this superpig they cured a mild lean bacon that took London by storm—and stopped completely all sales of our corn-fed product. For their bacon the wily Danes even charge 30 per cent more than we ever got! To win back this market is the task our farmers, packers and government pig experts have set themselves. ‘‘ You produce a pig with thin lean strips abaft his beam, and we will pay you a good price, plus a bonus,” says the packer to the farmer. ‘‘ We, too, can then raise our price a bit, and ’ till compete with the Danes.’

THE SRTURDAY EVENING POST By FREDERICK SIMPICH Such is one aspect of competition in foreign trade. All over the map, from India to Iceland, we struggle thus with our rivals, to sell that “‘last 10 per cent,’’ as economists call our surplus production. Whether you grow corn or cotton, or make mousetraps or motor cars, the average excess is about 10 per cent above our needs. “It’s not merely our profit on that last 10 per cent that’s so impor- tant,” one old manufacturer told me. ‘But we simply must sell it abroad; else it gluts the market here and de- presses prices. In certain lines, whereof we usually export far more than 10 per cent, any failure to sell abroad would mean part of our shops would have to close. The High:-Tariff Wall yO PEDDLE our 10 per cent abroad then, whether we ¢ ship shoes to Shanghai or bacon to Great Britain, means we have to beat the other fellow on price, quality or other- wise. Can we? Are we? Where on the map, why, and in what lines of goods are we winning or losing in this world- wide fight against competitors? I put this question frankly to Mr. Herbert Hoover, our Secretary of Commerce. I talked with many of his experi- enced commodity experts drafted from our great industries and detailed to export-trade promotion. I read official reports from the world’s great trade centers telling how our competitors are fighting back to keep out our goods. I talked and corresponded with various leading American manufacturers and old-established exporters. For back- ground-—-our modern term for an ancient element in busi- ness analyses--I drew on my own years of residence in foreign lands, whereas an American consul I often got behind the scenes in the great drama of world competition.

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Now a year or more ago, when business here was dull, we all blamed Europe. We couldn’t recover, people said, till Europe did. Nor could we readily compete in export trade with cheap German wares. Whatever chance we might have had, many critics complained, was plumb ruined by our high-tariff wall. It was plain commercial hara-kiri to pass a law like that! Nobody could buy from us who couldn't sell to us; and selling to us was impossible in the face of such high import duties. It certainly all sounded logical. V/ell, today our exports —and imports—are both in- creasing steadily. Europe is still sick, but our foreign trade isgood. Weselleventoher! Deadly and unsound German competition, spawned by illicit bankrupt methods, looked bad for a while—especially in Latin America. But now our trade down there is 32 per cent better than a year ago. Arthur Balfour, the British steel operator, predicted some months ago that if America is to sell her goods abroad she will have to cut prices. Maybe so--when England does. John Bull, master of the export art, is still our chief competitor. ‘Foreign trade would go on, even though a gallows were built on every dock,"’ says an old English proverb. If the Englishman undersells us somewhat, he is in turn undersold by our mutual European competitors. And that murderous tariff tool we foolishly forged and Continued on Page 52) Dd You KNow How To ENTER A LEAGUE GRACEFULLY 7 DO YoU KNOW How Yo ACCEPT AN INVITATION ? DO You KNOW WHAT R.S.V.P. D+ Q. MEANS? |

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DO You Know WHEN ITS POLITE ‘TO HAVE A FINGER IN “THE PIE ?

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THE SATURDAY EVENING SHORT December 29, 1925 Fair Play for Minnesota! S NOW, you spread your mantle down, Gentle fingered, amorous, ~~ On the meadow, on the town, Glimmering and glamorous. It was great Thanksgiving Day, Now it gets monotonous. W inter, winter, go away! You have snowed a lot on us. Snow, your aet begins to pall, Nothing could be horrider. If you've got to snow at ali Go and enow in Florida, Pile the drifta on Ormond's sand, With the gale let Tampa ring, Set the basking natives and Ali‘gators scampering. Send a blizzard to Palm Beach, And Key Weat a puff or two. ley winter, | beseech, Make those devils suffer too. ! can stand the wintertime, And remain quite cheery in lee and sleet and slush and rime, His is the lot of men— He earns! His wife and daughters know Accomplished, clever folk, Al places where they go And sit around and smoke, And argue, and explain The modernistic trends. They view with mild disdain His friends. His life is spent in scenes Monotonous and grim, And self-expression means Nothing at all to him. His family afar Seeks studios and inns He lights a fresh cigar And grins. Stoddard King. That Wide Closed Space John Henry had a Noble A fine Ing He look- Old Demos- dome, and bulg- brow. ed like thenes Frost and snow Siberian ONAWN BY ROBERT \ If the morning news avers “ Disnatch from regions torrid) Flock of winter revelers Froze their feet in Florida!” Morris Bishop. Litany DON'T like Persian Cats, they're so upstage ; I don’t like Pink-eyed Monkeys, free or cage ; I don't like Pampered Pups, they make me bilious, Including Chows, they're too darn supercilious ; I don't like Prickly Porcupines and such; I don't like Owls, they think they know se much; I don't like tilted chins and lifted eyebrows I don't like Try-to-Be's, or Prigs, or Highbrows! Arthur Guiterman, Malindy-isms AWDY,’ Miss Annie Lee, I never would have knowed 4 you, you's that thin. Marrifyin’ and livin’ with them Yankees sho has tuck you off. Law, chile, you don’t favor youself none at ali, And how’sthe doctor? You and the doctor is the richest folks in Noo Yawk, ain’t you? Shucks, | bet you is. I bet you is got silver dollars buried away twell there’s green mold on ‘em, 's he a ridin’ doctor or a tooth “I Do Wish, Violet, Santa Claus Hadn't Been Quite So Generous" and I hear as how they still talks considerable "bout that there Snowball Weddin’. Yas’m. I come up chiefly, though, Miss Annie Lee, to 'spress to you my thanks for that there package you done sent me from Noo Yawk. The pink georgette waistie was grand. Cose I could wear it. Ever see any waistie yit what wouldn't fit a nigger? But that there mournin’ veil pleased me jest plum to death. Somehow, I always did crave a mournin’ veil. They jest come in too handy for funerals, and sich, and I does feel and look mighty dreased up and pompouslike in it. And shucks, Miss Annie Lee, you orter hev seen them there Tin Cup niggers’ eyes pop out when I showed them that there Noo Yawk box, with its content- ments, all tied up and addressed to ‘“ Malindy Walker, Colored, Tin Cup, Fayetteville, Ark-in-saw.’’ Yas’m. Rena Shore Duncan. The Clod IS eldest daughter sings, His youngest daughter writes, His wife's absorbed in things That keep her out of nights; But not for stage or pen His inner being yearns, Or Solo- Trow. Chose him Congressman He looked so He sure looked Monument before Public’s eyes. Alack! Noble mon, I They for their because wise. like a the Alas! that dome The truth, I hate to spin It-—his dome was good to Look upon, but there was Nothing in it. —Arthur J. Burdick. Comment of a Country Editor APA MS JINKS believes both the people and the news- papers pay too much attention to what he calls commercialized sports. Mr. Jinks’ only interests are his bank, his farms and his home. He is a good citizen, but one of the most uninteresting men in town. Although he lives only seven blocks from the business section, he hasn’t been down town after nightfall since Blaine was defeated for President. Bill Jessop, who hasn’t a dollar and who never saw a league game, gets more pleasure out of the World’s Series than Mr. Jinks has had in thirty years. doctor, Miss Annie Lee? Now, Vio-leen, she ‘lowed he was a ridin’ doctor—-ride to see sick folks, like; but Addie, she jest knowed he was a horse and cow and dog doctor; but I speculated as how he might jest pull teeth, like Doctor Sanderson. Yas'’m. Did you hear about Em- met’s weddin’ and them two gold teeth he done give Ide for a weddin’ present? Yas’m, he married Ide, Aunt Tiny Priest’s daughter. She's one of them new niggers what come up here from Louisiana with the Price Clothin’ Store folks. She ‘lows she kin cook, but she sho ought to be down there ag’in, a-choppin’ cot- ton. Wellum, thay had the new Baptist preacher, and fo’ brides- maids, with bokays o’ snow- balls; and Ide, bein’ the bride, she done carried one dozen real tasty pink carnations. Toots, she played the Turkey in the Straw for the march up, as she "lowed as how there jest warn’'t no luck gittin’ married with one o’ them solemn tunes. Mr. Tom, bein’ as Emmet done worked fo’ him so long, he brung a whole passel o’ town folks to see it, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Stump have separated. Mr. Stump has declined to discuss the trouble with his friends. Mrs. Stump is less reticent. She says Henry is a good man and a good pro- vider, “‘but,”’ she has said in ex- plaining the separation, ‘‘I had heard him tell the story of how he got the better of Ben Thorn- ton in an argument nearly every night for more than twenty years. I knew if I had to listen to it again I’d go crazy. And so when he started in to tell it last Thursday night I left him.” It is the opinion of those who have motored over the devas- tated area that three automobile picnic parties are more disas- trous than a fire. There is considerable quiet indignation in our town over the manner in which the dis- abled soldiers of the late war are being treated. There are no disabled soldiers in this vicinity. So far as is known there is no authenticated instance of their The Angetus With the Assistance of Modern Diplomacy (Continued on Page 67)

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST Many a meal is made on this hearty soup 15 vegetables Substantial cereals | Rich beef broth Baby lima beans. Tiny peas. Choice white qt and sweet potatoes. Country Gentleman sweet corn. Chantenay carrots. Golden turnips. My manly stride fils me with pride, . do my do daily Snow-white celery. Chopped cabbage. Plump In every einp it's Campbell's pep That makes me sparkle gaily. barley. Alphabet macaroni. Just to mention a few of the thirty-two different ingredients of Campbell's Vegetable Soup. A blend so delicious, a dish so hearty and substantial that it constantly serves as the principal dish for luncheon or ! | supper or the impromptu meal. Keep a supply of it in your pantry and see how often you will y enjoy its tempting flayor and real food! j Soup for health—every day! 21 kinds 12 cents a can Luncheon Dinner Supper

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29,1923 Britain’s Foreign Policy—By Philip Gibbs T IS a plain fact beyond all dispute that Great Britain I depends for her economie welfare on peace in Europe. Ail splendid dreams of imperial prosperity and self- sufficiency belong to the future and not to the present, and, as I have shown in a previous article, it is mainly by a revival of European trade and the reopening of dead or dying markets that England can hope to provide for her immense population of city workers and to regain her commercial activity. This obvious truth is no longer the faith merely of small groups of idealists and intellectuals who immediately after the war, and indeed before the ending of it, discounted the rosy optimism of the politicians who made false and flaming promises about the fruits of victory. The wreckage of those promises floats about on a sea of dead hopes. Unemployment, the cruelties of overtaxation, stagna- tion of trade, and the political chaos in Europe have taught many painful lessons to the British people, who fora year or two after the war allowed themselves to be duped by the false belief that Germany, if properly squeezed, could be made to pay the costs of war of all the victor nations, and that Europe after its blood bath would settle down for a long period of peace and progress. Now every man and woman in Great Britain is a practical economist who has no need te be taught that the financial downfall of one part of Europe directly affects the prosperity of all other parts. They know it in all the little homes of Bradford and Bolton, Birmingham and Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield, and all other cities where the decline of world trade means insecurity of life, and the tears of women because their men come home day after day with the dreary words “nothing doing,” and active lads on the threshold of life are lounging about with the factory gates shut against them and no likely prospect of a job. Demoralizing Idleness FEW weeks ago General Booth, of the Salvation Army, told me that he was appalled by the condition of boys and girls above school age in English cities which he had re- cently visited, In Sheffield, there were many thousands of YES, WE Have g BO-NAN- “NOEs | % WAVE Ny € PS Bo- INS NAW Noy s them between the ages of sixteen and eighteen who had never done an hour’s work. In Liverpool it is worse, and in some cities the police are loath to tackle these gangs of idle lads, who fall naturally into every kind of mischief for lack of work and discipline. Yet they are of good stuff before they are ruined and demoralized by idleness. They want work, and the old general of the Salvation Army told me a touching story of one boy who was sent out as an emigrant to Canada. When he arrived on the farm to which he had been sent he was seen by the wife of his employer to go out in the field, kneel down and kiss the earth. The woman called him back and said, ‘Why, for goodness’ sake, did you do that?” His answer was, “I’ve no religion, but I want to thank somebody or something because I’ve found a spot on earth where a job is waiting for me.” In those little homes of England’s industrial cities where boys like that rise hopelessly to another workless day, there is the uneasy suspicion that England may become involved in another war—‘‘ Where is this peace of Eu- rope?”’ they ask—which might recruit those lads for the shambles again and bring back the night birds which once came in darkness over these cities to kill women and chil- dren in their beds or huddled in their cellars. To avoid a repetition of those agonies, that bitter and fruitless sacrifice, the English people will destroy any government which dares to take a risk in that direction, and indeed there will be no government in England mad enough or bad enough to play the firebrand. Whatever party is in power, Tory or Liberal or Labor, the policy of Great Britain will be devoted entirely, unceasingly and stubbornly to the effort of maintaining peace in Europe, isolating its conflicts, conciliating hostile peoples, stamping out the fires of passion and removing the causes of war. From self-interest, which is the most powerful incentive of all nations, the British Empire is the most ardent propa- gandist and agent of peace in the world today. It is not bad for the world that self-interest coincides with idealism. There is an element of weakness as well as strength in this policy of peace. It is all very well for England to pro- claim peace as her watchword, to offer her services for TAKE \T, Poor FEWER! ITS bu } HAVE wets You NEED + iA | worse’N T Bo mf \erinetenapinengemietiog en ee era , : ebategsy Fen fie Ae ; $ stsabianachen asus ‘sts aliens heat The Art of Setf:- Defense Against Bandits 1 eae TEE IT A A OE conciliation, arbitration, compromise between the con- flicting interests and passions of European peoples, but it makes England look rather silly, and her weakness is ex- posed nakedly to the world, when those nations ignore her advice, refuse to compromise, and have no fear at all of any force being brought to bear upon them. I have lately been startled and humiliated by the candor with which foreign people have accepted, calmly, the conviction that Great Britain is powerless. In Germany they asked the question “What can England do?”’ and answered it themselves by saying ‘‘Nothing!’’ They did not expect England to go to war with France to enforce her point of view, and France would not yield her point of view to anything but force. Therefore England was without influence and her policy was negligible. Italy took the same attitude during the Corfu incident, the Turks traded on it in their revision of the treaties, France politely but firmly pursued her own methods, regardless of British advice. British Pledges Fulfilled HERE is some truth in this belief that the old British lion has lost its claws for a time, but it is due to honor and not dishonor, to morality against immorality, to hon- esty against dishonesty, and it is not without a spiritual strength which may prevail against those who are con- temptuous of it now. After the war Great Britain fulfilled her pledge to de- mobilize and demilitarize her people according to the spirit and principles of peace. It was by doing so that she was enabled to balance her budgets and pay her debts. Other nations did not do so. As Genera! Smuts pointed out in his great speech, which is the bravest historical act done since the war, military hysteria has been sapping the depleted financial resources of many nations. “Everywhere you see armed men, every- where gigantic armies, even among the small new states which cannot possibly afford them. In spite of the dis- appearance of the German Army there are now almost a million and a half more men under arms than in August, 1914.” (Continued on Page 69) M\QoW WibbL \ Pur FOR —ETC NOW 0 Ww {OU DOWN ]IDDN =r KNow YousE Was nN" DIS BEAT, PARTNEF “5CUSE ME! WOK oh 4%

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SATURDAY EVENING POST LONDEN ke WS, + Nc ae be 2 Wherever it appears, this V-63 Two Passenger Coupe the safety of Cadillac Four Wheel Brakes; in the speed, is the object of admiring glances and entnusiastic praise. power and dependability which have made the name Cadillac so rich in meaning to motorists everywhere. Its beautifully modelled Cadillac-Fisher body — stylish, elegant, distinctive--is unquestionably an important These qualities can be gauged by no former standards; part of its appeal. they are unique, they can be appreciated only by : 4 : actually riding in the car But as in all models of the V-63, the Coupe’s true : 7: ne ae greatness lies in more vital qualities—in the smoothness Take this ride, in the Two Passenger Coupe or in any and quietness of its harmonized and balanced V-Type, of the new V-63 models, and learn the full significance go eight cylinder engine; in its riding comfort; in of Cadillac’s invitation to you to expect great things. c. A a ke de Oe MOTOR ay oe | COMPANY, DET RES. MICHIGAN Division of General Motors Corporation

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28 THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29,1925 WHO’S WHO-AND WH REG. U. 8. PAT. OFF Serious and Frivolous Facts About the Great and the Near Great As to Watchdogs and Watchdogs , IS sweet,”’ says Byron, ‘‘to hear the watchdog’s hon- T= bark” —a sentiment heartily applauded in the barking place of the most important watchdog in these United States, which is the House of Representatives at Washington. That is to say, the Byronic sentiment is heartily applauded and enthusiastically indorsed, with the following trifling amendment: “’Tis sweet to hear the watchdog’s honest bark, provided the watchdog isn’t barking at me.” I suppose that every House since the first one has had its watchdog; but my precise knowledge of the subject begins with that famous one, Holman, of Indiana, who began barking in the Thirty-sixth Congress and served, with a term out here and there, until the Fifty-third Hloiman, the watchdog of the Treasury, who, when I arrived on the scene in his later years, was still barking. but not with the clamor and the consecutiveness of his earlier V igils There have been many watchdogs, some of them feists, some of them terriers, and now and again a great Dane, all yapping, growling, baying in their degree when the boys tried to slip a little something across in the way of a much-needed appropriation for the good of the people; but all with that peculiarity of attack that was noted upon an occasion when the insatiable Holman not only failed, from his leckout on the Democratic side, to object to a pork bestowal to his own Indiana district, but voted for it. ‘Mister Speaker,” said Tom Reed, rising on the Repub- liean side of the House, “I notice that the watchdog of the Treasury never barks at the home folks.” So it seems. Even the present watchdog, the unslum- berous Martin Madden, has been observed to put in a complaisant aye instead of an objecting nay when some- thing in the way of a choice morsel came along for Cook County, Illinois. However, that is the nature of things, and markedly of political things, for it must be remembered that even as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is intelligent self- interest the price of political stability, In other and ruder words, if a congressman doesn’t take care of his dis- trict, his district will cease taking care of him, Where- fore, it doesn't so much matter if, say, Chicago gets a public imprevement costing a million when that helps to main- tain Madden in Congress to save a hundred million ir: other directions, or even more, For, let it be set down here, that is exactly what Martin Madden does every session of Congreas—-sometimes at one crack, Page the United States Shipping Board and ask that body about the time when Madden cut a hundred million from their pro- posed budget, sliced one-tenth of a billion from their prodi- gal program. A good many people are still living who can remember when it didn’t take more than thrice that to run the entire governmental establishment. Hard-+Boiled—Stony, You Might Say GREAT many people are of the opinion that this coun- try would function with more efficiency and better re- sults for al! concerned if its fiscal affairs were in the hands of business men instead of in the hands of politicians and lawyers. There is considerable ground for that opinion, and concrete proof of it in the presence of Secretary Mellon in the Treasury and Martin Barnaby Madden at the head of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Repre- sentatives. Still, that doesn’t mean that any business man would be a success in either of those places any more than it means that every politician is a failure. What it means is that the right sort of a combination of politician and business man-—vide Madden—has done far better as chair- man of the Committee on Appropriations than any poli- ticilan who ever had the job, and a good many have had it. The reasons that Madden has been so efficient in the great House Committee on Appropriations are two: The tirst is that he haa been a business man all his mature life, and the second is that from 1889 to 1897 he was a member of the Chicago City Council and for a considerable portion of that time chairman of its finance committee. Now there is a difference only in degree between a ward patriot who wants to get two hundred thousand dollars for public work in his ward in a city, and a national patriot who wants to get two hundred million dollars for his department of the Government. They both demand every ultimate dollar they can get, and they both resort to exactly the same pro- cesses to obtain those dollars. Except for the amounts aspired for, the work and workings of these patriots are identical, ry : , 0. Congressman Martin B. Madden Wherefore, after Madden had had ‘is years in the Chi- cago City Council, dealing with the two-hundred-thousand- aollar patriots, he was well educated for his years of dealing with the two-hundred-million-dollar patriots. He was hard-boiled—stony, you might say. It was extremely difficult to put anything over on Madden, because Madden knew all the angles of the put-over game. He could tell what was in the patriot’s hand before he had laid down a card—and can yet. He simply moved from the city table, where the chips were white, to the national table, where the chips were all yellow, and played his cards in both games the same way, close to his chest. And it was uncanny how he called the bluffs. The seekers after millions who came in with the broad claim that if they did not get what they effulgently esti- mated was required to keep the Republic afloat the whole works would sink, with all on board, were met with an icy “Show me!”’ from Madden that eventually resulted in his conclusion that the old ship might stay afloat even if their particular appropriations were pared down to 50 per cent or so of the original estimate. And the old ship is still afloat, notwithstanding the utter and dismal failure of many of these attempted flotations. The Center of Attack T IS no easy job to be a competent chairman cf the Committee on Appropriations in the House. He is the mark that every money grabber shoots at. He is the center of the attack by every department of the Government. He has the initial say as to what the expenditures shall be. Thus, he is subject to every wile that the long-experienced money grabbers have in stock, including the arbitrary increase of their estimates by many millions over the sums actually required, in the expectation that there will be cuts, but that, even so, they will still have enough because of their extravagant applications. Every appropriation seeker is loud in the opinion and insistent in the argument that all is lost if his appropriation doesn’t go through exactly as demanded, and an impressionable man sitting at the head of the Appropriations Committee could easily allow initial sums for one year that the Treasury couldn’t pay in six. Every financial ax that is to be ground is first laid against the Appropriations chairman for grinding. A great many of them, in Madden’s time, are brought away still dull. It takes an expert ax grinder to use Madden for abradant pur- poses. The levigation usually works the other way about. It isn’t the axes that are ground, but the axers. Madden has been in contact with the realities of life ever since he was a small boy. He was born in England in 1855, and was brought to Illinois when he was not much more than a baby. At ten years he was a water boy in a stone quarry and he remained in the stone business all his active business life. He lost a leg in a quarry accident when he was a youth, but that didn’t deter him; and presently he came to be president of the Western Stone Company, a bank direc- tor, president of the Quarry Owners’ Association of the United States, president of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, vice president of the Builders and Traders’ Exchange of Chicago, and so on. Also, he had a flair for politics. He was early a member of the Republican City Committee of Chicago, member of the county committee and active in the city politics of Chicago and the state politics of Illinois. So it came about that in 1897, Madden, with ambitions for larger political service, became a candidate for United States senator and was made the caucus nominee of his party. Ordinarily that would have meant that Madden would have been se- lected by the legislature to succeed the retiring Palmer, but Republican politics in Illinois—in those days, even as now— is rarely ordinary. Mostly it is extraordinary. According to Marcus HEY teach the single, the double and the triple cross to political novitiates in Illinois, and require expertness in the application of all three sorts from their leaders. Hence, when such past masters as William Lorimer, Doc Jamison, et al., applied all three to Madden with the intention of endowing a rich and liberal citizen of the Sucker State on the upper house of Congress, it so fell out that so far as the pet name of the state applied it was fairly descriptive of quite a number of those concerned, but principally appo- site to the aforesaid rich and liberal citizen. Madden didn’t get to be senator, but neither did the rich and liberal citizen, That was the occasion upon which the Honorable Billy Mason achieved the toga, the same achievement being an interesting and instructive illustration of how, now and then, in our politics a political shoe string can be developed to a nationally known shoe emporium. The Honorable Billy, having served in the Fiftieth and the Fifty-first Congresses, had been defeated for reélection for the Fifty- second, and was at Springfield during the proceedings de- scribed above, doing the best he could—which wasn’t very good. He had what may be termed a Chinaman’s chance for the senatorial nomination, which is considerably less than no chance at all. However, he was there. When the smoke of the battle had cleared away — to use an expression current at the time—the Honorable Billy was the triumphant choice of the legislature for United States senator, because Madden had thrown his strength to him, and the others could do no more than follow, inasmuch as they couldn’t put their own man over. As the late Thomas Corwin put it, Mascn sat in with a ten spot and came out with a roya! flush, and Madden was the dealer. Now it would seem, in the usual processes of politics, that a man who had the caucus nomination of his party for United States senator and did not emerge with the senator- ship would bea political zero thenceforth, but not so Martin Barnaby Madden. He looked things over, took his time about it, played a lone hand, and in 1905 he went to Congress from the First Illinois District, remaining there continuously until this writing. Meantime, the crafty gentlemen who deprived him of his senatorship back in 1897 are all out of office, out of power, dead, or otherwise disposed of, and Madden is chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives, one of the large posts in this Government. All of which teaches us, dear children, that Marcus Aurelius was broadcasting to the universe when he re- marked: ‘‘That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.”’ It is difficult, nay, practically impossible, to keep a man who began as a water boy in a stone quarry at the age of ten and came to be president of one of the biggest stone concerns in the country from get- ting whatever else he desires, even if impeded along the way by single, double and triple crossers, however expert they may be. 8..¢. B.

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST Always fresh and odorless with double action cleansing Sunbrite does more than merely clean and scour ¢6¢7’VE washed and scrubbed it and still I wonder if it’s really clean !’’—A common lament among housewives, this. Your bread box, your butter dish—what musty odors and In spite of soap and boiling water, strong odors and fla- strong flavors develop in them, even with scrupulous care! vors develop wherever food : : is kept. A special sweeten- There is the knife you cut onions with—and you do not soon nenald co’ detey chou forget it. They are as clean as you can wash them. But in spite of soap and water these stale odors cling. A sweetening, purifying agent is needed to remove every trace of unpleasant odor. Now a cleansing medium has been perfected that in one process scours and polishes and in addition, sweetens and purifies. Sunbrite, the double action cleanser! In Sunbrite there is an element that has a mild but effective purifying power. It also contains enough abrasive to scour thoroughly, just as any good cleanser does and yet is not so coarse that it will scratch. And, free from harsh chemicals, it will not hurt the hands. Another advantage of Sunbrite is its low price. The great production facilities of Swift & Company make possible a price lower by a third than you often pay. A United Profit Sharing Coupon is attached to every can. - wih hich poe kare onten alee than cut a lemon or an apple w’th it~—and the ° ° ° ° onion flavor is sti A Sunbr Prove the double action cleansing power of Sunbrite with hmnchad 208 ont: pallies the bounded destroys every trace of the onion flavor your sense of smell as well as sight. See that your kitchen utensils, your bathroom fixtures are not only outwardly clean but really sweet and odorless and sanitary. Sunbrite will keep them so. Swift & Company, U.S. A.

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nobody would have thrown away a chance such as Stafford must have had back in the ’90's unless there was a weak spot in him somewhere. Laziness probably; plenty of clever men were like that. “Better speed up a little, hadn’t you?” Bidwell spoke impatiently. ‘At this rate it’ll take us a good hour to get to the turn- pike.” : Gedney complied, a little against his judgment. The road was worse now—a winding path between the woods, every hollow holding moisture, so that it would be easy to skid. He struggled suddenly with a futile wheel as the rear of the car flung sidewise and forward at a slippery turn. With a crash of snapping ~~ ings the front wheels plunged into the boggy leaf mold and wallowed on; the locked rears slid helplessly off the wet clay and dropped into the ditch. Before he started the stalled engine and cautiously tested the traction in reverse Gedney knew that it was useless the ear couldn’t ibly pull out under its own power. He shut off the motor and climbed out. The tires had channeled through the mud until the rear axle al- ready rested on the ground. “Have to go back for horses,” he an- nounced. Bidwell! made an angry clicking sound with tongue and teeth. “Nice thing! Lose a couple of hours more!” He glanced at his watch. ‘“Quar- ter to eleven too!” “Can't be helped, than Stafford's?”’ Gedney frowned at the implied reproach; Bidwell had suggested the risky haste, and would sit at ease in the car while Gedney went for help. “Guess you'd better go back there,” said Bidwell fretfully. “Might not find any- body at the old house, and it’s just about as far, at a guess, anyway.” Again he con- sulted the watch. ‘Yes, better go back.” Gedney nodded and turned away. The road made rough walking and the wet places in the hollows stained his shoes and trousers with sticky clay. He made what speed he could, puzzled to account for the shortness of kis breath, the weary awkwardness of his step. By the time he reached the retaining wall he was as spent as if he had covered the intervening mile or two at arun. The thin mountain sunlight had acquired a stinging heat. He mopped his face as he stood at the open door of the kitchen, unreasonably irritated by the implication of the jointed rod that leaned against the wall. Somebody in this household held the ey myth minutes in such scant respect that he coul fill them with nothing better than such futile play as fiy fishing. He could see the kitchena wide, low-ceiled room with a queer old fireplace with blackened cranes; small-paned windows admitted slants of sun through muslin curtains; a woman was shelling peas in a yellow bowl, her back toward him. There was no haste in her response to his knock. She set the bowl on the table and rose with an aggravating effect of intentional deliberation—a deep- bosomed woman, her face placid and un- lined, an incurious welcome in her slow smile. Marvin Gedney resented the discovery that he liked her, that something in her presence seemed to reduce the pressure of his hurry. He found himself smiling, as if in apology for his uneven breathing, as he explained his errand. It seemed, absurdly, that he was sharing a tolerant amusement on her part at a young fellow from the city who had got himself hot and breathless just because a car had slipped off the road. “I'm sorry.”” Even her speech was de- liberate. “‘Come in and rest. You've been running, haven't you?” “Thanks, I've got to get back as soon as Ican. If you'll just tell me where I can find a man and some horses 2! “I'm sorry,” she said again. ‘All three of our teams are up at the east firebreak, and the truck’s down at the Corners. If you'll come in and wait a while I'll send it yack with you when it gets here.” Her tone changed a little. ‘Better stay for dinner—you might as well. There's no place farther on till you get to the turnpike, and we'd be glad to ” “It’s awfully good of you.” Gedney was yuzzled at the ont regret in his voice. le found that he actually wanted to wait for a meal in this funny old room, that he Any place nearer THE SATURDAY EVENING POST FORGIVING MINUTES (Continued from Page 7) was sorry for himself because he couldn't waste an hour or two in one of those wooden rockers. “I’ve got to hurry back. You see’’—it occurred to him that she must know Andrew Bidwell, that his name would expedite matters perhaps——‘‘you see, Mr. Bidwell’s with me. I've left him in the car, and we’re anxious to get on ——”’ He tried to read the changed expression. There was interest in the look, and surprise, and something else; something that made Marvin Gedney remember his mother, lis- tening to an excited small boy who couldn't make her understand his instant need for an air gun. “Not Andy Bidwell?”’ She spoke a little more briskly, and a cloud shadowed her smile at Gedney’s nod. “I'd have thought he’d stop and see us.” “We're in a hurry or he would have, of course,”” Gedney explained. “‘ We've got to make Northport this afternoon, you see.” Again the slow smile seemed to share a jest with him. “Of course. I was fo etting. Andy’d be in a hurry if it was is own funeral. Let’s see, the truck won’t be back before noon —— “1 think it'll take horses to pull me out of that mud,” said Gedney. ‘The road’s pretty soft in there.” She reflected. “Trout.ie is that the teams weren't com- ing home till night. It’s a good two miles back to the firebreak too — Wait a minute. I'll see ——” She crossed to another door and called; another voice answered and Gedney heard approaching steps. A girl stopped in the doorway. Gedney resented his self- consciousness under the level eyes. There was no conceivable reason why he should feel suddenly ridiculous, aware of his wilted collar and the drying —_ on his shoes and trousers, just because a backwoods girl in shirt waist and khaki skirt stood looking at im. He groped for the manner that bolstered his agreeable assurance in the management of the clerks at the office—girls, he told himself angrily, who were much more for- midable than this one. The older woman turned to him. “My yy says she’d just as soon > you the way up to the firebreak, ? He gave his name quickly. “I’m in business with Mr. Bidwell,” he added. ‘I’m awfully sorry to trouble you, but we're rather in a hurry, and ‘ “It’s no trouble.” The girl’s speech was unhurried, like her mother’s; but there was in it a more direct quality, Gedney thought, an effeet of confidence and competency that increased his irritation. ‘Perhaps you'd better wait here. It’s a pretty stiff walk if you're not used to the woods.” Gedney fe't himself flushing under the calm presumption of the voice and words. He kept himself physically fit, as a matter of commonplace business efficiency; an afternoon half hour in the gymnasium on the roof of the office building paid good dividends. “Oh, I'd better go along,” he said stiffly. “T’ll have to help get the car back on the road anyway.” She shrugged her shoulders carelessly and moved tothe door. Her mother stopped Gedney as he would have followed. He thought that he detected at last a fitting touch of constraint in her manner, just the suspicion of a deepened color in her whole- some cheeks. “Remember me to Andy Bidwell, won’t you? Sometime when he’s passing we'd be glad if he’d stop and see us —if he can spare the time.” Gedney nodded and thanked her, dimly aware now of a likeness between mother and daughter that he had not previously observed. The girl waited for him on the porch, the fishing rod in her hands, dis- assembled into three lengths. “Father must have forgotten it— I'll take it along anyway.” There was a confi- dential quality in her slow smile that seemed to admit Gedney to a secret under- standing. ‘I can use it if he doesn’t.” Gedney nodded tolerantly. Probably she was glad of a chance to get away from that kitchen. Her notion of a good time would naturally be pretty simple. He felt his self- certainty reviving under the compassionate thought of a girl growing up in this dull wilderness, of the contrast between her life and Frannie Bidwell’s, for instance. He seemed to see Frannie’s amused little grin, as if she were watching him, preparing one of her shrewd pin-pricky jokes about this expedition, the way she teased him some- times about the girls in the office. He pos- sessed himself of the rod, overbearing a mild protest. Presently, as they struck the foot of the slope and followed a foot- path that slanted up between young pines, he wondered at the weight of the fragile bits of wood; a fellow needed free hands for this sort of walking probably. Two miles—half an hour, anyway, and if it was all uphill perhaps forty or fifty minutes. Andrew Bidwell wouid be in a fine temper by the time they got back to the car with the horses; waiting always worried him. “Like to fish?” The silence troubled him, implying a reflection on his social adequacy. He spoiled the casual effect of the question by puffing a little. She did not answer di- rectly, as if the inquiry had been gratuitous. “It’s pretty fair since we've restocked the streams. The timber’s getting thick enough to keep the floods in reason too. It’s too bad you can’t stop and try it.” “Wish I could,” he said politely, Marvin Gedney, wasting whole hours and days of unforgiving minutes on a game for idiots! If you wanted the fish, a net would get them with something like effi- ciency. He knew that anglers deliberately increased the difficulty by using frail lines and rods and artificial flies instead of real bait. He listened in secret amusement to her talk, understanding a word here and there. She quoted, evidently, from some book on the topic. Izaak Walton—the name was dimly familiar; Gedney frowned at its implication. That was the sort of rubbish they read, of course, people to whom time didn’t mean anything. He salved a momentary feeling of ignorance with the recollection of the pile of technical journals on the stand beside his bed, the book on salesmanship-plus that he had brought along in his bag. He listened disapprovingly to random talk of other books, talk that assumed his acquaintance with authors who hadn’t even the excuse of being classic. Gedney didn’t read Shakspere or—or Scott or—or Kipling, but at least they were—well, suc- cessful in their way. Of course a girl could read fiction—Frannie Bidwell kept up with the latest novels. But Stockton— Blackmore—wasn’t Lorna Doone a kid’s book? Gedney made allowances generously; probably there wasn’t much choice, and the winter evenings up here must be endless. He asked about this. “Winter's fine up here. I'll be at home after this too."’ The girl’s voice warmed. “It’s the real thing in winter; you're really cut off when the roads drift full. In sum- mer’’—she paused—‘‘I don’t feel quite so—so safe. I can feel the hurry out there, even if I can’t see it. It comes up from the valley like a — wind, all hot and dusty. But winter shuts it out.” She stopped and Gedney saw a quick flush stain the sun-browned skin. “I forgot. I suppose you don’t feel that way about it.” “Not exactly.” Gedney grinned. ‘“‘Have ~ keep moving or get out from under, these ays. She did not answer. He toiled after her along a crude, steep road, carrying his coat now in the bend of a damp arm. Here and there an open space gave a view of monoto- nous tree-clad slopes and rounded summits reaching toward a sky where little shining clouds hung in a clear emptiness of aqua- marine. Marvin Gedney bestowed on these vistas a grudged approval. Transferred ac- ceptably to paint and canvas, he admitted, they would be worth something to people who went in for art. They gave him, here in their inaccessibility, a sense of waste; what was the use of beauty if nobody saw it? Twice they crossed small boisterous brooks, hopping from one bank to the other at narrow places between vertical banks of naked shale; they stumbled across a strip of cleared land in a narrow level, raw earth and broken shale upturned in long, careless furrows. “Firebreak,”’ the girl explained, as he overtook her at the farther edge. He nodded sullenly; the loose soil had sifted into his shoes and his legs ached from the uneven footing. She seemed to observe his weariness with a touch of condescension. December 29, 19235 “It’s not much farther now—just over this next hump.” He saw that she meant to propose a rest for his benefit and moved grimly forward, resisting a sudden temptation, annoyed by a stupid inner voice that repeated the silly irony of a signboard seen that morning near a deadly curve: ; Wuat’s Your Hurry? Want TO MEET TuHaT Foo? He had to hurry, didn’t he?—-with Bid- well waiting down there, with almost two hundred miles to travel in \, iat was left of the day. At the best possible speed he could make they’d a Northport well after dark; a crazy notion, this impulse to throw more good minutes after bad! The dull persistence of the desire vexed and shamed him as he drove his unsteady legs up the slant, conscious now that the girl was slowing her pace on his account. They reached a crest and slid and stumbled down a sharper descent. The trees thinned and ceased at another narrow stretch of plowed ground. A hundred yards away Gedney saw a group of horses in the edge of the timber. A man straightened deliberately in a blot of shadow and came toward them, walking in the furrow. Qut of breath, Gedney let the girl ex- plain their errand. He was uneasy under Eben Stafford’s direct eyes, for all their friendliness. In spite of his coarse work- stained clothes, Stafford justified Andrew Bidwell’s description. Gedney felt an un- willing respect for the spare, straight figure, a disturbing sense of inferiority that touched his smiles and nods, against his will, with apology. He could understand Bidwell’s feeling now; something big and splendid had gone willfully to waste when Stafford chose to bury himself up here. He fancied that he saw a faint resem- blance between the two men, not as they were now, but as they must have been. Bidwell suggested a man like Eben Stafford melted, as a wax figure softens in the sun, angles swelling into curves, strong lines drooping. In Stafford, the angles had hard- ened and sharpened, the lines etched deeper without sagging. Two others joined them while the girl was still explaining; one, Gedney guessed, a hired hand, older than Stafford, but like him wire lean and straight, high cheek bones and half-shut eyes giving him a look of shrewd simplicity as he listened; the other, a younger, stronger copy of Stafford, so like that Gedney did not need to be told that he was his son. There was a brief discussion, while Gedney waited, uneasily aware of standing outside the council. Stafford decided the issue with an abrupt finality that made Gedney think of Bid- well’s business manner. “T'll take my team down. They’ll be enough. Joe, you and Sam go ahead with the plowing. I'll get back in time to help you out. Catherine, ’s long as you brought the tackle, better try the upper branch there’s a likely place just below the old burn.” He nodded slantingly at Gedney. “Might as well ride. Guess you're tired, eh?” He jerked his head at the nearest horse, a great clumsy beast with absurdly shaggy fetlocks. ‘‘Give him a lift, Joe.” There was no condescension in the tone, but Gedney felt himself go red under the girl’s glance as Stafford approached an- other horse and lifted himself to its broad back without a visible effort. He tried to imitate the trick of it and hung, struggling, until a hearty thrust from Joe hoisted him the rest of the way. The horse plodded on after Stafford’s without command. Gedney was not sorry that he had time for only a word of thanks and farewell; he remem- bered gratefully that there had been no laughter in her look. He copied Stafford’s easy posture as nearly as he could, sitting as if he rode a side saddle, his body giving to the slow forward surges of the heavy walk. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than scram- bling down to the road on foot, and it grew easier as he caught the trick of balance. Stafford questioned him about Andrew Bidwell and the business, and presently himself, all with an interest that was obvi- ously genuine without being inquisitive. Gedney’s reserve yielded to the tone; it seemed natural enough to ask a personal question in his turn. (Continued on Page 32)

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32 (Continued from Page 30) “T should think you'd have hated to quit the firm,” he ventured after a pause. “ Mr. Bidwell says you furnished moet of the brains to start it.’’ “Did hate to—kind of.” Stafford shook his head slowly. ‘“Didn’t see quite as straight then as I do now, I guess.” “You mean you'resorry?"’ Gedneyspoke eagerly. He wondered why he should sud- denly want to hear this man admit that he'd made a huge mistake; why should it matter to Marvin Gedney? But Stafford laughed softly. “No—mean I'd have felt better about pulling out if I'd known enough. Figured I was paying a pretty stiff price to get foot- loose again. Didn't seem right, throwin away good money just because I hankere to come back home.” He laughed again, as if at an outgrown illusion. “Didn't know then how easy I could eat my cake and keep it too.” He stopped, and when he spoke again his tone had changed. “Pretty fair stand of pines in here. Time you're my age they’il be first-rate timber. Grow fast, pines do. I can remember when this was logged off and burnt over pretty bare.”’ Fast! Marvin Gedney repressed a com- passionate grin at the word applied to a process that needed thirty or ay years. He gave attention, for the first time, to the height and girth of the trees. Against a man's lifetime the slender boles seemed ridiculously slight; it would need another lifetime— more, perhaps—to swell them for the saws. Fast! “Guess it did look kind of foolish,” said Stafford, ‘taking cash out of a first-rate business and buying Andy Bidwell's cut- over land, when I had eight hundred acres of my own that weren't much better. I was pretty young then, and you don’t get to understand about time till you've used a sight of it." He moved an arm in an inclu- sive gesture toward the re’ k of pines. “Used to figure the only .. y to get the best of the clock was to stretch every second all I could—try to jam it full of work, swap it for as much of a penny as I could manage. Took me forty years to learn better.” He stopped, and a thin, abashed smile of apology softened his face. “Guess you're laughing inside. Didn't go to preach at you. Sort of put me in mind of myself when [ was in business with Andy Bidwell back yonder. Funny thin about getting old-—-makes you want to te every young fellow what you been learning about the clock,” ’ Gedney nodded, sffably tolerant. ‘I’m interested,” he said. “I’m young, but I've found out already that the clock’s the champion long-distance runner of the universe, If there’s any way of beating it to the tape a “Don’t know as there is. more'n one way to give it a race.” A pause. “There's Andy Bidwell’s way—trying to stretch every minute till it cracks and sell it for all the money it’ll fetch. Sight of folks believe that’s the best way. Thought so myself till | was past forty.” “And you think differently now?” Marvin Gedney was pleased with the re- spectful tone in which he contrived to ask the question. It was kind of pitiful to hear this old man bragging about his wasted years. ‘Guess so, Sort of hate to swap a min- ute now for anything except a minute's worth of living. Too easy to swap a tree's minute for what money I need and keep my own time for something that I'd rather have. Beats all how much time there is in a day if you don’t hurry.” Gedney's interest quickened in spite of his amusement. He knew how this man employed the hours he refused to invest in work —fishing for little trout in a hill brook, reading some stupid book in front of the winter fire, going to bed with the chickens. But he probably did know something about his business, even so; Gedney’s ear dis- tinetly caught the note of knowledge in that odd reference to making money out of trees. “You mean that there's a profit in grow- ing timber?” “Paid me pretty well so far.” Again Staf- ford gestured at the young pines. “Paid Andy Bidwell four dollars an acre for this land thirty-two years ago. That’s throwing in the house and buildings free. Guess it’s raised around four-five hundred feet of lumber to the acre every year since—ought to be doing a sight better than that now. Costs something to keep the firebreaks But there’s THE SATURDAY . open, and there’s .. _3 and interest to fig- ure in; but I'd figure a pretty fair profit on my four dollars every year, at that. Had some bad burns too.” “But it’s all in the future,”’ said Gedney, “You said that I’d be your age before these trees are fit to cut.” “Guess Joe and Catherine’ll be alive then, and their children anyhow.” Staf- ford smiled as if he found something pleas- ant in the thought of somebody’s reapin: his harvest years after the sower was dead. “Trees’ll be here anyway,” he added. ‘‘Guess somebody’ll thank me for giving ‘em a chance to grow.” “ But btn OE Something checked Gedney’s objection as it reached his lips. If you called a man a failure just because he didn’t spend his profits himself, every man who accumulated an inheritance for his children was a failure; Gedney’s own father, dying at forty-four, with the name of a successful business man, had failed. There wasn't any important difference between leaving your wealth tied up in trust and leaving it tied up a little more securely in timber. “Of course, it’d be lean pickings if you had to wait sixty or seventy years for a crop,” conceded Stafford. “A fellow’d need a sight of money in the bank if he started out to plant bare ground to trees. But we been cutting timber off this place ever since the year I bought it, asn’t logged clean in the old days. Only cut first- rate timber then—didn’t pay to bother with anything else. Left the hemlock too—hadn’t started using it those days. Cropped it about as steady as if we'd seeded it to grass—keep our sawmill run- ning most of the time without cutting out any more than is good for the young stuff that’s left standing.” He wagged his head and smiled again as they emerged on the road within sight of the mired car, and Andrew Bidwell’s thick, soft figure waved an arm in impatient summons, “Ain't changed much, Andy ain’t,” he said. ‘Ina hurry, same as he always was— in such a hurry he’s never found out how to use a minute more’n once!" Gedney held his tongue as the two older men exchanged brief greetings. He felt a friendly, condescending tolerance in Staf- ford’s manner, an uneasy surliness in Bid- well’s responses that deepened as Stafford mildly directed the rescue of the car. Quite evidently it troubled Bidwell to take orders, even when phrased as suggestions, from his one-time partner. He com his thanks and farewell into a single com- pact sentence as he scrambled to his seat, and Gedney, taking more time for his own acknowledgment, was conscious of Bid- well’s impatient disapproval. “Glad to’ve seen you.” Stafford spoke with unmistakable sincerity. ‘‘Wish you'd stop in sometime when you aren't in a hurry.” Gedney was puzzled by the honesty of his promise, by the discovery that he wished that he might stay a little longer now. As he shifted gears the renewal of hostilities between the rival dials irritated him. He had a weary sense of leaving an atmosphere of cool and gracious serenity, of coming back into a closed room hot with a pressure of noise and haste. He drove as swiftly as he dared, his eyes intent on the road and yet conscious of the young, crowding trees that shut it in. His common sense was exaspera by a per- sistent, absurd fancy that the trees were whispering and laughing softly, laughing at Marvin Gedney and his antic attempt to hurry. They gave him, in the light of Staf- ford’s words, a queer feeling of inferiority, as if he matched a trivial human endeavor gpainat some mighty force of Nature. Hurry? Speed? He seemed to share their contempt for the futile haste of the wheels. What had Stafford said —five hundred feet a year for every acre? Then a thousand acres should grow —yes, half a million feet! Gedney’s mind calculated accurately — about a foot a minute; suppose Stafford owned more than a thousand acres—-very likely he did by this time. It would be like owning one tremendous tree that grew two or three thousand feet each day! Another phrase of Stafford’s came back to him— “‘a tree’s minute.” Multiplied by a million or two, a forest’s minute, it suddenly be- came dynamic instead of static. Against the spectacle of that unwavering speed the car’s best pace was pathetic, like the des- perate haste of some crawling bug. Gedney seenied again to see Eben Stafford’s face, EVENING POST touched with compassionate, understand- ing amusement. **Let hereout a bit, can’t you?”” Bidwell spoke fretfully. ‘“‘Aren’t averaging over fifteen.” Something clicked back into place in Marvin Gedney’s brain. Once more he was a practical, efficient young man of affairs, decently intent on the serious business of filling the unforgiving minute with at least fifty seconds’ worth of distance run. He was only distantly conscious of the monoto- nous landscape now; he saw deserted farmsteads from the tail of his eye, and the overgrowth that had spread over aban- doned pastures concerned him merely as a tiresome hindrance to fast driving, compel- ling him to slow down at every curve. au Iz as young Mr. Wallace rattled the tiny dice Frannie’s hands upset the newey ordered wall of tiles. They were small hands, beautifully kept, and Marvin Gedney had an obscure idea that they would be lovely in repose. Below a mild relief at the interruption of a game which seemed chiefly a matter of vocabulary and ceremonial, he wondered whether Frannie’s hands were ever altogether still. She moved them now in a swift and eloquent gesture. “This is just slow death,” she declared. “Let’s do something.” “The ayes have it,” said young Mr. Wal- lace evenly. ‘ This game’s as wet as bridge.” Marvin Gedney had picked up enough of Mr. Wallace's university English to inter- pret the adjective accurately. Without affection, he had come to hold a certain un- willing respect for Wallace, as exquisitely imperturbable as his glistening hair. Ex- istence at Northport was rapid, exhausting; not once during these four days and nights had Wallace exhibited fatigue or eagerness. “There’s nothing else to do,” said Pau- line Lister. ‘‘Let’s play another hand.” “T’ve only got one young life to live,” said Frannie firmly. ‘ Let’s drive down to Clifton Beach and play with the rough little boys and girls for a change.” “All-American,” said Mr. Wallace, em- ploying the most enthusiastic of his private adjectives. ‘Let’s go.” Gedney had been at Clifton Beach, and the memory of its pine-board amusement palaces failed to tempt him, but there would be a long drive each way —twenty- five or thirty miles over empty concrete, and the air wouldn’t be filled with a fog of talk as it was here in the lobby. He'd have a chance to tell Frannie —it was queer that there hadn't been a minute in all these four days when confidences had seemed in order. He began to replace the bamboo- and-ivory tiles in the trays. Wallace lifted one finger and a bell boy scuttled toward him. “Clear away the playthings, George.” Wallace rose without haste, and Gedney followed his example. The two girls went for wraps while Gedney and Wallace fetched their cars. Frannie slipped in be- side Wallace and cried out something about waiting for them at the beach. By the time Pauline Lister had fluttered into Gedney’s car the others had turned the corner. Ged- ney pursued them in silence, oppressed by a sense of injustice; Wallace’s car was built for nothing but speed; it wasn’t a fairy race. Frannie might have ridden with him this once. His attention wandered from Pauline’s talk. He’d have a show-down with Frannie tonight—ask her to come back with him and tell her—Bidwell’s telegram said that the loan could be arranged at once. There wasn't any reason for waiting now, and if he could settle things with Frannie on the drive home he could start back to town in the morning instead of waiting till the end of the week. He almost wished that he had gone back with Bidwell, who had managed to spend just one restless day at Northport. They could have fixed up that loan by now if he hadn't stayed here wasting time. Slow?" He caught the one word in some complaint of Pauline’s. “‘ We're doing forty-five or better.” “T wasn’t talking about the car, stupid!” She laughed. ‘I said I didn’t wonder you were bored to tears at Northport. I’ve never spent such a slow summer.” Marvin Gedney reviewed his own four days—days filled with a straining haste from one pastime to another, days that be- gan with a rush to the first tee and an impa- tient ey | wait after every shot, another scurry to the beach and back for a late luncheon, afternoons of tennis, except December 29, 1925 when the rain drove’ them all indoors to bridge, evenings of breathless dancing in the hot little ballroom, of restless, impatient games of bridge and mah jongg, of such ex- cursions as this, enlivened by young Mr. Wallace’s generous pocket flask. Slow the word was ridiculous, and yet Gedney admitted its absurd exactitude. Wallace would have called it a wet summer, but he would have meant just what Pauline Lister meant, what Marvin Gedney felt. You drove a mile a minute with nothing in par- ticular to gain, and found it tediously slow. He opposed the thought. It was natural enough for him to be impatient, he told himself. This holiday was delaying the loan and the deal that depended on it. He wasn’t, like Wallace, at liberty to dedicate himself single-mindedly to enjoyment; that would have to wait till he’d run that ninety thousand up to a million or two—a proc- ess which had thoughtfully been arranged for Wallace by his grandfather. Presently there would be plenty of time to play and plenty of money to play with. In four or five years, with any luck, Marvin Gedney would be as independent as anybody. The prospect diverted his attention from Pauline’s talk. He answered in absent agreement, only a little more aware of her nearness, of the pressure against his shoul- der that hampered his driving. He under- stood its amiable intent. Petting was a matter of course on these expeditions, and Gedney had found it, on occasion, agree- ably exciting; but tonight he chose to ignore the invitation. He couldn't be both- ered with Pauline. Let her think him slow if she wanted to—it didn’t matter. Slow—there it was again, the adjective that seemed to express the ultimate in dis- approval. Mechanically he quickened the pace of the car in self-defense against its suggestions. Queer how they all detested slowness and how often they endured it even these expert specialists in speed, even Andrew Bidwell, fretting perpetually under trivial little leakages of time. The faster you learned to travel, to live, the more acutely you realized the inevitability of slowness, the more bitterly you rebelled against it. Pauline’s displeasure had become wholly manifest by the time they slid into the laring lights of the pine-board resort. ‘lifton Beach, she announced, made her sick in bed. She surveyed a crowded dance floor with weary resignation and surren- dered herself to Gedney’s embrace in a man- ner that left him no room for doubt of her discontent. The music was out of step with Gedney’s mood, its skipping syncopations merely aggravating his sense of straining, futile haste. Encountering Frannie and Wallace, he wondered dully why he wasn’t jealous, why the sight of them together only deepened that gray depression, blunted the edge of an emotion that had never—he suddenly realized—-been keen enough to cut deep. The four drifted together presently. The music, according to Wallace, was pretty wet. At his suggestion they visited such other entertainments as the place pro- vided, preserving a decently supercilious sophistication in the face of revolving bar- rels, shifting floors and humorous jets of air, which the more simple-minded patrons appeared to enjoy; they resisted the earnest invitations of sidewalk orators to toss rings at racks of canes and throw baseballs at human targets and to purchase food and drink. “Let’s move,” said Wallace. “It has just occurred to me that we've all only one life to live.” “Thank goodness! I'd hate to be bored to death more than once.” Pauline’s clutch of Wallace’s sleeve in- formed Gedney that he need give himself no anxiety over an exchange of partners for the drive back, but the prospect of Fran- nie’s cornpany failed to lift his mood. Even when she cuddled frankly against his arm he felt only a deepening depression, and he was relieved when she announced and car- ried out an intention of sleeping all the way home. He drove in a sullen silence, unable to order his thoughts, sure only of a new discontent, a new, strange need of hurry hurry without definite object or destina- tion. By the time he stopped the car under the pretentious porte-cochére of the hotel he had reached a sulky decision. “I’m going to start back to town to- night,” he announced to Frannie, whose vivacity, restored by her nap, seemed only an added grievance. ‘I’ve wasted enoug time up here as it is.”’ (Continued on Page 34)

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(Continued from Page 32) “Sorry it’s been so slow,” she acquiesced. “‘Northport’s a dead hole. Wish I could go along.” Something drew tight in Marvin Ged- ney’s throat. In the dimness of the dark- ened veranda, her face smoothed and softened by sleep, Frannie quickened the old, shy dreams and desires in him; his aching rebellion caught passionately at the thought of adventure and romance. The very craziness of the sudden idea tempted him; there would be eseape, relief, in some- thing so utterly unsensible as an elopement, a flight across moonlit country, a run- away marriage, the sort of thing that hap- pened, in half-remembered stories, to people who lived happily ever after. “Night’ 8 the only. time to drive,” said Frannie. ‘You can’t show real speed in the daytime.” It was like the way the automatic device on the windshield cleared a mist of rain from the glass, Gedney thought. The speech opened vision through clouded, con- flicting whorls of desire and fear. Speed hurry —motion—he conceived toward all these gods a swift, cold passion of hate. “Well, good night,” he said abruptly. Got to go and pack.” “St she fad expected another answer she yave no sign of disappointment. “Fast worker, aren’t you? Toodle-oo.” The watchman let them in. Gedney left her at the stair foot, strangely eager to be off, a sense of near escape strong in him. He packed with the efficiency of his old traveling-salesman experience, left a note and check for the manager with the watch- man and tossed his bag into the car as if he fled before pursuit. Somewhere along the road there’d be an all-night filling station; chere was gas enough for the first hundred miles or more. He felt the car leap under him and saw the rival dials resume their duel on the dash. His mind reverted to the fixed habit of calculating their ratio. An average of forty, say—and now that he'd been over it, that short cut that Bidwell had shown him ought to save time, even at night. Seven or eight hours at the moat at AWN lay on the hilltops, but the nar- a row upland glen between their feet held a shadowy coolness that was like a liquid left in the heel of a drained cup. Against the gentle stillness of its airs Mar- vin Gedney half resented the heat and mut- ter of his laboring motor, as if someone else were trespassing on this hushed solitude in which he seemed to have an owner’s right, More immediately he took note of the warning implied in the pound of the engine. Those long, harsh grades, climbed in second apeed, had just about emptied the radiator; he ought to have filled it when he stopped for gas. Now, unless he found a farmhouse pretty soon, he’d have to wait for the cyl- indera to cool. Strangely, the prospect failed to irritate him. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to stop for a while anyway; when you hadn’t n asleep for twenty hours or more, driving took it out of you. A few minutes of rest would probably pay-——make better speed afterwards. He tried to orient himself by vague memories of the hills; it couldn't be very far now to the Stafford place. The house took him by surprise; it seemed to appear in the midst. of the scrub woods by some kind of magic, like Alad- din’s palace. He smiled at the notion, It wasn’t much like a palace, this low, weather-beaten farmhouse that clung to the slope among its ancient lilac bushes. He shut off the engine, reassured by the air of use and habitation which distinguished this place from the four or five deserted farm- steads he had passed since daybreak. There would be people here; he could borrow a pail and get water from the well. Stiffly, his legs cramped by the long drive, he let him- self down to deep, dew-drenched grass, climbed rude steps in the retaining wall and went past the shuttered front to the kitchen wing. Here, through closed windows, he saw that the house was empty, after all The discovery troubled him, 4 because of its effect on his progress than because of a vague sense of contradiction. It didn’t look like an empty house; he had a queer feeling that it wasn’t empty, in spite of the bare walls and floor of the low-ceiled room be- yond the crinkled panes. Only when he had pounded on the door and called repeatedly was he persuaded that no one heard. He tried the other doors, hoping that some old pas might have been left in woodshed or vurn. They were stoutly fastened; he went THE SATURDAY back to the car and lifted the hood. He’d let the motor cool off anyway. He settled himself comfortably on the seat and sur- rendered to a sudden delightful drowsiness. Queer how sleepy he felt all at once. Something tugged at his sleeve, dragging him back through profound abysses of sleep, heedless of his mutter of complaint. He opened his eyes in a brilliant sunlight, blinking stupidly at the girl who shook his arm. e saw concern fade into relieved amusement as he recognized Catherine Stafford. “Are you all right? I was afraid Gedney sat up quickly. “Must have dozed off,’’ he said. ‘ Wait- ing for the motor to cool. What time is it?”’ She glanced at the sun. “About ten, I guess. How did you get here so early?” “Ten!'"’ He remembered the clock on the dash and verified her guess. ‘‘That’s one on me, all right! Drive all night and then sleep five hours!’’ He wondered why he saw caging funny in this, why he wasn’t angry and ashamed, why, instead of hurrying away, he confronted a desire to sit still and talk to Catherine Stafford. “Stopped here for water, but the place seems to be shut up. I suppose you didn’t happen to bring a pail ~% did you?” His good humor bewildered him; five hours wasted! “T'll get you one.” She turned toward the house and he fol- lowed her back to the kitchen door. Her key admitted them. He sniffed at the faint, blended smells of the inclosed air, undis- tinguishable and yet su tive —smells that made Gedney think of wood fires and of pipe smoke and baking bread and of old books and pressed flowers and straw mat- ting, as if somehow all these reminiscent fragmentary thoughts belonged together, were all parts of some one thing. The girl opened a cupboard door; he saw a few garden implements against a white- waned wall, a sickle and a pair of pruning shears; a box of nails and a hammer on the narrow shelf, and a wooden bucket, with a dry mop and a new broom in the corner. Something about these homely things chal- lenged Marvin Gedney’s curiosity; they didn’t belong in a deserted farmhouse, he felt. “Whose place is this?” He stood holding the pail, puzzled by the look in the girl’s eyes, the "faintly height- ened color of her cheeks, as if he had stum- bled on some secret of hers, he thought. “Nobody’s,” she said. “I mean it’s just an estate. When it’s sold the money will go to a few charities, but they've been —— nine or ten years for a buyer, and I'm afrai they'll wait longer than that before one turns up.” He nodded. “It’s rather queer it’s in such good shape after all that time,” he said. “Most of the empty houses along the road look EVENING POST pretty ghastly.” He fancied that the flush deepened. “T come over every now and then and tinker with it,”’ she told him “I hate to have it go to seed like the others. I got Joe to help me fix the roof last year.” Her eyes met his with a faint hint of defiance. “I’ve always pretended that I owned it.” “Kind of a playheuse—I see.”” He was surprised to find himself in sympathy with the whim; it seemed entirely reasonable for her to waste time and strength on an aban- doned house. “It’s a nice old place. You can feel it’s been—I don’t know just what I mean, but I guess there’s a kind of homy feel about it.” Her eyes warmed. “Yes. I-—-I didn’t think you'd under- stand. I wish I could get father to buy it. He ought to. There's a beautiful lot of young woods on it right now. If somebody took care of them, the way father and Joe take care of ours, they'd do every bit as well.” “Why won't he buy it?” Gedney was interested, partisan. He sur- veyed the room now with a kind of posses- sive approval. “Oh, he’s right enough. He says we've got ali the timberland we can manage, and we have too. There’s plenty to do with what we've got. It would be silly to buy any more. And they won't sell the house separately either.” “Tt's too bad.” Gedne ey spoke warmly. “How much land is there? “About six hundred acres —and not one acre that’s good for anything but timber. They want three thousand dollars for it too. Of course they’d take less, but —-— “Why, that’s only five dollars an acre and the | buildings thrown in! You mean to say they'd sell it for that-now?” “It’s a good price for cut-over land up here. You covld buy a good many thou- sand acres at that figure or less.”’ She spoke patiently, as if she told him only what anybody should have known without the telling. For some reason the fact that he had something over two thou- sand to his credit at the bank seemed to be peculiarly significant; there would be an- other thousand or so on the first of the month too. As he came out to the overgrown door- yard Marvin Gedney heard all about him faint, furtive whispering sounds, as if—as if the young trees were trying to be very quiet, to make a secret of their growth. Again he seemed to see the forest as a sin- gle tree, growing like the magic beanstalk fh » Fm old fairy tale, hundreds of feet in a sin He filled the bucket and carried water to the radiator, confronted by the disturbing realization that it wasn’t a fairy story, that all about him the new forest was really stealing back its hills, senting not to stir and yet moving swiftly, as swiftly as the clock itself. Its whisper seemed to cae PHOTO. BY LELAND J. BURRUD Lake Arrowhead, California December 29, 1925 laugh at him now, a kindly laugh, as if it was glad because he saw through its careful pretense of immobility. Tramping downward across wooded slopes that stretched far up to sunset radi- ance, Gedney made a fresh discovery that drew his thought from the fish in his basket and the remembered triumph of each successful landing. It had been a long after- noon, longer than any day he could recall; there had been time for this climb over the hillsides he was going to buy, for much shrewd inspection of the young growth that had already masked the ruin of its virgin forest, for talk, too, and for fishing in Eben Stafford’s pet brook. And—he took a quick pleasure in the thought—the day wasn’t yet ended; there was still this walk through slowly settling shadows, supper in the lamp- lit kitchen, an evening that became suddenly inviting as he thought of Catherine, of the way her eyes would change when he told her that she could have that old farmhouse to play with as long as she liked. The mystery baffled him throughout the long homeward descent. Not once through- out the afternoon had he tried to hurry; he'd actually forgotten the clock, measuring off that procession of unforgiving minutes. Why had those minutes, instead of racing on ahead, mocking his toiling pursuit, stopped and waited for him, played with him? At the supper table in the kitchen he de- tected a more intimate friendliness after Eben Stafford had told them that Gedney wanted to buy the old Farnham place. He felt himself more at home among them now, one of them, in a sense a neighbor, intri- cately identified with their affairs and in- terests. Of course it wasn’t exactly that; he'd be an absentee landlord, owning that bit of hillside just as a minor speculation, but still it did make a difference, especially with Catherine. He talked with her after the table had been cleared. It would be fun to furnish the old house again—-that was a first-rate notion of hers to pick up odds and ends at country auctions so that the furniture would suit the house. He could come up sometimes and camp out there for a holi- day. It would be more fun, he thought, than going to a place like Northport. Perhaps he’d try it in winter, too—see what it was like to be snowbound before a log fire, with the right kind of a book —a book that you read slowly, a little at a time, and re- membered afterwards. Maybe the minutes would stop and wait and play as they'd seemed to do this afternoon. He was startled, shocked, by the strength of the absurd temptation that beckoned him. He didn’t want to go back at all to the life where the clock was taskmaster slave driver; he wanted, suddenly and des- perately, to stay here, where time worked for you, slowed its pace to yours. Stafford and Joe would teach him their practical sort of forestry; Eben Stafford had half hinted at something of the kind this after- noon. Up here the income on his inheritance would be a lot more than he’d spend; he could buy more land without even cutting into his capital. He drew in his breath. The old grand- father clock in the corner counted its de- liberate measures against the warm and tranquil silence. Eben Stafford fumbled with a calf-bound book and handed it to Ged- ney, marking the place with a huge, flat thumb. “Said something today about this tim- ber growing being a new notion,” he said gently. ‘‘It isn’t. Here’s Kennedy on Gar- dening, printed in 1784. Might see what he said about it.” Gedney glanced at the yellowed page of stately type: In countries scarce of firing, and where poles and rails are wanted, underwood will pay the proprietor triple more value than the best fields of corn, even allowing for the expences of plant- ing, fencing and the rent of the land from its being planted to the first cutting, after which there is no labour but keeping up the fences, so that the profit will increase, and the Oaks for timber still remain a great estate to succeeding generations. The rhythm of the words throbbed in Marvin Gedney’s ears in time to the meas- ured, peaceful beat of the wise old clock. Succeeding generations— trees and men and women, living and dying as individuals, but the forest and the family enduring together, gathering strength with their years, years of minutes that he knew at last as friendly and forgiving. His eyes rose from the book and rested, understanding and content, in Catherine's.

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} f he stick at his own jail? Ccmin’ fur to learn somepun off me, I s’pose.”’ The dish of salt pork in Tippora’s fingers slanted precariously. She clacked it down upon the table and sank into a chair with a rush. “What's the matter of youse anyways? Ain’tit anyways gittin’ into your head where Hock — Sheriff Tobey Hock—is comin’ here from Andore ower? Take shame to your- self fur your empty cells! Me, here from the minute I am hangin’ the long-distance up onto its hook, here I am a-bakin’ like never was fur to make a good expression onto him. And here you set a-talkin’ dumb!”’ Adlai’s eyes gloomed judicially over a table by the stove laden with cakes, pies, pudding and bread. “Wittles ain’t nothing extry. I will git some cider off Ofendahl. That there is what will make with Hock.” “Ofendahl? Youse and Ofendahl ain’t ever been swogglin’ down cider both to- gether?” “T ain’t sayin’ him—her.”’ “Sarah! Sadie Ofendahl!’’ hissed Tip- pora. Her eyes caught flame from the sudden heat in her cheeks below. ‘“‘ Have youse been swiggin’ cider with Sadie Ofen- dahl? Answer me up now!” “You bet!’ Dreamy ecstasy mantled Adilai’s features as he gently pursued a bite of salt pork round and round his plate. “Sadie is, now, a fine party. Such a cut-up!”’ Some expansive emotion within Tippora shot her in geyser formation from her chair. She descended in floods of scorn. “AndIs ‘pose I s’pose you was thinkin’ ‘you was se ttin’ up keepin’ comp’ny with her ag’in! I s’pose you ain’t a-rememberin’ to furgit you was a married man a’ready! Mealy mouth! A-hangin’ around a-soft- soapin’ the married wimmin! Have you lost your morals then? Yi-yi! Since I was born a ‘ready I ain’t never heard of nothing so sic kening, so ——” “You will holler me deef with both my ears,” interrupted Adlai shortly. ‘Fetch me a piece that there cheesecake. And so far forth as wimmin goes, I’m a-goin’ to take notice to them where feeds me and drinks me. It may be a hundred head or it may be a thousand head’’—he gestured largely—‘‘and they could be married or they couldn’t be married; but such as feeds me, I’m all fur ’em.”” He yawned; his eyes glazed. ‘‘And I’m a-goin’ to keep on bein’ fur ’em,”” he murmured stubbornly. Tippora, stretching her neck upward and downward like a chicken with the pip, cut a large piece of the cheesecake and served it in silence. Then she absently took up the knife and cut the entire cake into bits. Tippora was not silent, however, when she greeted her husband the following morn- ing. She passed him, as it were, on high gear as he stepped from the bedroom into the kitchen. Adlai had slept an hour later than was his wont, yet hestood regarding ic: Growsi} as he inquired, “‘What was you inakin’ breakfust fur with your bonnet at?”’ Tippora whipped off her hat. She sailed about grandly, drawing water and meas- uring coffee. “Wash yourself up! Here it’s a quarter behind seven a'ready! Hock could be here before you git your hairs combed.” “Hock!” Adlai grabbed at his middle. “Hock? A-comin’—here? My gosh! Why ain’t you tellin’ me, then? Why ain’t you tellin’ me last night a’ready? Or’’—his fingers fumbled toward his head—‘“‘ was you?” “Your head was too full of wimmin fur to hold Tobey Hock last night,’ nipped Tippora. “Now, now, Tippie! You know good enough you’re the only wimmin where makes with me. My head does, now, feel kinda loose someways. But Tobey Hock!” He spun about upon distracied heels. ‘* My gosh! We must make grand fur him! Shall f ketch up coupla pullets? Ach! If I only had some pris’ners oncet! You must, now, make a meal fur him, Tippie! Ain’t, you will? “I got some cider fur to drink him any- ways. Tippora waved in dry triumph toward a jug upon the table. ‘“‘ You won’t be a-swiggin’ cider this morning in no shed, that I can tell you! ‘“‘Cider!” repeated Adlai vaguely. ‘‘To wash down the wittles, ain’t? I had some THE SATURDAY such a day or two back a’ready. Or was it, mebbe, yesterday after? At Brother Ofen- dahl’s. Yes, yesterday after. You was some smart, Tippie, fur to mind of cider. That there will set good with Hock. But you ain't been to Ofendahl’s a’ready out?”’ Tippora covered a skillet and squared toward him. ‘Leave me ask you somepun now. Did Sarah Ofendahl up and tell you where Kreider had brang them cider a’ready?”’ “She did that, and we drunk it still. At the shed, standing ; “*Somepun is here that ain't plain on the surface, then.”” Tippora’s brown eyes mused upon him. ‘“‘Ofendahl says he ain’t never had no cider onto his place.” Adlai’s head shot out of the washbasin. He stared at her through a rain of drops like Neptune newly risen from the sea. “T says to him, ‘That’s some funny, seein’ that my man and your woman was a-swiggin’ it here yesterday after!’ And he up’t and ketched his hand into his beard and he bellered like never was, ‘Sheriff a-drinkin’ here!’ Just like that; like he was all out of puff and his eyes a-rollin’ like wild: ‘Sheriff —a-drinkin’ here!’"' “But | was, ” insisted Adlai. Sadie - Tippora stabbed viciously the frying corn-meal mush. “Och, yes, the dopple! She come a-waddlin’ onto the porch and she say s bold- like, ‘We never drunk it all,’ she says. ‘Leave me fetch the rest part,’ she says. And mister up and yells ag’in, ‘Don’t you go to work and sling no lies around here! I ain’t never had no cider onto my place!’”’ “This is, now, wonderful,” puzzled Ad- lai. His eyes veered to the jug. “‘But you got it id “Yes. But I got it off Kreider. Least- ways, mister did. I says I would be goin’ then, fur I was some pushed to git redd up fur Hock. And Ofendahl, then, he went to work and put on his manners and he says, ‘I will git some fur you off Kreider,’ he says. ‘I will git yousome fur to treat Hock,’ he says. And I says I wouldn’t bother him nothing; but off he would go through the apple trees with a jug at.’’ She pitched the slabs of golden mush upon a platter. “ Well, we ain’t got no time fur to waste gabbin’. What we have got to consider into is how to keep Hock from climbin’ the steps to them there empty cells. That there will take more brains than we have both to- gether of us got. Och, my! It’s easy enough — where you ain’t natured to this here job!” “I wisht if he wasn’t comin’ and I wisht if he was,” Adlai groaned as he split his wet hair into a hasty part. ‘“‘My gosh! What could that high-up sheriff be wantin’ off me anyhow?” Sheriff Hock did not keep him long in suspense when he squeaked up in an ancient seven-passenger car in the late morning. He was a thin, striated man with discon- certing eyebrows. The latter lay meekly enough for half their length, then suddenly sprang straight outward, as stiff as a cat's whiskers and seemingly as determined to feel their way into the dark places of life. When on the scent they moved up and down. They were, in reality, the trade- mark of his soul. Adlai, who had never before seen the redoubtable Hock, sat gazing in fascina- tion from these eyebrows to the thin throat through which a thick voice was bowming that bootleg was trickling from Buthouse County into Andore. Via what and via where, Hock did not know. He proposed, with Adlai’s connivance, to find out. His eyebrows raised and lowered premonitorily. Where did he suspect the liquor v ‘s being dispensed? He suspected a general merchandise store in Andore City; but though the place had been watched and searched thoroughly, no eviaence had as yet been found. For the past ten days his deputies had even searched the wagons of the farmers along the two highways which led from one county into the other. Did Adlai have any bootleggers among his prisoners? Tippora saved the day. In her best gingham, so stiffly starched that it cracked against the sides of the door, she burst in at that moment and announced, Come oncet now and set along and eat a vite.”’ Bites were the order of the ensuing half hour—large bites,succulent bites and many- flavored bites. Dishes went round and *Didn’t DUCKS AND DECOY DUCKS (Continued from Page 11 EVENING POST round in such swift profusion that only one gifted with a steady brain could have es- caped resultant dizziness. Sheriff Hock had a steady brain, it early appeared, and an eye single to the issue of the moment. When he pursued bootleg, he pursued it; when he pursued food, he pursued it. Tippora, like an expert ringmaster, whipped round and round the table with a fly chaser made of long inch strips of newspaper tied to a stick, urging on increased activity. Adlai, under cover of her hospitality, was just glanc ing in surreptitious foreboding at their distinguished guest's lean midriff when the latter suddenly set down his thrice- emptied cup and took up the conversation where Tippora’s soup had drowned it. ‘Have yougot any bootleggers upstairs?” Adlai’s dismayed eyes strayed for a second to Tippora. “Not yet anyways,” he fumbled. “ Pris- oners is some scarce with me. In fact “What about that feller you ketched in the cellar?’”’ cut in Tippora. “ Anyways, you would have ketched him if he wouldn't ‘a’ ketched you. Go to work and tell sheriff now about that there funny pipe.” Adlai launched gratefully upon his epic. “I never had such a puzzlement since I was born a’ready,” he concluded. ‘ What woul: a feller be predigin’ in a cellar where was p.umb empty fur? In a jail cellar yet, with the sheriff upstairs a-settin’?”’ “A crooked pipe Well, have you give all your pris’ners a good grilling? I wouldn’t mind taking a look He pushed back his chair. “Wait oncet!” shrilled Tippora. “Ain't I hearin’ wheels now?"’ She sprang in full crackle of starch and newspaper to the window. “If here, now, ain’t Ofendahls!” She flung about, a red flag of triumph flying in either chee k. “Set down, sheriff! You got comp’ny a’ready!”’ She fiew to the door. “Well, Brother Ofendahl, now, ain't you? And if here ain't missus! Now if this don’t make a supprise fur me! Hurry insides and draw up fur some pie!" Ofendahl rocked backward as though blasted by the heat of the welcome and gazed at her questioningly. Sarah, in de- scent from the top buggy, paused peril- ously, one flat foot upon the iron step, the other feebly spatting the air. Tippora stamped impatiently. ‘““Make hurry oncet!"” She glanced nervously behind her. ‘‘Ofendahl, you go set alongsides Sheriff Hock and talk over old times that way. Sarah, spare your bonnet and pick that there chair.’ ‘Well, I will oncet.”” That amiable creature began untying her sunbonnet. “You'll have to excuse me fur not gittin’ my Sunday hat down. Mister he all on a suddint fetched such a laugh and he says, ‘Make hurry!’ he says. ‘Let's see Hock drink his cider oncet,’ he says. And he says, ‘Let the hat,’ he says. So what could I otherwise do but just to let it when he made so pleasant that way?”’ Her husband was, indeed, in excellent humor. His buzzard crest vibrated wag- gishly as he swooped down beside the guest of honor. “Well, I conceited I would come in and vick a fight with Sheriff Hock here. One of Fis dep’ties up’t and stopped me and my eggs day behind yesterday and h’isted the lid from off my crates. That did, now, make a joke fur me! You'd ought to seen that dep’ ty’s face when I went to work and told |.im where I was sheriff myself till I got tired of the job.” He ge ~stured toward Adlai, but his eyes remained upon Hock “Sheriff Kutz here he is so bus ya lookin’ fur rats he ain’t had time fur to go prod- din’ amongst my duck eggs. Mebbe if you would now, Brother Kutz, you would any- how git me fur your first pris’ner.”’ Hock snorted in surprise. Tippora, filling glasses at a side table, whipped about; her tongue vibrated soundlessly for a moment. Then her eyes arrowed sharply from the ex-sheriff to his wile. “We ain’t got the place redd up fur no pris’ners yet. Fur two months back a’ready am a-scrubbin’ at this he sre jail. Us we ain’t the kind to let no pris’ne rs set in dirty cells, I should guess anyhow! The arrow glanced off Sarah’s smooth placidity. “The duc ks i is well ag’in.’”” She beamed upon Adlai. “It drawed my th when I first seen them a- pattin’ around this morn- ing. I was feelin’ so all over mean at my own head, I thought, well, 1 wasn’t seein’ them just so good mebbe. But off they went, the same like always!” ‘This here is some cider from Ofen- dah!'s place.” Tippora set a glass before each. “Here, Sarah, take and pass the fried cakes, and help yourself to the cocy- nut layer.” “It ain’t my cider,” the ex-sheriff dis- claimed loudly. “‘ Henry Kreider is the fel- ler made that there. I ain't ever laid tongue to it, and I wouldn’t use none now, thanks to youse just the same.” He virtuously tle back his glass. ‘Pure water’s my ale “Well, it ain't mine. low and smacked his “f I kin git cider like this here. yourself now, sheriff.”’ He raised his glass again. But he set it down hastily and in some confusion, Sheriff Hock’s eyebrows were shooting up and down, and they were aimed directly at him. More disconcerting still were the eyes be- neath, which seemed to ferret out his very soul and to shake it like a littl white thing between them. Hock had not tasted the Reser he had sniffed it; and his nos- trils were quive ring like a Belgian hare’s ‘Ain't it suitin’ you—just se good?’ - faltered Adlai. Tippora, grasping the jug, stood, a petri- fied Hebe. Ofendahl’s eyes swung like an erratic pendulum from one sheriff to the other; his palms began to rub softly against the edge of the table. Sarah, only, was un- conscious of tension; she undulated upon her chair, drinking in continuous short gulps, and set her glass down half emptied. “My souls!” wh tittered, and drew the back of her hand across her eyes, “That there has got such a sharp to it that it goes to work and outens itself at your eyes. Ain’ tso?” ‘Does it suit me?" boomed the visitor. “IT should say it did! Nothing better! But, Lord Cwsars! You don't mean to say you didn’t know " Adlai’s wide, innocent stare answered the question upon his lips. Hock rose so hastily that his chair banged over. ‘Get me to the chap that made that stuff!"’ Ex-Sheriff Ofendahl was the principal speaker during the brief ride in the seven passenger. He sat upright beside the driver, continuously smiling, continuously rubbing his knees with his incurving fingers. “It wonders me now what the woters will think when it gits put out where our sheriff never knowed cider from bootle oncet.”’ And again, as the machine cael at the Kreider chicken farm: ‘‘ Mebbe now, Brother Kutz, youse would be ketchin’ your first pris’ner, with me and sheriff here fur to learn youse how.’ Adlai, huddled between the two women in the tonneau, attempted no reply. It is probable, even, that he did not hear, Even his legs seemed dazed and uncertain as he followed the others through the gate into the chicken yard. “Such a dum foolishness anyway!" Tip- pora in the car twitched her elbows in nervous impatience. “Like as if Henry Kreider knowed how to be a jailbird! I wisht if I'd ‘a’ stayed behind and washed my dishes away.”” She eyed Sarah in the other corner of the seat. ‘“‘And that I would have, too, if I had anyways had a husband I could trust oncet out of my sight.”’ “Yes, well’’—-Sarah, still in glow from her recent potation, raised and lowered her- self pleasurably upon the ancient springs “it’s some clever of Hock fur to take us on this here pleasure ride. Ain't it just like settin’ on a cat though?” Kreider hobbled as fast as his crutch would permit from one of his long hen h 1OUseS, his young face lighting eage rly. ‘Well, is this here Sheriff Hock now? We was hearin’ about youse fur long a’ready.” “ Kreider?”’ Henry stared at the bristling brows and took a firmer hold upon his crutch. was Henry Kreider His widening eyes vee sred in mute ques- tion to Adlai. Adlai turned away. a You’ re been making what you call c ide ww?” ‘That I was. “And you gave this man here—Ofen- dahl—-some of it this morning ? : ha “That I did. In a jug yet.” Kreider passed a puzzled palm over his soft, fair hair Adlai took a swal- “Not se long as Don’t stint ”

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“And you received that same jug? And afterward delivered it to Mrs. Kutz?”’ “I done that same.” Ofendahl spat de- cisively through his teeth. ‘And nobody could say nothing different neither.” “Easy money,” commented Hock la- conically. He motioned Adlai forward. “Take your man. That’s enough to hold him for the preliminaries. We'll get him in storage; then I want to come back here and look around.” Kreider uttered a short cry like an ani- mal terrified and wounded. Adlai did not move. “I wouldn’t touch him!” he shuddered violently. ‘That there is my best friend, Henry Kreider! Och, Henry! Och! You kin see oncet, Henry, I ain't got nothing to do with here! No! No!” He flinched backward as Hock seized him by the arm. “You couldn't make me lay the heft of my finger onto him!” ‘Look here!’’ Hock boomed. ‘ What kind of an officer do you call yourself anyway? Friendship don’t count in this business. You've got to do your stuff here. I can’t nab him-—he’s not under my jurisdiction. Step lively now! Why, you «ould forfeit ret job Se such neglect of dwy!” That he could too! I would uphold to that.” Ofendahi stepped forward. ‘This here is plenty enou i fur to institoot a re- call, ain't? Ain’t, Frock? A sheriff where won't arrest a crim’na! where’s shoved under his nose yet?” Adlai dug his baited heels into the gravel. “Take the job off me then!’ he cried hoarsely. “This here ain’t no crim’nal. This here is Henry Kreider, and he’s a fwangelical and a deacon still —and he’s my best friend. If he puts it out he made cider, then he made cider and it ain't noth- ing but cider neither.” ‘Why, this is insubordination!” Hock shouted in rage and disgust. “This is mal- feasance! Why, you could be thrown out of your office in disgrace! Look here! What about your oath to the state? And your bondsmen?”’ Kreider fluttered upon his crutch like a broken-winged bird. Perspiration sprang upon his forehead as he whispered to Ad- lai, “I don't know what this here is; but don’t do it to jose your job ower me.” “Och, you talk dumb!"’ Adlai thrust his fists into his pockets. ‘The woters ain’t hirin’ me fur to put no innocent parties to the jail. When I set my eyes ontoa crim’nal, then I will clamp onto him good and plenty, and rot otherwise before.” “ Malfizzing!”’ exulted Ofendahl. “That there's a big crime, ain’t it, Hock? And we got witnesses plenty “Let me think a minute here!" snapped : the perplexed Hock. ‘One thing sure, I never let a suspect get away from me yet, and I ain't beginning now. My county’s involved in this. reider, the cards are against you. Hop into that machine out there. Kute, you've got to come to your senses. Take your seat by your man.’ “Yes, climb on up oncet, Henry!’’ Sarah floundered hospitably. “The more the merrier yet, as the old axle says! Now where do we go to from here?” But the ducks—they had counted with- out the ducks Across the road, like a file of noble Roman virgins, streamed the slow, white procession. ‘They hastened not, neither did they halt as the machine bore down upon them, slowed perforce, stopped. Became apparent then that they were neither noble nor virginal. They flopped along in twos and threes, they veered, they pranced, they kicked. Some raised red-lidded eyes to- ward the purring machine and winked wickedly. A drake drifted toward the en- gine, raised one of his splay feet, gazed at it as though he had suddenly acquired a puz- ziing new organ and fell over upon his side with a terrified squawk. “The ducks!"" Sarah hoisted herself in alarm. “Och, my! What is it at them ag’in? Look how they make sideways! Leave me git out oncet!”’ Set still, you dopple!”’ roared her hus- band. “Drive on, sheriff! Run over a couple or two or three, it makes me no dif- ference. I ain't one to hender the law none fur a few ducks.” His eyes darted to the driver. “Course I wouldn't say fur sure they was my ducks anyways. All ducks looks the same, ain't it?” “Ain't our ducks!"’ cried Sarah indig- nantly. “I want to wonder if they ain’t our ducks! I would know my own ducks if I ain’t ever laid eyes on them a’ready! H’ist your feet oncet, Henry. Leave me outen myself here.”’ THE SATURDAY “Git out then! And make hurry at it!” growled her husband. ‘Now youse kin ait around them, sheriff ———”’ Hock reached for his gears. “They're some slow birds, whoever they belong to,” he observed casually. “T didn’t know ducks were so —— But five steel rivets at that moment clinched his arm. The rivets belonged to Adlai Kutz. Steel-blue were his eyes and steel his voice. “Stop that there engine off! I got busi- ness here!’’ And as the driver jerked about in surprise: ‘Them ducks looks like I felt yesterday after. If I am a-drinkin’ somepun that ain’t cider, then they was a-drinkin’ ve where ain’t cider neither. And I’ m oin’ to find out what that there is yet.” e swung his short legs over the side of the car. In the ensuing Spock on only Sarah spoke or mov ! she pleaded as she let herself to the ound on the other side. ‘ Look oncet at the purty thin s! Help me to see what it is at them. ell, we got one suspect here,” de- murred Hock. “I'd say get him to town, and then when we come back —— “Well, I should guess!’’ Ofendahl’'s voice was as wild as his eyes. ‘Such a fool- ishness I never —— ecause some fool ducks has overet theirselves ——— A stop- in’ the law What's he at anyhow? his here’s my place.” He struck his chest. “Ofendah|l—sheriff of this here county twicet times ower a’ready -—— “Git out that there buggy!" interrupted Adlai shortly. ‘‘Or I'll arrest the both two of youse fur just settin’. I'm sheriff here. ypie, you stick here with the suspect a you ain't no suspect, Henry. Make hurry oncet! I have got onto the hint of somepun here.” “Well. you're the boss.” Hock reluc- tantly turned off his engine. “But it’s not the ordinary procedure. And I got to be gettin’ back to Andore.” Ofendahl caught his fingers into his beard and sat for a moment. Then he swung from the car in grandiose manner. “Make ge te to home! Look any- wheres you like! lace is 7 and above the boards, cet Slo say “I’m a-goin’ to the crick - them ducks come from,” said Adlai. “Sadie, you go ‘© work and unlock that there shed fur Sheriff Hock.” “Onlock it!’ Ofendahl’s opaque eyes raked him. “Like as if you never knowed I had got to bust that there lock ‘his morn- ing a’ready! Like as if you wasn": a-rollin’ my jar of egg meat all ower the fi: or here yesterday behint my back!"’ “It’s some clever of youse f° co take notice to my ducks.” Sarah exe 7 swung open the gate for the visiting sheri “This here’s the pen and that there's the shed. Och, elend! What do you conceit I should do fur them now?” “If Kutz is right,”” Hock chuckled, “you better give ’em some black coffee.” The literal Sarah trotted hast! the house. Hock, from force of habit, exai..ined minately both the pen and the shed. He prodded about the pen, then picked up one after the other the few articles upon the shelves in the shed. He peered into the jar which had held the broken eggs and into the half-filled crate. Olendall, Wanton against the plane in the corner, jocularly urged him on; his heels beat in soft, continucus tattoo against the shavings beneath. “That there j jug on the shelf, sheriff,”” he chuckled. “Ain't that some suspic ious? Better sample that there now.’ Hock opened the jug, smelled it and re- placed the cork. He gave one final glance about the room, rafters, shelves and floor, shook his head and stepped outside. ‘Guess you've given us the wrong steer,” he hailed Adlai, who was approaching through the trees. Adlai extended a shingle upon the end of which was a sticky mass. “Smell it oncet!’’ he demanded grimly. “Yes, I guess anyhow then,” as the other started and his eyebrows began to twitch. “That there has got the same smell as the stuff in the jug still. And I found it yet teward EVENING POST down by the erick where the ducks pad- dies.” Hock jerked toward Ofendahl. “‘What about it?” Ofendahl’s eyes had narrowed to green- mottled slits. His voice purred, ‘Which side the fence was you a-findin’ that there on, Brother Kutz? ine still, or Kreider’s?’’ “Kreider’s,”” returned Adlai pro: —. “But that there makes me nothing. got long arms.” “These new sheriffs have got a lot to learn yet!”’ Ofendahl laughed harshly. “That there clinches the net ,around that feller Kreider. Ain't, Hock? Hock snapped his watch shut. “Well, anyhow, let’s get Kreider into town. We've got enough to hold him any- way. Whole point is, Kutz, even if Kreider does live alone, somebody interested might get in there and get away with some of the evidence. These chaps often work in pairs. I want to get back there. You can hound Ofendahl day and night from this time Qn Adlai’ 8 wide, persistent stare turned to- ward the machine in which a figure sat, his head bowed over a crutch. “‘Ain’t nothing plain on the surface to e,’’ he murmured stubbornly. “ Two jugs has gone to work and got up-mixed, and it ain’t Kreider done it.”” He turned toward the shed. “You wait outsides here.” They waited one minute—two minutes, while he rummaged above over the shelves. Ofendahl talked loudly and continuously. “Youse kin easy see how us Buthousers can't have such a dopple fur a sheriff no longer. Two months a’ready he sets on the jail and never fetches us nothing. And now here he goes tu work and malfizzes ower Kreider, and here he tops it all off a tryin’ to throw suspicions onto a innocent party, a felier where has served tne state twicet times ower His tongue lapped the air; the shed had banged shut. The ex-sheriff’s eyes went wild in their sockets; he dived his fists into his pockets in effort to hold himself taut. Four min- utes—five minutes. Ofendahl began to jig- gle like a poorly strung marionette. He called loudly, “If he ain’t a-leavin’ my premises straight off directly, I'm a-goin’ to start such a ruckus agin him he will land into his own jail sti lt Institoot a recall, that’s what I'll — The door flew open. Adlai left his prem- ises at that moment, and he left by the aérial route. One second he was dancing upon the doorsill, the next he sad flown through the air and had landed full upon the ex-shor'ff’s back. Both sat down in prompt evash. Sheriff Hock stared, smit- ten, at the extraordinary toboggan effect at his feet. Then he grabbed Adlai by the neck and yanked. But Adlai only clung the tighter, folding his legs crab fashion about the other’s middle, clamping his arms about his neck “IT got :cm!” he panted. My gosh! ot him!” In one hand he grasped a piece of metal; with each lunge and pitch it beat his bellow- ing quarry in the chest. Hock grasped the twisted pipe and wrenched it from him. “Where the hell’d you get this?” he shouted. “Git him offen!" strangled Ofendahl, laboring like a winded porpoise. Still clutching the metal, Hock seized Ofendahl!’s legs then. Adlai warned, ‘‘ Leave loose there! This here’s mine! This here’s all mine! Don't nobody touch onto my pris’ner!” Adlai’s arms were small, but they. were tough as stranded wire. He suddenly re- leased his hold; the other floundered side- wise. Before Ofendahl could right himself, Adlai had whirled like a tumblebug to his front, had snatched handcuffs from his pocket and had captured the huge wrists. “Pretty neat!" gasped Hock. “Pretty neat! But what about this? Wheve’s the rest of it?’ He shook the metal. “Fetch me a rope oncet!”’ danced Adlai. “T ain’t takin’ no chances! This here’s the feller where swang onto me with that there letter S!”’ the door to “I got him! December 29, 1923 The ex-sheriff bound to an apple tree, al- ternately blubbering and bellowing, Adlai led the way with y~ strides into t e shed. If a kennel of ustrious terriers had been at work, the chavings which had been pane the plane could not have been more completely scattered. Adlai fell upon his knees before a hole in the earthen floor which the shavings had concealed. In the hole and about it was a curious outlay of articles. There was a small copper vat, other twisted pipes, an earthenware jar with three dozen neatly blown eggshells, some melted paraffin in a blackened cup and some short straws. “A taken-down still all right!’”’ Hock seized one bit of metal after the other. “But what's all this other stuff?” Adlai dipped his hand into the crate and handed him an egg. Hock turned it over and over and shook his head. ‘ Well - “Bust it!’’ Adlai cried triumphantly. From the broken egg trickled that which was certainly not native to the genus duck. From Hock’s lips immediately trickled that which was not native to the Evangelical tongue. Adlai winced, even at this moment of his triumph. “But has that feist been using the jail cellar for his still —while he was sheriff?” Adlai sat back upon his heels. “Well, stills ain’t familiar with me. But I do know that there was the letter S where up’t and swang onto me. I s’pose now that there piece overlooked itself when they was movin’ out and he come back fur to git it and I surprised him fur a rat. Right there a-shinin’ through them shavin’s I seen it. Adlai hugged his knees. “Then he ur ‘5, 2-red it himself,” laughed Hock. ‘‘That’s where he was standing, ye with his heels.’ He took an- other egg from the crate and shied it against the wall “‘And he sells them in Andore City!” he exulted. “Pretty cute! Just enough in each for a good swig! And stops them up with paraffin!”” He picked up the blackened cup. “ Melts it and runs it in, and then it comes to the top and stops up the hole. Pretty cute! But hold on! How’s he get the liquor in? The air in an empty egg would keep it out.’ “Och, nue: Ain’t youse ever filled eggs with pink sugar water fur the kids at Easter a’ready! Blow the egg out, then stick one them straws at and—I don’t know right how it is, but the air comes outsides and the water goes insides still.” “A new one on me!” +» urveled Hock. ‘It’ d take somebody with patience - “Us Dutch is some reputatious fur pa- tience,”” Adlai twinkled. “Och, my! Now I have got a pris’ner oncet!"” He scrambled to his feet. ‘‘Henry! Henry! Och, Henry! Do you see chet have ketched a pris’ner oncet, Henry?” Outside there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. The ex-sheriff was furnishing the gnashing, his wife the weeping. She was plodding round and round the strange spec- tacle of her husband lashed to the tree, and was weeping copiously. “Och, now, Sadie!’’ Adlai hastened to- ward her. “Don’t ery nothing now, Sadie! Me and Tippie will feed your mister good. All is, we can’t leave him keep sellin’ off them drunken eggs. That there would make a slander fur your ducks. Ain’t so?” “It ain’t him,” Sarah sobbed indig- nantly. “It’s the ducks. The innocent white purties! To think oncet how they up’t and lost their morals and got drunk still! Och, my souls! And the coffee don’t make nothing with them. They wouldn't even to touch it.” Hock fell back before her. “Talk about beating the Dutch! You Dutch beat me! And you, Kutz. In all my years I never saw anything to equal that leapfrog performance of yours. I guess you can hold down your county all right!” “Yes, it’s easy seen he is natured to his job!” a voice shrilled behind him. Tippora swept up and laid hér hand proprietarily upon the small sheriff's arm. “‘ Yesterday after, even, he was snoopin’ around here, a-gatherin’theevidences. Hecomea-bustin’ in last night a-sayin’ he was in some im- portant hurry. He had got somepun a’ready onto his mind. I kin see him through now!” “Yes, well’’—Adlai’s eyes veered away modestly —“‘this here job now. This is how } make my thoughts ower it. Al!l a sheriff has got fur to do is to clamp onto fellers where is crim’nals, and to let them where ain't.” His mild gaze traveled from the object writhing against the tree to Henry Kreider, friend of his heart. ‘‘That there rule worked pretty good fur me today any- ways! Ain't not, Henry?”

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The desk was as bare as a desk ought to be when its owner is going away for two mot nths. Griggs ran his eye proudly over it. “No, Mr. Wood,” he said. “I don’t think anything has been forgotten. Noth- ing was left except the letter to the Presi- dent, the Spanish dictionary and the Mexican currency, All that has been at- tended to. He consulted a list held in the palm of his hand, “Tt was something of my own,” said Wood, and he eyed his secretary with an air that might have appeared stern but was merely concentrated, when the door ope ned and the office boy came in and said, ‘Miss Stone says she’s notified him that there's a lady there to see him, and will we let he sr in to him?” “A lady?” said Griggs severely. “That's it,” said Wood. “It’s the gov- erness for my sister. Think of my nearly forgetting that!" “You ought not be worried about such things,” said Griggs, as if he were very bit- ter about it, “ with all your responsibilities.” Wood smiled. It wasn’t true, but it was the way one’s secretary ought to feel. “I'd have a lot more to worry me,”’ he said, “if | were married myself.” “You certainly wouft,” answered Griggs, who was married, “But will we let her in to him?” said the office boy, who clung to this formula, al- though the head clerk was trying to break him of it. “You may let her come in,” said Griggs, as if he would perish rather than allow his chief to hold verbal communication with anything so low as an office boy, and as he spoke he silently gave Wood a pale-blue card —one of a dozen on which in beautiful block letters he had written down the names, degrees, past experience, with notes on, personal appearance, of all the candi- dates for position of governess in the house- hold of Wood's sister, Mrs. Conway. “This is the best of them?” said Wood, and he ran his eye rapidly over the card, which read: “Augusta Exeter, A. B., Rutland C ollege: Ph.D., Columbia U niversit specialized mathematics and scusshelittaenas canent" He looked up. “Queer combination, isn’t it?” “I thought it was just what you wanted,” answered Griggs reproachfully. “Nothing queerer than that, i said Wood, and went on: “Six-month dietary expert one year training-—appearance pleasing.” He denanl at his secretary. It amused him to think of the discreet Griggs appraising the appearance of these young women. “What system did you mark them on, Grig he asked, but got no further, for the dl opened and Miss Exeter entered, 7 Griggs, with his unfailing discretion, left. Wood looked at her and saw that Griggs as usual had been exactly right—she was neither more nor less than pleasing—a sma!!, slim, pale girl, whose unremarkable brown eyes radiated a steady intelligence. Wood had employed labor in many parts of the world, frora Chile to China, and he had a routine about it—a preliminary in- telligence test, which he applied. “Sit down, Miss Exeter,”’ he said. “I think it will save us both time if you will tell me all that you know about this posi- a this was the test--“‘and then I’'ll in.” Augusta sat down. She found herself a trifle nervous. This man impressed her, for since her childhood she had cherished a secret romantic admiration for men who exercised any form of power—kings and enerals and men of great affairs. It was a eeling that had nothing to do with real life and represented no disloyalty to her fiancé, Horace Bayne, who exercised no power of sny kind, One reason why it had had no relation to life was that she had not met any men of this type. Even in the outer office she had been impressed by the sense of a man waited on and protected by secre- taries and office boys as an Eastern princess is waited upon by slaves. And now when she saw him she saw that he had exactly the type of looks she admired most——tall, a lit- tle too thin, his face tanned to that shade of café au lait that the biond Anglo-Saxon ac- quires under the sun—those piercing bright- blue eyes—that large handsome hand, which, with the thumb in his waistcoat THE SATURDAY EVENING POST THE PRICELESS PEARL (Continued from Page 5) ocket, was so Somes outlined against the ones serge of his clot She said rather uncertainly, “TI know that Mrs. Conway is a widow with three children —— Even this much was wrong. “Not a widow,” he said; “divorced.” ” with three children,” Augusta went on; “‘a girl of seventeen, a boy of fif- teen and a little girl of eleven. I know that during your absence you want someone to take the care and responsibility of the chil- dren off your sister’s shoulders.” He smiled—his teeth seemed to have the extraordinary whiteness that is the com- pensation of a dark skin. “T see,” he said, “that Griggs has been discreet again.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m going to Mexico in a few hours, Miss Exeter. Fie just twenty-five minutes. If in that time I am not thoroughly indis- creet I can’t look to you for any help. The situation is this: My sister married Gordon Conway when she was very young —eight- een; he turned out to bea gambler. I don’t know whether you’ve ever known any gamblers’’— Miss Exeter never had—-“ but they are a peculiar breed-——the real ones — charming — friendly — gay — open-handed when they are winning; they become the most inhuman devils in the world when they are losing. Never get tied up to a gambler. During my poor sister’s romance and marriage Conway was winning~-large sums —on the races. But that aoeee a month or so after their marriage, and ever since then, as far as I know, he has lost —in stocks, at Monte Carlo, and finally at every little gambling casino in Europe. After about six years of it we managed to get her a divorce. She has entire control of the children, of course. Conway has sunk out of sight. Oh, once in a while he turns up and tries to get a little money from her, but fortunately what little she inherited from my father came to her after her divorce, or otherwise he’d have managed to get it away from her. She’s very generous —weak whichever you call it. One of the things I’m going to ask you to dois to prevent her seeing him at all, and certainly prevent her letting him have any money. Though it isn’t likely to happen. I believe he’s abroad, “The great point is the children. I’m sorry to say that it seems to me my sister is ruining three naturally fine children as rap- idly as a devoted mother can. Of course, many parents are overindulgent, but my sister not only indulges her children but gives them at the same time the conviction that they are such interesting and special types that none of the ordinary rules apply tothem. Theelder girl, Dorothy, is a pretty, commonplace American girl—no fault to find with her except that her mother treats her as if she were an empress, If, for in- stance, her mother keeps her waiting five minutes she behaves as if she were an ex- iled queen faced by treachery among her dependents—won’t speak to her mother perhaps for a day. And if I say -which I oughtn’t to do, for it’s no use—‘Isn’t Dor- othy a trifle insolent?’ my sister answers, ‘I’m so delighted to see that she isn’t grow- ing up with the inferiority complex that I hadasagirl.’ The boy is a perfectly straight manly boy, but he smokes constantly—at fifteen and when I criticize him my sister says before him, ‘Well, Anthony, you know ou smoke yourself. I can’t very well teli urland it’s a crime. Besides, I have the theory that if he smokes enough now he'll be tired of it by the time he grows up.’” ‘But that isn’t sound,” said Miss Exeter, quite shocked at the sketch she was hearing. “Habits formed in youth = “Of course it isn’t sound,” said Wood. “And as a matter of fact, my sister never thought of it until I objected. She evolves these theories merely for the sake of pro- tecting her children. Oddly enough, she not only doesn’t want to change them her- self but she doesn’t want any one else to change them. Three years ago I engaged in a life-and-death pr em with her to get Durland—the boy—to boarding school. She advanced the following arguments against it: First, that he was a perfectly normal, manly boy and did not need to go; second, that he was of a peculiar, ar- tistic, sensitive temperament and would be wrecked by being made to conform to boarding-school standards; third, that none of the successful men of the country had gone to boarding school; fourth, that success was the last thing she desired for any son of hers; fifth, that she did not wish to remove him from the benefits of my daily influence; and sixth, that I was a person of no judgment and absolutely wrong about its being wise for a boy to go to school.” “And is he at school?” Miss Exeter in- quired politely. “Oh, yes,” answered Wood, without seeing anything amusing in her question. “Although my sister does a good deal to counteract the effect—by making fun of the teachers and the rules, and always bringing him, when she goes to visit him, whatever is specially forbidden, like candy and cigarettes and extra pocket money. You see, that’s where it’s going to be hard for you. She not only doesn’t want to disci- pline them herself but she’s against any ‘son or institution that tries to do it for er. As soon as you begin to accomplish anything with the children—as I’m sure you will do—she’ll be against you; she'll want you to go.” “That makes it pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?” said Miss Exeter. He shook his head briskly. “No,” he said; “for I hive made her promise that she won't send you away, no matter what happens, until I get back. I knew what was in her mind when she gave the promise—that she could make it so unpleasant for you that you'd go of your own accord. So, Miss Exeter, I want you to promise me that you won’t go, no: matter how disagreeable she makes it - “Oh, Mr. Wood, I couldn't “do that,” said Augusta. “There's no use in going at all other- wise,” he said. ‘“‘Oh, come, be a sport! I'll make it worth while. I'll give you a bonus of five hundred dollars if you're still on the job when I get back —or I'll bring you a turquoise I’m going down to inspect the best mine in the world. You see, I feel this means the whole future of those chil- dren —to be with a woman like you. I know you could do with them just what I want done.” “You may be mistaken about that, Mr. Wood.” “‘T may be, but I’m not.” The blue eyes fixed themselves on her. She said to herself that it was the five hun- dred dollars--so desirable for a trousseau— that turned the scale, but the blue eyes and the compliment had something to do with her decision. “It seems a reckless thing to promise,” she murmured with a weak faugh “No, not at all. I wouldn’ t ee you do anything reckless.” He spoke as a kindly aw might speak. ‘“‘And now we ave ten minutes left, and I want to talk to you about the little one— Antonia.” His face softened, and after a slight struggle he yielded to asmile. “The truth is,” he said, ‘that she’s much my favorite. She’s in- telligent and honest, and the justest person of any age or sex that I ever knew in my life.” He paused a second. “ Perhaps it is because I’m fonder of her than of the other two, but it seems to me my sister is partic- ularly unwise about Antonia.” His mind went back to his parting the evening before with this small niece. He and his sister had been sitting on the piazza of the house they had taken at Southamp- ten--at least she had taken it and he had paid for it. Only a few yards away the Atlantic, in one of its placid lakelike moods, was hissing slowly up and down on the = The —— about a governess had oing on for several weeks. So far a Sonway had won, for this was his last evening and none had been engaged. She had a wonderful method for dealing with her brother—a method to be com- mended to all weak people trying to get the maximum of interest and the minimum of control from stronger natures. She listened to everything he said as if she were wholly convinced by his words and in- tended to follow his advice to the last de- tail, and then she went away and did just what she had always meant to do. if he reproached her she looked at him wonder- ingly and said: “But, Anthony dear, I did with you at the time; but afterward, when I came to think ——” Oh, how well he knew that dread phrase, “afterward, when I came to think!” By these methods she had managed to fend off action for three weeks, ing with him most cordially that the children ought to have a governess, but thinking, December 29, 1925 after he had gone to New York for the week, that i. would be nice for them to take French lessons with that charming French lady in the village, or that perhaps the Abernathys’ governess would come over for an hour a da And now on his last evening he had out- maneuvered her by announcing that he was interviewing candidates the next morning before he took his train, and would send her the best. “I’m sure it’s very kind of you to take all this trouble, Ton she said. ‘Don’t send me anyone too Cd will you?” “Griggs describes the young woman ! have in mind as of pleasing appearance.”’ “That means perfectly hideous.” “You wouldn’t want a prize beauty, would you?” “Certainly I would. I like to have lovely things about me. I suppose you think that’s idiotic.” He assured her that he never thought her idiotic —at least not intentionally—and went on to obtain the famous pledge—the — that she would keep the governess e sent her until his return in September. She agreed finally, partly because it was getting late and she was sleepy, partly be- cause she reflected that there were more ways of getting rid of governesses than by sending them away. “T’mso sleepy,” she said, yawning, ‘‘and yet I don't quite like to go to bed until Antonia comes in.” “Antonia?” said Ww ood. went to bed at nine.’ It appeared that Antonia had formed the habit lately of sleeping on the beach—at least for the earlier part of the night~-just digging a hole and curling up there. Her mother thought it an interesting, primitive, healthy sort of instinct. “And yet,” she added thoughtfully, as if she knew she were a little finicky, ‘ don’t like to lock up the house until she comes in.” “T think you're right,” said her brother. These were the things that terrified him so—a little girl out in the blackness of that beach in her pajamas. How could he go away and leave her? He rose and went to the edge of the piazza, which rested on the dunes. He could see nothing but the stars. “Shall I call her?” he said. “T hate to wake her; but a call.” He shouted, and in a few seconds a faint, cheerful hullo reached them, and a little figure appeared over the dunes. “Were you asleep, darling?” mother. “No, I was swimming,” said Antonia. She stepped within the circle of light from the windows, and Wood could see that her dark curly hair was plastered to her head, and her pajamas clung to her like tissue paper. “I love to swim at night,” she said, “It makes you feel like a spirit.”’ She shared her more important thoughts with her uncle. Then, turning to her mother, she advanced toward her w ith out- stretched arms as if to clasp her in a wet embrace. **Look out for your mother’s dress,” said Wood, for Edna Conway was as usual per- fectly dressed in white. She smiled at him and took the child to her breast. “Dear Anthony,” she said, “if you were married you’d know that a woman loves her children better than her clothes.” He was silent, wondering if she knew how much she had had to do with the fact that he wasn’t married. He had no taste for masculine women, and yet Edna had made him distrustful of all femininity which sooner or later developed the sweet obstinacy, the clinging pig-headedness, the subtle ability, under the idiotic coyness of a kitten, to get its own way. Well off and physically attractive, he had not been neg- cted by women, but always sooner or later it had seemed to him that he had seen the dread shadow of kittenishness. Cattish- ness he could have borne, but the kitten in woman disgusted him. “And, dearest,” his sister was saying to her daughter, “you won't go to bed in your wet things, will you?” Antonia shook her finger at her mother. “Now don’t begin to be fussy,” she said, not impudently, but as one equal gives ad- vice to another. Yet even this mild sugges- tion of reproof was painful to Edna. (Continued on Page 45) “T thought she yes, just give said her

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SATURDAY EVENING POST

Shift your gears easily in zero weather When your gears shift hard these cold days; when starting is diflicult—maybe you accept these condi- tions as unavoidable. They are not unavoidable. They should not exist. When gears don’t shift easily, it’s a symptom of im- proper lubrication. And right now is the dangerous time. A transmission lubricant that congeals or hardens in cold weather is the cause of most of the difficulties experienced in shifting gears. Such a lubricant also prevents proper lubrication, because instead of flowing freely and covering the gears with lubricant, the gears simply cut channels through the congealed mass of lubricant, and the entire transmission sufiers from the lack of lubrication. You need in your transmission and differential a lu- bricant that will always flow in cold weather. The simplest, safest way to handle the problem is — use Sunoco Transmission Lubricant, always. How much more sensible it is to use a lubricant de- signed especially for its particular job; instead of the usual practice of “taking” anything that’s offered. You'll find Sunoco Transmission Lubricant efficient at all temperatures, even from 20° below to 180° above zero. It's the correct lubricant, all year round, for transmission and differential; will not solidify; ensures a constant protecting film on gear teeth. It makes starting easier, too, and saves strain on the battery. Some cars have starters back of the transmis- sion. The battery must turn over the transmission as well as the motor. Stiffened lubricant makes starting difficult. Sunoco Transmission Lubricant makes it easy. It is quite different from other products of its kind. It is pure petroleum; has no paraffin in it; no fillers; no moisture; nothing that can congeal or harden, or turn rancid, or dry out. The combination of Sunoco Transmission Lubricant in transmission and differential, and Sunoco Motor Oil in the motor, means easy starting, protection to your battery and assures proper lubrication. Have your transmission and differential cleaned and filled with Sunoco Transmission Lubricant and see how much easier your car will start. SUN OIL COMPANY, Philadelphia SUN OIL COMPANY, Limited, MONTREAL

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December 29,1923 THE SATURDAY EVENING POST e n W ORTH Y What Next? Each season, since the advent of the first Rickenbacker for and found the key-note to the coming season’s engi: body styles in the Rickenbacker booth at the annua For, it is aremarkable fact that from its inception, Rickenbacker has been an outstanding leader, and fashion-plate. In advanced engineering features—in body design, in uphol- stering, finish, and in those little conveniences and appoint- ments so dear to the heart of the experienced motorist— this car has become the standard by which others are judged. In fact, it has become an axiom, “If you would forecast next year’s vogue in motor cars, see this year’s Rickenbacker.” Just think back and recall: — Here, in the Rickenbacker Exhibit, you first learned that “Periods of Vibration”—the most destructive force in a motor car —had finally been eliminated. Here, you first saw a motor with “Tandem Fly Wheels” —two instead of one. Here, you first saw the “Double Depth” frame—8 inch side members — now being adopted by the highest priced cars. Here, you first saw the “Air Cleaner” which excludes dust, sand and other particles from cylinders — also being adopted by several makers. Here, was first exhibited the “Cradle Spring” installation— which revolutionized the riding qualities of a car. Here, the first Ball | priced car— which And Rickenbacker f that you will hear the Automobile Sh What Next? You mz We choose to give you the answer at this | Why have an Autom: and surprises in ad So, see the others —<z Here, you will find e methods and the! world’s laboratorie) At the New York Au — extending throu you will find that) four standard typejj Chassis is a triumph (mm manship. q Bodies are masterpic + You are cordially in models.

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1Six, you have looked : | b | | ° a neering features and | Automobile Show Bearing Steering Spindles in a medium- contribute so much to ease of control. irst said “4-Wheel Brakes”—the words as the refrain of this year’s chorus at ows. iy well ask! 1 the pleasure of anticipation rather than time. »bile Show if we are to disclose its secrets vance ? ind then see the Rickenbackers. :pitomized, the best experience, the best finest engineering discoveries of the s. tomobile Show— just to left of main aisle gh from second to third lateral aisles — magnificent Rickenbacker chassis and 's of bodies. @ of advanced engineering and fine crafts- mm ces of design and fine finish. vited to inspect the latest Rickenbacker THE SATURDAY EVENING POST e k . ae Gs : AME Rickenbacker has been credited with many signal achievements in advanced engineering. Here are some features that you first saw or heard of in the Rickenbacker Six: Tandem Fly Wheels Air Cleaner “Cradle” Springs Disc Wheels “Double Depth” Frame Ball Bearing Steering Spindles And—4-Wheel Brakes—the great- est single improvement in a motor car since the Self Starter. What Next? Rickenbacker Motor Company Detroit Michigan

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eters of Fine Fabri ELECTRIC SUCTION There is a special cleaning attach- ment for every need in house- cleaning and the cleaning hose is easily and qtiickly connected to and detached from the face of the machine. At either end of the 13-inch divided nozzle the suction is just as strong as in the cenver and the inclined nozzle cleans under and around low built fur- niture too heavy to move. SATURDAY EVENING POST Write for free copy Cleaning” and Money. Rotarex New Washing Principle “Wash without rubbing if you would not injure this article,” is the warning of leading makers of cotton, wool, linen, fibre and wash silk products. Almost without exception manufac- turers of bedding and blankets, tub dresses, silk hosiery and lingerie, knit goods or rag rugs recommend and urge the washing principle or method of the new type ROTAREX aluminum cyl- inder that cleanses by the washbowl “hand” method of dippingand draining, lifting and dousing without rubbing. In the blank, smooth walls of the wonderfully light ROTAREX cyl- inder there is nothing to scratch and scrape and rub and wear the textiles. Not only is this new and exclusive ROTAREX washing principle just as gentle as the washbowl method but The Apex Electrical Distributing it washes more thoroughly, either greasy overalls orthe most delicate lace. Just as gentle because a porcelain dish is not more smooth than the wall or floor of the revolving-reversing cylin- der that tumbles the clothes into and out of the suds. More thorough because it does not churn into the suds the oil and dirt removed from garments, towels, etc. Instead this grime floats on the surface of the suds behind the cylinder. Once out of the clothes it stays out because the only water that enters the cylin- der is drawn through the holes in its ends from below the surface. Let our nearestdealer demonstrate this remarkable new ROTAREX washing rinciple. Ask him about our Home rialOfferand Monthly Budget Terms. Company, 1079 East 152nd Street, Cleveland, Ohio Factories at Cleveland, O., Muncie, Ind., and Toronto, Can. Cop'R. 1925-——THE APEX ELECTRICAL MFG. CO. 108 December 29, 1925 of ‘From A to Z in Home New Ways to Save Hours, Work cs Recommend RSTAREX » HOME DOUBLE ROLL __IRONER _ ELECTRIC Kook-Rite

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4y (Continued from Page 40) She turned to her brother and said pas- sionately, “I’m not fussy, am I? I don’t see how you can say that, Antonia. It’s only that your uncle wouldn’t close an eye if he thought you were sleeping in damp pa- jamas; would you, Anthony?”’ And she laughed gayly. This was one of her most irritating ways— to pretend that she was just a wild thing like the children, but that to oblige some stuffy older person she was forced to ask the children to conform. “IT might close an eye, at that,” said Anthony. The whole incident had finally decided him to take the prospective governess en- tirely into his confidence. He had thought at first it would be more honorable to let her discover the situation for herself, but now he saw that she would need not only all his knowledge of the situation but the full con- viction that he was backing her, whatever she did. He became convinced of this even before he saw Miss Exeter. Having seen her, he had no further hesitation. He thought her as sensible a person as he had ever met. She sat there in the hard north light of his office, noting down now and then a few words in a little black notebook. She was not only sensible—she was to be depended on. “The truth 1s,” he said, ‘‘that Antonia, not to put too fine a point on it, is not per- sonally clean.” Miss Exeter smiled, for to her mind the tone of agony in his voice was exaggerated. “But at a certain age no children are,” she said. ‘‘But most children are forced to be, and my sister lets this child run wild, so that people talk about it. I suppose I oughtn’t to mind so much,” he said, looking at her rather wistfully; ‘‘but you can’t imagine how I hate to think that people discuss Antonia’s being dirty. And all my sister says is that she’s so glad the child isn’t vain. Oh, Miss Exeter, if you could get Antonia dressed like a nice, well brought up little girl I think I’d do anything in the world for you.” She promised that too. In fact, by the time she finally left the office and was on her way uptown, late for an engagement she had with Horace Bayne, she was alarmed to remember how many things she had promised—not only to stay until he came back but to write to him every day, a long report of just what had happened in the family and what her impressions of it were. “‘Not letters,” he had said, “because I shan’t answer them; but reports—reports on my family, as I am going to make a re- port on this mine.” They were to be typewritten. He had no intention of struggling with any woman’s handwriting, though Augusta murmured that hers was considered very legible. It was not her custom to take a definite step like this without consulting Horace— not so much because Horace insisted on it as because she es highly of his opin- ion. She was astonished now, as in the Sub- way she thought over the interview, to find how little she had been thinking of Horace. They had been engaged for some- thing over two years, one of those com- fortable engagements, which until recently had had no prospects of marriage. The Rutland College Club is almost de- serted in summer. As she ran upstairs to the library, where she was to meet Horace, she glanced at her watch and saw to her regret that he must have been waiting al- most an hour, for he was punctual, and usually arrived a little ahead of the hour. She was sorry—such a busy man; but he would understand—she would explain —— He rose from a deep chair as she en- tered—a serious young man whom everyone trusted at first sight. She saw he looked a little more serious than usual, and her sense of guilt made her attribute this se- riousness to her own fault. She began to explain quickly and with unaccustomed vivacity. She sketched the interview— Mr. Wood—his office—the promise—the letters—the turquoise. Horace kept — more and more solemn, although it seeme to her that she made a very good story of jt—more amusing perhaps than the reality had been. ‘‘Isn’t it exciting?’ she said. “I’m going down on Thursday, under this contract, to stay two months.” “No, you’re not,” said Horace. She stared at him. He had never spoken like that in all the years she had known him. “What do you mean, dear?” she said rather reprovingly. “You were so busy telling me about this Adonis you’re going to work for you did not stop to consider that I might have some news of my own. I’ve landed that job in Canada, and I’m going there on Friday and you're going with me. You're going to marry me the day after tomorrow and start north on Friday.’’ She stared at him, many emotions suc- ceeding each other on her face. She had given her word—her most solemn word. She could hear Wood's quiet voice assertin his confidence in her. ‘I know I can depen on you; if you give me your word I know you'll keep it.” She could not break it. She said this, expecting that Horace would admire her for her dependability —would at least agree with her that she was doing right. But instead he looked at her with a smoldering expression, and when she had finished he broke out. In fact he made her a scene of jealousy—the first he had ever made—but none the worse for that. For a beginner Horace showed a good deal of talent. He accused her openly of having fallen in love with this fellow; she wasn’t a girl to do anything as silly as that except under a hypnotic tm Steen, People did fali in love at first sight. There were Romeo and Juliet; Shakspere was a fairly wise guy —these letters every day—why, if she wrote to him, Horace, once a week he was lucky—but every day to this man. And jewels and money—no, not much! Jealousy, which is popularly supposed to be an erratic and fantastic emotion, is often founded on the soundest intuition. Augusta found herself hampered in defending herself by a certain inner doubt; and her silence enabled Horace to work himself up to such a pitch that he issued an ultimatum—a dangerous thing to do. She would either marry him aad go to Canada with him, or else everything was over between them. It was a terrible situation for Augusta. On the one hand, her spoken word, given to a person whose good opinion she greatly desired, and on the other, her sincere love of Horace, increased by the decisive stand he was taking; for it is unfortunately true that if you do not hate a person for making a scene you love them more. Perhaps Horace saw this. In any case, he would not retreat an inch. This was the situation when the door of the library opened and in came Augusta’s friend and classmate, Pearl Leavitt, with whom she had an engagement for luncheon—only in the general strain and excitement of the morning she had entirely forgotten the fact. Pearl, like Augusta herself, was too much occupied with her own mood to notice that a mood was already waiting for her. It seemed to her that Augusta and Horace were just sitting there as usual, without much to say to each other. She had been looking for a job all the morning, and all the day before, and was discovering that beauty may find it as hard to get a job as it had been to keep one. “Hullo, Gussie! Hullo, Horrie!”’ she said, striding in, full of her own troubles. “IT think men are just terrible.” “You must have changed a lot,”’ said Bayne, who was in no humor to let anything pass. He had known Pear! since her freshman year at. Rutland, and was accustomed to seeing her surrounded by a flock of the con- demned sex, whose attentions had never seemed unwelcome. “Yes, I've changed,” said Pearl. “You see, I’ve worked for men—at least I've tried to. I’ve been trying to all morning. If they kept turning you down because you were lame or marked with smallpox they'd feel ashamed, but if they turn you down be- cause they think you’re good-looking ——”’ Miss Leavitt here interrupted her narra- tive to give a grinning representation of the speaker. ‘“‘Forgive my speaking plainly, but you are too good-looking for office work.’ Doesn’t it occur to them that eyen good-looking people must eat? And they are so smug and pleased with them- selves. Well, here I am with two weeks’ salary between me and starvation—all on account of my looks. I believe I'll go and teach in a convent, where there are not any men to be rendered hysterical by my appearance.” And she gave a terrible glance at Horace, and then feeling she had n too severe she beamed at him—beaming at Horace was perfectly safe—and added, “I’ve al- ways liked you, Horrie; but I have no use for your sex—especially as employers; they are too emotional.” “And what would you say, Pearl,” said Horace in a deadly impartial tone, “if a THE SATURDAY EVENING POST man offered you a job, and in the first inter- view told his life’s story, asked you to write to him every day and deem f you jewels if you stayed on the job until he got back what would you say?” “T wouldn’t say a word,” answered Pearl. a take to the tall timber. I know that ind. “You are both absolutely ridiculous,” said Augusta haughtily. “You are absolutely right,’ said Horace. “You don’t mean to say that someone has been trying to wangle Augusta away from you, Horace?” asked Pearl, gener- ously abandoning all interest in her own problems for the moment. The two others said no and yes simul- taneously, and began to pour out the story. Augusta's point was that Horace did not respect her business honor or else he would not ask her to break—Horace’s point was that Augusta did not really love him or she wouldn’t think up all these excuses—she’d marry him as he asked her to do. Ah, bit he hadn't had any idea of getting married until he heard that she was going to take this place! He had—he had—he had come there to tell her, only she had been so ex- cited about this other man —-— Nonsense, the trouble with Horace was that he was jealous. No, he was not at all jealous, but if he were he had good reason to be —writ- ing to a man every day, and accepting jewels —— Pear] kept looking from one to the other, deeply interested. In the first pause which did not come for a long time—she said gravely, “ How is it, Gussie? Do you really want to marry Horace?” She said it very nicely, but on her ex- pressive face was written the thought that she herself could not see how anyone could want to marry him. I do, I do,” answered Augusta rather tearfully; ‘but how can I when I’ve given my word?” “T’ll tell you how you can,” said Pearl. “You marry him and disappear into the wilds of Canada, and I'll take your place with the Conway family.” They stared at each other like people waiting for the sound of an explosion. They were trying to think of obstacles. “Except,” said Pearl, ‘that I’m not ef- ficient like you, and not very good at mathematics.” “You were efficient in the way you ran the junior ball,” said Augusta. “‘ Everyone said ——” A spasm of amusement crossed Pearl's face. “Did I never tell you about that?” she said. ‘I vamped the senior at Amherst who had run theirs, and he not only gave me all the dope but he did most of my work. I was a mine of information. But that isn’t efficiency.” ‘I disagree with you,” said Augusta. The more she thought of this idea, the more it seemed to her perfect. There had always been a kind of magic about Pearl, and wasn’t magic the highest form of hu- man efficiency? It was not breaking one’s word to substitute a better article than that contracted for. To send Pearl in her place would be keeping her word doubly. She saw Pear! charming Antonia, dazzling the boy, setting all the Conway household to rights by ways peculiarly her own. “But perhaps A sone won't want Pearl,” said Horace. “I mean ——-” “They won't have any choice,” said the two girls together. “But I mean,” reiterated Horace, ‘‘that no one would want a governess who looked like Pearl.” Then the storm broke over his head. What? Wouldn't he even let her be a overness? Did he want her just to starve? Would’ he tell her what she could do? Starve perhaps—just starve—all men were alike. Again Pearl began to stride up and down the room, flicking the front of her small black hat with her forefinger until finally it fell off and rolled on the floor like an old-fashioned cannon ball. If Horace had spoken from motives of diplomacy he could not have done better for himself. His objection made the two girls a unit for the plan. It just showed, Pearl explained, that if Horace, who had known her all these years, really considered her looks an ob- stacle to her taking a place, even as a gov- erness, why, it was hopeless to suppose that she could ever get another job. At length they sent him away—he had a business engagement of his own for lunch—and they settled-down quietly to discuss the details of the plan over one of the small bare gray wood tables of the 45 club's d‘ning room. Ordinarily they would have spent most of their time complainin about the club luncheon, which consist largely of loose leaves of lettuce and dabs of various kinds of sauces; but now they were so interested that they were hardly conscious of what they put into their mouths. Of course, Pearl would be obliged to go in the character of Miss Exeter. Mr. Wood would undoubtedly have given some de- scription of the governess’ personal ap- yearance when he telephoned his sister, as e had said he meant to do. But Augusta was not alarmed by this idea. Men were so queer about women’s looks that Mrs. Conway would say, “Isn't that likea man, not even to know a great beauty when he sees one?”’ As to the daily letter, how for- tunate that he had insisted it should be typewritten. Anyone could sign Augusta Exeter to a man who had seen her signa- ture only once. “T hope you won't be found out; I don’t see how you can be,”’ said Augusta. “T can't see that it matters much if I am,” answered Pearl. ‘I'll try to put it off, anyhow, until they have become attached to me for myself.” And then suddenly falling back in her chair, she stared at her friend with opened eyes. ‘My dear, I can't do it! How could I have forgotten? I can’t leave Alfred!” Alfred was not a beautiful young lover, as her tone of lingering affection might have seemed to indicate, but a peculiarly ugly black-and-white cat—black where he ought to have been white, and vice versa — that is to say, black round one eye, which made him look dissipated, and black about the nose, which made him look dirty. Also he had lost one paw. Pearl had rescued him from a band of boys in an alley and cher- ished him with a steady maternal affection. “Oh, Alfred,” said Augusta, as if this did not make much difference. This was not only wrong in tone but she had failed to say the thing Pearl wanted her to say, namely, that Mrs. Conway would be delighted if the new governess brought her pet cat with her. Pearl explained that Al- fred was really no trouble in the house—he slept all day and caught mice at night- except one night he did tumble all the way downstairs on account of his paw. “And you'd be surprised, Gussie,’’ said Pearl, her whole generous face lighting up with admiration; “that cat—that Retle creature made a noise like an elephant falling, he’s so solid.” But Augusta, who was not so easily moved to admiration as Pearl, was not at all moved now. “IT can’t see,” she observed coldly, “what it is you see in Alfred that makes you love him so.” Pearl, who had really a nice nature, wasn’t angry. “It isn’t exactly that I love him so much,” she answered, “But I feel so sorry for him; and when I feel sorry for anyone they to a certain extent own me. I feel as if I could never make up to them for the way life has treated them. I feel that way to Alfred—-about his paw, you know.” “You didn’t feel that way to the man who cried in the Encyclopedia.” “TI should say not,” answered Pearl. “No, I can’t pity him. He was such a poor sport about it. Men are poor sports where women are concerned—even Rossen If you had asked him to break his word be- cause you had had a brain storm he'd have been shocked.” “He'd have been immensely flattered,’’ said Augusta reflectively. “But he thinks it’s absolutely all right for him to break up all your business ar- rangements because he goes off halfcocked with a fantastic idea that you've fallen in love with a man you merely want to work for.” Augusta thought a minute and then she said, “It wasn’t quite so fantastic as you think, Pearl. I was attracted by Mr. Wood. I might have fallen in love with him if I had been brought into contact with him much more. Oh, Pearl, haven't you ever felt a sudden charm like that?” Pearl shook her head. She could not say, Perhaps she did not really herself under- stand why such emotions were forbidden to her, but the true reason was that if her speaking countenance had ever turned upon a man with that thought in mind the next instant her lovely nose would have been buried in a tweed lapel or grating against a stiff collar. “You know,” Augusta went on, “that I really love Horace; and Mr. Wood took no

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46 interest in me, except as a governess for his nieces; but have you never said to your- self, ‘There is the type of man whom I could have loved madly if only things had been different’?”’ , Again Pearl’s head wagged. Then she said, “‘ Describe my employer to me.” “Well,” Augusta began solemnly, “he has a smooth brown face out of which look two bright-blue eyes like a Chinaman.” Pearl scowled. “But Chinamen don’t have blue eyes,” she objected. “No more they do. Why did I keep thinking of China then? China-blue, per- haps, or maybe the way they are set. I think there is an angle—a little up at the corners. “Then his shoulders are broad, or his waist is awfully thin, because his coat falls in that loose nice way, like the English offi- cers who came to lecture at college.” “Mercy,” said Pearl, “what things you notice!” “And he’s very direct, and not at all afraid of saying what has to be said. And rettiest to forget that the bones of her ovely body were aching. She, Maura, could not die! That was the day—they will tell you about it yet in Rincén Moreno—that a stranger came and shouted hoarsely at the great wooden gates of the outer wall. The sun was down, so that Bartolo, the ancient porter, demanded cautiously, “ Who is it?” The stranger gave the correct answer— “Tt is I.” So Bartolo swung open the gates and kissed the horseman’s hand and unbuckled his spurs for him, according ‘to the law of hospitality in that country where strangers are few, “Enter, caballero, This is your house. But ay de mi, sefior, the curse of God is on it!” Locklin heard that mumbled warnin without attention. The horse had suffer more than he; thirty-six hours in the sad- die—toiling over passes where the sun was hot and the air thin, weaving down into cool rivers of drifting fog and up into the sun again, a creeping speck in the lonely majesty of sky and mesa—-it was only in- definite weariness to him; his nerves were dull to pain. The curse of God? Then he had come, he thought sardonically, home. There was a vast cobbled court that smelled of horses, set about with many doors, lit with square lanterns set on posts; but little sign of life. A naked boy scuttled like a rabbit into darkness. A woman, drooping before a closed door, stared at the stranger. A pair of mastiffs rushed out, raging; Bartolo scolded them and they sub- sided to wary grumbling in their throats. A long tiled veranda, an echoing stone passage; a court where heavy wooden sad- dies hung on pegs, an ox wain standing half in darkness; another passage. Then star- light and the smell of flowers and a foun- tain singing. “Here,” said Bartolo, opening a door, “if it pleases you, your grace will rest. Ex- cuse that the master does not greet you. He is about to die.” He lighted a hanging lamp of brass. The floor was stone, the chairs rawhide, the rugs the spotted skins of mountain cats. The huge canopied bed was never built in this hill country; it might have served for royaity in Spain. It was all vague to Perry Locklin. Noth- ing had much reality or meaning. “Eh?” he muttered. “The master is sick?"’ **Many are sick, sefior. require anything?” #t go, let everything go! “Nothing.” A woman brought a jug of water and a candle for the bedside and a cup of choco- late. Setting down these things, shesneezed, and looked at him with patient terror in her eyes. “Excuse, excellency, that there is no meat, For many days no beeves are killed. What does it matter? We are all to die.” And she sneezed again, “Health and wealth,” muttered Locklin mechanicaliy—the customary phrase; a sneeze is supposed to be good luck. “ Ay, sefior, you do not understand! It . the beginning of the sickness! I shall die!" Does your grace THE SATURDAY he doesn’t lecture you about women’s intui- tion or how he made his business success or any of those things that men always do talk about when they offer you a job. And, oh, it rings in my ears the way he said as we parted, ‘If you give me your word I know I can trust you to keep it,’ or some- thing like that.” And at this moment the housekeeper of the club came into the dining room, nom- inally to see that luncheon was being properly served, but actually, as she soon explained, because the club was so lonely in summer, and her little dog had been killed by an automobile the week before. Pearl was, of course, immensely sympathetic about this loss; and Augusta, with a flash of efficiency, suggested that Alfred could live at the club for the two months Pearl was away, and the housekeeper greeted the idea with enthusiasm. And so, the last obstacle being removed, these two efficient women went upstairs to the library and, sitting side by side, with the black notebook between them, worked the whole thing out, as in their EVENING POST college days they had so often worked up an examination. All the facts that Wood had spread out for A ita, Augusta now spread out for Pearl—the salary, the bonus, the characters of those involved, the re- sults which Mr. Wood especially wished to see accomplished: That Antonia should be made clean and neat and dressed like a normal little girl; that Durland should be taught algebra thoroughly and made to stop — though that would be diffi- cult; that Mrs. Conway should not be worried by her former husband, and cer- tainly prevented from lending him money. “And there is his address in Mexico, and you're to write every day. That’s the most important thing of all—to write every day.” earl took the notebook and put it into her pocketbook. “And how often does he write to me?” she inquired. Augusta smiled. “He never does—he never answers. I suppose it’s the first time in your life, Pearl, you ever wrote to a mzn who did not answer your letters.” ACCORDING TO HIS EYES (Continued from Page 15) Let go? When the will is gone there is still habit, the well-worn grooves of actions worthy or unworthy. Even in despair a man is what he has been; old gestures are easier than new. Locklin heard the panic in her voice, saw the dry flush in her face and the red dullness of her eyes. He reached out and took her wrist. The woman sub- mitted uncomprehendingly, for by his dress he was of the gente fina, the class to whom the humble owe respect. “H’m! Tell me about this sickness.” Listening, he sighed. He knew the na- ture of this curse; that is, he knew its name; knew how innocently it came, tricking its victims into staying on their feet until all strength was gone; knew how it weakened and overtaxed the heart under the best con- ditions. And in closed rooms, in this thin mountain air, with charcoal burning! No man knew much of influenza; but this was murder. Perry Locklin, thirty-six hours without rest, sighed and pushed away the chocolate. “Have someone bring me coffee, very strong. Not you; you must not work any more. What is your name?” “Chana, sefior.”’ “Go to your bed, Chana. you.”’ She stammered. Life is simple in Rin- cén Moreno, but there are conventions, even so. Her own man was not dead yet. Then Locklin’s frayed nerves went wild. “Fool! Do as I tell you! Iam adoctor,a medico. I will see the sick ones. Is there soda in the kitchen? Have someone bring me all there is. Move, woman! Goto your bed and stay there!" They tell strange tales about that night in Rineén Moreno. Locklin wasted no strength in argument; he had none to waste. Like cattle he drove them, his thin face quivering with fatigue, his blue eyes blazing, their pupils very small— though everybody knows that pupils of eyes ought to be larger at night. He threw open doors and windows, letting in the air; night air, this madman! As soon as he moved on, they closed them, of course; and he came back and found them closed and took a chair and smashed the glass out, growling strange words like curses. He gave them soda, carbonato from the kitchen, which is no medicine at all but a powder for cooking; before his angry eyes he made them swallow it. He gave them little white pills that made the heart beat warmly, and when he had no more of these he gave them rum, It made them feel better. A strange time! The master in that place was not Luis Moreno, but Perry Locklin, wanderer, He cursed Don Luis as freely as the humblest peon; and Don Luis, strength- ened by pills or rum or rage, rallied and did not die. Nobody died that night, and only one next day. He made the well ones wear white cloth over their faces to keep out the sickness. He must have slept at times, but he seemed to be everywhere; and woe to the man, woman or child who showed a face uncovered! A strange sight, as if Rincén Moreno were full of bandits. Maura, daughter of Don Joaquin, the mayordomo, was not very sick. One day it came to her that the medico was a man. I will come to It was not proper for a medico to enter a woman’s room alone. But this lean, bold, picturesque fellow stalked in unattended and thrust a little rod of glass under her tongue and seized her wrist in his lean strong fingers and stalked out without no- ticing that she was a woman. Maura was seventeen and very much a woman, but at first she was glad not to be noticed. She was afraid. But one day, studying him under lowered lashes, she saw his grim brown face dis- armed, his blue eyes weary and very sad; and it came to her that he was only a man, for all his boldness. Slowly, as if she were asleep, she let her wrist slip through his fingers and her fingers curl into his palm. He sat very still. She heard his breathing almost stop. Sleepily she opened her soft black eyes and smiled, and he was so confused that he went away and left the little glass rod in her mouth. Maura took it out and patted it and laughed. At this time Don Luis, young and hand- some even with the pale face and curling beard of sickness, hadn't noticed that the medico was a man; Luis saw only a per- sonage, grave and detached and elderly of manner. One day Luis sent for the medico. “Sefior doctor,”” said he magnificently, “my life and the lives of my people are yours. How shall I pay you? I am rich; do not hesitate to ask.” Perry Locklin, thinking of the soft, warm tenderness of Maura’s little fingers, sighed. “Let me lodge here and rest awhile. I am very tired.’ “This is your house forever!" said Moreno, full of rum and gratitude. iv OCKLIN knew he deserved no gratitude. He knew what moved him—habit, that makes even the shell of a man do what the man has done. Trained in the habit of serv- ice, he did not know how to sit and Iet time flow over him. To help time pass he rode with the vaqueros. But they did not ease his !oneli- ness. He could have described the unseen, mysterious brains in their skulls; but he did not know the trick of exploring simple minds. They seemed like children to him, and so he tried to interest them with tales of the wonderful world; of magic trumpets through which men could talk to other men many leagues away, of coaches with wings that fhe. gem in the sky like buzzards, of armies whose numbers were like the grass of the mesa and whose guns could shoot over the horizon. They listened gravely, too respectful to tell the great sefior medico they knew he was lying. He rode with Luis too; but Luis was stiffly, warily courteous, unconsciously re- sentful toward this man whose world was so much wider than his own. And wistfully, unreasonably Locklin thought of Hale—Hale, dry and hard and rigid in his judgments, but at least intelli- gent. Sometimes he even dared to think of Emmy Ray. Not as a woman; not the way she laughed, her small, strong hands, her boyish manner; that hurt too much. He saw her face ethereal, beautiful, dim like a fragment of a loved and half-forgotten December 29, 19235 “T rather like the idea,” said Pearl. They were interrupted by a telegram being brought in and given to Augusta. She opened it. “It’s from Mr. Wood,” she said; and added with surprise, “It seems to be about you.” “About me?” “No,” said Augusta with relief, ‘I read it wrong. It’s about Mrs. Conway’s jewels. He told me she had a string of priceless pearls that her husband gave her when they were first married. “The message says, ‘Please see that pearls are kept in safe on account of recent Long Island burglaries.’” She gave the yellow sheet to her friend. ‘‘ Keep that,” she seid, “‘and be sure to mention in your fixst report that you have received it. That will make absolutely sure that you’re e. “You ought to say ‘you're I’ if you are going to be a governess,” said Pearl. “But I’m not,” said Augusta. (TO BE CONTINUED) dream. A man can’t stop thinking en- tirely; not while he is alive. Here, he thought, surely he had lost him- self. The days were like the sweetest of spring days, each one like every other; no more struggle, nobody to care —— Well, there was Maura. Nothing ethereal about Maura; nothing boyish, either. She was very simply a woman. Her Indian blood was a dusky warmth in her skin, a sleeping fire in her veins; and her hands were the graceful hands of a lady of old Spain. She knew she was beautiful. She saw it in the eyes of men. At seventeen the women of Maura’s race are not children. The medico was a man, a lean, pictur- esque fellow who could be bold and ruth- less when he chose. She knew he was not cold, for she remembered the look in his eyes the day she had curled her fingers into oo Yet he did not seek her. She wondered why. No doubt some woman had deceived him. That would be why his eyes were grim. The buildings of Rincén Moreno formed a sprawling warren honeycombed with courts. From a barred window of her room Maura could look into the garden be- fore his door; often she saw him pacing, pacing there far into the night. More than once she whispered, ‘Good evening, sefior medico.”’ He only answered, ‘‘ Good evening, sefio- rita,’’ never pausing in his restless stride. If anyone had told her this man was humble, Maura would have laughed. The medico’s head was always up, his blue eyes hard to meet. Maura did not know—you could never have explained to her—the bit- ter humility that has its roots in pride. “‘T am a white man,” Locklin told him- self, ‘yet I am not fit to love even this half- breed child.” Oh, he knew that she was lovely! He knew her hands were tender, and he had need of tenderness. The thought of her tor- mented him—an aching sweetness, woven with starlight and the perfume of an an- cient [pee and a fountain singing. But he had no right to ask anything of her, of anyone. The end was near. He could al- most have named the very day some end must come. By day he shut himself from her behind the impersonal gravity that was his shell of habit, the only strength he had; but it was not enough to resist the miracle that hap- ned. One night she came to him. He eard her soft voice in the shadows and thought the murmur of water had tricked his ear. ““Why are you sad, my friend?” She was very near him, her black dress a deeper shadow, her dim face framed in a black mantilla. The perfume of her hair was sweeter than the scent of flowers, her eyes dark pools of tenderness. “Maura! You must not come here!” “Are you not lonely?” “Lonely!” said Perry Locklin, and spoke as toa child. ‘“‘ Yes, Maura, I am lonely.” “Tt is not good to be always sad.” “It is time all little ones were in bed.” But she was a woman, was Maura; she didn’t need to be told why his voice was shaking. She laughed softly. (Continued on Page 48)

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48 (Continued from Page 46) “Without doubt,” she mocked him, “all the little ones are so. * The old ones too.” And her eyes were dark with sleeping fires, the fragrance of her a hunger in all his veins. He didn’t know he was crushing her hands until he saw her laughter fade. “Gently, my great strong one!" “T am the most miserable of weaklings!”’ said Perry Locklin. Maura sighed contentedly. This was a humility she could understand; for love, you know, is always conquest. Though his arms hurt her yielding body, it was he who surrendered —this bold ruthless fellow. The sleeping fire woke in her and she clung to him, murmuring formless words. But his strong hands put her away. “Sit here and-—-talk to me.” “Tell me that thou lovest me!” “Your loveliness is more than my strength.”’ “But not a reason to be sad!” “Tam not sad,” said Perry Locklin wist- fully. “I have been-—lonely, but with you ! shall not be sad.” He still used the formal “you” to her, as if they were only acquaintances— this for- eigner. She scolded him. “There are many things I must teach thee, wise medico. Say ‘thou’; ‘I am not sad with thee.’ Quickly!” “T am not sad with thee,” he repeated after her, tricked into amiling. And a lost memory stirred and hurt within him. Another woman had known that very trick to make him laugh. Maura’s talk was the talk of a child. It soothed him, helped him not to think, and he was grateful. He must not think; the end was very near. At length he sighed and drew her to her feet. “Go now to thy sleep, little one.” And he turned abruptly from her. He was not looking after her; he had resumed his restleas pacing, his face lifted to the sil- ver heavens and the high trembling stars. It puzzled Maura, left her a little in awe of him. It never occurred to her that any man would send a woman away for her own sake. If anyone had told her this man was humble, Maura would have laughed. v F DON JOAQUIN YNCLAN had known that his daughter met the medico alone in the garden, it would have seemed to him a plain case for horsewhip or pistol; Don Joaquin did not know—you could not have made him believe--that there were men who had the habit of responsibility toward the daughters of other men. Life is simple in Rineén Moreno; men are men. Yet there are conventions even so. Even Luis, the master himself, young and hand- some like a soldier of old Spain, had never beer alone with her since they were chil- dren. He had made love to her, yes—with meaning glances, whispers, gestures, even pane under her window with iron bars vetween them. But Don Joaquin was not supposed to know this. The conventions in these matters are very strict. And Maura, before the medico came, had responded to Luis; answering and retreat- ing, as a woman must, making a man pursue his victory. But the medico was different from other men. She was never sure she understood him—dquiet and self- contained, curiously droll sometimes, mas- terful when he chose to be. Luis was a shallow, pettish boy beside nim. “Tell me, my Perree,”” she demanded— “tell me why thou art always sad. Thou grievest for a woman of thy country?” Tell her? He was very tired; shame was heavy to bear always alone. Why not? She was only a half-breed child. There was little she could do to make him forget the world he had lost, yet if he took that little she had a right to know. He lifted a hand and dropped it, a gesture of weariness. “T am a surgeon.” She waited, prepared to laugh. Some- times he teased her, this blue-eyed for- eigner, with solemn foolery. “Thou knowest of the Great War? A war very far away, on the other side of the world. “There were millions of men fighting and many wounded, every day and every night for years. It needed thousands of surgeons to care for them, and I was one. Thou seest my hands?” And he showed her his hands, supple and lean and strong, the wonderful hands of a surgeon; tools of a skill that was useless now. Maura caressed them, wondering. THE SATURDAY “Some of the wounded ones could be saved only by a thing that I knew how to do. It was a thing that needed to be done swiftly,” he said, telling her as ane as he could, “‘or the men died; skillfully, or they lived as madmen; idiots, dost thou understand? I taught other medicos, but I could do this thing more quickly than any other.” “T am sure of it,” said Maura. ‘Even in thy own country thou art called a great medico, is it not true?”’ And he remembered how the name of Perry Locklin had once held promise, faded now and forever lost. His voice hardened so that Maura wondered how she had of- fended him. “‘When I was tired there was the danger that I would kill a man with clumsiness, wae in his brain through a hole in the skull.” “Ugh!” said Maura. “I would not bea surgeon.” “And there was a medicine that would make my nerves calm, so that I could work skillfully when I was tired.” “That was fortunate,” said Maura. “T am not sorry!” said Perry Locklin, forgetting her; speaking now to those men who never knew they bought their lives at the cost of his. “I am not sorry! There was no other way.” “Sorry?” said Maura. “‘T cannot do without it now. By suffer- ing, by great suffering I could have learned to do without it; but it had destroyed my courage, my will, my ambition too.” Her wide dark eyes did not turn from him. Will? Ambition? These were only words to Maura. She saw no lack in him. . “A drug,” he said harshly. ‘Thou knowest the shameful ones who smoke the marihuana? Like that!” “But the marihuana does not make men calm,” argued Maura a: “They run and shout and see things they do not see, They are crazy. They are dangerous to others; but themselves, they are happy. Is it thy medicine that makes thee sad?” Sometimes it was useless to try to under- stand this man. No matter; it was not a woman's business to understand. She knew the lean, picturesque stature of him, lean- jawed, blue-eyed, his quiet voice and virile ands; knew him to be a great man and very wise. “Tt is remembering,” said Locklin, “that makes me sad.” “A woman?” “Yes,”’ he said humbly. woman, Maura.” “And?” she demanded. He spread listless hands in the gesture of letting go. Of course he had known other women, this wise far-traveled man. With one absent-seeming gesture he dismissed them; Maura was content. She did not fear his memories. It was well known that blue- eyed women were always cold. She reached up to stroke his forehead, murmuring, “Beloved, forget. Remember now no more, no more forever.” It shook Locklin as slow despair had never shaken him. Where he had looked for shame he saw an infinite pity, a great and simple faith—being essentially a humble man and himself more simple than he knew. That night in his room he took from his medicine case a little cylinder, the last of its kind, and divided its contents into parts and considered them. Then into smaller arts, a series of diminishing parts. For in him, shaken by reverence, a dead spark woke to its last feeble glow—struggling for ws as it had struggled many times be- ore. Already his nerves cried out in warning. He made the smaller parts a little larger. But that shortened the series, so he made them smaller again—this beaten man who had no strength but habit, one that de- stroyed him and others that fought for him in vain. Oh, he knew he had to fail! When this seanty store was gone, he knew he would lie, steal, murder to get more. But if there was no more? Ah! There, he thought with a courage that was not his, he would trick himself. He would hang on here until it was too late to reach Ternura. But a cunning part of him remembered how long it would take to reach Ternura, remembered where, in the hospital, such things were kept. He had brought with him all there was, but there had been time for the new medico to get more. And there might be, too, some of the precious stuff in the village of Suchi, only twenty leagues away. “There was a EVENING POST He knew he had to fail, as he had failed many times before. But he tried; for Maura’s sake he tried; and part of him watched hopelessly, knowing he would fail. Fed by diminishing bits, his nerves began to stretch and shake, unceasingly in pain. One day a child, playing, stumbled across his path. Savagely he kicked it, and savagely turned on a peon who dared to protest—his blue eyes almost black with the bigness of their pupils. The n was frightened and apologized, and Locklin’s tongue would not say that he was sorry. Only one thing helped him. These people did not dare show him contempt. Days he forgot to shave, forgot to care for his clothes; his dignity was gone; his face twitched and his voice shook; he wavered and shambled in his walk, and rubbed and rubbed his nose, and did not know. Maura was frightened. This was not the man she loved. She was afraid to go any more into the garden; and he came and begged under her window, for he had no pride, only great need of tenderness. To him she was herself and Emmy Ray and all that he had lost. He knew now that there was no easy end; he fought on, hopelessly. He forgot that people had ears. One night a woman from the next court ran to Don Joaquin Ynclan, who sat at chess with Don Luis. Luis, being younger, reached the garden first. Ah! Now he perceived that the medico was neither more nor less than a man. The medico stood under Maura’s window pleading, his voice hoarse presumably with passion, Maura’s voice was shaking too, struggling presumably against passion in herself. “No, no, Perree! I dare not!” “Maura, hear me! Without thee I am nothing, the most miserable of lost souls. I shall fail, I shall fail utterly!” Strong love-making, this; Luis in his most ardent moments could have done no better. Jealous rage reénforced moral in- dignation. Luis bounded down the walk and clapped the medico on the shoulder. It was a thin shoulder, slack and unresist- ing. Luis knew how to deal with humility; he spun the medico about and kicked him. Locklin stared. Moreno had materialized out of nothing. Moreno had kicked him! It was no order from his brain that jerked Locklin’s muscles, only an auto- matic resentment stored up through genera- tions of men who were not kicked. Luis threw up his arms to shield his face, but that fury of fists hammered elbow and shoulder and forehead, rocking him on his feet. Luis was no coward; but he was a son of hidalgos, who do not fight with fists. He turned and ran, Don Joaquin, more prudent, had armed himself with a machete. Luis seized one for himself from the scabbard of a saddle and charged back, swinging the heavy blade. Now there was uproar, women crying out, men running, shouting. “Don Luis, where is the evildoer? What . Only the silver murmur of the fountain, the — and shuffle of quick-moving feet, and heavy breathing, and the crack of smashing wood. Locklin had caught up a splint-and-rawhide chair to ward off the blows of the machetes. The flimsy chair was already wreckage in his hands; the dull flick of the blades was very hard to follow. Let him miss one and it would lop off an arm or split his skull. He had backed into the angle of the wall under Maura’s very window. Maura held her breath, clutching the bars with frantic hands, Ah, but men were splendid sav- _ Her father and her two lovers, how they fought for her! In the soft ground of a flower bed Don Joaquin stumbled. Sidewise Locklin slammed the wreck of the chair at the dim reeling figure, and drove up with his fist under the jaw of the other one. Moreno’s head, never braced for such a blow, flew back. The machete clattered from his hand on the stone flagging of the walk. After his body settled he did not move. Locklin said stupidly, “Maura, I’m sorry.” Hands seized him. He did not resist. They pushed him into his room and locked the door outside. Awhile he sat with his stupid head in his hands, his nerves shak- ing, shaking. He stilled them with all that was left of his poor stock of peace, and that night he slept. vi O THE rurales came and took him to Suchi. Maura saw him, his hands man- acled, his face unshaven, haggard, slack, December 29, 1925 his body sagging in the saddle. He was protesting, saying stupidly, “‘The seforita saw it all. She will tell you I struck in self- defense.” As if that mattered, when it was a Moreno who had been struck! “ Adelante! Forward!” barked the co- mandante of rurales. Then a curious thing happened. Just for a moment the prisoner straightened in the saddle. He saw Maura where she stood among the women, saw her wide dark eyes fixed on him, saw the pitiful gesture with which she drew her mantilla across her face; and his eyes lighted as if he were smiling, but his face was drawn. “No!” he shouted. ‘Do not speak!” Maura never knew what he meant by that, because all at once he began to fight. A very fierce fighter, that medico. They had to tie him on his horse to ride away. And the days passed, placid, uncounted, sweet like the sweetest of spring days in Muncie, Indiana; though, to be sure, there was nobody in Rincén Moreno who had ever heard of that peaceful place. They had never heard where the medico came from; most of them forgot where he had gone. Oh, Maura remembered! Sitting in the deep embrasure of her window, nights when the stars were out and the air was soft with the smell of flowers and the foun- tain—or was it her blood that sang, re- membering? She forgot the miserable thing the soldiers had taken away, remembering the wise, grave man who had made her feel sometimes like a woman, sometimes like a child. She remembered his formidable shape here in the angle of the wall, the short valiant figure of her father, the lithe and furious Luis—these fierce males fight- ing because of her. The foreigner striking them down, doubtless by some sleight he had learned in that war he had mentioned, both with one savage blow of his hand; brave men rushing in to overpower him; Luis borne away, silent and terribly limp. But Luis was not much hurt. His head was cut where it had struck the stone flag- ging of the walk; the old women bandaged it with herbs, and bled him, too, so as not to overlook any precaution; for he was the last of the Morenos. Maura shuddered to think what might have happened if the Yangui had struck a little harder. For a few days Luis looked quite heroic with his bandaged wrist and head, wounds he had suffered in her defense. Then life went on as if the medico had never been. It was the comandante of rurales, at- tending their betrothal festivities in Rinc6én Moreno, who brought up the subject. “By the way, Don Luis, that Yanqui of yours.” “ Yanqui? Oh, yes, the medico. What of him?” A fighter, that blue-eyed wild man. He had fought stone walls and iron bars, like an untamable animal in captivity, indif- ferent to pain; shouting to the guards fierce words they did not understand, offering them money to lure them within reach of his great strong hands. Three days, four days, not touching food, until he fell ex- hausted on the floor and slept. Then he began to eat. And how he ate! Slept and woke and ate and slept again. Locklin knew it was a miracle he hadn’t died. And he knew what had saved him. The ew effort he had made for Maura’s sake had broken the grip of habit a little, so that the final shock of deprivation hadn’t quite killed him. Sven Maura could not have saved him from the weakness of his will. Prison had done it. Did she know? He remembered that he had cried out to her not to speak. That was not courage; that was despair, a wild moment when it had seemed better to die than to fail again. The miracle had happened. Except for — stone walls and iron bars he was quite ree. He couldn’t think much yet. The days that passed his high small window were fair blue days, sweet like the sweetest of spring days in Muncie. Long hours he sat with his eyes fixed on that blue slit of freedom, his mind far off among the fragments of a shin- ing dream. Could a man pick them up again? Then he would walk. Eight steps and turn, eight steps and turn, eight steps and turn. He knew the danger of silence and monotony; he tried to keep his mind re- laxed, tried to keep the guards in talk when they came near. It was strange and pleas- ant to be hun and to eat. It was two years since he ad been hungry. (Continued on Page 51)

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT If we could reach every one of the men who have helped make this the greatest year in Champion history, one hundred thousand telegrams of acknowledgment and appreciation would go out of the offices of the Champion Spark Plug Company today. Wherever they are, we want each and every one of these men to know that they are in our thoughts today, and that while we have prospered together, we do not feel that our debt of obligation is entirely discharged by monetary considerations. In the distribution of Champion Spark Plugs—in the wonderful work accomplished by the great wholesale and specialty houses, by thousands of retailers and their thousands of representatives— there have been elements of friend- liness and loyalty for which we can offer no compensation but our thanks. It is perfectly true,as we Americans so often say, that business is business — but it is also true of this business that the kindly human relations which it has brought into existence constitute by far its most precious asset. It would be easy to say:—“We gave you what you wanted, and what the public wanted. We helped you with every means in our power, to prosper as you helped us to prosper—and so consider the account balanced.” But, we are not disposed to consider it balanced, and so to those who distributed and sold and those who bought this year 35,000,000 Champion Spark Plugs, our very sincere appre- ciation and all good wishes. President GU (Uamake—

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29,1925 The Combination Model Real comfort in this model Cherry calfskin Goodyear Wingfoot Rubb Heels Ask your dealer for cherry calfskin B-372, black kid B-375, gunmetal calfskin There is a Selz Shoe made for every purpose, for every occasion. And each is made to give a little better value for the money than you can buy elsewhere. Every Selz Shoe is made of all leather; with a masculine grace that is distinctive. The shoes preferred by discriminating men. The dealer near you known for greatest value- giving is a Selz merchant. He can show you Selz Shoes in every last and style, from the Selz *Six through a wide variety of models and prices to ten dollars. 1871 SEKELZ 1924 11 FACTORIES—30,000 DEALERS CHICAGO :: PITTSBURGH . “*eeaeude®™ SELZ SHOES—A NATIONAL INFLUENCE FOR FIFTY-THREE YEARS—#6 TO g¢10

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THE SATURDAY (Continued from Page 48) The guards were still wary, pushing his food to him from a distance. A queer pris- oner! Queerly he would squat and rise, squat and rise, twenty times together, his breath whistling fiercely in his nostrils. What did he mean by that? Or he would stand with feet planted and swing his arms, bending, for all the world like a man chop- ping wood; but he had no ax at all, nor any wood to chop. And he spent hours making — clean, like a cat with nothing else to do “‘He seems quite pacified,’ the coman- dante reported to Luis. ‘Shall we not bring him to trial soon?” Luis considered. A trial was a nuisance. Suchi was twenty leagues away, and he was busy. “Or,” offered the obligin comandante, “shall we apply the law of flight?’ The law of flight is for prisoners whose trial promises to be inconvenient or un- satisfactory. They are shot trying to escape. “Eh, well,” said Luis, feeling magnan- imous on this day, ‘‘the fellow has done no real harm. No. Give him a horse and let him go with God.” And he thought Rincén Moreno had seen the last of that medico; but he was wrong. In the afternoon of the second day the medico rode boldly through the gates and dung his reins to old Bartolo and strode off across the outer court, his spurs ringing fiercely on the cobblestones. vil AURA, in her room, heard spurs in the sala, heard a remembered voice de- manding, ‘Where is Dofia Maura?” It was unheard of for a man to wear spurs into a family sala. It was scandalous for a man thus openly to demand to see any woman—any woman, that is, under fifty years of age—much more a young, unmar- ried woman, betrothed and in seclusion. And this was the man who had struck down Joaquin Ynclan and Luis Moreno, both of them brave and strong and armed with machetes, with one blow of his terrible hand! The frightened servant stammered. Maura’s mother, fat and shocked and scared, appeared in one door of the sala, Maura in another, her dark eyes wide and one hand at her pulsing throat. “Perree!"’ Maura hardly knew what she was saying. ‘‘Thou art—-thou art well?” “IT am well!”’ said the medico, and his voice was vibrant on those simple words. “And thou?” ‘*T have--I have sorrowed,”’ she faltered, “to think of thee in prison. Thou hast suf- fered—not too much?” This she said to mollify him, fearing he intended violence. If he was vengeful he had timed his coming well. Joaquin Ynclan was at a distant estancia, Luis somewhere out on the cattle range. But all at once she knew she was not afraid. The medico was not haggard now; he was thin, and his face was strange with its short thick new beard, and the deep sunburn had receded somewhat from his fair skin; but the muscles about his mouth were firm, his eyes gentle, his hands re- laxed and calm. She thought his brown beard very becoming. No man with any drop of Indian blood could have a beard so virile! “T have suffered,” he said quietly; “but not too much. May I not speak with thee alone?” 7" ‘aballero!”’ cried her mother in frantic protest. “Sir, my daughter is to be But bravely Maura acted to end this shocking scene. Before her mother’s appre- hensive eyes she stepped straight to the in- truder and laid hands on him and urged him from the room. With eyes and lips, unseen by any but him, she reminded him of the garden and promised him, “Tonight.” She did not really mean to go. Before night Luis would come, and Luis would know what to do. She turned back to her mother, saying lightly, “‘He is 2 Yanqui. Their customs are not ours.” But the Sefiora de Ynelan, fat and re- spectable and middle-aged at thirty-six, herself had once been beautiful and young. She remembered those glamorous, danger- ous days, and read the excitement in her daughter's eyes and sent a man riding in haste to bring Luis. And darkness fell. From the deep em- brasure of her window Maura saw the medico walking in the garden. A match flared to his cigarette; she saw his bearded face in bold relief, his blue eyes fixed on her window, and knew he waited. If she did not go, might he not come to her with vio- lence? Oh, he was capable of violence! She knew how bold and ruthless he could be. Smashing out windows when it displeased him to have them closed. Striking down two men with one savage blow of his hand. Striding spurred into the sala and com- manding her mother to leave them alone! The night was luminous in that garden in the hills, soft with the smell of flowers and a fountain—or was it her blood that sang, remembering? But where Locklin walked was in a place far off. He did not feel the lonely majesty of sky and mesa. He saw a street, a city street alive with memories, laughter and voices and the busy sweep of passing lights, faces he loved, and windows shining through old northern trees. He saw it, and saw it fade. Maura had loved him when he was less than a man, had given him tenderness when his need was great, and he had paid her with sorrow cal wiih shame. Being a man again, how should he pay her now? She came to him; came bravely close to him, her hair of night loose about her shoul- ders, lifted her face to him and whispered, “See, now I am not afraid!” Yes, she was lovely. But the world had opened wide, calling to him—his brain that was a white man’s brain, his hands that were made for work, his heart that still held all the fragments of a shining dream. He tried to close his thoughts against it, for he knew what he had to do. “Maura,” he said, “I owe my life to you.” Maura, tense with the danger of the mo- ment, crept closer; but he did not touch her. He went on talking. Not about love; about queer things like self-respect, which he said he owed to her; about the jail and some miracle that had made him a man. Maura moved restlessly. To her it was no miracle that he was a man, nor that she was a woman; it was as simple as the ardor of thesun. He owed her nothing but response to her warm loveliness. “Sh-h!" she whispered. ‘Is that Luis?” It was not Luis. It was only the shuffle of humble sandals passing in the edjoining court, not the sharp quick sound of proud boot heels, and she knew it. “No,” said Locklin— this serious, humble man. He did not seem to realize that they were quite alone. She sat down on the bench be- fore the fountain, and he sat down, not touching her, saying nothing, staring at nothing. “Thou dreamest of her—that woman of thy country?” “Eh?” said speak?” Maura sprang up and stamped her foot on stone and hurt it and blamed him for the pain. **Go back to her, then! No doubt she is more beautiful than I. No doubt she knows what to answer when you speak of miracles. Not I! I must be silent because I do not understand. I am only an ignorant mes- tiza, a woman of the hills, a fool who fool- ishly thought to love aman not of her kind!” And he did not contradict her. He thought she spoke the sorrowful truth. Swiftly she turned to go; he caught her hand, humbly, for he knew he was a stupid lover. “Maura, do not be hurt with me. I = “Let me go! Let me go before Luis comes to kill you!” “Luis? To kill me?” “Yes; I am betrothed to him.” Ah, that woke him from his stony calm! Cc ruelly his ee? hands gripped her tender shoulders, shook her. She struggled with all her strength, or almost all, her wild blood Locklin. ‘Didst thou EVENING POST flaming to that iron mastery; she half heard, half felt the savage vibrance of his voice demanding if this thing were true. “Perree!’’ she gasped. “Do not hurt me! Do not be angry with me! It was my father’s wish. And thou wert gone. How could I know that thou wouldst come again? All my life I have thought I would marry him. I thought I loved him. How shall a woman know—who is her man?” Truly, how shall a woman know? How shall a woman yield except to strength? He released her, this stupid, humble man, so that she nearly fell. “Forgive me,” he said slowly. “I did not know.” “You are afraid of him!” “No; but it is for you to choose.” This to a woman of the hills! “Tt is as I tell you, Maura. I owe my very soul to you. But if you love Luis, take him.” This was the man for whom she had risked her father’s anger, the anger of Luis! This man who had seemed so strong and formidable, retreating at the very mention of a rival, too haniiie to press his own claim! Maura laughed softly, wildly, scorn- fully, choking with rage and humiliation. Words? She could use them faster than he. Only the sense of her swift speech re- mained with him; he had to translate to his mind, frame answer and translate again, this bewildered foreigner. She fended him off with frantic hands; and the answer he might have made, requiring no words, was not in him. “Go,” she cried, choking, flinging at him the most final of all farewells, ‘with God!" Then she was gone. Heedless the foun- tain babbled. The slow night wind lifted and wasted the perfume of that ancient garden; the high thin stars were cold, un- touched by any trouble for this tangled thing called life. There was the faint sound of a window swinging to, and after that the fainter sound of weeping. Luis Moreno, striding into the garden with a hand on his revolver, found the medico sitting alone and harmless. The medico greeted him gravely, courteously, almost absently, like a man whose thoughts are elsewhere. He said he was riding to- morrow for Ternura. vail A THE time Locklin partly knew the truth. He knew that she found him a stupid lover. He knew that her loveliness could not make him forget his hunger for the world and work again. He knew that he would probably have come to hate her if she had held him here. Oh, yes, he knew it then. But there isa magic that makes a man forget the things he knows. No mean city is Muncie, Indiana. By certain standards, true, it is a little town; his neighbors wanted to know where he had been, and he told them, and that was that. Honduras or Brazil or Africa~-what did it matter? The world is no mystery to Mun- cie. Do not its glass jars go wherever fruit is grown, its insulators carry far-striding wires, its automobiles raise the dust on dis- tant highways? Does it not give New York a famous tenor, London an engineer, Paris a painter? You will meet men from Muncie anywhere, and sooner or later they come home again. Locklin came home; and when the sunburn had faded from his face it was almost as if he had never been away If there were some who guessed the truth, they forgot it because they loved him. No mean city; Muncie is loyal to its own The thing he was braced for did not hap- pen. What happened was within himself a magic thing. How had he not remembered that north- ern twilights were so long? Down went the ° > FicT a "7 THe 7 51 sun; you thought the day was over. And instead of sudden dark there were siow hours when clouds flamed at the edges, filling the sky with a wild and somber giow; hours when the brisk reality of Muncie was subdued, and people went strangely quiet through colored streets, and windows were half dark, half lighted shelters where men hid from space and loneliness. Why did he see vast rolling mesa, purple- rimmed, the long white walls of Rincdén Moreno tiny against the majesty of hills? Why did it stir something wild and beauti- ful and restless in him? He knew that he was happy. This was the world he loved, the world that lived and moved and got somewhere. He was part of it again. His work was growing wider, his friends closer, and Emmy — Emmy herself, merry and brave and sweet, who knew him better than he knew himself; who under- stood him when he was serious and laughed at him when he was too serious, and made him laugh and very wonderfully loved him-—dearer with every passing day. Yes, he knew that he was happy. But the scent of flowers in darkness could touch him with a nameless ache; not thinking exactly, but remembering. Days when the northern world was bleak with snow he saw a place where winter never came, saw Maura’s face among the glowing coals; Maura as she had first come to him, a tender, romantic child with her high graceful comb and quaint mantilla like a lady of old Spain; Maura as he had seen her last, her dark eyes wide, her hair a vital cloud about her face, her hands thrown up in passion and despair. It was a memory that deepened and did not fade. He never spoke of it, even to Emmy--especially to her. At first she wouldn't let him, and afterward he couldn't. Once in a while somebody would ask him: “What about all this glamour of the tropics? They say there's a charm about it that never lets a man rest until it gets him back. Ever feel the call?” And he would answer truthfuily that the tropics was no place for a man who felt the need of home and his own kind. “Not me! Afraid I’m not built for an adventurer.’ How should he, a surgeon and a serious man, find words to speak of a memory oi depth and beauty? Winter goes by, and summer comes again, and he remembers. Blue hills flung up in God’s forgotten time, serene and age- less under an ageless sky. Rincén Moreno, a remote place, where all the days are fair and time is nothing. Maura, a woman of the hills, who loved him and saved him and found the greatness to give him up for his own sake. He thinks the memory is sor- rowful, but it is reverent, tender, wholly beautiful. He has forgotten loneliness and pain, Maura remembers too. Luis is not the last of the Morenos now; there is a tiny black-eyed lordling who is even more mas- terful than he. But there are many hours in a day. Maura walks sometimes in the garden, and memories walk with her, and they are all of love. Their names? Raoul, a cousin of Luis, who was going to kill him- self for her, but didn't; Pepe del Valle, who used to walk all night under her window when she visited her grandmother in Suchi; Perry Locklin, a lean, bold, blue-eyed for- eigner, most picturesque of all her lovers quiet of manner, but very terrible when roused. Often she thinks of that last night, con- vinced now that she escaped him by a fin- ger’s breadth. She can almost remember how she cowered behind her locked door while he thundered imperiously without, and it thrills her to think what might have happened. Oh, these are innocent imaginings. Raoul and Pepe she can see any day, in company with her husband of course; and they are not nearly so handsome as Luis, But the Yanqui has vanished into the vast dim world beyond the Suchi range, and never comes again to spoil the glamour that gath- ers on his memory. Locklin’s own wife would not recognize him as he is remembered, so bold and strong, so dashing, so magnifi- cently ‘ruthless. What harm? It is a kindly mist, this glamour that time lets drift upon remem- bered things. It hides what should be hidden, to show in deeper, purer tones the beauty that is past; it enriches memory, which is all of life there is What harm if it shifts a color for more perfect beauty? The truth is there, for each according to his eyes.

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handed to our trade competitors wherewith they might slay us? Well, somehow we're muddling through. Undoubtedly we shall revise our tariff. But in practice it now seriously hits at only 6 or 7 per cent of our imports—-half of which come in duty free. The remainder—luxuries and things like sugar --we'd buy anyway, at any price. A careful study of prices in our export trade, and a survey of foreign competition in specific lines, reveal some interesting facts. In mass production, things made to standard on a big scale, we are competing successfully in markets almost everywhere. For example, 85 per cent of all motor cars sold in the export field are American made; no competitor can make a car so good as ours and sell it for the same money. Ona quality basis, too, we are selling high- priced tools in even low-priced Europe. Even in the heart of Germany, as in other Middle Europe lands where costs sank to absurd depths, the demand for American razors, typewriters, low-priced motors, shoes, chocolate and other quality products is proved again and again in orders received here. Only the artificial barrier of import license systema often keeps them out. I talked with one well-known electrical- goods salesman. compete anywhere,” he said, ‘if the buyer’s purchasing power permits him to consider quality. Where something ‘cheap and nasty,’ as the English say, is the type called for, we usually can’t give the buyer as much for his money as the European can. World competition, in this line, is generally fairly clean. There is some copying of our stand- ard devices, in a cheaper quality, but we do not suffer much from such unfair competi- tion. There is, of course, more or less jockeying for advantage—political and otherwise. For example, the stiffening of import tariffs all over the world has led some of our competitors to an intensive study of these tariff acts; sometimes they find a loophole, and jump through it, to our disadvantage. Antidumping clauses in tariffs, for example, state that goods shall be invoiced and declared at home-market values. Our competitors can, of course, alter a standard design, keep it off the home market, yet offer it abroad at reduced prices and—there being no established domestic price—they get by. For example, a watt- hour meter can be made up with a different case or a differently arranged dial, and may be one or two other nonessential changes to give it a different appearance; it still is, in effect, a standard product, yet it looks enough different to be cleared through an unsuspecting customhouse. Again, local agents have changed name plates on elec- trical apparatus to indicate that a motor is of larger capacity than it really is. In that way a seven-and-a-half horse-power motor is represented to a foreign buyer as being a ten horse-power motor, and in that way it can be sold at less than a genuine American ten horse-power motor.” Confusing Electrical Standards Loans made by foreign interests in South America and Asia have in some instances determined the placing of electrical con- tracts, but the actual investment and con- trol of publie utilities abroad by foreign financial interests have asserted a greater commercial influence. The governmental ownership of telephones, telegraphs and railways in many of the British colonies, for instance, also limits the free field for com- peting American manufacturers. The establishment of British or European electrical standards in many foreign coun- tries has made it difficult to introduce many of our electrical products. Our standard frequency is sixty cycles, while that of Great Britain is fifty cycles, which fact affects us adversely in generating equipment, motors and transformers, though it is by no means a severe handicap. The employment of British or Continental wiring standards in many foreign markets has been more of a handicap, the field for American rubber- covered wire, for example, being very re- stricted as a result, We produce over $1,000,000,000 worth a year of electrical goods, and Japan is our best customer. Germany, ordinarily a stiff competitor of ours, has lately not been at all aggressive. From the commodity chiefs at the De- partment of Commerce I heard some in- teresting stories as to how we compete in “Our electrical wares can. ‘THE SATURDAY EVENING POST hide-and-leather trade we see to a startling degree how interdependent even great competing nations are. Great Britain, for example, buys most of the leather we ex- port; yet'she is also our most aggressive competitor in this field, fighting with us to sell leather in Continental Europe and else- where. We, on the other hand, compete with her in buying hides abroad. We tanned 132,000,000 hides and skins into leather last year, 10 per cent of which we exported. But of this vast number many were jm-- ported by us in an untanned condition. Of the total international movement in hides and skins, we absorb about 45 per cent. We furnish 80 per cent of all the tanned goatskins used in the world’s industr yet, to do this, we import 99 per cent of all the goatskins we tan. As tanners, then, we compete successfully; we got the jump on all world rivals years ago when we invented the chrome-salts tanning process. Next to Great “ritain, our principal com- petitors are Germany and France. France competes very.strongly with us on colored kid, vegetable calf and kid skins, alum tanned for gloves and colored kid skins for shoes. Germany competes strongly on the atent side, ‘calf and box calf and fancy eathers. Great Britain competes with us pene, particularly on cheaper classes of eather, having the advantage of shorter hauls. These three countries also compete strongly in the Far East and Near East markets on cheap grades of leather. Amer- ican leathers maintain.their markets abroad on the basis of quality. For this reason such tariff barriers as exist, though they may retard development in our exports, do not cut seriously into the normal volume. Broadly speaking, leather exports are show- ing a normal growth as compared with prewar exports. Competition in Quality “What the world needs now is less com- petition on a price basis alone,”’ says Mr. F. de St. Phalle, vice president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, ‘‘and more competi- tion on the quality of products and service. Competition in quality and service never does anybody harm. We all know how es- sential quality is in our domestic business; quality in foreign business is still more essential. The products go farther away, they are harder to replace, and the expense of ocean freight and handling is just as high on a defective article as on a good one. A breakdown is bad enough when close to the source of supply, but when thousands of miles away it may be disastrous.” The first Baldwin locomotives exported were shipped to Cuba in 1838, and ever since a continuous series has been shipped to almost every railway in the world. “In the export of locomotives,’’ Mr. St. Phalle told me, “we competed before the war with the British and Germans. The strength of the British competition lay in the extensive control and ramifications of British finance, calculatingly used to divert locomotive and other trade to the British shops. The strength of German competition lay in the high-grade organization, equip- ment and ekill of German factories and Ger- man engineers, coupled with cheap and plentiful labor. This double competition was strong, but American locomotive busi- ness was holding its own, especially in South America and the Far East. “The war has weakened British finances and competition. For the moment it has annihilated German competition, and in our judgment this competition has perma- nently weakened. As a result the foreign locomotive business of the United States is now better than at any time in the past, and its prospects for the future are de- cidedly encouraging.” The gymnastics of nervous, depreciated moneyiiiie marks, kronen, lire and frances, are not always hopeless competitive bars to our sales pico according to a report from our commercial attaché at Brussels. He points out that cheap paper money is less of a bar to the sale of an old-established American article than to the introduction of a new one. The European merchant is reluctant to stock an untried American proses during a period of fluctuation. Yet igh-priced American files, for example, sell well in Belgium—in competition with dirt- cheap German files—because the Yankee- made tool has long been known as a superior (Continued from Page 23) product. Again, in spite of cheap German and other competition, a Belgian locomotive works came seeking American boring mills of the heaviest and most expensive type. High-grade industrial rubber goods, like hose and packings, have, says our attaché, “by dint of persistent publicity and demon- stration been placed on a quality basis against lower-priced native competing products of inferior grade. . . . The American typewriter, a high-priced quality article, still withstands all European com- petition, entirely regardless of exchange, because its quality is accepted as an estab- lished fact. The introduction of an Italian make, and more lately of a French product on American patents under the auspices of the largest Belgian arms factory, has had little real effect on American typewriter sales in Belgium. The American calculating machine, though less generally used, meets low exchange without great difficulty.” From my personal observations in Ger- many I know that, in spite of slumping marks, many a dealer there would like to sell American-made razors, typewriters, low-priced cars, shoes, chocolate bars. Again and again these dealers, aided by American salesmen traveling in Europe, have sought to obtain import permits, only to Se denied through the influence of Ger- man competitors making similar articles there. Adverting to Belgium, as typical, our attaché further says: “The recent decline in Belgian exchange accelerated rather than slowed down the sale of well-known low and medium priced American cars. This should not be interpreted to mean that the intro- duction of new makes would be easy; on the contrary, it would, under the present exchange situation, prove exceedingly ar- duou# There is, however, no serious com- petition facing the low and medium priced American cars, as is amply borne out by German inquiries for agencies or manufac- turing rights, regardless of the existing embargo. “The decline in motorcycle sales in Bel- gium is due, not to competition from foreign machines of the same type but to that of the cheap American automobile, and the demand for American heavy motorcycles has been maintained despite abundant out- put of light and comparatively low-priced native machines. The automobile and the motorcycle are the best proofs of the con- tention that a well-introduced American —— satisfying a specific demand has ittle to fear from depreciated exchange.” Yankee Cleaners in Belgium So much has been heard about the diffi- culty of meeting cheap European compe- tition, on account of low production costs there, that it seems worth while to analyze this official report a bit further. Advertised and proved American wares, it appears, pened compete successfully; regardless of price, if the people are really able to buy at all. The report, however, cites the adven- tures of one Yankee salesman who tried to introduce a new vacuum cleaner into Bel- gium. In the first place, the Yankee hadn't reckoned that the price of his American vacuum cleaner weal hire a Belgian scrub- woman three times a week for two years! Furthermore, his Danish competitor under- sold him by 50 per cent, with an inferior article. But in Belgium, as here in the States, advertising pays; the Danish cleaner was advertised, it seems, and the American machine was unknown—proving again the difficulties of marketing a new article in times of money depreciation. On the other hand, one of the indirect ways in which European competition, be- cause of low exchanges, may hit some of our trades is shown by Belgium's textile indus- try. For example, Belgium’s demand for our raw materials is based on the position of her consuming industry. In spite of her depreciated exchange, when her factories ere operating on even a comparatively healthy cost basis the relatively low labor outlay enables her to buy our textile fibers and still undersell her high-exchange com- petitors at prices ample to permit replenish- ing raw-material stocks. Here some degree of depreciation actually helps the American seller of raw materials, especially cotton, though in the end it hits back ut the com- peting American cotton manufacturer, who a— pay 75 or 100 per cent more for his abor. December 29, 19235 SELLING THAT LAST 10 PER CENT _ various liries with our rivals abroad. In the We can’t sell many adding machines in India because you can hire a Hindu book- keeper there—with a university degree— for twenty dollars a month. On the other hand, our sewing machines—again because of quality —are favorites with native small- shop tailors. To meet German and other competition we set up the easy-payment planinIndia. Bythis American distribution system a tailor can buy a 100-rupee ma- chine by paying five rupees a month. They do this rather than buy a cheaper machine for cash, because our plan enables them to pay for the machine as they work. Although Germany is Denmark’s next- door neighbor, and specializes in cutlery, 90 per cent of all razor blades used in Denmark are American made. They sell for more than twice the price of German blades, yet German competition in this line is hardly felt at all. A similar situation is reported from Mexico. Exports of Movie Films American movie films, many European critics say, are too shy on plot and too long on custard pie. In England, particularly, producers cry out against the invasion of Yankee pictures. But, keen as competition is in theory, in practice our sales are enor- mous. In 1922 we exported 126,746,952 linear feet of exposed films; up to October 1, this year, we had exported over 142,000,000 feet —27,000 miles of Wild West, society sin and cross-eyed comedy, pie and all! Of this, Australia was our best buyer, taking over 18,000,000 feet. Canada took almost as much; then came Argentina. In the face of competition and London critics we sold 13,465,000 feet of film in the British Isles. The rest was scattered over fourteen different countries, from Spain to Chile. Great Britain is the old home of the textile trade. Yet despite low wages and mass production there, our exporters of cer- tain staple cotton-goods lines compete suc- cessfully in the very shadow of British mills. “American competition is naturally strongest,”’ says United States Trade Com- missioner Butler at London, “in those lines where low costs result from a combination of the advantageous factors of quantity pro- duction and a large raw-material percentage of cost. If excellence of design can be added, so much the better. Products based on newly developed American processes or de- signs often can be sold in Britain until the makers of the special machinery supply British mills, or until foreign manufacturers offer similar competitive designs. Amer- ican designs can continue to hold a pre- dominant position from year to year if manufacturers study the tastes of their cus- tomers in the British market and continue to introduce new designs to perpetuate their hold on this market.” A consular report from England adds: ‘A large hardware shop displayed a line of lawn mowers with this placard, ‘English lawn mowers at American prices.’ In spite, also, of an import duty of 3314 per cent, Yankee hardware, tools and talking ma- chines continue to sell in the United King- dom.’ The British public is not unfriendly to American-made goods; in fact our wares are now coming to be as much respected in England as English-made goods are here. Yet the local British dealer seems often to have menta! reservations in the matter of handling American products, because of the British debt to us. ‘‘We want to sell to America—not to buy from it; we owe our debt and must pay it in goods.’’ Wherein again we see the empire-wide idea of meet- ing British needs with British-made goods, to the exclusion of imports from the United States. England, though she makes now only 9,000,000 tons a year to our 42,000,000 of steel, is our chief competitor in this line. Last year she exported 61 per cent of her output, as against an export of 13 per cent of our production. Today England is the only steel-producing country with enough output and organization to show us any serious competition. Belgium, with its modest 1,500,000 tons output, succeeds in competing only enough to make business a bit lively for us in Latin America and the Far East. Great Britain’s competitive lines comprise mainly galvanized and black sheets, tinplate, wire rope and tool steel. Since the Armistice and up until the Ruhr (Continued on Page 57)

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 4 are Be ¢ ELGG dn: Ani! el diene a Uittl Fiack beeer Sat in a corner What ‘s the reason be ? (Nndeed it’s quite plain {fe is mage from_\Jiane, Por a big, dish of DFV2') Ghas he Oer? Oy THe Gewese ME TO”#D COmmeny

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29, 1925 AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY LIKE TIMKEN 9 OMEBEHER 852° sorry pn a a A aE . & x3 THE DAVISES STILL KEPAIRING Toledo, Sept. 30.—The trans-continen- tal automobile trip of Mr. and Mrs, Jobn Davis has not proven a great success up to date. For nearly a month the Davises have been trying to get out of Toledo, but without success, Repair work on their machine képt them here for three weeks, A week ago Sunday they broke away from the city, but their tour was «hort-lived for in Michigan, less than 4 seore of miles from here, they broke down again and are stalled. The auto- A MATTER OF VANITY “IT do not think the automobile is go- ing to be popular for any length of time with our fashionable people,” said Adju- tant General Corbin today. “During my ‘recent stay in Newport I met a number of wealthy people who had purchased au- tomobiles early in the season, and I ask- ed them how they liked these novel vehi- cles. Almost Without exception they told- me that they did not think the fad for them would last long. They said the au- tomobile would never take the place of the horse with the fashionable set. The fact of the matter is, the swell woman does not appear to as great advantage in an automobile as she does behind a pair of fine horses,”—Brooklyn Eagle. mobilists were to represent a newspaper — sxyndicate. CASQLENE MOTOR mane Trar . 0 Pe ee eee a . rife 2989 Pe dat Sone Se 2m INN FOR TOURISTS—A WOMAN'S DREAM — FIRST AMERICAN RACING VEHICLE - foned looking, remodeled of the Blue Dragoy “The automobile has opened a new field for women who have their own living to ¢arn,” observed a woman the other day Who proposes to become the proprietor and manager of a new old-fashioned country inn, “People are just beginning “a to appreciate the many advantages of - gifts Oe ae this novel means of travel,” she obdserv- THE DAVISES 57; ed, “and by next season I believe it will Mr und Sry, jes rune not only have taken the place of horses, 4 en hed Chicago with their yin pein, but for short pleasure trips must ri aria \dttle of the original motoc the palace and observation cars. i Oe hes - “Don’t imagine I refer to our beg br a Kear mechanism with which ing motormen as a profession, [ E ‘ he that automobiles will so ine travel over. country roads tha’ bound to be a demand for wey Nc houses, Inng after thgk those famous in th»? ve lett, the principal remain | 8d, being the rear terete at the crossing of 7ist Street and Bond ‘avenue in Chicago, When a new axle ‘stall have been fitted it is the intention fed on the way to San Francisc eee + Historical Material by Courtesy Motor Age BEARING CO LIKE

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST

ROLLER B.B.A.R N G Cc O —_ IS YEARS O LD

. D INDUSTRY SEARS LE Registered Owners During Quarter Century Have Reached Ten Million

/ NEW YORK, April 21.—The @ mobile industry as an industry og : | & \ | just celebrated its twenty-fifth anwil \ 4 3 . : versary. A> quarter of a century @ : ; a the industry, which has produced o WwW 10,000,000 registered owners dur that period, remodeled the planning cities and introduced the traffic “ca struggled into being with the deli of the first American-built car purchaser. ns feopins From the inital sta : sim, antoctuing complet Wovingh Ye Vsinmban Okie, Wingham, ne W i recored of owner a experiments show 50 per’. . plawt bar Wgentty tee cetabliched ot —_ Wp unfit : 4 . gn your animal, whether saat fret that we ote mamaent rome Ie ery wea ry § # of dray. Timkere\xies otf comeany whe toate Mise! aah vehicle, old or new. { ; + aia Fine Es 8 A: oe teak, n. Early : MKEN J The Pioneers Advertisement HE human animal quickly takes things foregranted. 190T The nurseryman soon loses his ability to smell the rose ; —e happily, the truck gardener soon does not Since then- 80,000,001 smell the cabbage. Timke r . ) n ee And we, ‘“buddying’’ with it, speak of the Automotive Roller apered - . bia & $5 Industry hundredsof times aday—superficially, thought E th Bea Tings a ye if: ie » a t The Timken Roller Bearing Company, Canton, Ohio * ' pty: y , limkeftrst an one of the one | rly ~~ ° ee 4°93 s

me a a EET ae

1923

By The TRB Co Canton,O

YEARS OLD ~ Al OMOTIVE iw reusrnan YY =-— 18 @

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29, 1925 aa “All aboard!” Bad Pe Cold engine — wee no matter! No delay/"Let’s go!” As ready for action as a boy with new skates. That’s Texaco Motor Oil on the coldest day. No matter how long the engine has stood in zero temperature, Texaco flows over the cylinder walls a jump ahead of the explosion, Winter or summer, in all grades, Texaco isthe same clean, clear, golden- colored oil. And under all conditions the perfect lubricant. THE TEXAS COMPANY, U.S. A. Texaco Petroleum Products Run it with Save it with Texaco Gasoline Texaco Motor Oil - GASOLINE rs

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Continued from Page 52) occupation Germany had been a strong contender for iron-and-steel trade in al- most every market of the world, and was rapidly regaining her prewar position as the leading exporter of iron and steel. France, with her increased iron-and-steel- making capacity, has not yet organized to a point where you could call her a leading exporter. This position may, however, be gained later should the French and Ger- man industrialists decide to get together on some businesslike basis with respect to the distribution and use of French iron ore and German coal. In competition with Canada, South Amer- ica and Australia we sell foodstuffs to Europe. The continuous decline of living standards there affects some of our food ex- ports in a curious way. Berlin, for example, imports only one-third as much milk as formerly. When any people economize on foodstuffs their first step is to avoid all waste; next they eat more, in proportion, of bread and potatoes. They cut out beef, but eat more pork to get the fats. Even- tually they reduce their living to fats and cereals. This, then, increases our market for pork. Last year we sold over $91,000,000 worth of lard abroad and $109,000,000 worth of pork—or almost as much pig products as wheat. Curiously enough, their lowered consumption of beef and dairy products leaves free much acreage that they once planted to forage crops, and on it they grow more grain and potatoes, and so take less grain from us. Blood Thicker Than Low Bids One trouble with the farmer is, says Mr. Hoover, that he doesn’t always raise the commodity for which there is the best com- mercial demand. Too often, renew he plants that which the agricultural expert tells him his soil and climate will best pro- duce; but what he then grows isn’t always the best seller in the world’s markets. He should take the viewpoint of commerce. A manufacturer is guided in production by the advice of his sales agents. But you never heard of a farmer who took account of the market both at home and for export as to what he should grow. Take wheat, for example. We grow two kinds, hard and soft—or nondescript. Our wives and bakers want the hard wheat; it makes the sort of bread we like. We want this hard wheat so badly that we actually import some from Canada at a premium. We grow less than we consume at home. And we grow more soft wheat here than we can consume—and then expect to sell that surplus in Europe. That is one reason we get such a low price for it. Not long ago we bid on an electrical job down in New Zealand. Our bid, I’m told, was perhaps $30,000 under any other—but the contract went to a British bidder. On any similar job in Hawaii or Alaska, Amer- ican bidders would probably win out over somewhat higher bids. Trade does follow the fag; patriotic support of home industry is a constant factor in world competition. From Glasgow comes a story of competition for tram-line rails. Because our bid was lowest we got the award. But a storm of protest arose; toit the canny Scotch authori- ties yielded, and canceled the contract. Down in Sydney, Australia, bids were asked on a big harbor bridge. A Yankee concern, after much expense in surveying and esti- mating, put inalow bid. This it later with- drew when it became apparent that the con- tract would go to British interests. To a striking degree, geography is a factor in aiding or hindering our contest with competitors. In the last fiscal year we sold 26 per cent of all our exports to the comparatively small population of some 36,000,000 people who live near our borders. Every man, woman and child in Canada bought last year seventy-three dollars’ worth of our goods. Cuba bought thirty- four dollars’ worth; Mexico, only eight dollars’ worth. The West Indies and Cen- tral America averaged eleven dollars’ worth. Europe took five dollars’ worth of our goods per capita, and Asia averaged fifty cents a person. One problem of competition is how to in- crease sales in these distant markets, with their vast latent buying power. Competi- tive exports from the United States, says the Department of Commerce, fall into two groups those sent overseas and sold in hot competition there with foreign products, and those sold in the neighboring countries of North America, where we enjoy a. favored market. The first group must in large THE SATURDAY measure conform to the ideas of the foreign buyer in price, quality, specifications and terms of sale. In our near-by markets goods are sold to a great extent on a quality basis, backed by nation-wide advertising in American peri- odicals, which overflow and influence neigh- boring countries—already more or less favorable to American ideas. The question rises, then, to what extent we can raise the present low per capita level of sales in other parts of theworld. Moreand more, however, by our direct steamship lines and cheaper radio and cable communications, we are get- ting on an equal footing with our keenest foreign competitors, in spite of our remote- ness on the map from many good markets And if you dote on graphs and charts you can take the tables of export figures for all those nations that compete with us in ex- port trade, Go back ten or twenty years if you wish. But bring the curve up to date, and, all things considered, no other exporting country can show such a pretty curve as Uncle Sam. “French tariff interferes very seriously with the marketing of American products in France,” says W. S. Culbertson, vice chairman of the Tariff Commission. “‘ Other restrictions also at times have this same tendency. For instance, American pork products are absolutely prohibited on grounds of sanitation, though these grounds have never been satisfactorily justified. It is said to be actually a protectionist meas- ure fostered by the minister of agriculture. Another regulation provides that the name of the country of origin must appear in French on every can of salmon imported. This favors Canada indirectly, because the word ‘Canada’ appears in the French lexi- con. The American canner, on the other hand, must go to the expense of providing special ex ‘port cans bearing the words ‘Etats-Unis.’ Sewing machines, electrical machinery, certain rubber goods, practi- cally all textiles, and some textile machinery bear substantial preference against the United States. “Salvador grants preferential treatment to France on certain rubber goods, perfumes, brushes and other articles in conformity with the Franco-Salvadorean Convention of January 15, 1902. Since that time Sal- vador has extended the granting of these preferences to several other European countries, especially to Belgium, Germany and Spain, to the disadvantage of the United States. “Since July 21, 1921, Finland has been discriminating against the commerce of the United States by granting preferential tariff duties to certain French products, of which perhaps the most important are suteundiiiien and certain breadstuffs.”’ Victims of Discrimination Apparently we can’t compete with French and other diplomats in negotiating trade and tariff treaties! Take Canada and Great Britain. They are two of our best customers and we buy enormously from them, yet by preferential tariffs each of them soaks us a higher duty than either levies on goods from the other. Canada, in turn, has a preferential agree- ment with France. Every Yankee fish packer knows this and weeps. Canadian salmon undersells our own salmon in France, because we have to pay a big French import duty and the Canadians do not. France has a sort of double-column schedule of import duties. The lower duty rates re- flect her tariff policy and budget needs; she uses the rates in the high column for bargaining purposes, to fight competition, and as a threat or defense against such countries as do not extend their low rates to French imports. Uncle Sam accords equality of treatment to all French imports; yet France discrim- inates against scores of our exports to her. Even little Haiti has a private deal with France, whereunder French products enter Haiti at a lower rate than ours. Ambidextrous customhouse men — as every Yankee exporter knows— often decide whether the Yankee is to earn profits or suffer losses on a certain cargo. Over at Damascus, in Syria, the natives enjoy the blessings of a French mandate; yet local merchants complain that when an invoice covering French goods is presented the declared valuation is presented, and the goods immediately entered; when goods come from America, the values on the in- voice are almost invariably challenged and even if not increased by appraisers costly delays result. Often this delay gives EVENING POST the bapeates of French goods time to dis- pose of his cargo before the importer of American goods can clear his wares through the customs. In some Latin-American countries native customs hirelings are paid partly from the fines they impose, Often they get half. If 1 American shipping goods down there makes an error in his entry papers they slap on a fine. They slap early and often, in many places. The butterfat content in condensed milk made here and sold abroad is said to be about 7.8 per cent. In Switzerland they say the content is about 9 per cent. Lately the British Ministry of Health proposed that no condensed milk should be allowed entry into the United Kingdom that con- tains less than 9 per cent of butterfat. British capital, it is said, is invested in the Swiss milk industry. Honduras, taking the tip, changes her customs classifications and so puts increased duties on certain hats im- ported from the United States. Sometimes nations in rivalry with us use political in- fluence to induce other nations so to discriminate against us. Latin-American Trade In figuring import duties many nations include the cost of packing and transporta- tion. In our case~—remote as we are from many export markets —this practice often hits hard. Switzerland, however, which imports autos brought in under their own power from France and Italy, was recently induced to lower its duty rates on the heavy crating necessarily used in importing Amer- ican motor cars. Parcel-post rules in Venezuela impose a fee of five cents for handling each imported package except packages from the United States. On our mail-order and other pack- ages sent there we have to pay thirty cents! One man who sells iron pipe said: “‘Some of our British and German rivals still try to prejudice Latin buyers against us and our wares by harping on old bugaboos like our row with Colombia, the Vera Cruz and Cu- ban incidents, the GalApagos—all the old Colossus-of-the-North scare stories about the United States wanting to push its southern boundary line clear down to Pan- ama, and so forth. This parrot patter is even the stock in trade of many space- writing journalists below the Rio Grande; and no native fiesta-day orator could say his piece without calling heaven to witness that he, at least, had warned all good patri- ots against the sinister ambitions of the United States of North America, “But when the tumult and the shouting are overand Mister Latin American is ready to pay out hard money for merchandise, he usually forgets all this Fourth of July stuff and buys where he can get the best bargain. Price, quality, terms and time of delivery influence him more than political prejudice, although as with us the more fashionably dressed women of South America may pre- fer to get the latest styles from Paris. Ital- ian sardines, Spanish olive oil, English suitings—these also win, over our goods. English competition in woolens is so keen that all Yankee agents have practically withdrawn from the country. “The Germans — in old days at least — got lots of business from us by a simple plan we might now well adopt. Instead of quoting a Rio merchant a price f. 0. b. Hamburg, for example, they'd quote him a price in Bra- zilian money and guarantee to lay the goods down at his very door— looking after all the freight, Brazilian customs charges, cartage and all, The easy-going Latin, liked this plan that saved him lots of petty errands; also he liked to know, in his own money, exactly what goods would cost him deliy- ered at the store and piled on his shelves. Today, though Germany is slowly coming back, her traders have troubles of their own—chiefly with shifting exchange and the uncertainties of delivery. Also in bid- ding on contracts where it is necessary to put up a cash guaranty as to quality ‘and prompt delivery, the Germans eithe rT cannot or will not put up cash--or even a bond.’ a prefer to sell German lathes and boring machines,”’ one Arge ntine importer told a Yankee salesman, ‘‘because there is so much more profit in them, They're not so nicely finished as the American machines, but I make three times as much profit on them as I could on yours. But no rival can jar us loose from our strangle hold on the farm implement and machinery trade. One great American con- cern is so highly organized in South Amer- ica that it even maintains its own staff of \ Pr od 57 farm experts down there. They keep track of how much acreage is planted to different crops in different regions, what the yield is likely to be, the market prices, and so on. In Buenos Aires they keep a trained econo- mist, who follows closely every change or improvement in agricultural methods, leg- islation and tendencies. These men are brought back to the States frequently, to be instructed in the progress of methods and farm lore here. ‘“*Costs,”’ said one well-known American of wide production experience, “‘are the chief bases of competition. Yet every manufacturing country in Europe—outside of the old neutrals plus England and Czecho- Slovakia, has wasted its capital by selling goods for less than cost, due to depreciating currency. Often they gamble on this. One Belgian firm got a contract in Buenos Aires this way. They put in their bid, based on the then actual cost of production in Bel- gium, gambling boldly that exchange would slump, It did. So costs at home feli, and they, on the Argentine end, made money; so did the home shops, but it was a paper profit. But when a man sells goods for less than he paid he parts with some of his capi- tal. That is what many of our European competitors are doing now. England and other competitors of ours whose currencies are fairly stabilized are not selling below cost, The folly of cutthroat competition is now an axiom of business. Even though the keenest competition is fundamentaliy do- mestic, the old-time cut-rate war between home manufacturers is a thing of the past. People no longer sell g at less than cost just to put their competitors out of business—either at home or abroad. That was a destructive trade phenomenon that meant huge losses to capital. At home, now, our laws Tennis prevent this; abroad, there are antidumping tariffs against it. European Competition But it is hard for our European competi- tors to figure costs. Wages always lag behind, in the slump of paper money. When currencies are finally stabilised, then wages will go up—and costs of production also. This, again, will put us on more even footing with such competitors—and will en- able them to buy more from us than sheer necessities. Then, too, our competitors over there will no longer have the advan- tages, in cheap production, which they now receive in the form of import-control systems, railway deficits made good by gov- ernments, subsidized food imports, unem- ployment doles, and so on. “Our competitors in Europe have often underbid us,”’ another manufacturer said, “and got an order. Later they couldn't fill it, and in the end we got the business. Even the British—-soon after the Armistice were awarded a contract by Belgium for 400 engines. But eventually Belgium had to buy at least half these engines in Amer- ica, . . . Wehold our own on most items where quantity production is the big fac- tor. Technical skill, too, helps us a lot, Our exporters of office appliances, for example, are suffering little from foreign competition In some lines, on the other hand, where we used to be supreme, the British are crowd- ing us hard. A certain London concern that makes dental supplies is giving American manufacturers a hard run all over Europe and in South America Concerning cémpetition in our export food trade, one specialist said; “ Extensive war-and-postwar-won world markets for American canned milk have been the scene during the last few years of severe com- petition between the European and Amer- ican milk producers. In practically all parts of the world, except Japan, the return of the European producers into the trade has manifested itself strongly. Competition affecting our canned and dried fruit trade, most particularly in the United Kingdom, is at present more potential than actual, go far as colonial competition is concerned. Yet the Imperial Conference's recommen- dations, if approved by Parliament, will be most serious to American trade and British poe ketbooks. “Exports of American canned-sardines are held to a minimum, due to competition from Europe of a quality product. The largest sardine market in the world, the United Kingdom, takes practicaliy no Amer- ican brands, whose foreign sales are con- fined largely to sauce products in Latin America and the Far East. The competi- tion offered in former years by Japanese salmon on the British market is now more

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58 pronounced; Japan has not only imitated American packing and labeling, but has be- gun to ‘imitate’ American quality as well.” Of all our direct trade, probably only about 15 per cent is really competitive, Mr. Hoover told me. For example, English hardware sold here and American typewrit- ers sold in London are strictly competitive. In the same way, our farm machinery pitted against German plows and tractors in the Argentine illustrates active competi- tion. But our grain and cotton sent to Europe meet with practically no competi- tion. : “I fancy, too, that competition is de- creasing as the years go by and the world’s industries become more and more organ- ized,” said one high government official. “Examples of this are seen perhaps in the electrical industry. The great manufac- turers of America, England, Germany, and to some extent France, what with consolida- tions, selling agreements, allotments of territory, price fixing and exchange of pat- ents, tend more and more to cut out costly competition. In such world trades as matches, aluminum and manufactured to- baceo trades, if one can credit the report of the Permanent British Committee of Trusts, there is certain international codperation.”’ Taking their tip from us, the British since the war have probably outstripped us in setting up truste within trusts and super- trusts—trustification raised to the nth power, to reduce competition. Big British Packers A striking example is the Vestey brothers’ corporation, In view of the British outcry against the so-called Yankee meat trust in days gone by, the rise of this colossal com- bine is significant, Pitted against any beef or mutton competition we might offer, it makes the American packing industry look like an old-time country Neteher shop. Vesteys own or control packing plants in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezueia, Patagonia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and China, we are told. They operate the Blue Star Line with a fleet of twenty-three ships. To get dis- tribution they own something like 5000 re- tail meat shops. Mr. Charles J. Brand, of the Department of Agriculture, who lately apent some months abroad investigatin market conditions, says that Argentina ane Uruguay are the chief sources of South American meat; that different American par control 57.2 per cent of the output, yut that the Vesteys control more than any single competitor, or more than the 28.2 per cent which is said to be in the hands of Swift & Co. In any study of our competition against England it is interesting to observe that the British Government's present trade policy seems to be to encourage the con- solidation of banks, manufacturing inter- ests, traders and shippers—in striking contrast to our efforts here to regulate large industries. With one hand we strafe the trusts, using the Sherman and Clayton acta to punish them for domestic sins. With the other hand, when they venture abroad we pat them gently on the back with the Webb-Pomerene Law. So we make it legal and praiseworthy to combine to do business abroad, yet illegal to do the same thing here at home! This situation, too, is a curious factor in foreign competition. When the government of New Zealand re- cently locked horns with a certain American packing company trying to do business down there, it justified its opposition by citing a report from the American Federal Trade Commission, wherein our naughty packers came in for a sound official spanking. In export trade, however, the Webb- Pomerene Law is not proving an effec- tive weapon against foreign competitors, Though it legalizes combines for export trade, the old strong firms didn’t need to combine; and often, where the middle class and amali fry try it, they fail to operate successfully. For ceompte, were twenty- five shoe firms to combine for export under this law, eack one would want the combine to handle all its exports, in territories that it chose, to the exclusion of others in the combine. An ideal combine might be a concern, organized under this law to sell one line only of shoes, bicycles, motor cars, cotton quote and hardware; then disputes might be avoided. But none such seems to exist. Exporters generally have not made use of the Webb-Pomerene Act. Leaf tobacco was the first farm crop ex- ported by our early settlers. Now we grow a prodigious amount — 1,400,000,000 pounds THE SATURDAY a year! Almost half of all the world’s sup- ly. We raise it in forty-two states, on half a million farms; and 42 per cent of it we sell abroad. The story of competition between British and American tobacco manufacturers—and the subsequent truce, combine, and parceling out of markets—is one of the most dramatic stories in the history of our foreign trade. Personal relations between American and British traders abroad are usually friendly, yet from the minute the Armistice was signed the trade fight was on. It is inevitable that loss of trade in a territory where the British exporter has long held the lion’s share should provoke heartburning and a certain degree of hos- tility. In India, for example, though the attitude of British officials toward Americans is generally correct-—if not always cordia]— the same cannot be said of the British traders and bankers there. Not so long ago a certain American fire-and-marine insur- ance group set up its office at Calcutta, with an able Yankee in charge. When loans were made by local banks—under English con- trol—on goods stored in warehouses the policies of this American concern attached to the warehouse documents were rejected — and much annoyance and delay ensued. Between Uncle Sam and John Bull, as national units in the world competition, the fight is not so much in buying and selling as to obtain permanent advantage by means of banks, government contracts, concessions for oil or railways, preferential agreements, and so on. As concerns banks abroad, the British have far the best of us. At the peak of postwar expansion in 1920 we made a grand rush overseas to set up branch banks. When the slump hit we came rushing home again. This retreat, one financial expert solemnly assured me, was due “not so much to competition as to our ignorance of how branch banks should be run!"" Even with- out competition, he explained, some of them could not have earned money. Their staffs lacked training in foreign trade. They often made advances against hides, coffee or sugar on a falling market, and spent too much on overhead. At the close of 1922 the number of American branch banks in Latin America, for example, had heen reduced from seventy-two to forty- five. An outstanding example of British com- petition for ocean freight occurred at Alex- andria; Egypt. Britisa steamship agents, it seems, habitually signed up the Egyptian firms that shipped cotton to America, intimating that unless they agreed—in advance to patronize only British ships they might find themselves unable, when in need of it, to get any transportation at all. In the controversy that ensued the American consul there— with the help of the Shipping Board —was able to obtain for our vessels a reasonable share of this freight. The British Business Machine At our consulate in Newcastle, England, according to one section of the British press, the consul, in granting passport visas, gave preference to passengers booking to travel on American ships; this allegation, how- ever, was denied by many in Newcastle, who publicly claimed that the British Government had been badly advised when it canceled the exequaturs of the American consul and his vice consul for this alleged irregularity. Following this our Government closed its consulate. It is still closed, to the inconvenience of Newcastle shipping. “I was in China,” an American engineer told me, ‘when the Peking-Mukden Rail- way got that British credit of £500,000 for double tracking. Of this, £300,000 was held in London to pay for materials; only £200,000 was spent in the country for labor, and much of this went to high-priced British engineers. Ostensibly bidders from any country could bid on these mate- rials, but here was the joker: It was pro- vided that tenders should be opened in Tientsin, and that all bids should be in sterling. At this time exchange was flop- ping so that nobody but the British could safely bid. The day the bids were ee the cross rate on sterling between New York and London was about $3.70. The day the bids were opened sterling was around $3.54. An analysis of the bids showed that America could not have bid at a rate less than four dollars to the pound. This was a big job. It called for 19,000 tons of steel rails. “This shows how the monopolistic ma- chine works that the British have built up EVENING POST to corner China business. In this case there were two British bids that were lower than the bid of the British firm that got this contract; one of them was £8400 lower. But this low bidder was outside the ring. He kicked, good and loud, but was called in and told to shut up. The truth was that no other financial group in Lon- don cared to oppose the powerful Hong- Kong and Shanghai Bank, which is the money lord of British investments in China. It is simply organization, and not prices, quality nor terms, that gets contracts in ‘hina. I am not kicking against this Brit- ish machine—I am only kicking because America has no machine so good. The only way we will ever get a ood look at big business in China is to do our competin here at home, and then go into China wit a solid front, and plenty of political back- ing. This Open Door is a fine phrase, but it has its drawbacks.” Imperial Reciprocity To fight foreign competition, various clever weapons were inspected and ap- praised at the Imperial Economic Con- ference lately held in London. Most of the plans discussed aimed at more effective commercial codéperation between the Brit- ish Isles and British overseas possessions. Among the suggestions submitted by the interimperial trade committee of the Fed- eration of British Industries were these: Organized emigration to British overseas pos- sessions; A uniform imperial customs system based on weights or specific duties rather than on ad valorem tariffs: Uniform antidumping legislation throughout the empire; Reduction or abolition of export duties on raw materials in crown colonies; Government appropriations in aid of develop- ment of new sources of raw material; Increased compensation and facilities for British trade commissioners; All offers of foreign buyers for raw materials to be subject to British refusal before accept- ance; Improvement of the imperial ocean-freight service by special through rates at reduced port charges; The admission of British catalogues through- out the empire free of duty; Reciprocal arrangements within the empire for the removal of double taxation; The establishment of a British Empire patent system with the central patent office at London. Loans made abroad often have a string to them, obliging the borrower to spend the proceeds in the lending country, for ma- terials, omy the salaries of engi- neers, and so on. This is a favorite weapon in world competition. In the past the British have wielded it rather skillfully. Nowadays, it seems, they are often content merely to have an Englishman in an advi- sory position with the foreign government or the foreign firm doing the borrowing. As to demanding such a stipulation in making loans, Sir Charles Addis onve wrote in the International Review: To demand such a stipulation is to court suspicion, If granted at all it will be granted unwillingly or hedged about with such qualifi- cations as to make the concession not worth the having. It is one of those cases in which, as the practical man knows, the best way to obtain what you want is not to ask for it. In practice, trade follows the loan, and orders follow the engineer. Place an engineer from the Clyde at the head of any industrial undertaking and you may safely dispense with any stipulation as to the provenance of material. Invite tenders from the wide world, frame your specifications in such a way as to suit the engineering stand- ards of different countries; it will be of no avail. In the end you will find, no one can quite say how or why, that your railway, or your bridge, or whatever the undertaking may be, is become as Scotch as the engineer himeell. How all this comes about nobody knows, except perhaps the engineer; and he won't tell. And if he told he would lose his ‘ob! A curious advantage the British have over us in China lies in their practical con- trol of the Chinese customs. In addition to a British head of the Chinese Maritime Customs, with the title of inspector- general, there are twenty-eight British com- missioners of customs—corresponding to our collectors—eighteen deputies and fifty- three assistants; that is, ninety-nine British subjects holding positions of authority in the Chinese customs service. As against these, Uncle Sam is represented by only thirteen Americans. If you compare our trade with Britain’s we should have a far greater number 6f Americans in that serv- ice. At some Chinese trade ports all the principal customs officials are British, and December 29, 1925 whenever a question arises between an American citizen or corporation and a Brit- ish subject, requiring the intervention of a commissioner of customs, the American interests can hope for few sweet smiles from the British customs agent when he is backed by the British consul. We shall be constantly handicapped in trade with China till we obtain our own share of representa- tion in this customs service. In meeting European and British com- petition in the Far East a well-known American exporter of soaps and perfumer- ies told me: ‘‘Our greatest difficulty lies in getting reliable agents. By this I don’t mean at all that the British, French or Ger- man firms on whom we have so long largely depended are not reliable. But it is only human nature that they will boost goods from their homelands to the detriment of ours. So, wherever practicable, our plan from now on will be to appoint native rep- resentatives where we do not deem it ex- pedient to keep an American agent.” In Far East trade competition Japan is uneasy, observers say, because of China’s owing commercial friendship for Amer- ica. Japan gets much of her steel, iron and cotton from us. And 10,000,000 of her people, at work in the silk trade, know that their bread and butter depend on friendly trade with us, for we take more than half of her silk output. Just the same, China, in her eyes, is a logical outlet for ene wares. Though between such old and honor- able Japanese houses as the firm of Mitsui and American traders in the East friendly cordiality exists, many smaller Japanese firms do not always share this friendly atti- tude towards American competitors. Japa- nese papers printed at Tientsin, Shanghai and elsewhere in China often attack the integrity and financial standing of A:.er- ican firms. Messengers of Peace American trade-marked condensed milk, toothpowders, soaps and other articles, like electric fans and scales, have been counter- feited by Japanese and sold in the East as American wares. American oil, too, is adul- terated by mixing it with infericr Japanese oils—though at this, some say, the Chinese himself is rather gifted. There are signs, too, that in Manchuria, where the Japanese wield a certain political control, there is not always the highest regard for international- trade ethics in dealing with foreign interests there. It has been officially reported that American goods have been delayed for months at a time in the godowns at An- tung, because of discrimination in freight handling on the South Manchurian rail- ways. Some Yankee firms also do not transmit bills of lading or like papers through certain Japanese banks, as they have learned that any information of value the documents may contain is often com- municated to Japanese competitors. At big trading centers like Canton, it is common for most respectable Europeans and Americans to belong to one club, and to meet every day for sports and gossip. To these clubs, however, the Japanese traders and bankers do not belong. Trade competition often carries the germs of ill feeling between American exporters and the eo of other countries. Sometimes this works on the minds of people and govern- ments to the point where our relations are strained. To reduce the evil and dangerous aspects of international competition to a _ minimum, and thus help avert war, is one of the chief duties of consuls and ministers. By helping settle trade disputes they seek to put competition on a fair basis. To date no international pacts exist which define unfair trade. Certain practices, however, are shunned by all honest traders. Among these are imitating trade-marks; misleading advertising; the subsidizing of newspapers and trade journals; bribery to get trade; litical and military intrigue and intimidation for commercial gain; concealed bounties and subsidies; rebates; dumping; depression of prices; irregular banking practices; the unfair control of cables, mails, shipping and bunkering; even in the granting and visaing of passports. The ideal attitude of Americans in foreign trade is to be as frank and liberal as pos- sible, inspiring confidence rather than fear or distrust, and tending to promote good- will and coéperation. Fair — is simply good sports- manship. anes are good sports. They will understand, should we find a way to put lean strips in a fat pig’s sides and thus win back that British bacon trade!

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— Published every other week, -) if Inquiries which your thea- tre manager cannot answer | Fregarcing fevers and di- rectors, will be answered by John Lincoln, Editor, 383 Madison Ave., N. Y. C. — Stars’ New Year Party invited, Party starts New Year's Some show! Moore, Milto: Ince, George Fitzmaurice, Edwin neur, Ben Lyon a nation-wide presentation of best pictures, send greetings to fans in thousands of theatres. of January bang! but a whole year. | *“Sundowr”’ Coming freezing; ble’s temperatures run, of the North”; now reported in New Mexico, making “Sundown,”’ First National's speciat drama of-the cattle- kings Trimble finds life holds just as much thrill for him as his pictures hold for the audience [ a seen some of the early cattle in action, I’m swearing an miles, miles of steers winding over deserts, charging water-holes, fording rivers and fighting rapids well, it’s hard to hold back superlatives. Roy Stewart has been engaged for ‘“Sundown’s"” principal role. 0, the gentle profiteer! 4 Ship-brokers, hearing that Frank Lloyd had $100,000 to spend on hulls | and small craft for “The Sea Hawk,” sent prices soaring. Mr. Lloyd wouldn't pay. In his place came an agent who mentioned “a prominent rum runner” as his employer, and bought | for a fraction of what the | owners tried to get from the movie-men. Now the ‘bottle fleet” is being trans- formed into the ‘‘battle fleet’ of the period of which Sabatini writes. We'll tell the world! “ ‘ Have just AL "MON EVERYBODY! The screen stars are giving a Happy _A New Year Party, and we're ail and doesn’t finish until January 31st. Our hosts will he Norma Talmadge, Constance Talmadge, Richard Barthel- mess, Colleen Moore, Katherine Mac- Donald, Sylvia Breamer, Corinne Griffith, Barbara La Marr, Virginia Brown Faire, Anna Q. Nilsson, Owen Sills, Ben Alexander, Sidney Chaplix. Bert Lytell, Thos. H. rewe, John M. Stahl, Frank Lloyd, Richard Walton Tully, Maurice Tour- oh, a host of hosts. Every year First National stars, by their 1924 they have chosen the entire month to open the year with a And at your favorite theatre, celebrating First National Month, you'll find special programs of splen- did pictures and music, and entertain- ment that lasts not merely a month, we PHER FORECAST: Today heat-wave tomorrow At least that’s how Laurence Trim- Last heard of, wintering in Banff with Strongheart, kid would sooner have someone else the dog-star, producing a picture to for a dad parallel “‘ The Silent Call” and “ Brawn shots’ of those davit that “Sundown” has sights no other picture has yet presented, Miles, Eve Ca- the For Rockliffe Fellowes, as the man who wasn’t a father, and yet “under- stood.” HEN I WAS a kid—no_ this should start the other way around, Now that I'm one of many million fathers, | wonder if my Seeing Booth Tarkington's “ Boy of Mine" prompts the question. Here's why: Banker Latimer, of Milledgeville (which is everybody's home town, really), lives by a time-clock. Every day he makes life the same onous routine, ordered with goose stepping discipline for himself, his wife and Little Bill, his nine-year bey monot Between father and son is a. barriet a of misunderstanding. The kid can do Fifty thousand . oiees no right, and at last tn desperation head of cattle in one Trimble runs away, meeting three tramps who herd and two other plan to hold him for ransom, He i herds almost as big represent about rescued and taken home by Dr. Bob the largest crowd of “extras” any di- Franklin, a two rector has had to handle; and, having fisted cheery young medico Despite afh the mother’s Cell Above:— Barbara La Marr and Bert Lytell in “The Eternal City.” Right:—Agnes Trevor, spinster, calls to ask rejuvenated Countess Zattiany “How?” A dramatic moment from “ Black Oxen.” seen ‘Black Oxen.’ IF A BOY COULD PICK HIS OWN FATHER—? From Ben Alexander's choice in “Boy of Mine” springs the strongest kind of drama Booth Tarkington can write. Below:—Ben and Irene Rich, as the mother whose happi- ness depends upon a young- ster's “Yes.” jj wide IL and art of the screen. Henry B. Walthall, as the man who learned too late what makes a father a failure. pleading, Latimer refuses to forgive Bill's spirit: must be broken But here the mother rebels. She leaves with Little Bill and lives in a cottage elsewhere in town Dr. Bob calls frequently, making the boy his chum. With all the love he could have given his father, Bill grows to love this man who “understands,” Separation works a change in Banker Latimer, however. Something house upon the wonders He Will thes mother has gone from. the hill Ihe wants wife and child back 4 Teo Liatth Bill the passes the problem. He must pick his own father—and guide her life Booth Tarkington gave | learns and conre Ke. Me Donald as human a story as was ever Author and pro ducer had worked” together before if} filming ‘‘Pesrod and Sam," bat this written, to screen was Cifferent—a complete reversal; for the appeal of “Boy of Mine" goes directly to grown-ups Ben Alexan der fitted naturally into the réle of Little Bill, with his infinite capacit for chasing a sob with a chuckle. But other rdles were of equal importance In the end Henry B. Walthall was Gist as Latimer, Rockliffe Fellowes as Dr. Bob, Irene Rich as the mother, all un der William Beaudine's direction. A magnificent quartet they proved. The express true-ringing emotion, drama and humor too rarely found, and put “Boy of Mine” high Year hits. among New \\ \ ——— Who said Silent Drama? PARTHQUAKE in Hollywood! 4Six distinet shocks rocked the stages at United Studios. Two struc tures of marble and steel crashed Four tons of stone came down on the set on which Owen ‘Modre and Bessi Love were working. Both players had to be extricated from the débris Ed Wynn, famous stage comedian, who happened to be present, figured he had brought down the house, but credit for the private earthquake really went to Maurice Tourneur, He de vised and direeted it-as a thrilling me ment for “ Torment," his new picture A bank vault in Yokohama is the locale. of this particular action, The earthquake dramatically shifts the plot, and Petrograd and. New York supply new backgrounds for a swiftly moving story. Her Temporary Husband OW from earthquakes to mirth quakes—with this warning: If there conves a rear 80 loud that the city's din is hushed or e’en the city staggers, be not alarmed, brother Rather, look up the amusement ads More than likely you'll find that “Her Temporary Husband” is playing in the neighborhood, and the roars are laughs at Sidney Chaplin's capers. Sid plays a butler-cum-valet, a noble soul assisting Owen Moore to dodder like a ninety-year-old to trick Sylvia Breamer into accepting him as a temporary husband with all but one toe in the grave Pough work, and though odds stack high against him, Sid bravely buttles through \bout the only comedies | can think of for comparative purposes are "The Kid” amd “The Hottentot"’; but with that much to go on, no one should need urging to list “Her Temporary Hus band” as a pleasurable “ must.”’ Sid Chaplin's next is a Thomas H Ince production, “ The Galloping Fish.” Should be a whale of a picture ‘ * av Sidney Chaplin Have You Seen These? HERE'S a terrible temptation to yell “I told you so,"’ when pation- wide reports glisten with the success of pictures I've been tipping as win- ners. “Flaming Youth,’ featuring Colleen Moore; Cynthia Stockley’s “Poniola”; Maurice Tourneur's “‘feal- ous Husbands"; “Anna Christie"; John M. Stahl’s production, “ The Wanters"; and the laughing riot, “ Her lemporary Husband" all are hitting popular fancy with man-size swats Months ago exhibitors accorded First National the leadership of the motion picture industry; the way First National has responded to that honor makes happy news for fans. The list of January releases gives an idea of the New Year's prospects: Ben Alex ander in “Boy of Mine,”’ by Booth Tarkington; Frank Lloyd's produc tion of “Black Oxen"; Norma Tal madge in ‘‘The Song of Love”; George Fitzmaurice’s production of Hali Caine'’s “Eternal City"; ‘The Swamp Angel,’’ featuring Colleen Moore and a ten-star cast. Oh bey, where’s my hat? I’m going to the movies for a month! It’s everything everyone hoped it would be.” John Lincoln ff The purpose of this nation- tive organiza- tion of theatre-owners ta to foster independent produc - tion, develop new talent and elevate the standards . S = » — y f

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SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29, 1925

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her boys, while in some one girl, any girl, there persists an inner circle of deportment utterly beyond comprehension, even though it remain within the reach of love. ‘Jane, Mary, or Alice, how could you do such a thing? I don’t understand, Why, if I had ever " They have said it always; they will say it eternally, oblivious of the fact that the greatest revolutions pass unperceived by the very divisions of the human family which effect them—those people who change their mode of life, adopt new meth- ods, accept inventions, discard internal mo- tives in the face of the exterior pressure of material progress, hand a new world every so often to a new generation, and only then pause to gasp at the result. Along these lines, it is true that the fac- tors which were to make Io what she was at nineteen and Drake what he was at THE SATURDAY EVENING POST THE LANTERN ON THE PLOW Continued from Page 19) They were silent for a time, summoning her before them, not in person but in pres- ence—a thing easy to do, though by no means easy to comprehend. For the pres- entation in thought or words of Io’s stride from a child into girlhood could be but an elusive grasping at things forever unseized, an exposition by flashes of a vivid portrait, unseen of itself, and veiied from others by trailing mists and moving shadows. Body and mind, she was the dwelling place of an eternal question; and thus, nebulously, they saw her. “T don’t wish her to go to college,” eon- tinued Eunice presently, “unless she de- mands it later; but in the meantime she needs something we can’t give her here. I don’t know just how to say it-—launchung, perhaps. She’s got to learn things, get ac- quainted with what is usual, tame what then suggested that they repair to the sturdy deal table in the kitchen of so many momentous associations. “Drake,” he began, ‘with the exception of that little talk we had years ago on schooling as the master key, I've never said a word to you as to what you were going to be or to do with yourself. Do you want to know why? oh if * said Drake. “Because,”’ said the judge, with a half- rueful smile, “you seemed to be so all-fired sure that I’ve never seen even a question in your eye. Now this isn’t helpfulness or anything like that—it’s plain curiosity, and you needn’t answer if = don't feel like it; but what are you going to do?” “Do?” repeated Drake, gazing at him with the trapped expression of one who is at a loss for words, and yet knows exactly know where he stands in money matters, First of all, here’s the proof that it makes no difference whether you concern yourself with the Rattling Run Company or not. Read the thing through twice before you speak,” Drake took the paper which the judge handed him and read it; the first time sol- emhiy, the second with a deepening smile in his eyes and on his lips. While he perused the famous contract with Tryer Mattis the judge studied him, and was content. The »oy was good to loo at —vlean, supple and strong as a whiplash. T he features which on that long-ago day in the court room had seemed overfined had lost their starved look. They were still clear-cut and startlingly reminiscent of Warner Sherborne; but of a Warner Sherborne who ate well, slept better and never by any chance found the day so short that he had to plow twenty-five were not the same as the influences which made Eunice what she was to be at forty-six, even though the space of the intervening years was identical, for Io and Drake had not helped blindly to form the new order; they were of it. Look back at that decade, the years be*ween 1903 and 1913. No equal period in the course of Puritan- ism, or possibly in the history of the world, was ever more crammed with the innovations which form the warp and woof of spiritual and phys- ical revolt. But as regards the relations be- tween Io and her mother, both were fortunate, owing to the very circum- stances which had given to Vic Teller, and later to Eunice Sherborne, an inner life of storm, placed in a hard and un- gracious setting. No mortal can pass through gentine tribulation without being a gainer, at Pa TiS ad Z by lantern light. Drake looked up and laughed silently into the judge's eyes. “Tt is one of the most remarkable documents I have ever read,”’ he said. “Tryer must have been gagged and strapped tu a keg of powder when you handed him the pen and pointed to the dotted line with a lighted match.” “Well, he wasn’t gagged,’’ asserted the Judge, smiling. “He called it what he has called it ever since—a_ legal strait-jacket. Now, Drake, we're com- ing to the meat of thisinterview. The court assigned the three thousand dol- lars flat to you mother for the 1 sup- port of you chil dren. As far as you are concerned that arrangement comes to an end today. The proceeds from royalties have been divided in three equal parts from the beginning, and in these ledgers you will find just what has been done with your share. least in character; and when suffering is supported through a period of years, attaining to the plane of abnegation, a broad liberality to- ward conduct is an almost inevitable result. Such people are most apt to have the stead- fast vision which draws the line between what you do and what you are, without ever confusing the issue. While Eunice was still engaged in wonder over the possession of William Alder, Jr., she awoke to the fact that another budding development was demanding her attention, storming the citadel of her dreamy-eyed se- curity. Io, the ebullient, small seat of an astonishing amount “{ daring, stepped forth from the chrysa:’y of «hitdhood and set her puinted foot uz - penne Here waz iratter that cai’ fs »mediate c: n- trerion of all the .owers of love and usider s* nCing asa hliesfu: aonotone ceased quite suddeciy. leaving ber wath a Gual preoccupation She res.embered the day when the jud had come upon inc children in the s ming hole of Rattlir « Run, and the echo of the words she had spoken to him then cam back to her now: “To is unusual. sometimes I’m afraid for her mean, of what she might do.” That was the fear she was feeling afresh; but never for a moment did it occur to her to waver in her allegiance to what Io her- self was. She appealed to the judge again when they were alone at night in the library. “Will, Io is fourteen.” “Bless my soul! Is she? ze Perhaps you've noticed afraid, I 9” “Ie is One of the Most Remarkable Documents I Have Ever Read," He Said nobody else can tame for her, perhaps hurt herself a little. Oh, can’t you tell me what I'm trying to say?” “Certainly I can,” replied the judge after a thoughtful pause. ‘You mean that this present world is the one she has to live in and the sooner she gets acquainted with it the better. Why not send her away to boarding school and see what that does?” “I'm afraid,”’ said Eunice. “There are so many roads she might take without my knowing anything about it until it’s too late.”’ The judze eyed her quizzically. It was on his tongue te sa’ that Io would turn to untraveled and unimagined paths in any ase. but he refrained “well,” he suggested, “there’s Myrtle anor only ten mts away; one of those dnighing 0.5 that can rarely be classi- fied as institutions of learning; but it draws a ine class of girls and under Miss Drew 1s climbed toa rather high standard. Why not try that?” Thus it was arranged, and a twelvemonth later another problem thrust its head aLove the ever. flow of events: Drake became of age in the July subsequent to the completion of his junior year at college. On the day of his majority the judge piled certain ledgers into the back of his buggy and drove out to the homestead, where he found its young master ruefully regarding the insignificant improvements he had been able to initiate. The judge made the appropriate greetings heartily, but with a certain solemnity, and he what he would like to say. “Why, judge, don’t you know? There’s never been any secret about it, or any fussing in my mind, and I don’t suppose it will amount to much with you, but I’m just going to be around here.”” He made an awkward gesture with one arm toward outdoors. “It sounds kind of small when we're talking careers and things like that, I expect, but it’s the only plan I’ve got. I can’t explain why, but I just don’t feel the need of any other at present.” The judge nodded with his understand: ng air of accepting another man’s viewpoint at face value. “Vell,” he said, ‘ rey no hurry one way °¢ the other, owing to a og enterprise in which you are viialiy concern yur in whieh you have never show:. t! igh ‘est imeresc. I mean the cement werks.’ Drake’s face fluehed slightly, and he frowned, not in exasperati ~ but aw if he himself were puzzled o know the sources of his antipathy to the oniy exploitation of the farm which had ever brought in cash in appreciable quantities. “As a matter of fact,” continued the judge, ‘“‘there’s no reason why you sbould take an active interest in the Rattling aun Cement Company. That’s an extraordinary statement under the circumstances,’ and it calls for proof. Grit your teeth, boy. I’m going to bother you for the whoie of this morning, and then steal you for dinner tonight. Now listen! Every man has an obligation to himself and toward others to “ Roughly speak- ing, you can draw your check in five figures and have it honored. Some of your dividends have gone for education, of course: but you'll find all that properly set down; also you will learn that your income for this year wil] be something over four thousand dollars. The comvany is only now recover- ing from what the panic of 1907 did to it but not to you Sherbornes, thanks to the fact that whether cement is selling at sev- enty cents, as it did then, or at its present price of adollar-twenty, your royalty is fixed at two cents on every berrel predania With luck, we should have the new plant in opera- tion by a year from new. and it’s to be a humdinger. It will crime our output and your income, Now «et at the nooks.” “Now me,” said -*veke, whose eyes were already dreamy with thini ag of what « could de to Rattiing Run Fielde with ten thousand dollars. “Ili take your word for everything you've sai¢.”’ “You will not!” cried the judge, bringing his fist down with a ecash. “You think that’s a compliment and I call it a colossal impertinence—worse than that. It’s the vapid sort of thing that makes every honest man shrink from the trap of guardianship. You'll give me your word that you'll go over every transaction in these books which concerns you and your mother and sister, or you'll find another trustee tomorrow.” Drake stared at him, first with amazement and then with comprehension. His cheeks flushed, but his eyes remained steady, “T never thought of that side of it, sir. I apologize for being a blockhead and I give

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62 you my word to start in now and go through the books to the bitter end.” “Fine!” said the judgeas hearose. ‘You know, of course, that I was yelling only to wake you up. I'll go out and hang around for a bit in case there’s anything you want to ask.” UXT HE judge had been sitting with his back to the kitchen entrance. He turned, started to go out, and stopped stock-still. Tipped against the wall beside the open door, in one of the familiar hickory chairs, sat a young man, hands in the pockets of flannel trousers, soft shirt wide open at the throat, and wearing on his face a nonchalant expression which was negatived by the sparkle in his eyes. He seemed considerably older than Drake, mere by reason of his poise than of any evidence of age. Asa matter of fact, measured in days, the differ- ence could be no more than two years. His hair was dark and of that crisp variety which clings closely to the head, requiring only infrequent visits to the barber; but his eyes were gray and his complexion fair under the tan of the summer’s sun and the weathering of wind and rain. The judge cast a backward questioning giance, but Drake, was already absorbed in his task; then he looked once more at the - stranger, who, catching his eye, nodded sideways, dropped the chair noisily forward, arose, stretched, and then led the way into the garden. Arrived there, he said, “You mustn't think it’s Drake who is queer. You see, I’m insisting on making all my own introduc- tions this season, just like some girls insist on choosing their own frocks. I feel that some people aren't becoming to me.” “Is it permissible to ask who you are?” inquired the judge with mock solemnity, “Oh, yes,"’ replied the stranger quite frankly. ‘I’m Robert Colter,and you're the man I've been hanging around here to see.” “T trust I don’t disappoint you, Mr. Col- ter,”’ said the judge. At different times he had met a variety of Drake’s friends from school or college enjoying the haphazard hospitality of Rattling Run Fields; but he was sure he had never before chanced on this young man, who was of a type not easily forgotten. ‘‘ You are one of Drake’s classmates, I presume,” he ventured, “Not his classmate,” said Colter, taking careful aim with his toe at a green apple tying on the baked clay of the yard. ‘“‘Not by two years.” He kicked, shooting the apple straight forward and causing it to splatter against the house. He looked around at the judge with a pleased smile. “T've been wanting to do that ever since last summer.” They walked away from the house, the judge now in the lead. Presently he asked, ‘And why did you wish to see me?” we “Well, I'll tell you,” said Colter. “ Be- cause | was so unfortunate as to be the first to eall Drake Mary after you told him what to do about it.” “Isee.”” Thejudge’slipstwitched. “And what happened actually made you like him?” “What happened,” said Colter, flushing and smiling at the same time, “was that he penotienty undressed me with his teeth, Jidn’t bite me, mind you; only tore off my clothes. It was funny. They had to bring out a bianket.”” His is sobered, and he added, ‘‘ Yes, it made me like him,” “Come this way,” said the judge as they entered the wood. “‘Here—this is the very log we were sitting on when I gave him that advice.” They sat down, Colter on the ground with his shoulders braced against the log so that his eyes were thrown up into the in- vin yet impenetrable foliage. “ There’s something about hini,”’ he said, without troubling to mention Drake by name; “something evident and unread- able. I get the same fun out of watching him think as I do out of watching an oak grow.” The judge glanced at his face dubiously and found it grave. “Slow fun, I should say,” he ventured. “Sometimes,”’ admitted Colter; “but it all depends how you lock at a tree.. Why, I've had an oak reach a limb around the world and push me off just such a log as this before | knew what was happerfing. The humor of even a ‘riendly oak is a bit heavy.” The judge was curees with his company; he stretched opt his legs and made himself comfortable. “Well, what did you do about it?” - THE SATURDAY “Nothing. Lost my head completely, and found it again. Learned when not to sit on a log. But what I really wanted to tell you about this Drake business is that robably no one in all the school felt what I elt, watching him and his kid sister. I'm sure I saw things that nobody else saw. Can’t tell you exactly, but it was like this: I would have done anything for either one of the pair—anything. And yet There yo are. We’re funny em all of us. The vest I could do was to cal! him Mary the first time we met face to face, and get pushed off a log for my pains.” “T know what you mean,” said the judge after a pause, “by feeling ready to do any- thing for that pair. I have felt that way more than once myself. The strange part of it is, they seem about as little in need of guidance or assistance as any couple on earth. What do you make of them? Begin with Drake.” “Well,” complied Colter, “I'd say he’s the only boy I ever knew who hasn’t any questions in him. He learns the next thin and does the next thing in front of him wit exactly the same air. Something says to him, ‘It’s there; attend to it.’ He never was == gage, Iam; but he'll always be younger. ew on that; I don’t know what it means. All of him—each corpuscle in his blood—knows exactly where it’s going. But get this, judge: Drake couldn't tell you where he’s headed; he only knows he is headed. Not like the rest of us.” “Now Io.” “To,” breathed Colter, his eyes brighten- ing, and at the same time taking on a dis- tant focus. “‘What a name, eh? Makes oe look for stars and green meadows. If rake has no questions, Io is all question, from head to toe and back again. That's where they’ve got me, those two: Drake like a permanent oak and his kid sister like an arrow overshooting all marks. She can’t come to earth because there isn’t enough earth.” ‘Finally we come to you,” said the judge with the smiling directness which had won many a confidence, ‘What are you doing and where are you going? Do you know? **More or less,” replied Colter. ‘‘ Noth- ing like Drake, you understand; because he’s never had to think anything out. At resent I’m taking a post-graduate course in a combination of the arts and the hu- manities. My own recipe.” “Are you going to teach?” prompt the judes. “Hardly; nothing like that. I’m goin to breed a double strain of Morgans aaa Percherons.” The judge straightened to those words, and then relaxed. “T advise you,” he said, “to talk to Tryer Mattis on what the motor car is doing to the horse.” 4 Ihave,” said Colterlaconically. ‘That's ay he judge frowned. “You startled me into forgetting the artsand the humanities. May I ask wherein they are going to aid you in the fulfillment of your ambition?” “You may,” replied Colter, “but I’m surprised that youshould. Schooling, judge, is bigger than anything between book cov- ers. It is the master key to happiness. Out of a thousand men, only one boy took the trouble to get it in time.” “Yes, yes,” said the judge, smiling broadly. ‘‘Go on.” “Well, to be happy on a stock farm I've got to have something to think about be- sides spavins and apeliieg hoofs. I'm lay- ing in a mind cellar, and why the devil I should tell you about ail these things, never having mentioned them to anybody else, is beyond me.” “Beyond you, perhaps,” said the judge, rising, “‘but safe.” He decided that he liked Colter and in- vited him to the dinner in honor cf Drake's coming of age. “I’m truly sorry,” said Colter; ‘but these clothes and a toothbrush are all I have with me.” “I'm not above wearing the same outfit at a strictly family dinner,” countered the judge, “nor is Drake; so that’s settled. Only don’t forget to ntake your own intro- ductions.” Occasionally life throws\into one’s path some person through whose eyes one can see more clearly than-through one’s own. The judge had this feeling in rd to Robert Colter. Perhaps it was ause they werein py sowngy > ough they reached conclusions along different lines of deduc- tion. However that may be, the events EVENING POST which transpired at Rattling Run Fields subsequent to Drake’s receipt of the liquid portion of his patrimony frequently at- tained to elucidation through Colter’s cas- ual comments. Drake plunged into an activity which almost wrecked his senior year at college. He managed to get his degree by a narrow margin, and returned home on the same day. He could scarcely have given an in- telligible outline of what he was doing, but each inception was to the imeginative vision of Colter a revelation. “Something,” he said darkly to the judge, “is growing on Rattling Run Fields.” en thousand dollars, spent judicious} and at comfortable intervals so that pow | morsel of improvement could be rolled on the tongue of appreciation separately, were working marvels in and about the home- stead. The original tower of the house which faced due south eventually became an angle with a long low wing paralleling the road to the westward and another low wing running east, overlooking the gully of Rattling Run. The first of these additions was Drake’s own haunt—-an unbroken, heavily raftered hall of leisure and enter- tainment, with a huge fireplace at one end and a hidden narrow stairway running up to his bedroom at the other; the second comprised a suite of small rooms tacitly assigned to Io. It was characteristic of Drake that he never said, “Io, these are your rooms. I have put up the walls and the roof and there’s going to be hot and cold water; as for the rest, you may do what you like.” That was not his way. He had left it to her to realize her acquisition and take posses- sion of it piecemeal, much as he had at- tained to his own broad freedom. As for the beaten plot which surrounded the house, it was plowed, cultivated and manured with an extravagance such as never had been lavished on the surroundin fields. Then it was cut up into plots an used as a testing ground for every variety of grass seed on the market. A selection having been made, Tom had to plow it all up again in the spring and sow it for a lawn. During this process not a single one of the gnarled trees or stunted shrubs was harmed or moved. Noting that the healthiest bush on the place was a small clump of box, Drake said, “Tom, we'll have to grow a hedge of that from nursery stock. Straight along the road for a hundred yards, measuring from the bridge in the dip, then turn it at a right angle for fifty yards north. Everything inside of that will be the homestead gar- den —roses, shrubs, grass, the old cedars, of course. Can’t you vee it, with Rattling Run shutting us off on the east and the whole place banking up on the orchard and the wood?” Tom stared at him. “No, I can’t; and what’s more, you won't, either. Ameyou crazy, Drake? How much of a box ge do you think you’]l have in fifty years’ time?” Drake in his turn stared at Tom. “Well, what’s the matter with you?” he asked gravely. ‘What's fifty years?”’ “Tom,” said Colter, who happened to be resent, “look out! You're sitting on a ” Og: s XXX HROUGHOUT ancient and modern times so much stress has been laid on the sweetness of girls of sixteen in general that it becomes necessary to limn a picture of Io at that age with especial care. How paint her? How shout in print that she was not sweet in the accepted sense of the overworked word, and yet leave, even with those who run and read, an impression of allure, fresh and clean as the first beam of light that streaks the dawn? Still the arrow, still the embodiment of a slender, straight shaft from head to heel, she nevertheless presented a flexible con- tour so delicate that, could some master of the etcher’s needle have drawn her, the art within him would have cried out for a single line, thin asa hair, adumbrating her rounded head, cutting the sharp sweep of ner low brow, the piquant turn of her chin, the lift of her shoulder, the pointed curve of her adolescent breast and the swiftly diminish- ing descent of her rounded limbs. ald words. There are times when they will not bend to the expression of a curve; there are times when one would wish that words could throw shadows and leave them behind, providing thus a pigment where- with one might attain to the lightness of vision itself, and echothe glimmering beauty cf things seen yet forever nanel by pen December 29, 1923 or brush. Only thus might one hope to translate the image of lo at sixteen pastel, silhouette,,cameo—from its place against the misty wall of memory. And yet, in her no less than in Drake, there was a hidden strength; something established, immovable; something which formed the basis upon which were cut the scintillating facets of her presence. Swift were the movements of her feet and hands, and no less swift the reactions of her mind, lifting to the silent echo in her eyes. One saw there that what others dared she might dare if she would, but behind what would have seemed to Eunice and the judge, for all their leniency, reckless extravagances of deportment, there remained the foundation of all daring, the courage for instant and adamantine refusal. To take so fantastical a gem and set it against the heavy foil of Jiamny Matis was to throw it into startling relief. At this time Jimmy was nineteen, and to those who knew his father, it seemed that the youth of Tryer Mattis must be walking the world anew. As far as physical appearance was concerned, Jimmy was Tryer all over again —blue eyes, round in moments of as- tonishment and narrowing to calculation, sandy hair rising in a rebellioc shock, long limbs and heavy bones, clumsy at times and surprisingly agile at others. One difference persisted--Tryer’s youth had been pro- miscuous in its affections, Tryer’s boyhood had known no Io. Jimmy had left school and gone to work for the Rattling Run Cement Company. His father would have liked to make him a salesman, one of that Rattler pack of trained bloodhounds of commerce who, once put upon the scent of a ringed raccoon in the shape of a contract, never let up until they had treed it or so torn it that it was of little use to a rival. But Jimmy had rebelled for two reasons. In the first place, even his heavy limbs were far more supple than his tongue, and he knew it. The other reason lay in the fact that he would put up with no employ- ment which carried him out of easy reach of Myrtle Manor and Io Sherborne. Myrtle Manor as a select finishing school exists no more; but at that time it occupied a corner of peculiar formation in the prin- cipal town of the three counties, and a building which was a chaste example of what the Colonial artificer could do with nothing but blood-red brick, shutters of solid wood and white trimmings for his ma- terial. On its easterly exposure, this edifice stood four stories high; but on the southern side, owing to a sharp rise in the level of the ground, the stories diminished to three, and then to two, and finally to one. In addi- tion, to accommodate the rush of prosper- ous years, a two-storied wing had been thrown out to the north which reached to the edge of a wood whose shadows de- scended to meet and mix with those of trees that interlaced their tops above an aban- doned raceway. Within the triangle thus formed at the back of the building was a hanging garden, hidden from the public eye because it lay at the level of the top of the high sustaining wall which coincided with the line of the street. Here the trailing periwinkle which gave its name to Myrtle Manor ran riot, jeaped the wall in a wave and hung in festoons which played tricks with the hats of passers-by. Within the garden proper a single Judas tree raised in springtime the vivid column of its pink reproach above a tangle of ornamental shrubs which had escaped the pruner’s shears to mingle with rambling rose and grapevine. The fragrant thicket thus composed swept northward until it met the barrier of a mass of rhodo- dendrons. Io’s room was located at the end of the upper story of the low wing which looked toward the wood and the raceway. Any casual observer would have judged the distance from the ground a sufficient barrier to escapades, even after noting the long level branch of a maple which stretched across within easy reach of her window. But to Io that limb spelled temptation. The very thought of casting herself upon it and then clambering out along its supple length to the end, which hung above the center of the patch. of rhododendrons, seemed to demand the venture. It was she who told Jimmy Mattis of the branch, and then. angered by the slowness of wit which could not read all her implication, com- manded him to a tryst in the garden as soon as he should hear the striking of the gong which spelled lights out for the school. (Continued on Page 64)

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(Centinued from Page 62) Jimmy came, waited, and finally supplied hiraself with a pocketful of acorns where- with he began a discreet bombardment of Io's open window. At last the dark nimbus ef her hair appeared beneath the raised sash. A white hand came out of the dark as if either to sustain or detain her. She struck it aside. Once she had taken her decision, she did not pause. An instant more and she stood upon the window sill, slender arms outthrown, her fingers touching lightly the brick walls on either side of her. She could have climbed out cautiously, but catching sight of the blot of Jimmy’s face, strained, white and staring, she yielded to an impulse of mischief, pretended to fall, and threw her body across the limb with such violence as to produce an alarming rustle of all its leafy branches. Jimmy gasped, started to groan, but stopped. Io was laughing softly, a mere wisp of sound. Presently she whispered to him. “Jimmy, can you reach the end of the limb?" He went to its extremity, put up his hands, but dared not leap in the dark for fear of making a noise. Undaunted, Io crept down the limb, breathing in little gasps and chuckling as she went. At last he could seize the branch. She dropped to the ground. They stood and looked at each other. Afraid to talk so near the house lest they be heard, and yet not wishing to go away, doubtful as to whether the return to the room would be made as easily as the escape, they said nothing. After standing for a long time in an aimless silence Io turned, raised her hands, and whispered “Lift me up.” He stooped, threw his arm around her stiffened knees and lifted her high. She caught the limb, and at once was aware that this was no laughing matter. She swarmed along it slowly, resting from time to time until she came opposite the window. Reaching out as she lay jackknifed over the branch, she found she could touch the sill, but to no purpose, “Jennie,” she whispered, “ are youawake? Give me your hand.” “1 can’t,” quavered a tremulous voice on the verge of nervous tears. “I’m afraid. Oh, oh, Iot” Hush!" breathed Io. Holding to a thin branch, she stood up, balanced for a moment and then took the short step to the sill. She caught the sash, jumped into the room and disappeared from sight without so much as a good-by or even a wave of the hand to Jimmy. Once performed, the feat became easy. Because she knew Jimmy so well; because it was so easy for her to see him during the summer months, her conscience troubled her much less than if these secret trysts had been with a stranger; but even with the commonplace Jimmy, she soon found that there was excitement in creeping through the blackness of the rhododendron thicket down over the brow of the hill towhere they could watch the raceway and still be out of hearing both of the house and of the water. Here they could talk in murmuring voices, giving vent to those monosyllabic utter- ances which were even then beginning to characterize the conversation of the first of the generations of revolution. Not every night of the spring did Io take it into her head to meet Jimmy, but scarcel an evening passed that he did not clim into the garden and give her some signal of his presence the squawk of a catbird dis- turbed, a tossed acorn, or a peculiar whistle which he had been at great pains to teach her. It would have been easy for Io to re- turn his signa! in some manner, indicating her intention to come or not to come, but from the very first she never took the trouble. Poor Jimmy would stand for long minutes, lengthening sometimes into an hour, won- dering if she were in her darkened room or if perhaps she were paying some surrepti- tious visit within the house. Even when she condescended to meet him he never knew what might be her mood. There were times when her long silence made his heart beat fast, when he felt as though she included him, carrying him with her on the flights of her fancy, as she lay flat on her beok, her eyes wide open, staring up into the blotched tracery of the leaves against the sky. There were other times wom her silence seemed to whip him with smal! stinging lashes, an effect which she yroduced without so much as looking at fim. On these occasions he shrank into himself aa though he had been caught out on a night of sleet and rain. He grew miser- able and more miserable, until Io would THE SATURDAY turn on him, accuse him of spoiling every- thing and desert him while the evening was still young. He was not a particularly brilliant boy, but such intelligence as he was of that shrewd brand which lies on the border between cleverness and instinct. He knew only vaguely what he wished to do. To have Io to himself, to draw her farther afield from the house and from her untrou- bled self-control were impulses embedded throughout his childhood in his nature. He could not have named them. They led him, however, to approach her along all those avenues, unsatisfying to the middle-aged, but which mean so much to the young. To win a fleeting grasp cf her tapering fingers, to touch her knee by accident, or even to have her trample on his foot, gave him the sensation of rising swiftly into rare- fied air. He dreamed of a single fleeting kiss with the fervency with which a follower of the Prophet dreams of a vale crowded with houris. Io, on the other hand, seemed scarcely aware of the sensations which her mere presence induced. It was she who had summoned Jimmy on the occasion of her first descent into the garden; but it was Jimmy who, by descri tion of the joys of canoeing in the dark, aroused in her the primal desire which lies in us all for ses ne The raceway, with its mile of embowered narrow water, open- ing at last on the lake, had no mysteries for her by py bee He told her of its beauties at night, but his powers. of depiction fell so far short of his intention that she was left unmoved. Suddenly his eyes narrowed in the half light to that shrewd look for which his father was so famous. He hinted that there were dangers besides mysteries, and the trick was done. Standing beneath the trees, looking down toward the boathouse, they laid their plans. lo was to slip along the path on the southern side to well above the landing stage, keeping hidden behind the shrubbery. Jimmy was to get out his canoe and pick her up just around the first point. As on the occasion of the first escape from her window, they were both nervous; but as far as Io was concerned this feeling soon passed. She lay at half length in the middle of the canoe, the back rest slanted so that her eyes were lifted at an angle which left Jimmy, though he faced her, completely below her field of vision. There was no moon, which made the stars shine more sharply and seem nearer tw earth than on a brighter night. Lcoking up through the branches which, reaching from either bank, barely touched their tips, it seemed that the spangled stars had descended to form an cleaanhed Milky Way for her special bene- fit. She drew her breath long and deep, playing a - of her own, striving to fill erself so full of the air of heaven that she might become bodiless and float. Jimmy’s voice awoke her, dragged her down. “Io, do you dast go out on the lake?” She nodded her head without speaking. Coming out into open water, he was more afraid of observation and discovery. He drove his paddle deep and sent the light craft along at top speed until they were well past a long sharp point which thrust its shallow tongue far out into the lake. Then he turned toward shore and presently was coasting along within the deep shadow cast by looming trees. The shadow deep- ened suddenly into blackness. Io, startled, lifted her head and looked around. They had darted into the velvety gloom of the overhanging gumberries, famous rendez- vous of generations of lovers. Io was awed. ““Where are we?” she whispered. “Under the gumberries,”” replied Jimmy in a iow voice, ‘‘and we’re lucky to find it empty. Now all we got to do is to light a match if we hear anyone coming, and they got to stay away.” “Why have the ?” asked Io. “Because,” said Jimmy. “That’s the we it is.” e tied the painter to a worn limb. Say- ing that he was tired, he crept cautiously to a seat beside her. She was so slight that there was ample room even for his bulky re. For a long time neither of them spoke. Io was in one of her more kindly moods of silence. She was dreaming, drifting, in- different to his presence, and yet not un- kindly. Her barriers were neither up nor her mood, he was content, more ineffably happy than he had ever been before in his life. He moved his arm so that he could throw his hand over the back rest and, without her knowing it, touched a wisp of her fine-spun hair. down. Sensin EVENING POST As though it were something sentient, it curled around his finger, giving him a little shock, infinitesimal and yet dum- founding. For an instant he felt that she must know what had happened. Startled and afraid, he held his breath, then turned his eyes slowly until they caught the profile of her face. It was expressionless, totally lost, happy. He summoned all his courage. “lo,” he whispered hoarsely, “‘I touched your hair.” “Did you?” she asked from far away. “Well, don’t do it again.” After a moment he spoke again. “T would like to come here every night and be just like this with you.” “T would like to come here every night, too,” said Io. “Shall we? Will you come tomorrow?” She did not answer. Sitting suddenly erect, she stared fixedly into the shadows. Her eyes had become dilated. Things, little things, crept out of the darkness toward her. Lily pads—a closed lily bud, thrusting up its pointed nose. The climb- ing iridescent bubbles from some tadpole turning over in his bed of mud. A floating twig, with a leaf set for a sail, bound on some Lilliputian voyage at the mercy of minute unfelt drafts of air. Her eyes left all else to follow its fortunes. She imagined it manned by a crew of midgets, tiny, in- visible to the naked eye, rushing about briskly and shouting profane orders in such powdered specks of sound that they fell miles short of her listening ears. Uncon- sciously she laid her hand on Jimmy’s knee. It trembled, then grew steady, tense, as if there are times when a boy’s leg can hold its breath. “To,” he murmured presently, “what you thinking about?” His voice startled her, reverberating tre- mendously in her ears, straining to hear something less than sound. She threw back = head and shook her hair from about her ace, “T’m thinking,” she said, ‘‘that it’s high time to go home.” “Why did I speak?” cried Jimmy, deep within his own breast. “‘Why? Why?” When she returned to her room that night and began to slip off her clothes in the dark she heard a faint a com- ing from her roommate. She knelt beside the girl’s bed. *‘Jennie,’”’ she said, ‘“‘what’s up? Why are you ing?” Jennie flung her arms around her neck and tightened them convulsively. “Oh, Io!” she sobbed between chattering teeth. “I’m frightened! I’m so cold!” “What has happened?” asked Io. ‘‘Why are you scared?” “Miss Drew came to the door,” gasped Jennie. ‘She opened it and looked in.” Io cast a glance over her shoulder to her own bed, where she had skillfully arranged the bolster beneath the covers. “Well,” she asked, ‘“‘did she come in? Did she say anything?” ““No-o-0-0,”" said Jennie, and began to sob aloud. Io stared at her with uncomprehending eyes. XXXII HERE is nothing easier in life than to forget. We banish pains readily; pleas- ures lose their sharp contours more slowly; but they lose them. Favors and offenses fade from mind. Moving friends go out with the tide and come back only if they return to take the house next door; only the visual and the present endure. Stay around if you would be remembered. Even the stranger of what we are forgets the stranger of what we were. “I believed— wore — said —- thought — that ——- How funny!"’ Thus also do we forget the almost simultaneous arrival of two factors in a nation-wide contortion. To make the state- ment pertinent to this chronicle, let it be recorded that in the year when Io and her classmates graduated from Myrtle Manor they abandoned square dances for round— and Jimmy Mattis became the owner of an automobile. These two developments find their proto- pes in the Boston Tea Party and the Bat- tle of Gettysburg; in certain respects they are more significant in the annals of the emancipation of woman than the name of Susan B. Anthony or the once familiar fig- ure of Dr. Mary Walker. Already we have half forgotten what the motor car, by put- ting distance and seclusion, with their opportunities and dangers, at the beck and call of anyone with the price of gasoline, did to the qualified privacy of the home sitting room and to the chaperon as an institution. December 29, 1925 The effect of a few millions of automobiles on the century-old customs of a people is too evident to demand comment or to lend itself to misinterpretation. Not so, how- ever, with those dances which, taking their rise from the dives of the Barbary Coast, swept eastward like a conflagration on an apparent mission to make the whole world one; their influence, as well as their effect, is + apron misjudged. Make no mistake. The young girls whose lot it was to be the first to turn from the ex- hilaration of the Boston to the close con- tacts of the turkey trot, and from the turkey trot to the bunny hug—names already strange, dead before their teens—-were a revolutionary army. They were back of that; they were pioneers, explorers not by intention but by inheritance and the cir- cumstance of when they happened to be born. Some were marked for moral death on the field of battle; some for total disablement; others for casualties; and some for wounds so slight as to be easily treated on the spot; but every one of them was a discoverer; every one of them took part in laying the foundations of the new order which is not branded today one-tenth as deeply by the superficial badges of bobbed hair, rouged lips and rolled stockings as it is by a truth, old as the hills, breaking out in slightly changed attire —the truth that the human body, put toany conceivablestrain, develops its own amazing resistances. These are the same girls our grandmothers were, the very same, the eternal feminine descendance. Yes; by all means, let us ad- mitit. But do they garb their souls or their bodies in red flannels from neck to ankle, from Thanksgiving to May Day, as did those grandmothers? Do they wear any- thing inside or out that itches? As moth- ers, are they going to suffer the sickening sinkings of the heart, the bewilderments and gasping revivals of Eunice Alder, put- ting her girlhood to her eyes as if Vic Teller were an opera glass, and striving to bring Io into focus? And yet Lostill had all her hair; still wore diminutive corsets, corset covers, suspenders and filmy petticoats. Neverthe- less, she was of the advance guard. Is it difficult to imagine with what mis- givings the woman who had once caught fire at mere contact with Tryer Mattis’ magnetism beheld her daughter’s astonish- ing familiarity with hisson? Eunice neither liked nor disliked Jimmy; she considered him a nonentity, lacking not only in educa- tion and superficial finish but more espe- cially in all those fundamental attributes which make for breeding; and yet there were days when distraction drove her to oraying that Io might marry him. Later er own indomitable nature would take her to task, accusing her of cowardly surrender to a traditional instinct to play safe in the eye of the world regardless of spiritual cost. Under the urge of such moments of reac- tion she would seek a chance to be alone with Io, and would battle blindly against the most insidious enemy to the peace of mind of mothers, driving her head against the stone wall which marks the division be- tween succeeding generations. She and her girl were friends in the deepest significance of the term; they loved each other dearly, shared confidences and a great mutual faith; and yet there were times when each 7“ in a language which was Greek to the other. When vague rumors reached her of Io’s escapades at Myrtle Manor, coupled with insinuations that only graduation had saved her from being refused admittance to the school for another term, Eunice felt a tre- mor of alarm. She assured herself stub- bornly that Io could not have done such a thing and forced the matter from her mind. But she did not go to Miss Drew or to the judge. Piled upon this unacknowledged fear came the dismay aroused by the breath- taking intimacies of the new dances. Nothing clandestine; not only Io and her friends, but Drake and his also. Matter of fact. That was what male it so bewildering. Late hours, too, and the needless risks of automobiling alone so far with any boy, even with Jimmy Mattis. Eunice was not weak, but some instinct prompted her to avoid recourse to arbitrary authority and its dictum—you shall not. Soraething of her attitude toward Drake since the day of his single mutiny crept into her intercourse with Io. If only she could love her enough and make her feel it, all would yet be well. Hands tightly interlocked, and with lu- minous eyes and halting tongue, she talked to her of a woman’s body as a domain, a (Continued on Page 67)

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 65 Jee shrysle ShpdD RES m= j , a ‘cons ed PPS Ste ear) fi ins hed ite Ye ¥ Touring Car | mee Sedan RES Fa: a punts hig ‘ Ant oe tA, ee . hg se Brougham Roadster See Wext Page —~

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The Car That Mest Drivers Want THE SATURDAY EVENING POST Interview I) December 29,1925 With Walter P. Chrysler “Mr. Chrysler, why did you build the Chrysler car?” “Because I have been convinced for years that the public has a definite ideal of a real quality light car—one not extravagantly large onal heavy for one or two people, but adequately roomy for five; economical to own and te operate. And, above all, real quality from headlights to tail-light.” “Will you state your conception of that ideal car?” “My conception of an ideal quality light car is that of scores of thousands, A requirements are practical, not visionary. For them, | saw a car with the power of a super-dreadnaught, but with the endurance and speed of a fleet scout cruiser. “What these drivers want is, briefly, this— “A perfectly balanced six- cylinder motor with top speed over 70 miles an hour --not because they want to drive at that rate, but to insure quick get-away, flashin ines power to conquer any hill, and for he stea work —that was, that they use the very best materials adaptable to the work to be done and the strain to be borne by every part.” “And what has been the result of that policy of no limitations, Mr. Chrysler?” “While owners will appreciate the fine features of our design, every —- in the industry will know that they mean the highest quality job that can be built.” “Why did you follow such rigid standards?” “To make our car truly ideal. 1 tell you emphati- cally that anything less than the finest would take years off the life of this car. You know that the best results—in looks, in performance, in economy, in durability—can’t be obtained without the best design, materials and workmanship.” “Are some of these Chrysler superiorities where the buyer can see them?” “One look at the car will answer that question. novelties, two of its worth-while and unusual features are the oil-filter and the air-filter. “Vibrationless power at all speeds is another notable feature. So perfect is the balance of reciprocating parts and so painstaking is the workmanship that the Chrysler motor is truly without vibration. A ride behind it will be a revelation of smoothness. “During the last few months, four-wheel brakes have won wide recognition as one of the most important of all motor car developments. “Examine the four-wheel hydraulic brakes on the Chrysler. Here is a real four-wheel braking system—velvety soft, more certain than a mechan- ical brake, perfect in equalization, fast and positive in control. “And have you noticed the tubular front axle? This Chrysler front axle design not only takes into consideration the static load—the up-and- down strain, you know—but also the torsion strains of front-wheel braking. “Remember that sickening **You willsense in the Chrysler : at once that difference which ot Se Mounting we are in the habit of describ- 0) SPrings ; ing as ‘foreign’ or ‘French’ Prevents Sidesway sidesway you have frequently experienced? That was due to springs close to the frame pull at low speeds: Extraordinary “A small-bore power plant; first, for fine per- Air of formance, and second, for gasoline and oil Distinction economy: “Simplicity and accessibility throughout: “Lots of room. I mean wide doors, deep, comfortable seats, ample leg-room: “Real comfort: long, soft springs; extra size tires; deep, over-stuffed cushions: “Driving convenience and ease that will let a woman drive in comfort for long distances or through heavy traffic: “Light weight, so that a single passenger doesn’t feel he is paying to haul a private Pull- man; yet without squeaks, rattles or flimsiness: “Wheelbase built to fit into an ordinary parking space and to insure quick and easy handling, but designed to ride well on a rutted road or a cobble-stone street: “Quality materials and workmanship to give long life and constantly good service, instead of a job built to fit a price: “Beauty that Lexar for itself, and good taste that is self-evident: “Complete, modern equipment built into the car, not hung on as an afterthought.’ ‘How did you set about building a car to meet such an ideal, Mr. Chrysler?” “The plan has been growing in my mind for years and about four years ago, the car we now offer began to take definite shape. “The first step was to get the best engineering force in the country. Fred M. Zeder, O. R. Skelton and Carl Breer were the group I wanted. “They began with a clean Nothing slate, and designed from To Hinder Ideal Design the ground up. “There were none of the usual engineering hand- icaps—no existing machinery, tools, jigs and dies to be considered; no pre-determined plant capac- ity or manufacturing lay-out to fit to; no executive fads or whims to be satisfied. “We have made no compromises. These engi- neers of ours have solved scientifically every vexing problem of the past.” “You say your engineers had no restrictions; do you mean to say you gave them an absolutely free hand in design and selection of materials?” “Absolutely. I placed just one condition on their or ‘European’—or custom- built. Your good taste will tell you at once that here is perfect balance of proportion and blend- ing of line. You will also feel that here is an ex- ceptionally racy car, largely because it is built so low to the pty" “Your first glance tells you how beautiful the Chrysler is; t it does not tell what it affords in the way of generous interior space. “So skillfully have the engineers manipulated the elements of weight, length and space that you are actually subjected to what amounts to an optical illusion. You receive the impression of length far beyond the actual fact—and when you step into the car you find that the apparent illu- sion, in so far as space is concerned, is not an illusion at all. “You are literally amazed at the generous space— which confirms the first impression of length. “I'll let you judge for yourself of the door- handles, inside metal ware and window lifters. I can only tell you there’s nothing finer. “But please give particular attention to the upholstery. No car is or could be better trimmed. Try the seats for yourself. You’ve heard a lot of talk about sitting ‘in’ a car, not ‘on’ it; but here’s a car that has that quality so evident that we don’t have to talk about it. “Bear in mind that this car is built for the man or woman who drives; and then look at the con- trols. First of all, there’s the perfect balance of the instrument board. Secondly, there’s absolute completeness, all right in front of the driver’s eyes, and so simple you can scarcely believe it’s all there —ammeter, oil pressure, gasoline gauge, motor heat gauge or radiometer, speedometer, light control, ignition switch, carburetor adjustment. “The Chrysler light control is worthy of special comment. To regulate the lights for parking, citv driving, and open road driving, it is only necessary to turn the horn button to the right, thus givin: any desired degree of brilliance or dimness an eames the inconvenience and danger of taking the ds from the steering wheel. “Don’t fail to study the power plant, too. I'll venture the opinion right now that you never saw such a clean-cut, simple and accessible motor. While the Chrysler motor is free from mechanical and parallel to it. **Now look at the Chrysler springs. Note how far apart they are—how they are mounted close to the wheels and parallel to them, not to the diagonal sides of the frame. “The result is the total elimination of sidesway, and this, joined with the flexibility of long, flat spring-leaves, and the softening of road jolts by snubbers, produces in the Chrysler a riding ease never before attained in a light car.” “And does the Chrysler car fully satisfy the public ideal you set out to realize ?”’ “The best answer I could give is to ask you to read the specifications and then take a ride in the car. “Here are just a few highlights, based on thou- sands of miles of driving under all sorts of road and traffic conditions— “Average gasoline consumption better than 20 miles to the galloa: “Over 25,000 miles without having to clean carbon—or grind valves—or make any adjust- ments—and motor still running sweetly as a watch: “Seventy-five miles an hour, absolutely without vibration, «fter 25,000 miles of con- tinuous driving: “More thar. sixty-five horse power: “Over-all length of touring car, only 160 inches—yet room enough for five large adults: “Touring car weight, 2650 pounds—yet as steady riding as any two and one-half ton car you know; with a low center of gravity that produces a really wonderful roadaility : “Extra large tires—four and one-half inch section—good for extraordinarily long mile- age. “If these do not meet the ideal of more experi- enced drivers than any other car in the world, our experience and judgment have led us astray.” “But isn’t such a car—one of such wonderful abilities and built of the best materials on the market—beyond the reach of the very people to whom it is the ideal?” “T’'ll leave that to you; for the one thing in the whole car of which I am most proud is the price.” If, without knowledge on the subject, the average motor car owner were asked to estimate the price of the Chrysler Six, he would be bound to rank it among the costliest of cars. The price when revealed will prove a profound sensation See Preceding Page —~

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(Continued from Page 64) walled garden subject to enrichment along all the avenues of personality, and especially liable to loss by trespass, incursion or sur- render of its least outposts. She was not understood. Her words were simple enough; but, without being told, she knew that they were unintelligible. She sat and gazed at Io, and Io gazed back with a troubled little frown, and whispered over and over again, “Yes, mother.” Eunice attempted the specific only once. “Io, you have never let Jimmy kiss you, have you?” Io stared at her, completely at a loss, but from what cause Eunice was never to learn. Comforted by the look alone, she cried out, “‘ Never mind, dear. Forgive me. Only I wanted you to know —— Behold Io, the arrow, in winged flight, es- caped without a spoken word. Quick! Out to the stable and hitch up Kentucky, worthy son of a horse-famed state. Out! Out along the highway to just beyond the last tollgate left in the three counties, meeting motor cars all the way. Swing to the left along the track which leads to the forked roads, and then take the center one of three. This rough road was emblematic. Here was negation in gigantic terms. At one end of the Sherborne property, the Rattling Run Company, whose Rattler brand of cement had already been used in an experiment at New Brunswick in the form of a concrete pavement, first realization in New Jersey of Tryer’s fantastic dream. At the other end of the same property, the rutted and inhos- pitableevidencethat the youthful proprietor of Rattling Run Fields, either through an embedded aversion or a love of solitude, hankered for no metaled highway across his front doorstep. At Io’s shout Tom came rolling out hat- less from the kitchen. His hair and beard had turned quite white, while his bushy brows remained startlingly dark. As a re- sult, he new gave the impression not only of a barrel but of a barrel stenciled and ready for shipment. “Hello, Tom,” she cried, leaped from the cart and tossed him the reins. She went in search of Drake and found him in the living room, which, in spite of its great size, was made cozy by its low ceiling barred with rough-hewn timbers. Along the walls were bookcases and such few trophies as a man who has won his university letter is apt to preserve; also there was a division of which Robert Colter, uninvited, had taken charge. mistreatment anywhere. But our people must be indignant about something. It is distinctly to their credit that they have chosen as the object of their concern a sub- ject so entirely worthy of it. They are not always so happy in their selection of a fa- vorite wrong. The Gaston girls, who some years ago in- vented a rich uncle, are now at work on a Revolutionary ancestor. Though there still is some feeling about it, hatred of Wall Street in this community is no longer what it was. A good many who formerly believed it now doubt that Wall Street wishes to reduce our people to a con- dition of beggary. There is no market for Wall Street’s stocks in an insolvent com- munity. Bill Jessop hopes to see the great parties commit themselves to a modification of the Volstead Act when they meet in convention next summer. Adams Jinks will be satisfied with nothing less than a ringing declaration in favor of the enforcement of the law. It is likely that both gentlemen will be disap- pointed. It is the purpose of both parties to adopt platforms carefully designed to hold Bill and Adams in line for the ticket. The probabilities are that they will succeed in — so. A political party is willing to pay a fair and legitimate price for victory. But no political party wishes to enforce or nullify a law at the expense oi an election. Amos Skiplap wants to run for the legis- lature next year on a platform demanding the enactment of the initiative and refer- endum and the recall. Amos says if they were desirable measures ten years ago they are desirable now. But his close supporters In rummaging through the lumber of ancient trunks and old boxes which had accumulated in the small peaked garret at Rattling Run Fields, Colter had come upon certain documents which appealed to his antiquarian interest. He purchased an easel and such a folio as is used for rare prints. In it he was mounting in chrono- logical order such papers as the original deed of Rattling Run Fields; the commission of one Isaiah Hancock Sherborne, captain in the Revolutionary Army; certain letters in faded brown ink; the discharge of War- ner Truesdale Sherborne from a regiment which had never reached the front in 1812; a quaint collection of the wedding lines which had tied the Sherborne women so tightly; the commissions or discharges of various other male Sherbornes in the Civil and in the Mexican and Spanish wars. Warner Sherborne, Drake’s father, had gone no farther than Tampa. Only today Colter had discovered among the papers a small leather purse, almost brittle with age. In it was a packet done up in many foids of oiled paper, dried together so that they had to be pried apart with a knife, disclosing finally a seal ring so tar- nished that it was not easily distinguishable for gold. He took it to the kitchen, rubbed it in ashes until it shone, and looked for the crest. There was none; only an emblematic plow with a lantern hanging from one of its shafts. He was disappointed, but went in search of Drake and laid the ring on the table before him. “Found it with the junk,” he explained. Drake glanced up and was about to sug- gest that the ring be added to Colter’s chronological file; but perceiving that it was a seal ring, curiosity got the better of him. He ago it up, glanced at it, and immediately his careless bearing changed. He stared unbelievingly at the graved emblem and finally slipped the ring on his middle finger, for it was much too large for his little one. *‘We Sherbornes,”’ he remarked, “‘seem to have been bigger men a few generations ago.” Colter turned to go back to his self- appointed task, but Drake stopped him. “Bob,” he asked, ‘‘did you ever hear what eS mg 2 to eall my father?” “They called him the man who plowed by lantern light.” He stared again at the ring. “‘Queer things happen, don’t they?” When lo entered the room Colter glanced at her absorbed expression, saw that she had something on her mind and promptly THE SATURDAY EVENING POST slipped out through a door which opened to the rear. Drake was sitting in a low chair surrounded by a heap of books treat ing of fertilizers, their composition and cor rect application. He looked up to see Io standing before him, very erect, her brows drawn in a tiny frown. “Hello!”’ he said. “What's up? What’s the matter?”’ “*Sometimes,”’ said lo, a lie to tell the truth.’ “That is a deep saying,” “Do you want me to think it out? “No,” said Io. “I’ve thought it out my- self. If mother should ask me if a boy has ever kissed me, and I should say yes, it would be a lie, even if they have kissed me, because it would mean something to her that it doesn’t mean to me—what she calls the Point of Danger, with capital let- ters.” “That's very complicated,” said Drake with mock solemnit but I think I know what you mean. Who has been kissing you, young lady?” Genuinely serious and without hesita- tion, Ilo began to recite the names of almost every one of Drake’s classmates who had visited Rattling Run Fields. When she fin- ished, he added for her, “And Jimmy Mattis.” “Oh, yes,” admitted Io, “‘and Jimmy.” Drake in his turn became serious. “Just when did you begin,” he asked, “and how and why? “Well,” said Io, meeting his gaze with- out flinching, “when they say good-by, ! would rather kiss them than shake ends especially if it’s hot.” Drake threw back his head and laughed. “Tf it’s that way I guess it’s all right, Io. Anyhow, I’ve got too much to learn even to pretend to teach. Go your own way. Do you know what I mean by that? “No,” said Io; ‘not unless you mean just what you say.” “T mean your way—lIo’s way,” replied Drake. “Follow that as high and as far as you like,” “Drake,” said Io, “I want to tell mother the truth. Do you understand? Not well, not make her think I’m horrible. You know. Yet sometimes I think and think, but I just don’t know the words she knows. Oh, that’s awful. It doesn’t mean anything at all.” “Oh, yes, it does,”’ said Drake, taking up his book again. “It means the whole works to me, Io. Run away and don’t worry any more.” “you have to tell said Drake. ” SHORT TURNS AND ENCORES Continued from Page 24 are advising against it. They think it very doubtful whether the people can again be stirred to a high pitch of excitement by a proposal to enact them. They are advising Amos to run on a platform demanding that the profiteers be compelled to disgorge. Sim Furness says he is one of those who do not care for the truth at the expense of being annoyed by it. Probably no one thing disturbs our peo- ple more than the fear that something dis- agreeable may happen to Germany. The thought that Germany may have to work hard to pay the obligatious incurred when the treaty of peace was signed is a very un- pleasant one to them. The possibility that Germany may lose her national entity and be broken up into half a dozen separate states is one they are loath to contemplate. The “Prosperity’ ORAWN 8Y FH. 6. FULLER * Turkey 67 If Eunice could have heard this conversa- tion in which so little was said and so much expressed it is possible that she would have worried less but puzzled more. She had watched Io’s hasty departure with a little catch in her heartbeats which was growing to be a frequent and familiar sensation. She did not have to ask where Io was going: she knew. She was going to Rattling Run Fields. It might be expected that the spectacle of a single family living in a double estab- lishment in an environment famed for its simplicity would have aroused comment; but the condition had come about so natu- rally that it passed unnoted, even by the most avid scavengers of gossip. It was as though the subtle power of Rattling Run Fields over all those who sprang from its loins imposed even upon outsiders to the extent of forcing the acceptance of its domi- nation as a matter of course. Thus Drake, from the moment of his first return from boarding school, aided by the timely advent of William Alder, Jr., had reassumed with no spoken arrangemeiit his lifelong home; and thus Io, from spending a few hours with him, had grown tacitly into a surprising independence of residence, staying a night or a week with a naive casualness which made comment seem ab- surd. The judge, who, next to Eunice, might be thought most liable to a sense of injury, did more than anyone else to eatab- lish the anomalous situation by accepting it whole-heartedly. In ter nemmdn hee 9 amen | Eunice even credited him with being a champion of the homestead as a concreted force against which it was futile to battle. Whenever he thought of Rattling Run Fields he seemed to live within the undying impression bequeathed by Warner Sher- borne, adamant to his last breath. “Son, the land's yourn; you ain’t got na call to sell it.” Eunice was not a meek woman, nor was she wholly without her father's strain of sardonic humor. Her lips could curve and her eyes smile quizzically at the perplexing impulses of the younger generation, devour- ing latitude and longitude with its bean- stalk tendrils; but when she thought of Rattling Run Fields an opaqueness like a cessation of vision seemed to film her gaze. It was as if Rattling Run Fields had ali the terminal qualities of a blackboard built sol- idly into a wall; on it and not beyond it were mortal eyes to read ail sums and al! subtractions. (TO BE CONTINUED) And the nearer the date on which the reg- ular quarterly installment of their income tax falls due the more loath they become. Miss Mittie Sells, who was born and reared west of the Missouri River, saw her first Indian last summer. But unless Miss Mittie visits Hollywood, it is unlikely she will ever realize her ambition to see a cow- boy. Ed Furness, whose fits of abject despond- ency and rambling and discursive conversa- tion have puzzled his friends for months, finally has revealed the source of his affliction. He has been reading Nietzsche and Schopenhauer for more than a year. Nietzsche and Schopenhauer are well enough in their way, but unless one can take a joke he should not read them It is as yet impossible to estimate the value of a college education to Jimmy and Mittie Sells. Jimmy and Mittie still are in the making. But it is not possible to under- estimate its effect on the Sells family. Be- fore Jimmy and Mittie went away to achoo! it was the most slovenly, careless, impolite family in town. It is now one of the best dressed and best behaved. The trouble with Jim Trout, who, the other day, passed to his reward, was that he depended on Congress to do it. As a re- sult Mrs. Trout and the children are left in destitute circumstances. A great man is one who doesn’t believe all the complimentary things the newspapers say of him. A very great man is one who can resist the temptation to attempt to live up to the fictitious importance with which the newspapers invest him. Jay E. House.

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29,1925 THE FOOT ARISTOCRATIC C (ossentials $0 perfect footwear You want them all—the essentials to perfect footwear. You want the individuality and style that exclusive shoe designers best express with Vici kid. You want the distinctiveness that comes in the lustrous colors of Vici kid and the elegance that comes in its finish. You want the fit that is assured by its pliability and the service assured by its quality. For more than thirty years Vici kid has been universally approved as the essential leather for fashionable footwear. Tell your dealer you want shoes of Vici kid. No other leather combines ALL the advantages of Vici kid. ROBERT H. FOERDERER, Inc. PHILADELPHIA This is the Selling Agents: LUCIUS BEEBE & SONS, Boston trademark of Selling Agencies in all parts of the world VICI kid THERE IS ONLY ONE VICI KID --- THERE NEVER HAS BEEN ANY OTHER REG. U.S. PAT. OFF,

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST THE DANGER OF EUROPE Neither England nor the British Empire has added to that grim tutal, and it will be to the eternal honor of the British folk that they at least did try to give the spirit of peace a chance in the world and to adopt other and saner ways of international ar- gument than the old appeal to force of arms. If they have failed it is a splendid failure, and if in self-defense against a world of folly and wickedness they are forced back to the sword—or the gun, tank and battleship——it will be a tragic necessity not of their own making. But it is possible, and I think likely, that the militarists of Europe underestimate the strength of England’s policy of peace and her demobilized state. She is already at- tracting to her side all those people who are aghast at this enthroned militarism and its inevitable menace to the peace of the world. England’s spirit of fair play has raised a standard to which all liberal minds are rallying as the one hope of victory over infinite folly and the forces of destruction. Gradually but very surely, I think, this in- fluence is working not aly in countries like Holland, Denmark, Norway, Czecho- Slovakia, Austria and Germany, but also in the United States of America, which stands more than any other nation in the world and with more strength than any other nation in the worl? broadly, and with individual exceptiox.s of intolerance, for common sense applied to international politics, justice applied to all ples, and antimilitarism as the foundation of world peace and recovery. If the federation of British peoples can gain the spiritual alliance and coéperation of the United States these two nations to- gether will have an irresistible power in the sphere of international policy which cannot be lightly disregarded or ignored by op- posing powers, and, in my belief, if that bappened many of the present dangers and miseries of Europe would be quickly re- moved. That conviction is also firm in the mind of every British statesman, of every party, and neither Tory nor Labor leaders will desist from the effort to win over the United States to a closer working under- standing with their country. But it is not after-dinner rhetoric, the eloquent cour- tesies of visitors on both sides, which will produce an Anglo-American entente. It is the gradual recognition of both peoples that unless they work together to save the world from fresh and frightful disaster it is not going to be saved. The weakness which for the whole of last. year seemed to paralyze England and brought its political credit rather low was due to one cause, which put both politicians and people into a horrible dilemma. It was the desire to remain friendly with France while realizing more and more poign- antly that every act in the policy of France was a blow against the interests of Great Britain and one step further toward the disintegration and decay of Europe. British Warnings Loyalty to France; the remembrance of all that army of British youth lying in French soil; the immense, unforgettable sentiment of the old war days, when blue and khaki were intermingled in heroic serv- ice and sacrifice, blinded many English men and women, as it blinds them still, to the danger and disaster of French pressure on Germany. They were passionately an- gry with those who, with no less vee & to that sentiment—though a loyalty that was pained and jolted because of French refusal to see anything but treachery in disagree- ment —behold a greater loyalty even than that to France, which is to humanity and to Europe. That strain of divided loyalties tugging in opposite directions had a weakening and paralyzing effect on English thought. It divided home political parties and the government itself. It led to a political im- potence in international affairs which made England almost, if not quite, ridiculous. An English Prime Minister, Mr. Bonar Law, warned France that in entering the Ruhr she was embarking on an adventure which would lead to disaster, but he gave it his blessing. Another English Prime Minister, Mr. Baldwin, allowed his Foreign Secre- tary, Lord Curzon, to declare that the occupation of the Ruhr was an illegal act, contrary to the Treaty of Versailles, and (Continued from Page 26) then signed a document in Paris to say that there was no difference between French and British policy and purposes. The Germans were encouraged in their passive resistance because of British disapproval of the plan to make them work under French bayonets, but England made no act of independence which gave them any help before their sur- render to starvation. For a whole year England was a passive spectator, with occasional protests and warnings, arguments and pleadings, of a French policy which by leading slowly and surely to the break-up of Germany and the decay of Europe was leading also slowly and surely to further unemployment in England, higher burdens of taxation, fur- ther reduction of trade in the markets of the world. I am not one of those who blame the British Government with hot indignation for that weakness, although I deplored it month after month as I watched the situa- tion of Europe drift deeper into the mire. They were deeply and honorably anxious to avoid an absolute breach with France, which would have happened instantly if they had insisted on a withdrawal from the Ruhr or any action enabling Germany to regain he: economic liberty. They wanted to be loyal, even against the interests of Great Britain, to that sentiment of friend- ship which they regarded as the only hope of European peace; and to prove their loy- alty they made offers for the reduction of claims and debts from both France and Germany which went to the ultimate limit of generosity, though instantly rejected by France as wholly inadequate. A Tragic Dilemma England is still faced by that tragic di- lemma—how to maintain friendship with France and at the same time save Germany and Europe from ruin. Unless the French people and their leaders entirely alter their methods of thought and action there is bound to be u political duel between France and England, so intensified in bitterness on both sides during the next few years that friendship will be broken. After friendship there will be a passion of hostility in France amounting to the pitch of war fever. By newspaper propaganda, by utter misunder- standings of English motives, and by an unavoidable difference of interests between the two nations there is already, as I have seen in France, a cold belief, a hardly hid- den conviction, that England is once again “‘nerfide Albion,” that she is betrayin France from base commercial motives, an that this “nation of shopkeepers”’ will sell their soul to Germany because they are jealous of French prestige and afraid of French aéroplanes. Already France com- plains of being isolated and thwarted by England, just as Germany did in 1914. hat sense of isolation will be exagger- ated in the next world conference sum- moned by Great Britain to deal with the question of German reparations and the demobilization of Europe. In that confer- ence, by force of circumstance —the decay of industry—-and contrary to the force of sentiment, England will lean heavily to the German point of view, at least so far as sup- porting Germany’s plea for the economic PHOTO. SY ©, J, GRIMES, GALT LAKE CITY, UTAH An Ice-Coated Tree in Yellowstone Park liberty of her people, time to pay, and the fixing of a definite, reasonable, possible sum which, when paid, will make her free within her own frontiers. That is bound to estrange France still further, because it will seem like an alliance with Germany against the financial interests, the national security and the political supremacy of France. I can see as clearly as down one of the long straight roads of that France which I love so well, the horrible sequence of events which are bound to follow step by step, with irresistible, inescapable logic, like the march of fate itself, if the French people refuse to meet the British point of view at least halfway. If they follow the spirit of Poincaré, and of his. masters behind the | scenes, with a stubborn refusal to see dan- gers ahead, they will meet this situation by military prepwrations for war with Eng- land before Germany can be rearmed. There will be an increase in French air- craft, not directed against England osten- sibly—with many denials of its aggressive aims against England—but for the sake of French “‘security.” The coastal defenses of France will be strengthened, even more than they are now being strengthened, by long-range guns, also for the sake of “se- curity.” There will be a 5) ing up in the submarine shops. And ingland, also for that sacred word “‘security,”’ will be unable to resist a sense of ~ poy or in plain words, fear, and will be compelled to in- crease her strength in aircraft, submarines, | coastal defenses, big guns. By a dreadful paradox Great Britain, desperately anxious for peace, may have war thrust upon her, for—using plain words again— there can be no other consequence in the logic of that hostility between the two greatest nations in Europe, if hostility it is to be. Eng- land’s only alternative to French enmity is active codperation with France for the de- struction of Germany; and that, for the | sake of her economic life as a nation, she cannot afford to do. Liberal Spirit in France One must face these things without dis- guise and the falsity of fine phrases. Those who have read history know that when certain passions are set in motion the tides of their movement cannot be turned back at the bidding of some Canute in politics. | That tide of tragedy will roll on to the doom of Europe unless now and quickly the passionate differences between and England are settled by an agreement in friendliness and honor and common sense. | The move towards reconciliation and un- | derstanding must come from France. The | French people and their leaders must aban- | don a policy which in the name of security and justice has led Europe into the morass. England cannot do much more than she has done in generosity, in friendly over- tures, in offers of arbitration. There is still, hidden and inarticulate, a liberal spirit in France, doubtful, even fear- ful, of the reaction into which their people have been led by Poincaré and his group, who have endeavored to gain security by the dangerous means of controlling the armed force of Europe by a series of mili- tary alliances supported by French money. It is possible that this liberal spirit will rise up and, putting fear on one side, the fear of a stronger Germany, deal with the prob- lems of Europe with a broader, more generous and more chivalrous leadership, allying itself—and gaining greater strength than that of hireling armies, uncertain in allegiance —with the powers of peace. There is that supreme and splendid chance, for I am not one of those people who believe that French policy has been inspired by ignoble motives or corrupt interests, or wild and fantastic visions of a new imperialism, but mainly—apart from the sinister influences which are at work in all countries where greed and wickedness are elements of human nature —by a rigid belief in force as the only safeguard of French interests. That chance | is our best hope in Europe, and if that passes, as so many have done, there is no hope of escape from those other and darker things which I have set down as the dread alternative. Editor’s Note—This is the third of a series of articles by Sir Philip Gibbs. The views of Sir Philip Gibbs should not be confused with the opinions of the editors, which appear from week to week on our editorial page, but we believe that they do reflect the ideas of an important group of Eng!ishmen ‘rance | 69 Watch This Column Priscilla Dean in a new love-story When PRISCILLA DEAN is assigned to a character which thor- oughly suits her temperament, she absorbs it with her whole soul. | doubt if there is another woman in all screendom who can equal her in a character of the underworld which calls for tremendous action. And she has such a character in ‘‘White Tiger,’’ with a cast of unusual intelligence and force. Itin- cludes MATT MOORE, WALLACE BEERY and RAY GRIFFITH. ees sd PRISCILLA DEAN and MATT MOORE ‘White Tiger’’ is a love-story of the underworld, replete with intensely dramatic episodes of the kind in which the American public revels. It is brilliantly set, and when you see it, as | hope you will, please note the elaborate attention to detail given to it by the splendid staff at Universal City. * * as l am very proud of Universal's beautiful picture, ‘‘A Lady of Quality,’’ a Hobart HHenley production, in which the sweet and womanly VIRGINIA VALLI does the very finest work of her career. I is all romance and charm, wonderfully set and costumed and acted. It contains every- thing to please and nothing to offend. [t is a tale of other days when "' knights were bold and swords were out.’ I believe it will be a great success * * * Have you seen Universal's great spec- tacle, ‘‘ The Hunchback of Notre Dame, *’ which is delighting all the big cities and is regarded by scholars as the most remark- able picture ever made? Have you seen **Merry Go Round,’’ which has been a triumph wherever it has been shown? Have you seen ‘‘The Acquittal’’ or BABY PEGGY in‘ The Darling of New York’’ or the new series of ‘‘ The Leather Pushers’’? * + * The manager of your favorite theatre will tell you when Universal productions are coming if you will call him up. Don't forget that you can't see all that is best in pictures unless you see Universals. (arl Laemmle President UNIVERSAL PICTURES | “The pleasure is all yours’’ 1600 Broadway, New York City

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SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29, 1925 The Sportbrohm 5-Seater The Suburban 7-Seater “Asus ae” TWo FASCINATING CREATIONS IN THE GREATER STUTZ LINE OF SIXES AND FOURS Speedway Six Models Special Six Models Speedway Four Models Tourster-—~7-seatet Phaeton-—-§-seater Phaeton —~7-seater Sportster—§-seater Roadster—- 3-seater Roadster—2-3-seater Suburban—-7-seater Tourabout——§-seater Bearcat——-2-3-seater Berline-—7-seater Sedan—-5-seater Coupé—4-seater Sportbrohm —§-seater Sportcoup’—-4-seater The Sign of S2intl7 the Genuine

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST riumph = ee ‘Sp way I3O0-INCH WHEELBASE 5 Exquisite New Models—Stutz-Built High-Torque, Super-Economy Engine—Finger-Tip Control —Easy-Riding Compensating Springs —and a Host of Other Acknowledged Advancements PRICES UNPARALLELED AMONG CLASS EQUIPAGES As: the vast resources of the Stutz have made another great triumph possible. Now the Stutz Speedway Six takes its place beside the phenomenal Stutz Special Six and famous Speedway Four in the greater Stutz line for 1924. Slightly larger than the Stutz Special Six—a trifle higher in price-—-yet several hundred dollars less than any comparable car—the Stutz Speedway Six contributes five new open and enclosed equipages of characteristic Stutz beauty and charm to the comprehensive selection of fourteen exquisite body types now offered on the three exclusive Stutz chasses. It is a complete line in every way. Here are custom conceptions so distinctive as not to be confused with cars of any other makes conveyances so inimitable in design that only Stutz engineering and craftsmanship can duplicate them. class High-Torque, Super-Economy Engine Like the Stutz Special Six and Speedway Four, the Stutz Speedway Six presents something superior in engine efficiency. Its power plant is exclusive Stutz-built from first to last—and said by experts to surpass anything so far perfected in six-cylinder, valve-in-head design. Torque is so irresistible and smooth that test hills everywhere are negotiated at slower speeds on high gear than ever before seemed possible. At the same time, it will so rapidly attain and so easily hold so fast a pace that previous stock car per- formances are no longer a measure of ability. Withal, the Stutz Speedway Six offers economy in fuel and oil under extreme conditions, which for merly was possible only in uninterrupted travel at moderate speeds over favorable roads. Camshaft construction; crankshaft rigidity and bal ance; valve operation, and lubrication, in the Speed way Six, all embody features nowhere else available. Comfort and Ease of Operation Riding comfort attainable only with Stutz Com pensating Spring design—facility of control which introduces new ideas in easier shifting, steering, clutch operation and braking—road balance which only the Stutz Gooseneck frame suspension and 10 point body mounting make possible are other strik ing engineering achievements to be found only in the present greater Stutz line. Self-Adjusting 4-Wheel Hydraulic Brakes and Balloon Tires Self-adjusting, 4-wheel, Hydraulic Brakes (Lockheed type) are optional at a very snuall additional cost. The latest Ai: Cushion Tires, with mechanical revi sions that assure maximum steering ease and road ability, are offered also. In short, nothing which the most sophisticated might demand is lacking in the comprehensive assemblage of Stutz Sixes and Fours. However swift may be the pace in automotive engineering, the present imposing Stutz line will remain indefinitely far ahead. Stutz Special Six Known as perhaps the most thoroughly owner- attested car ever marketed, the Stutz Special Six (120inch wheelbase) with the sensational Stutz Special Six Engine appears after a year of concen trated effort, bettered in every possible respect and augmented by stunning new body types The Stutz Special Six makes strides that fairly eclipse even its own meteoric record which caused the 1923 production program to be more than trebled in an effort to supply the demand for this phenomenal car. Stutz Speedway Four In addition, commanding its exclusive clientele of those who never can be satisfied short of its ecstatic sense of mastery and power, is the Stutz Speedway Four with the famous Stutz D-H Engine. There is not and never has been another car of such peculiarly distinctive character. Its popularity is unwaning Individuality Beyond Imitation With the Stutz Speedway Four, the Stutz Special Six and the new Stutz Speedway Six, the Stutz Motor Car Company of America, Inc., provides the dash and flavor in a world of many motor cars whose increasing similarity emphasizes the refreshing indi- viduality of a Stutz and augments the fascination and prestige which Stutz ownership confers. It is doubtful whether there is anything you expect of a motor car that a Stutz can not surpass-—while the prices more than justify the reference :“* America’s Most Pronounced Values Among Cars of Acknowl edged Class.” DEALERS! What if you could represent such a line with such a name, fortified by the practically unlimited resources and financial strength of the Stutz? Why not find out? At the New York Automobile Show, January § to 12-—-2§8th Field Artillery Armory, Space 3. Special Exhibit and Headquarters—Hotel Commodore. At the Chicago Automobile Show, January 26 to February 2—Coliseum Annex, Space 40. Special Exhibit and Headquarters Congress Hotel STUTZ MOTOR CAR COMPANY of AMERICA, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Builders of the Original and Genuine Stutz Motor Cars \ wae ( y S1x 71

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Steel Fabric Company 725 Union Trust Bidg., Pittsburgh, Pa. Please send me your new free catalog Name Street Address City State : 1 cor interested in (Houses [) Buildings () Roads (Check which) THE SATURDAY in trouble some day. And if the caddies made up their minds he had to resign they ought to be able to work it—without Lind ting in wrong themselves. Kids are mighty ingenious insects, Weevil.” “They are.” 2 “T’ll make a bet that if a condition like that arose in this club the caddies would do something. We got a good crop of kids here, and they’ve been brought up right. Yes, sir. They'd do x's * Which was all of that. roy | the eighteen holes McWhinney detected Jacky regarding him speculatively. The boy seemed a trifle distrait, but if he had — thing on his mind he kept it to himself. Nor in the succeeding weeks did he ap- proach MeWhinney once or in any manner convey the idea that he considered the two of them had a secret between them. To this day MeWhinney could not take his oath that Jacky or any other caddie had heard and digested that conversation of his on the fairway of the first hole. mu Te following Saturday morning Mr. North engaged in a financial foursome. On the first tee he haggled for handica until, in the ordinary course of events, all element of speculation was. removed from | the day’s play—if what. Mr. North did could be called play. He begged strokes | from everybody who would give strokes, and to the one man in the foursome to whom he should have given six he pleaded | and argued until he cut it down to three. | Satisfaction exuded from every pore. | expanded and waxed jocose. He ow Mr. North was possessed of a pe- | culiarity uncommon to golfers: he doted upon silence when he was making a shot. refer that there start their backswing, but with Mr. Nort this was a passion. ceWhinney once said | North’s chances in the President’s Cup | were ruined because his caddie had palpita- tion of the heart, resultant from overindul- gence in cream puffs. On this day and date, as Mr. North’s driver reached the top of the are a sound smote his ear, a disturb- ing, ear-rending, disconcerting sound. He | could not stop his swing, lost sight of the | ball, lunged at it desperately an | into the rough. topped it “What,” he demanded in his stately | manner, “‘was that sound?” “ Jacky, he hiccuped, sir,”’ said Whity. “Don’t do it again,” directed Mr. North. *‘A-hick,”’ responded Jacky. “No, sir.” Mr. North’s second shot was long but, | owing to a downhill lie, not straight, and he | was still in the rough. Four caddies rushed | ahead to retrieve the ball, but when its owner arrived in the locality where it might be expected to appear it remained invis- | ible. Eight individuals searched for it me- ticulously, but it remained hidden until Mr. North was compelled to walk back to its original lie, drop another ball and play as provided in the rules. Mr. North was the sort of man who would rather have a boil lanced than lose a ball. Nothing happened on the second hole until they reached the green, where Mr. North demanded his putter. Jacky fumbled in the bag and then assumed an expression of innocent perplexity. “Tt ain't, now, in your bag,”’ he said. “Where is it then?”’ “Mebby you left it in the pro’s shop,” offered Jacky. “IT putted with it last green,” Mr. North said in some exasperation. “He did, Jacky; I seen him,” said Whity. “Then it must ’a’ got left back on the last tee,”’ Jacky said. Mr. North waggled his head back and forth and sighed after the manner of a man who cannot comprehend the inefficiencies of a world which should be perfection. “Somebody lend me a putter; and you, kid, go back and get it, and then chain it to your wrist. Say, what ails you?” “I got the hiccups,” Jacky offered in explanation. “They don’t affect your mind, do they?” snapped Mr. North. he third hole was without event, and Mr. North began to warm again toward the universe. He narrated anecdotes to take his opponents’ minds off their game and related experiences in which he h come off first best in encounters with men EVENING POST CADDIES (Continued from Page 17) whose names appear in the daily news- papers. But on the fourth hole he hooked and his ball rolled into the rough—a scant foot, it seemed. However, when they ar- rived at the carefully marked spot the ball was not; nor could it be found. Mr. North trudged back to the tee and shot another. After that the disturbance of his soul caused him to put his shoulders into his strokes, with the result that he either sliced or topped all over the 4 On the fifth, as he was waiting to drive he was compelled to listen to a low-voiced conversation among the caddies. “T tell you what he’s doin’,”” Whity said. “Goin’ back too fast,” guessed Jacky. “Naw, he’s playin’ his ball off his right foot. He always plays it offm his left. He’d be all right if he was to git back where he b’longs.” “TI don’t think it’s that,” Jacky said. “Me, I watched him, and it’s his back- swing.” Thus two suggestions were implanted in Mr. North’s mind, and both preyed upon him every time he took his stance. He couldn’t get that backswing or the position of his ball out of his mind, and the result was something which was not golf, as golf is understood by persons who shoot to handi- caps of less than twenty-two. On the next hole he lost another ball, but this time, after searching for minutes, Mr. North announced its discovery. He had been hunting in a spot some yards from the others. “I got it,” he called. Jacky stared at him a second. Then he called out, “‘No, you hain’t. I got it right here. This here’s your ball.”” There came a significant pause. “You found somebody else’s. This is yourn. It’s got the nick in it you made with your mashie last hole.” It must have been rather embarrassing i North, but he covered his confusion well. On the green as he was about to putt he noticed that Whity was standing beyond the hole, exactly in his line, and every time he got ready to make his shot Whity moved his feet. Mr. North straightened up and glared. Whity moved to one side. Mr. North missed his putt. “T never saw such a numskull lot of cad- dies as we got in this club,’’ he said feel- ingly. “‘Haven’t they ever been taught anything?” acky hiccuped in evident embarrass- ment. in fact, the general rebuke seemed so to aggravate his hiccuping that for the remainder of his connection with that four- some he let off explosions with the regular- ity of Big Bertha firing upon the city of Paris. “A-hick! A-hick! A-hick!” It seemed to Mr. North that the air was full of them; but, strangely enough, they never seemed to sound except when Mr. North was shooting. At last he began to listen for them apprehensively. His mind was all clogged up with “ A-hicks’’-—like the sleepless man in the hotel waiting for his neighbor to throw down the other shoe. On the next two holes he lost two more balls, making a total of four, and the cad- dies saw to it he had no chance to drop another surreptitiously, for two of them shadowed him wherever he wandered. It is difficult for a man to win a golf hole after he has lost a ball with its consequent pen- alty in strokes. So far Mr. North had not collected a birdie or syndicate, and had halved but two holes. Financially he was in sad case, mentally he was bulging like a Christmas stocking, and snecally e had ceased to exist. On the twelfth hole, after losing another ball, he turned upon Jacky. “Gimme them clubs!” he roared, forget- ting his suavity and his grammar. “And gt for the clubhouse! I'll carry that bag. ou git! Where you belong is in the booby class of a blind school. Five balls! I could come out here with a half-witted Eskimo and ———- You git! And you don’t get any tip either.” “Shall I send out another caddie, Mr. North?” Jacky asked meekly. “Git!” shouted Mr. North. But presently another caddie appeared in the person of Pink, and on the fourteenth hole another ball was lost. Also Pink seemed to have a cold in his nose which re- quired much blowing. When Pink was not using his handkerchief he was sniffling. And twice he forgot clubs, making it neces- sary for him to go back to the tee to recover December 29,1925 them. Mr North finished the eighteen without having won a bet. Eight balls he had lost, and the ragged edges of his nerves dragged behind him like fringe from a washerwoman’s shawl. “Eight balls!’’ he wailed in the lounge. “Noboltly ever lost eight balls before. And nobody else in the foursome lost a ball.” “Maybe,” suggested McWhinney, “‘you hit ’em so hard they exploded.” Mr. North glared. “And that ain’t all,” he said in a tortured voice, ‘First there was hiccups, and then there was sniffles. All I could do was thank I wasn’t using a horse for a caddie, so I didn’t have to listen to the heaves. What is that caddie pen anyhow-—-a hospital?” “Well,” said Weevil, “once we had a caddie that took epileptic fits. It was darn disconcertin’. We had to ask him to quit caddying.” “T’ve played in @ lot of clubs,”’ said Mr. North, “but I never saw a worse-handled lot of boys. They don’t know anything. Rattle clubs, stand in the line of your putt, stand behind you and shuffle their feet when you’re shooting, walk along and discuss your game. Rotten management, that’s what I call it.’’ “You do, eh?’ demanded Martin Tombes, chairman of the green committee, and hence overlord of the caddies. “Now you lemme tell you _" “Tell the caddies —they need it,’’ snapped Mr. North. ont “(NADDIES,” said Mr. Weevil, “are the foundation of golf.’’ “The day,” said Old Man Arkwright, “that I made my hole in one I was carryin’ my own bag ———” “That accounts for it then,” said Mc- Whinney; “I always wondered how it was. Bet you were playing alone too.” “T wasn’t. It was a foursome. like this ——” “Caddies,” repeated Mr. Weevil dis- tinctly, ‘“‘are the foundation of golf.” “Are you announcing a discovery,” asked Martin Tombes, “‘or trying to start a fight?” “He wants to make a speech,” said Mc- Whinney. “Go ahead, Weevil, we'll listen.” “Well, ain’t they? Who wants to play golf without a caddie? Eh? Rather not play than tote my own bag. Any of you ever play good golf when you had a bum caddie? No, sir-ree Can't be done. Why, if there was a law against caddies golf would die out in a year.” “On the principle, I suppose, that hav- ing children would die out if there weren’t nursemaids,”’ said Wills. “You know, that’s kind of the idea. Get a caddie that knows his job and takes an interest in you—say, then’s when golf is golf! There’s kids here that almost cry when your game goes wrong. I had a black caddie down South last winter who bet more on my game than I would—and I had to end up by paying his board. He used to go around telling about my good shots like a me father bragging about his baby’s colic. “Our friend North,” observed President Olney, ‘‘seems to disagree with you. He's written three letters to the board about our caddies; and the next one he’ll have to write on asbestos.” “What's eating North?” McWhinney asked, but there was a private twinkle in his Scottish eye. “Claims he hasn’t had a decent game of golf for two weeks. Says he’s averaged losing six balls a day, and that the kids who carry for him suffer from every ailment from stringhalts to gastritis. He’s asked permission to bring a private caddie.” “Trained by himself?"’ “Sure.” “Give him permission?” “Anything to keep him quiet.”’ “That private caddie,” said McWhin- ney, “‘is going to live in a nice little heaven. I wouldn’t be him if North tipped me with a diamond tiara every afternoon.” “His last kick was about size,” said Olney. ‘“‘Seems the Microbe carried for him three days in a row. Couldn’t keep up. The kid always lagged fifty yards behind and North had to wait over his ball every shot for his clubs to march up. Now the Microbe never acted that way with me.” “Lose any balls?” asked Weevil, for the Microbe had the reputation of being able to smell a golf ball out as a bird dog will point a bevy of quail. It was

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“In three days,” said Olney, “he claims to have lost fourteen balls.” “It’s a loss to the world,” said McWhin- ney presently, ‘ ‘that the ingenuity of boy- hood ean’t be carried on into maturity. I’ve a notion that the successful men are the ones who manage to do it.’ “Imagine the Microbe losing fourteen balls! Why, if that kid lost fourteen balls in a year it would break his heart.’ “Devotion to.a great cause,” said Wills, “demands such sacrifices of us.” It was that day that Mr. North chose to appear with his hand-picked caddie. The youth wore an anxious look, for it was evident North had impressed upon him the difficulty and importance of his duties. The first tee stands upon an eminence which drops sharply to the fairway. After the drive the players and caddies commenced the descent, but the new boy achieved it most successfully. In some unaccountable manner he tripped and rolled from the top to the bottom of the hill, with the golf bag of Mr. North performing strange gyrations around his revolving body. This discon- certed Mr. North. But he was further dis- concerted when he could not find his ball. “Did you mark it?”’ he Gemanded of his caddie. “Yes, sir.”’ **Where?”’ “Right on that brown patch. stop there. You could see it offm the tee. “But,” said Mr. North, with elaborate patience, ‘‘you see—-I am quite sure you see—that the ball is not there. If it stopped there and you could see it there—why, I ask you, is it not there now? Did it grow legs and run off?” “IT dunno,” said the hand-picked one. “T seen it.” Apparently this new caddie possessed all the ailments and deficiencies of the regu- lar variety. Not that he did not strive not to possess them. He did his best, but the odds were against him. One is apt to utter an exclamation if a pin is jabbed into one at the right time and place. He did so, the time being in the middle of Mr. North’s backswing. When he arrived at the second I seen it tee Mr. North’s driver was missing. He lost another ball on the third. He couldn’t find Mr. North’s putter on the fifth. He tripped over his feet on the sixth and butted Mr. North in the spine. “And if you open whispered in his ear, “ tonight!”’ At the end of the eighteen the hand- picked one resigned, having lost seven balls, which almost established a record for Mr. North, having mislaid clubs five times, having uttered strange sounds at least to the number of half a dozen, and, in his con- sequent confusion of mind, having com- mitted certain other involuntary sins which no boy could have thought up out of his own mind. Mr. North judced his experi- ment unsatisfactory. For four days he tried playing without a caddie, but inasmuch as the men he played with would not go out without boys to carry their bags, the singular train of mis- fortunes continued to follow Mr. North. He had been pursued by evil chance for a mat- ter of six weeks. His golf, which had been very sound indeed at the beginning, was gone. Even without a caddie to annoy him, he couldn’t have played a round in less than a hundred to save his life or, what was more important perhaps, his fortune. Life had assumed a coloring of the undertaker va- riety and his heart was a weight in his breast. Nobody can know how Mr. North felt except a good golfer who has gone ut- terly wrong. There is no such gloom to be found, even by the painstaking searcher. All connoisseurs in gloom admit this. It is to other glooms what grand opera is to jazz. Therefore Mr. North sat him down and wrote a letter to the board of governors tendering his resignation. It was a long letter, and bitter. But it contained the one morsel of value, his resignation. It was discussed in the locker room amid a feeling of general satisfaction. “Looks like heaven up and interposed where we were helpless,’’ said Martin Tombes. “Heaven,” said McWhinney, in picking its instruments.” “Anvhow he’s out,”’ said Olney. “And we can disinfect the fairways and proceed as before,” said Weevil. “But,”’ said Olney, ‘ ‘it sure was strange. I never heard of luck pursuing a man the way it did him. He swears he lost two hundred and twelve golf balls in forty days. Don’t seem possible.” your trap,”’ Jacky the gang’ll jump you “is adroit THE SATURDAY When Weevil and Wills and McWhinney were alone Mac spoke up. “There’s just one phase of the thing that worries me,”’ he said, ‘‘and that’s North’s twenty dozen golf balls. You know, when you get down to brass tacks, thekids swiped them. Swipin’ is swipin’.’’ “You can’t killa chicken without cutting off its head,’’ said Wills “Nevertheless we’ve done what that old- maid school-teacher accused us of —we've connived at bluntin’ the kids’ moral per- | ” ceptions. “We could chip in and mail him that many balls—anonymously,” suggested Weevil. “That wouldn’t go to the root of the matter—the effect on the kids. They swiped those balls.” “Well,” said Wills, ‘ about that. The damage is done.’ But Mr. McWhinney was not happy, nor did he regain his usual sprightliness of spirit until that evening, when there came a ring at his bell and word that there was a boy to see him. In the library he found Jacky, suffering from embarrassment, but washed even as to his ears. “Say, Mr. McWhinney—now—the kids and me we—now—appointed me-—-you know—to come and—kind of let you know how things was. See?’’ “Not quite,”’ said McWhinney. “Well, the’ was a certain member that you know about— now—that done things like droppin’ balls. Well, he kind of had bad luck about caddies, and —now—some of his bad luck was losin’ balls. He lost a awful lot of his ole balls.” “He did,” said Mac. “Well, me and them kids, we thought mebby you, now, might git the idee it wasn’t on the level about them balls. Now, Mr. Mac, we wouldn’t swipe no balls—not for keeps. You know, now, what you said oncet about a kid bein’ a sport.”’ “Sportsman,” amended McWhinney. “Uh-huh. Well, even if the’ was reason why a member, you know, has got to lose balls, it didn’t look like any caddies would be sports if they, now, kep’ ’em. See?” “‘T see,”’ said MeWhinney, and his emo- tions were those of satisfaction. “Well, what I come to say was, now, that if the’ was a member that lost balls—why you not knowin’ anythin’ about it and neither do I—but if the’ was such a mem- ber nobody was goin’ to keep his ole balls. But if the’ was caddies had them balls, why, mos’ likely they’d, now, save ’em. And when the member got his stummick full and quit—if the’ was such a member, which, mos’ likely the’ never was, why, see? them caddies was goin’ to pack up all them balls in kind of a bundle and, now, leave it on the front stoop of the member, if the’ was one. See? “Jacky,” said MecWhinney, extending his hand, “you are not only a gentleman but a diplomat.” “Uh-huh,” said Jacky, wondering what a diplomat was, and hoping it was language for a good caddie, ‘“‘and me and them kids, kind of figgerin’ over sich a case, why, now, we got the idee mebby that member we was talkin’ about—if the’ was a member ought to know why what happened to him, now, come to happen.” “Yes?” said MeWhinney. “So we kind of thought out what we'd do—if the’ was ever such a thing come up—and this is what we'd, now, do. We'd git together and write a kind of a, say, letter, and we made up what we'd say in the ole letter—so the member would know what folks thinks of the kind of things he ‘it’s too late to worry done— if the’ was a member that ever done things—and 2g “What would you say in the letter, Jacky? “The letter we, now, made up, went like this, kind of. It says, ‘Mr. North, here is them golf balls you lost, all of them, and not none missing, and why you lost them was this, that a caddie don’t want to carry for a man that cheats, and so you lost them balls so as we could get rid of a man in the club that we knowed cheated, and we hope you reform and come to lead a better life.’”’ Jacky paused. “It was Whity put that last part in, on account of his uncle b’longin’ to the Salvation Army. But it, now, kind of gits over the idee. Now, say, don’t it? Eh? What, Mr. McWhinney? Now, say, don’t it? Eh?” “Tt does,” said Mac. Jacky. And, Jacky, if anybody ever tells you your moral perceptions are blunted by contact with golf you just refer ’em to me.” “Huh? Now, well, say, you know, now, what ——~-” Jacky remarked lucidly. “It sure does, | EVENING Heater illustrated is No. a7 with andirons. Finish, oxidized brass, 10 glowers and self-lighter. $3 §,00 East of Mississippi Your Fireplace Can Mean So Much to You HE moment you feel the glowing warmth from a Welsbach Gas Heater, you will comfort and Welsbach Warmth—radiant gas heat at its best — floods out from the heater’s incandescent glowers what a real source of realize enjoyment your fireplace can be. like sunbeams from the sun. With no carrying of fuel, no odor, no matches, you Warmth in its cheeriest, most delightful form pours out to you the moment you twist the self-lighter key. All A metal reflector prevents absorption of warmth by the heater have instant heat always at your command. the gas you pay for is turned into heat. all straight into the room. get the direct instantly and itself, and helps send it Welsbach Heaters benefit of every heat unit generated, Thus with you steadily. Your home can have no greater heating comfort than the convenience and economy of Welsbach Warmth. Now is the time to equip your fireplace with a Welsbach Heater. Winter, Fall and Spring. It will help you to save coal this and give you all the heat you need each Go to your Gas Company or dealer today and ask for a demonstration of both portable and fireplace Welsbach the reasonable prices of all our models and the low cost Heaters. You will be surprised at of their operation. Be sure you get Welsbach value by insisting on Welsbach Heaters. Prices up to $40 East of the Mississippi WELSBACH COMPANY (+ _ Gloucester, N. J. Member American Gas Association A

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in the minds of people of position and peo- ple of no position at all-the determination that on some auspicious day in the future Germany would fal! again on France and annihilate her. If one asked the Germans when they ex- pected this great squeeze-play to occur, one received exactly the same answer, phrased in exactly the same way, from each one of them. “When England and America stand not with France,”’ was the date invariably set, accompanied by a hard German stare and a clenching twisting movement of the right fist. That was the sentiment in 1919 and 1920, and it is exactly the same sentiment that one finds in all parts of Germany in 1923, France is Germany’s natural enemy; and the next time that the opportunity pre- sents, Germany is probably going to make a determined effort to finish the job. Owing ° to the fact that France’s population is less than 40,000,000 and going down, whereas Germany's population is over 60,000,000 and going up, the general European belief is that Germany will probably success- ful in the next attempt. It is practically certain that the occupation of the Ruhr and the a tempts on the part of France to col- lect from Germany the money to replace the material things that Germany de- stroyed will not hasten the revenge that Germany is determined to take on France. For the information of those who fear another world cataclysm next month, it may be stated that the best guessers in Europe are of the opinion that Germany couldn't possibly prepare herself for an- other war with France in less than twenty years, even eng England and America “stand not with France.” Reclamation Accomplished Lens and Notre Dame de Lorette, im- pressive as they are, are tiny fragments of the whole German-made cataclysm that ripped one-thirteenth of France to pieces. While Germany, not one foot of whose territory was wrecked by enemy shells, has been running her printing presses day and night and driving the mark from 40 to the dollar in 1919 to 400,000,000,000—and more—to the dollar in 1923, and squealing over the reparations that she is asked to pay, France has been grimly, silently and efficiently at work at more useful occupa- tions. She has filled and leveled over 10,- 000,600,000 cubic feet of trenches out of the total of nearly 12,000,000,000 cubic feet that not so long ago cross-hatched her fields. She has baled and removed from her fields over $60,000,000 square yards of barbed wire out of a total of nearly 450,000,000 square yards. She has collected and destroyed over 1,100,- 000 tons of abandoned shells. She has reconstructed over 20,000 miles of roads out of the 36,000 that were shelled into unfitness for traffic. She has rebuilt or repaired nearly 600,000 buildings out of the 740,000 that were destroyed or badly damaged. She has reatored to cultivation more than 4,000,000 acres of land out of the 4,700,000 culti- vatable acres that were torn up by shells. She has reconstructed and repaired over 20,000 out of the 22,900 factories that were wrecked. And she has returned to their homes more than 4,000,000 of the 4,390,000 people who were forced to flee from the war area. For all these things she has paid with cash out of the pockets of the French people, although Germany caused every penny’s worth of the destruction. It is only by making a swing by automo- bile across the war-torn district from Nancy in the east to the edge of the English Chan- nel in the west—a trip in which one can easily consume four days without seeing more than a fraction of all that there is to be seen-—that one can realize the stupen- dous work of reconstruction and reclama- tion accomplished by the French in the years that have elapsed since the end of the war. Nancy—one of the many spots for whose capture the Kaiser waited in vain—was undamaged by the war, so that her wrought- iron gates of black aud gold are as unmarred and her macaroon shops as flourishing as before the war. It is probable, by the way, that the world owes at least as great a debt to Nancy for the two Macaron sisters, who invented and perfected the macaroon some seventy years ago, as it does for M. Coué, the Nancy druggist, who caused many per- sons to feel better and better for a time, at least. THE SATURDAY EVENING POST AS SIMPLE AS BLACK AND WHITE (Continued from Page 9) But as one bears west and north from Nancy one encounters the village of No- meny, which was shelled and burned by the Germans on August 20, 1914, and to- tally destroyed; and from Nomeny onward, during four days of travel, one must hunt diligently in order to find a house or a tree or a wall or a shelter of any sort that was standing in 1914 that has not been pock- marked and torn and cracked and blasted by the four-year storm of steel that deluged the country. They exist, but they are very rare. Nomeny, which was only a name at- tached to a rubble heap when the war ended, is today a flourishing village of cement-covered stone buildings with red- tiled roofs—raw looking, like all newly built towns, and tly in need of a five or ten vear mellowing, but same 4 much of the smell that clung to the French village of prewar days. New Structures for Old In many ways the war has been an excel- lent thing for the farmer of the devastated regions; for unless he is too stubborn to listen to advice he has been persuaded to rebuild his home in such manner that his family is separated from its customary fra- grant and not overhealthy contact with the pig, the cow and the manure pile, and lodged in a building designed exclusively to hold human beings and the maximum of untainted air. Beyond Nomeny lies the village of Atton; and though Atton was thoroughly peppered with shellfire, so that each roof and house and wall looks as though it had received the individual attention of a giant that was intent on stabbing it in every possible place with a giant a ne the houses remained standing and only needed a little repairing in order to be habitable—from the stand- point of a French farmer. There is, however, as much difference between the prewar French farmhouses and the ones that have replaced them as there is between a shanty and an up-to-date cement town house. This brings up a rather delicate matter, to which frequent reference is made by persons whose sympathies are not partic- ularly with the French. The value of the yrewar French farmhouse, which stank vio- ently and looked as though it couldn't remain standing for another three years, was very small. It was picturesque from a distance; but after one had viewed it at close quarters the picturesqueness ceased to have a market value. But the matter of replacing that house with a permanent habitation was something else again. If German guns had knocked down a stone farmhouse, no matter of how ancient vin- tage, the French Government couldn't very well attempt to replace it with a Japanese paper house. It had to be replaced with a stone house and it couldn’t be replaced with an old fifth or sixth hand house; so naturally the new house had a higher value than the old house. This fact is eagerly set forth by many persons; and their object in setting it forth seems to be to prove that Germany shouldn’t be obliged to pay for destroying all the things for whose fom Bowe tion she was responsible. The operations of the brains of these people are too involved to be followed with any accuracy. They evidently succeed in making themselves be- lieve that if a person undertakes to replace an object, and finds that it cannot be done without unexpected expense, he is jus:ified in not replacing it at all. They also seem able to persuade themselves that there is something despicable and unfair about re- placing a poorly designed, unhealthy house with a healthy, well-planned residence. These same people—and one finds them in high official positions in various coun- tries-—are greatly exercised over the fact that French factories that were destroyed by the Germans have been replaced by the French with factories containing modern and up-to-the-minute machinery. They imply that France has done something tricky and underhanded in not refurnishing the factories with old secondhand machin- ery. The fact that secondhand machinery of the type desired couldn’t have been found anywhere in the world means nothing in their lives. They want people to believe that Germany should only replace exactly the things that she destroyed, even though things of that sort cannot be exactly re- placed; and they also want people to forget that France would have been greatly pleased to keep the original farms, factories and machinery—but that Germany in- sisted on their destruction. If one extends a casual ear to these peo- = one may go away with the idea that they ave some ground for argument. But when one pauses and remembers that France was in the position of Mr. White, through the side wall of whose home Mr. Black hacked a hole and then killed his children, tore out the plumbing, slashed the floors and rugs and pictures and furniture to ribbons and stole the silver service, all without reason or ea age one realizes that their quib- ing is piffle. If France, after the war, had given her despoiled citizens the market value of their homes just before they had been destroyed they could have built no new homes. Their ruined homes had to be replaced with new homes. In the St.-Mihiel Salient Beyond Atton one drops down the hill slope to the fertile valley of the Moselle and the town of Pont-A-Mousson, which formed the upper right-hand limit of that blunt down-dropping arrowhead known as the St.- Mihiel salient—-the cruel wedge that Ger- many drove down into France and kept there until the Americans bit it off and shoved it out on September 12, 1918. There is a new bridge here, and many houses with new facades, and on the edge of the town new white farmhouses with red roofs. The fields beyond, heavily shelled and trenched for four years, are smooth and planted again. Nothing, the traveler tells himself, ever happened here. Or so he tells himself until he tries to locate the three villages of Regnieville, Fey-en-Haye and Remenon- ville, which ought to be about here, ac- cording to his map. He then discovers that these three villages were so effectively blasted to powder by shellfire that they have ceased to exist. Regnieville and Remenonville have vanished—probably forever—and their inhabitants have been installed elsewhere. Fey-en-Haye is in a new place, a mile from the spot from which it was blasted, and located on a good road, which it was not in its previous existence. Its farms and church gleam in the sun, new and sanitary and as clean smelling as the winds of Lorraine. Continuing onward into the St.-Mihiel salient through fields rich with harvest and At Left —The Lantern of the Dead, on the Top of Notre Dame de Lorette, Which Will Shine Down on the Plains of Artois by Day and Night. At Right—Monument in Flirey te the American Divisions That Participated in the Battie of the St.-Mihiel Satient December 29, 1925 sprinkled with farmers and their wives hard at work, one enters Flirey, a sizable town of glaring cement houses, many of which are still in process of construction. The scene might with reason be mistaken for Italy instead of France, for practically all the workmen are Italian cement and stone workers, contract laborers imported by French contractors to do the enormous amount of work to be done in the devas- tated area. Town after town is so full of Italian cement workers that one frequently has difficulty in locatingta Frenchman of whom to ask directions. Flirey, in 1918, was ncthing but a smear of crumbling walls; that and the jumping- off place for the American Army. That this latter fact will not be forgotten by France in a hurry is attested by a new monument in the center of the town—a bronze bas- relief of two doughboys advancing over German helmets and such-like trinkets, and a granite pedestal bearing the inscription “La Lorraine to the United States, Sep- tember 12, 1918.” It further states that “On September 12th was launched here the first offensive of the United States Army commanded by General Pershing. It freed many Lorraine communes, St.-Mihiel, Thiaucourt, etc., and advanced the Peace of the Right.” Likewise it names the American divisions that took part in the actions of the Flirey-Thiaucourt region the Ist, 2d, 4th, 5th. 7th, 26th, 28th, 33d, i 42c\, 78th, 82d, 38th, 89th, 90th and 92d. A few miles beyond Flirey is Thiaucourt, whose ruined houses have also been repaired and rebuilt by Italian laborers; and on the hill above Thiaucourt is an American ceme- tery with its regiments of white crosses. Farther along. as one enters the rebuilt town of Vigneulles, one finds a granite shaft topped by an eagle with drooping wings. On the shaft are the names of the men of the First Division killed or missing in the fight for the St.-Mihiel salient. On the heights above Vigneulles is the ancient town of Hattonchatel, which was wrecked during the fight for the salient and which has been restored by an American woman, Miss Belle Skinner, of Holyoke, Massachu- setts. Beyond Hattonchatel the road, known as Calonne Trench—-not because it was built as a trench during the war, but because it was trenched through various obstacles by De Calonne, the corrupt finance minister of Louis XVI—runs straight across the plateau for many miles until it comes down into the valley of the Meuse at Verdun. Nevertheless, it might as well have been named for the part it played in the war, for its chief function was that of an enormous trench. The road splits the Forest of Eparges; and the Forest of Eparges, for a matter of four years, was one of the ob- stacles that stood between the Germans and Verdun. Consequently it was the recipient of constant attention from the German artillery, and the scene of terrible fighting. The Country Near Verdun For miles in every direction the forest was blasted to bits, so that the underbrush and grass were destroyed, and so that only the decapitated stumps of occasional trees are left standing. The ground is and always has been useless for agricultural purposes and it is going back to forest again. The undergrowth is eight or ten feet high; and from it, at the road’s edge, one glimpses an occasional German grave or dugout or crumbled trench or tangle of barbed wire; but hidden beneath the undergrowth on both sides of the road as far as the eye can see, and beyond, lie shell holes and trenches and rusted rifles and tangles of barbed wire and unexploded shells. At the end of the Calonne Trench lies Verdun; and when one reaches Verdun he has spent an entire day in viewing only a fraction of the devastation that Germany inflicted on that section of France. One starts his second day in Verdun, ripped, torn and shattered in the greatest battle the world has ever known, and now so repaired and rebuilt that the innocent tourist, ignorant of war, leaps to the con- clusion that the tales of the Battle of Ver- dun were exaggerated. This is a state of affairs that has been brought about in most of the sections of the battle front, due to the diligence and industry of the French, (Continued on Page 76)

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST

The Country Gentleman

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~ ne The Farmers Sales Manual Collective experience has developed certain fundamental selling formulas for the manu- facturer. From the tremendous fund of com- mon knowledge available he can plot a course applicable to his particular problems, whether he be making a plow or a woman's veil. Until recently the farmer's training had been one-sided. His farm papers did a splen- did job in rnaking him a better farmer. For years he bent his best efforts towards produc- tion, centering his attention on soil improve- ment, better live stock and greater yields per acre. There came the day when, as a producer, the farmer far overbalanced himself as a seller. Herewasthe blind spot in hisexperience. It was The Country Gentleman which first impressed him with the dual nature of his job, the prime importance of a knowledge of where to sell before he sowed, the necessity of bal- ancing his productive ability with an equally essential knowledge of merchandising and controlled distribution. Side by side with its broad program of production education The Country Gentleman brings to him the expe- rience of his brother, the manufacturer, the successful plans of others in marketing, col- lective effort, and orderly distribution. It is the farmer's sales manual, the handbook and “experience meeting’ of the progressive type of farmers, the farmers who now recognize farming as a business, and who are making that business pay. 850,000 persons pay $1 a year or five cents every week to get The Country Gentleman for themselves and for their families. ‘Ihe COUNTRY GENTLEMAN For the AMERICAN FARMER and HIS FAMILY The Saturday Evening Post

THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA, PA. The Ladies’ Home Journal

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1 enclose check ( Performance In Cold Weather No longer need cold weather cause you the slightest trouble with your Ford. The Holley Carburetor Company has now perfected a device that ox the it perfectly easy to start and operate your motor no matter how icy the day, or hew long your car has been standing. Holley Hot Shot increases the volatility of the gasoline and makes every drop of fuel lees its utmost power in all four cylinders. It effects new savings in gas- oline that quickly repay its Ge cost. A New Principle Holley Hot Shot—scientific and efh- cient — is new in principle. A emall steel tube is run through the intake from the exhaust, (see ‘A’ in illustration). Thus sufficient heat is uniformly supplied to the mixture to vaporize it perfectly. Cold air in winter can be excluded, or more air in summer admitted by adjust- ing the damper (see ‘‘ B"’ in illustration). Installed in Thirty Minutes You can install the Holle yourself in half an hour. There are no extra parts to buy —no holes to drill — only a few nuts to tighten. No mechan- ical experience is necessary. Hot Shot Its simple and sound engineering prin- ciple essures a lifetime of trouble-free service. Once installed, Holley Hot Shot needs no more attention during the life of the car. Make 7% Gallons Do the Work of 10 By actual tests, the Ford car equipped with a Holley Hot Shot 1 over hills a 5 miles faster and usually saves 2!/, gallons out of one 10 put in the gas e tank. Moreover, the Holley Hot Shot by eliminating crankcase oil dilution, helps maintain perfect lubrication— and insures the full force of the explosion on the piston head. Ask your Holley dealer about the new Holley Hot Shot, or if you know nodealer | near you, mail this coupon and a Holley Hot Shot will be delivered at your door. Ask for free literature. Price $14.75 ($16.25 west of Rockies). HOLLEY HOT SHOT MAIL THIS TODAY Holley Carburetor Co. troit, Michigan ) for Holley Hot Money Order ( ) Shot for my Ford. Name Address City THE SATURDAY | (Continued from Page 74) Every city of Northern France that was ounded to a pulp by German guns has Goon so thoroughly rebuilt that it seems to | have suffered very little. | And out of the enormous expanse of territory that was churned into a welter of treeless, grassless, shrubless mud by artil- lery fire—an expanse that totaled well over | 8,000,000 acres—only a few stretches re- main in a sufficiently origina! state of ruin | to impress the untutored with the unutter- able horror of modern warfare. One of these stretches is the huge circle of hills that surrounds Verdun—hills that in 1914 were clothed with forests and dotted with villages, and studded at intervals with mighty fortresses for the defense of the “Heart of France.” When one swings around the crest of these hills he finds only churned earth and interlocking shell holes stretching off to the horizon. The trees have disappeared. The little villages have vanished. The massive forts are tumbled and shattered ruins of steel plates and blocks of reénforced concrete. It is a fearful and sickening monument to man’s heroism and determination. Five hundred thousand Frenchmen died in the defense of Verdun; and a greater number of Germans lost their lives in the attempt to capture it. It was known to the German soldiers as the Slaughterhouse of Germany. Having made the circle of the Verdun hills one straightens away to the west — and passes through town after town which has risen from complete ruin in the past five years. Bras, not long ago a leveled mass of crushed stone, glistens with new and unpicturesque cement buildings. It even has a new Café de la Paix. C arny, half a mile farther on, has been similarly rebuilt. So has Marre, a little farther on. Beyond Marre is Esnes, which was i> peatedly bombarded by the Germans and completely leveled. It has been rebuilt. The Sleeper and the Fighter The hills along this road, known only by their map numbers, formed natural for- tresses during the war, and were under constant bombardment. Hill 304 was here. At times it was under the fire of eighty German batteries, so that clouds of black, green and yellow smoke rose from its sum- mit to the height of 2500 feet. Not only have the farms been rebuilt along this road but the fields have been leveled; and the peasants harvested crops from them in 1923. In the lee of Hill 304 was the hamlet of Haucourt and the village of Malancourt, and both of them vanished utterly beneath the terrific bombardment. Today they are flourishing, with new and glaring buildings. It was against a French trench on the out- skirts of Malancourt, on February 26, 1915, that German troops used liquid fire for the first time. Outside of tons of baled barbed wire which litters the outskirts of Malan- court, there is little to remind the traveler of the cruel days of the war, for the crops are planted up to the very edge of the road on each side. Beyond Malancourt one climbs the hill to Montfaucon and the observatory where the ever-hopeful Crown Prince of Germany, late of Holland, spent a liberal slice of his life watching his troops go through the motions of capturing Verdun, but failing to put the trick across. A glance at the front of the observatory is proof that the Crown Prince didn’t have a permanent lease on the building; for a tablet over the front door notes the fact tha’ “‘ During the month of October, 1918, afters the capture of Montfaucon 4 the Americans, this building was used as head- quarters by the 3d Division.” Montfaucon is rising from her ruins and Varennes is full of new houses and Italians like all the other towns of the devastated regions. It has the added distinction of being the town where Louis XVI spent the night and was captured in his flight from the French Revolution. Even the blasting that Varennes received during the war has not shattered Varennes’ pride in Louis XVI; and it is regrettable but true that Louis XVI will always be more pleasantly rernembered for his few hours’ sleep there than will be even Gen. Hunter Liggett and his Ist Corps troops from Pennsylvania, Kansas and Missouri for kicking the Ger- mans out of Varennes on September 26, 1918. Such, unfortunately, is life. Beyond Varennes one plunges into the towering trees and deep ravines and dense | undergrowth of the Argonne, that terrible | and gloomy forest in which the French and EVENING POST the Germans tore at one another’s throats for four years, and from which the Ame. - icans and the French together drove the Germans in September and October, 1918. Even in the Argonne the villages are re- built—La Chalade, Le Four de Paris, La arazée, Vienne-le-Chateau, Vienne-la- Ville, and all the other towns and villages that one cannot visit unless he proposes to egy weeks in the Argonne alone. By the roadside are unexpected cemeteries— not only cemeteries in which French and Germans are buried together, the French aves marked with white crosses and the erman graves with black crosses, both tended with equal care by the French, but cemeteries of Czechoslovaks, cemeteries of Portuguese, cemeteries of Italians, ceme- teries of Chinese. Here, between Le Four de Paris and La Harazée, was Gruerie Wood, known to the French soldiers as Tuerie, or Slaughter, Wood. It was the scene of some of the bloodiest and most terrible fighting of the war. Nowhere, even in the deepest woods or the broadest plains of all Northern France, was there peace or quiet. Everywhere was strife and turmoil and destruction and death. One emerges from the Argonne into the broad, flat, sandy plains of Champagne, tufted here and » An with little clumps of scrub pine. This section, useful only for sheep grazing before the war, and known throughout Seanee as Champagne Pouil- leuse, or lousy Champagne, lies as it was left, with miles of front-line trenches, end- less acres of barbed-wire entanglements, interminable communication trenches, and thousands of ope in which the morbidly curious may still find the moldy garments, the rusted accouterments, the mildewed diaries and the countless small belongings of the men who lived in them. One reels off miles and miles across these plains. The town of Hurlus has disap- peared, blasted out of existence. The town of Suippes, shot to pieces not long ago, is entirely rebuilt—with Italian labor, like most of the others. Jonchery is rebuilt. St. Hilaire is rebuilt. Beyond the horizon on each side are other towns pitted with shells, but with new buildings standing in place of the gaps that the bombardments made. Eventually one passes a group of rusted tanks, bogged ion in the flat plain, and the ruins of Pompelle Fort, and descends from the plateaus to the rich and ancient city of Rheims—and that about marks the limits of one’s powers of ab- sorption for the second day. The Germans, unable to capture Rheims, peevishly kept the city under ruthless, useless and unintermittent bombardment frum September 4, 1914, until October 5, 1918. Today it looks rather seedy and ragged in spots, but one’s first reaction on looking over the city is that the Germans were poor marksmen. This again is due to the enormous amount of repair work and reconstruction accomplished by the French since 1918. The Destruction of Rheims The opening paragraph of Rheims’ cita- tion for the Cross of the Legion of Honor reads: “Martyred city, destroyed by an infuriated enemy, powerless to hold it. Sub- lime population who, like the municipal authorities—models of devotion to duty and despising ali danger—gave proof of magnificent courage by remaining more than three years under the constant menace of the enemy’s attacks, and by leaving their homes only when ordered to do so.” It is difficult for most people to realize, when they look at the rebuilt French cities and towns, that they were actually de- stroyed, just as it is almost. impossible for them to believe that level fields which are today bearing rich harvests were so torn, pitted and scarred by shell fire that no vegetation grew on them. None the less, oe were. hen the population of Rheims came back to the city after the Germans had re- treated on October 5, 1918, only about sixty of the city’s 14,000 houses could be lived in. Seven hundred houses were destroyed dur- ing the second week of April, 1918, when the Germans threw incendiary shells into the city. In one night in April, 1917,some 7500 shells fell in it; 2800 fell in another night; 2100 in another; 1200 in another, and so on. Rheims was a total mess. Today it is very neatly patched up—with the noteworthy exception of the cathedral, which is almost as much of a wreck as it was after the Germans finished dumping shells into and December 29, 19235 around it. Repairing and restoring Rheims Cathedral presents many more delicate paws than does the restoration of omes, hotels or sugar factories. Pushing on to the west on the third day, across the flat plains beyond Rheims, one encounters much the same sort of thing as on the preceding—Berry-au-Bac, with its temporary huts; Corbeny, with new houses foing up on every side, and all the workmen ard at it in spite of the day being Sunday; Craonne, also with its new houses; and the fields between them cultivated and rich with harvest. This, one ruminates as he gets out his map, may have been a quiet sector, so that the fields may have been un- disturbed. But a glance at the map shows that Craonne marks one end of the Chemin des Dames, and that the beginning of the Chemin des Dames lies on the hill above the town. A climb up this hill, difficult even in a year of peace, with cioudless skies overhead, is enough to dissipate the idea that any portion of this section could have escaped bombardment. The hill, of chalky soil, is twisted and tortured into miniature cafions and craters and ravines and spurs. No effort has been made to clear away the remains of war, so that fronds of barbed wire sprout from the ground like evil vines, and saw at the ankles. Live shells are scattered every- where over the hill, and unexploded Mills — and rusty bits of rifles. The bom- ardment here, and throughout the many miles of the Chemin des Dames, and on all the hill slopes and valleys and villages near it, was violent in the extreme. The fields and the forests and the farms were blasted to bits, but today many of the farms are flourishing. Shell-Choked Gardens Just below the welter of live shells and tortured chalk on the hill at Craonne a ink-faced peasant in a blue smock was yrooding over a little patch of earth, possi- bly a quarter of an acre in extent. This little plot was in process of being cleared of the barbed wire, which had been dragged to the edges of the field and piled there like great growths of blackberry vines. A part of the field had also been plowed and har- rowed and dragged, and the smooth surface of the soil was as full of dead shells and shell fragments as a raisin cake is of raisins. The peasant, whose name was Albert Bontems, obligingly pointed out the lay of the land. Sixty houses stood down there, he explained-—-down there where one sees nothing but three heaps of barbed wire. And there, and there, and there were sugar factories, seven of them; and when the Ger- mans came they took the machinery from the factories and sent it away to Germany. And down the road, where there is a patch of light-green grass, was a factory for con- serves. This land on the hill slope, explained M. Bontems, was the finest soil for vegetables and fruits in all France. Before the war the peasants of Craonne each day sent two wagonloads of vegetabies and fruit to Rheims. It is unrivaled land for the bean, the as- paragus, the pea—and so M. Bontems had come back to his land and cleared it. He ruminatingly plucked a pair of shells from the brown earth, inspected them superficially, and tossed them into a pile of barbed wire. ‘There are too many shells,”’ said M. Bontems. ‘The soil is too full for comfort, and with too great frequency they may be heard to zizz and to burst, which is difficult for the soil and for the cultivator as well. Only yesterday, over there’ —and M. Bontems waved his hand at the plot of land on the opposite side of the road— “only yesterday, over there, a very great one was heard to zizz, and those who were clearing the land fortunately heard and de- parted hastily, and almost immediately that great smoke box burst—an offensive thing! It would have been a serious matter indeed if it had popped off beneath a bed of asparagus.” “Tenacious” is scarcely the word for the spirit of M. Bontems and his compatriots. “Yes,” said he, “‘there is danger, and for many years these great things will be ex- ploding; but the land is very fine and very rich, so what would you? We must love our land in order to do it, yes?” One continues across the plains through Ouchy, Jumigny, Oeuilly, Vailly, Jouy- all shot to pieces five years ago, and all on the road to restoration—through the pul- verized ruins of Laffaux and into Soissons, which was occupied by the Germans in 1914

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and cleared by the French in the same year, bombarded by the Germans without cause until 1917, reoceupied by the Germans at the end of May, 1918, and systematically pillaged and destroyed by the Germans for the next three months. The city was an almost total wreck, like many other French cities. Today it is so well rebuilt that an American who passed through it with me remarked carelessly, “This place ap- parently didn’t suffer very much.” It suf- fered about as little as a city might suffer if it were well shaken by an earthquake for three or four days; but a great many people who didn’t fight in the war frequently refuse to believe the evidence of their own eyes. From Soissons one continues onward through Coucy-le-Chateau, with its beauti- ful medieval castle, which the Germans messed up severely; through Chauny, where the new houses change suddenly from stone, covered with cement, to brick, and where an enormous new factory of the Société St. Gobain has risen. The Société St. Gobain is a trust which makes almost everything under the sun; and its Chauny factory looks large enough to manufacture a complete supply of anything for the entire world. Chauny is built up, and so are Harn and Peronne and Bapaume_ beyond scenes of the defeat of the Fifth British Army, and of years of heroic struggles on the part of the French, British, Canadians and Australians. Not long ago 5000 wagon- ioads of unexploded shells were removed from Bapaume. Beyond Bapaume lies Arras; and the trip from Rheims to Arras is as much as any sightseer ought to tackle in a day. Scars of War Fast Healing The journey across the devastated re- gions from Arras to the coast of the English Channel or to the Belgian border is suffi- cient to occupy the fourth day of steady travel. The Germans occupied Arras from Sep- tember 6 to 9, 1914; and three weeks later they began a bombardment which lasted continuously for thirty-one months. Eighty- five per cent of the town was entirely destroyed; and it is probable that if some deserving person were to be offered a dollar for locating houses in Arvas that hadn't been scarred by shell fire he would remain penniless forever. Even now, in Arras, there are signs reading ‘“‘ Don’t touch pro- jectiles! Danger of death!’’ Yet to the casual passer through, Arras seems to be ina healthy state of repair. More than 55 per cent of her ruined dwellings have been THE SATURDAY rebuilt or restored; and by the end of an- other year the number of rebuilt and re- stored houses will probably be close to 75 per cent. The fields around Arras, in spite of the fearful shelling through which they passed, are leveled and fertile. Repeatedly one sees the gray top of a German block house or pill box emerging from a field of wheat; but other scars of the war are infrequent. And so, slipping along the roads which have lost the shell holes, the barbed wire and the trenches of five years ago, one passes into the plains of Artois and the country that was mentioned at the begin- ning of this narrative—La Targette, Sou- chez, Ablain-St.-Nazaire, Notre Dame de Lorette and Lens. Beyond Lens is Lille; and when one has ridden half an hour out of Lille on the road to Ypres he reaches the Belgian border and has vaguely and sketchily seen the devastated region of Northern France. There has been, of course, a great deal of graft in the devastated regions, a great deal of money claiming under false pretenses. This is not surprising when one considers that over half a million buildings have been restored or rebuilt, that over 20,000 facto- ries have been reconstructed, and that over 4,000,000 people have been restored to the houses from which they were driven. The graft is due to human nature, which always takes everything that it can get from a government, and to the variation in ex- change, which has done peculiar things to the cost of restoring a house. Inhabitants of the devastated regions file their claims with the Ministére du Blocus et des Régions Libérées, which has representatives in each department af- fected by the war. A man whose house was valued at, let us say, 5000 francs at the time of mobilization, files his claim with the ministry, which, after examining the claim, multiplies it by a certain coefficient which depends on the cost of labor, the cost of material and the fluctuation of the French franc. The coefficient today, for example, might be five; so that a Frenchman who filec claim for 5000 francs would receive— pro- vided his claim was allowed—five times 5000 frane S. It has frequently happened that inhabi- tants of the devastated regions whose property, before the war, was worth very little, have filed claims for much larger amounts. These are frequently allowed sometimes because of carelessness on the part of investigators and sometimes because of corrupt officials. When this happens the EVENING POST applicant receives his falsified claim multi- plied several times, and is able to erect a building very much larger and finer than the one he had before. Dishonest contractors have furnished poor materials and so made great profits out of reconstruction work, and have also enriched themselves by getting laborers to do at a low figure the jobs for which the government pays much larger sums—by paying workmen to clear ground at five francs a cubic meter, for example, and collecting twenty-five francs a cubic meter and even more from the government. The French Government, in order that it may start collecting taxes at the earliest possible moment, and in order that work may be provided for the inhabitants of the devastated regions, has allowed claims for the rebuilding of factories to take prece- dence over claims on private residences. This has led to the frequent charge that the government ignores the small claim and allows the large claim. This is true to a certain extent, but is merely an additional bit of proof of a state of affairs —unfor- tunate, perhaps, but unavoidable. Speculators and Profiteers Because of the fact that the individual small claimant has frequently been bashful or too lazy to press his “aim, codperative societies have been formed all over the devastated regions for the purpose of lumping claims and having one represen- tative, one banker, one architect and some- times one contractor take charge of the whole affair. This has helped to do away with the adventurer who buys up indi- vidual claims for small cash sums and then makes 500 to 1000 per cent by waiting for the government tu pey him. There is such determined resistance against permitting Germany to pay France in kind for the damages to the devastated regions—to pay, that is, in labor, wood, cement, bricks, and so on, instead of in money-——that many well-informed people in France declare that France will never allow Germany to pay in anything but cash Most of this resistance comes directly from or is inspired by the grafters of the devas- tated regions, who can make their profits only out of hard cash. All this is a necessary part of the turmoil which arises when any government mixes in business. No matter how holy or how full of ideals a war may be, the political grafters always grow rich out of it. This is true in America, in England, in Germany and in — countries; so one cannot expect France to eclipse the world in these matters. Ls is 4 oe COPYRIGHT BY AGAMEL CURTIS, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON TERRE Mt. Rainier, Washington, From Pinnacle Per’ too | Style LMaso Little Men's Brown Russia Biucher Lace Shoe The Hanover Shoe is worn b generat equal pri faction. we have succeeded in maintaining excep- tional standards in quality workmanship and style design —at prices everyone afiord. we have FIVE DOLLARS In Hanover Stores In 62 This is possible because we are the only shoe- makers in sell exclusively through our own stores. We will fit you from Hanover — if there Store nea catalog. THE HANOVER SHOE, Exclusively for Men and Bovs Rough and tumb —requires the Hanover Shoes are a Select Le gether f y \ a”), hi stoutest kind of shoes o8 BP ether 4 ” Style Patent Le _ Oxford y succeeding ions with ide and satis- For 23 years can That’s why grown. Cities America who is no Uanover r you. Write for Hanover, Pa. le piay for Boys and Little Men sade to stand the gatt ed leathers, well put to. $2.50, $3, $3.50 (ae i \ -———

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When Edgar} Wanted Cash AUL EDGAR of Arkansas wanted togotocollege. When June a year ago came along he hadn't saved the necessary cash, so he wrote to us. In July we paid him over $106.00. In September he entered college. ‘Allmy orders are big when I can find the time,” said Mr. Edgar; “I have made about $10.00 in one day.” Now, literally scores of our workers find it easily possible to earn up to $1.50 an hour—any hour in the day that they can spare—simply by sending us new and renewal subscriptions for The Saturday Evening Post, The Ladies’ Home Journal and The Country Gentleman. If you want more money, write us for authority to forward the orders from your locality. All it costs is the stamp for mailing your letter. Previous experience is not necessary to succeed. And profits begin at once. He Sent A Coupon Like This «Clip and Mail. ---5 The Curtis Publishing Company | 660 Independence Square Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Gentlemen: I'd like some extra cash too, Please tell me, but without obliga- tion, all about your offer. Name Street | agoras repli | duty has decreed otherwise. A doctor's | the persen of | wittily across the breakfast table! | only a little while. THE SATURDAY EVENING POST December 29,1925 SKOOKUM CHUCK “We shall see,” said Anaxagoras. ‘‘My treat- ments may not be quite at anend. But before they come to an end, allow me to express the personal pleasure I have had in our association. I shall miss ou. Marshall looked a little blank at this. “The steamships from here to Vancouver are very comfortable,” went on the other, ‘and I am sure you will enjoy the trip.” Marshall Sie still more blank. Some- | how it had not occurred to him that the cruise would be terminated so abruptly. He had thought he would be returned on the Kittiwake to Vancouver; and Van- couver was distant. He ventured to express some such thought. “I had hoped for the privilege,”’ Anax- to this, “but my professional pleasure is always subject to his duty. In “Mt Norcote I see not —_ a most interesting opportunity for stud q but an obligation to save a very fine min He must now take your place here.” Marshall’s whole being was filled with a blank dismay. The whole thing was too abrupt. It seemed to him that there were dozens of things he had intended to do, and had put off lazily because he had lots of time. What they were he could not for the moment recall; but he hadn't done them! And all of a sudden, no more waking to scalloped dancing sunlight on the ceilin over his head, or towering peak, or placi ai sea! No more scream of gull and splash of leaping fish! No more Noah jumping with a prrt! on his chest at the first sign of his awakening! No more quiz- zical ¥ Anaxagoras commenting aryly and o more Betsy Marshall's heart turned a complete som- ersault at that, and his thoughts stopped squarely as though they had run against a wall. It was impossible; that’s all there wastoit! Hang Norcote! Then he met the eye of X. Anaxagoras watching him intently. It had to be Zone, he concluded reluctantly. But it would be He'd get himself a yacht and cruise 1n convoy. *Norcote’s case will prove most inter- esting,’’ X. Anaxagoras spoke at this point. “I think I can safely prognosticate a cure. But it will require a complete solitude. Except for my sister or myself, no human being shall I permit him to lay eyes on if I can avoid it.” Smash went the convoy idea! How did the man contrive always to speak so apro- pos? But the moment they returned, the moment they arrived at Vancouver Marshall realized all of a sudden and very vividly one of the neglected things. He set his teeth grimly on a resolution to speak to her about it before that day was over. The thonght of delay was intolerable. How could he endure the time unless his sus- a could be relieved? For though he had come burningly certain of his own feel- ings in the matter, he was suddenly assailed with a = doubt as to hers. How did she look on him, anyway? As he would have her, or as a moderately interesting pa- tient of her brother’s? Eine Woreste. Damn Norcote! “I regret,” Anaxagoras was saying, “that it is improbable that my sister will return before the departure of your steamer. Doctor Matthews, I fear, will detain them for tea in order to study this case. I shall convey your adieus for you.” What was this? Marshall stared. ‘*My steamer?” he repeated. “She is now rounding the point of Cor- morant Island. She will sail from here in about half an hour. That will give you sufficient but not excessive time to e your belongings. I am sorry matters have culminated in such haste.’ “But I cannot run off like this!"’ cried Marshall, aghast. “‘I’ll wait ever until the next steamer. If you cannot keep me aboard, I’m sure I can find some place ashore to stay.” For answer X. Anaxagoras picked up the agreement. “This document is still in force,” he said with an air of authority that seemed to (Continued from Page 21) shut off argument. “By its terms you have agreed, on your word of honor, to do unquestioningly what I command you to do, whether you agree with its advisability or not. I order you to take this steamer.” Marshall swallowed hard. “Very well,” he said coldly, “if you in- sist. You leave me no alternative. I think I can guess at your motive. I had thought myself personally in your good graces; and can myself discern neither in my conduct, my condition in life, nor my personal char- acter anything that should cause you to intervene in what is, after all, only indi- rectly your affair. If your sister is not of age she soon will be; and I warn you, sir, I shall take the first opportunity of permit- ting her to make her own choice of conduct.” or a single instant the grave profes- sional aspect of the Healer of Souls was crossed by a gleam. “That, of course, is your privilege,” he replied. “‘I may say that I will interpose no difficulties other than those inseparable from the situation. They seem to me sufficient.” “What do you mean by that?” de- manded Marshall, struck by something significant in the tone of the last statement. “T will detail them. The name of Anax- agoras is a pseudonym.” “That,’’ said Marshall dryly, ‘I had Teens Proper inquiry will penetrate the Tt doubt it.” “‘T suppose your residence is taxed under that name,”’ Marshall pointed out. “T have no residence. The house in which we made our acquaintance was rented under my pseudonym—for one week. It was an experiment-—-and is now vacant.” “The Kittiwake is undoubtedly a regis- tered yacht.” “But not under that name. She is illegally, I admit, but only for the time being — herself under a pseudonym. “These things may be so’’— Marshall thrust them aside in ec ld anger—‘“‘but there are other methods. Rest assured, sir, that I will find them. I must confess that I cannot understand the reason for your sud- den disapproval of myself. But I suppose that it is not essential that I understand. May I ask you one question: Is your sister as Poy all this anonymity?” y sister has long since given over all attempt to understand the rationale of my surprising ways.” “Will you give her a letter from me?” “T will not.” Marshall flared up. ‘I’m not going to be bullied in this fash- ion! I am a free agent, and my affairs are my own! I insist on seeing your sister, and I shall not leave this place until I do so!” X. Anaxagoras was unruffled. “You fought in the war, Mr. Marshall. Though an American, you joined our troops, and it was for the duration. You must, therefore, have done so from a deep conviction.” He laid his hand on the docu- ment between them. “Do you consider this nt also a scrap of paper?” Marshall answered nates. but sullenly to throw his things together. axagoras continued to sit behind the table, inscrutable. “I'm Sorry About Nor+ j . cote; But / y That's Duty"’ “I shall take the eat,”” Marshall stated shortly, after a long silence. His bags packed, he produced his check book, wrote out a check and laid it on the table. “I think the amount is correct,” he said briefly. “It is for eleven thousand five hundred and forty-eight dollars and sixty- five cents, which covers your memorandum of expenses plus your fee. No receipt is necessary; the canceled check will be sufficient.’ The steamer’s whistle was heard. He carried his bags up the float ladder to the wharf. X. Anaxagoras did not move. Marshall returned and got Noah. He did not look toward the Healer of Souls. As he was about to ascend the companionway, X. Anaxagoras spoke. Marshall turned. The professional manner of the Healer of Souls had vanished. He was smiling. “Wait a minute, Jerry,”’ said he. “‘Now I’m going to leave this thing to your sense of fairness. You seem to me to have quite a few future interests. You are going to identify the Kittiwake; you're going to try to find out who X. Anaxagoras is; you are going to try to discover where they both are. That’s going to keep you busy for quite a little while. “Nor is that quite all. After you've done that, you have a begun. You know my sister quite well by now, but there appear to be one or two things you still want to find out about her. And when “thes found them out, unless I mistake er greatly, life will not be entirely devoid of interest. I think I am conservative in saying that my sister might be an engross- ing profession in herself.” He picked up the agreement, and laid it down again. “T have just oe my last treatment under this,” said he. “It has been effec- tive. Whether you are willing to acknowl- edge it in words or not is immaterial. Your conduct in the past half hour has spoken louder than words. If there is anything in- different about you now, then Noah is a Chinaman.” “You mean—you mean ” stam- mered Marshall, unable to about-face quite so fast. “I’m sorry about Norcote; but that’s duty. But unpack your bags. Stay over if you like; there’s a steamer every day. God bless you, ! I’d be tickled to death!” He picked up the check and eyed it thoughtfully. “Now be honest about this. it? Is this made out right?” Marshall! tore it to pieces. “Well, I tried to pay ten thousand dollars to be a liar,”’ said he. “Don’t you suppose I know that?”’ asked X. Anaxagoras. Editor's Note—This is the last of a series of stories by Mr. White. How about

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THE DEAD END (Continued It was a task of judgment and precisio:.. The old man fetched water from the sprinz, and flowed it over the great biue stone, watching, fascinated, as the beautiful grain pres ge « itself. After deer, study he struck a chalk line, turning to the sightless windows with so rapt a look over the nice problem he was weighing that Jason’s gaze involuntarily followed his, as if he expected to see the ghost of some old Seymour com- muning with his ancient companion. The old man began to chip the stone with tiny drills, “This here corner, Jason,” he said “there ain’t a flaw i in it.” He looked kee nly at the youth. “Now I’m going to show you something they didn’t learn you ai college!” He was drilling holes two inches apart along the chalk line. It was a slow process, an example of that archaic patience that had built these stone walls, cleared these meadows and pastures, so much labor gone to seed. The shadows shortened into noon; thick heat came down and left them gasping under the July sky. When Jason would have helped with the drilling gran’ther waved him aside. A fence post, yes; but his head- stone, no! It was a lost art—or at least an art that would cease and determine with him, the old man’s manner seemed to im- ply. Jason balanced his hat over his eyes and stretched out under the oid apple tree, listening to the ceaseless strumming of the July day. He eyed the vacant windows through convenient holes in his headgear. He lazily traced out the lost path to the spring; ‘he had a vision of an ancient vel- vety lane with its hundred cattle straggling up’ to the bars. He watched gran’ther, who, now the drilling was done, put steel wedges in the holes, cocking an ear as he tapped them gently with a little hammer. He was tun- ing them. This done to his satisfaction he lighted his pipe again and visited with him- self, holding one ragged knee in his bony hands. A long time later he tapped the wedges again. Then he took a walk, hands clasped behind like a leisurely church warden stepping pious among revered relics. Again and again he returned to the stone, listening, rapt. Finally it whispered to him the message he so patiently had awaited. It was something like the sound of a mouse scratching under the floor. Gran’ther’s eyes glistened in triumph. Under his breath he summoned Jason. A tiny hair line was creeping stealthily from drill hole to drill hole. As they watched, spellbound, the stepstone suddenly gave upits struggle and parted, one half—which was to weight gran’ther down in eternity—turning lazily over and showing a fracture cleaved four- square. “They didn’t learn you that in college, I expect!’’ said the old man complacently. Jason was fain to admire. The rest was con.mon mechanics. While gran’ther draped a loop of the log chain over one corner of his stone, and set the crowbar—fed with a nice amount of bait at the other, Jason snubbed the tackle blocks to an old stump, and hooked the falls to the oxbow, the stags now being summoned back to toil. At a word and a crack of the whip, the stags put their shoul- ders against the creaking bows; and the severed headstone moved with slow dignity upon the stone boat. Dusk was setiling in the vale of evening when they deposited the raw stone on blocks by the populous Sey- mour plot in the drear Ged’s acre of Beech Plain. On the morrow gran’ther would come with gads and chisels to carve in homely script a fitting epitaph. It is good to carve one’s own ave, to sleep among one’s own people, and under so beloved a stone! Jason plodded on home. He mooned over the milking. Those tracks were not deer tracks; it was the absence of all deer signs that was significant. That spring, it must have been cleaned out about six weeks ago; the fresh crop of cress would prove that; a crop that had been fed on by some- one—not deer or cattle, because they don’t eat cress. Who had chopped wood and been so careful to pick up every chip? That piece of hemlock bark hiding in the grass showed the slice cf a sharp ax. Ana the kitchen window closed with a whole sash, in place of the empty one Jasou had thrown stones at, as a boy. Gran’ther had done a heap of walking around —it was all as plain as print—the old man must have seen. vom Page 132) Jason moved, the village, still 1acening, where from his accustomed THE SATURDAY EVENING POST down to | perch on the post-office porch he listened | with flattering solemnity to the tall talk of | this latest party of surveyors who were to tenant the village with eels anc other deep- | swimming fishes. Now and then when a | pause seemed to call for a demonstration, Jason would interject an astonishment mark or a query. When he spoke it was in the patois and with the nasal drawl of his native hills, not in the precise English of his mother’s supper table or his senior thesis. About nine, at the approach of a familiar wheel creak, he got down. Orlo Sage, the constable and factotum of law, drove by, in the dark, and Jason hopped a ride, settling himself luxuriously beside Orlo on the bags of feed draped as cushions over the wagon bolster. The journey home was pursued in onqgnenins silence. When Jason got down at his gate Orlo drew rein vand said, ‘‘Them fellows ain’t surveyors.’ Jason yawned, and said nothing. “They're looking for something,’ tered Orlo. The two friends chewed in silence for a full minute over this portentous utterance; then Orlo clucked to his team and moved off, creaking. Jason’s dog came down to the gate and was sent back, disconsolate. The ledge that buttressed the high plain loomed immense, invulnerable, in the dark. But there was a path, a jadderlike scramble known only to the foxes in desperate flight, to Jason's hound dog Nip, and to Jason himself. From the top of the ledge he could come on the Seymour place by way of the old lane. It would be an outsider, of course. Only one wholly ignorant of the local signs and omens would pick the oid place as a refuge. Solitude is to be found only among the multitude; not up here where there was treachery in every bent twig, every broken leaf. Telltale signs were everywhere. No; it was none of the village people or their kind; a fugitive from somewhere outside, stum- bling blindly into this dead end; some poor wight deluded into a sense of security had picked the likeliest spot on earth, to stand discovered in the blinding light of rustic curiosity. Wet to the skin with the heavy dew that dripped from the matted grass of the lane, Jason edged forward slowly and painfully. These surveyors——who were not surveying! It was a clever ruse for spying. No ques- tions would be asked. A surveyor, to the rustic mind, is a mysterious animal at best. Jason had seen that something was wrong, from the beginning. Their talk on the porch, evenings, didn’t hold water; neither would the weird bench lines they were drawing out on the hillsides. The better part of De Groot’s crew didn’t know a rod from a link, a chain from a transit. After- noons, from the thicket on his side of the valley, the young technologist had studied them through field glasses. For the most part the men idled in the shade of the woods; now and then, through their powerful tele- scopes, they would sweep the valley, with cross hairs pausing, fixed on road, meadow or summit. At first Jason had thought the Stone House was under scrutiny —but what would there be in the comings and goings of Aunt Ivy to occupy the attentions of such an out- fit? Now that the Seymour place had come into the picture, events began to dovetail. With the trail hot, he almost wished he had brought Orlo Sage along. He was worming his way along the wall of the woodhouse when the unmistakable tones of Aunt Ivy Cotton broke on his ear from the pitch dark of the old kitchen. She was crooning in soft accents, “‘It seems to me you might tell your own mother.” Jason held his breath to still his thump- ing heart, which threatened to burst, his ribs. After an interminable pause Aunt Ivy continued coaxingly: ‘‘ There isn’t anything you have ever done that you couldn’t tell your mother.” There was a pitiful yearning in her voice, all the more poignant coming out of the inscrutable night. A board creaked; there was a sudden scurry of rats; a startled movement of alarm in the kitchen was suc- ceeded by smothering silence. “Whoisthat? Whoisthere?” dem mut- anded Aunt Ivy sharply. 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She fronted the unknown danger, brave as a lion. ‘Come out of that!" she cried, her voice tense. ‘‘ You skulking rascal!” Not even an echo answered her. lay still as death. “T’ll come and fetch you!” said the de- termined old woman. She struck a match and lit a candle, Jason | which she held high over her head, moving it hither and yon and shading her eyes as she searched the obscurity. The candle shed a vague circle of light as yellow as a sun dog; its feeble beams seemed only to make the night more black. But she was advancing. In another moment she must stumble over him. Jason shamefacedly arose, and revealed himself. “It’s me—Jason, Aunt Ivy,” he mum- bled. He had a swift impression of her deadly white face and big startled eyes. ““You ain’t see or heard my belled heifer have you, Aunt Ivy?” he asked, hang-dog. “She broke through the fence. I heared something over here, so I come to see.” Jason's lie trailed off into miserable si- lence under her piercing gaze. Some night murmur caused her to turn her head, to his infinite relief. When she looked at him again Jason had his ready smile. She beck- oned him into the kitchen, and when he aused inside she held the candle to light is eyes in their tour of inspection. As he had feared, the room was empty. He would almost have wished to find anybody, any- thing here, rather than this eerie empti- ness. There was some food set out on a board on the sink, and a milking stool stood empty at the feast. Jason would have put -- arm about her, but she gently deterred im. “You know him, don’t you, Jason?” she begged eagerly; she shot a keen look at him. ‘He hasn’t changed at all!” Aunt Ivy waved a hand towards her phantom son, smiling her wistful smile. ‘It’s Jason, Leander,” she said, addressing the invisible guest. ‘‘Don’t you remember Jason? The chubby little fellow—-why, he used to carry your bats for you! What?” Aunt Ivy cupped a hand to one ear, listening to a yhantom voice. ‘‘Now, now! You mustn’t ret!’’ she said quickly. Over her shoulder she gave Jason a knowing nod. “He's timid,” she whispered to Jason. Then draw- ing Jason gently to the dilapidated entry- way she said softly, ‘You go out! Wait for me by the gate! I'll be along directly.” Stunned, Jason took up his wait by the gate. This, then, was the end of the search finding her lost Leander, beyond the border line! Through all these years cheated in her faith, now at last a God- iven delusion had come to comfort her! dere was the human taint — Aunt Ivy pre- paring the hearth for her beloved ghost. It | was minutes later that she crept up on Ja- son in the dark, her groping hands finding him before, in his preoccupation, he heard her steps. It gave him a shock; his nerves were on edge. “IT can’t make him eat,’’ Aunt Ivy said sadly. “I fetched him some goodies to- night too. It worries him to have folks about.” These two, who could see in the dark, so well did they know the ways that marked the plain, moved on in silence. Aunt Ivy clung to Jason’s arm. There was not an- other word of the phantom. But when a hello came suddenly out of the near night she cowered against him. It was gran'ther, his stalwart tones ma- terializing from nowhere. “Hello! Jason! Hello! Hello!” Aunt Ivy’s sinewy grip on Jason’s arm relaxed; she pushed him from her, and he | understood he was to go on alone. “Hello!” voiced Jason to the night, striding forward. “She's in with Orlo’s cattle, Jason!” gasped the dissociated voice. He meant the lost heifer! There was art here, Jason had to admire, even as the un- welcome truth flashed over him that the wily old man had seen everything, heard all. Gran’ther came floundering out of the thicket. ““Where’s your lantern?’’ demanded he | querulously. “It went out,”’ responded Jason, taking | the cue. They moved on without a word. “Won't you come in and visit?"’ invited | gran’ther at his own gate. This was epochal; old Noah was never known to have company. They sat in the EVENING POST dark, for gran’ther never struck a light till he went to bed; then the lamp burned all night. They discussed their cattle, the hay weather, the new highway coming down the valley; but no syllable gave reference to the scene they had just shared up above. At length, during a protracted yawning pause, gran’ther lit a match and methodi- cally scraped the wick of his oil lamp be- fore lighting it. He motioned to Jason to go out; and when he had set the lamp that was to stand guard at the bedside the old man joined him. All along Jason had known that they were to go back together; but as gran’ther beckoned him he felt the gooseflesh creep. There were still some formalities to be gone through to satisfy Noah. His own extrava- gance in leaving his lamp burning over his empty bed was to advertise to the world at large that he had retired. Jason must do likewise. Jason must climb to his own attic and leave a lighted lamp for ten min- utes in his window; then he must blow it out and quietly creep out again. Thus with- out prejudice to their adventure they paid homage, each to his habit, for the benefit of anyone who might be overcurious. am HE low-hanging clouds lifted for a mo- ment and disclosed the kitchen L in the milky obscurity of the moon. A shadow detached itself frora the indefinite doorway and, like some tarrying ghost surprised by a cockcrow and making haste slowly, grad- ually dissolved itself into the deeper ob- scurity of the interior. The light was tricky. A second shadow, as if from a wind-tossed branch of a tree, moved across the rusty old clapboards in the fantastic outlines of a huge gorilla, swinging with long flail-like arms from window pe Me to window ledge, and to door frame. Cloud wreaths torn a“ upper currents of wind scurried across the misty face of the moon; then suddenly the moon was goné, and in the place of the eerie half light there was the impenetrable black. On the instant the dazzling circle of an electric torch appeared full-blown on the wall of the interior. Framed in its light, livid, was the face of a human being—a man caught in a sudden movement of alarm. He had turned his head to look back over his shoulder. An unlit cigarette hung loosely from his lip. The flash held him as rigid as if there were a hidden dagger in its beam that pinned him to the wall. In its revealing glare the imprint of a horse’s hoof burned red on his forehead. “Hold it! Hold it!” drawled an easy voice from the doorway. There was a low chuckle, then a self-satisfied “Aha!” and the lazy tones said: “‘Jocko, my boy, I al- ae knew that horseshoe would bring you luck!” The eyes of the other shifted furtively, then held firm again. The hands were clasped before him, not in prayer but around a match he had beer: about to strike when the flashlight uncovered his image. “Not so ghostly,” chuckled the man with the torch. ‘I always wondered where you got your cunning. I know now! That mother of yours could deceive the Al- mighty!” t was De Groot. He came on softly, one hand aiming the torch, the other swing- ing at his knee, with something in it. “We could use herin our business, Jocko,’ he was saying in a conversational tone. “It’s a crime to let native talent like that gotoseed. It'’sagift. She strung me for a week, But tonight—well, here lam. And you don’t seem a bit glad tosee me, Jocko!” Now he was standing over Leander Cot- ton, gently adjuring him to “ Hold it! Hold it!’ meaning the unlit match in that atti- tude of prayer, the while his skilled hands patted Leander for hidden weapons. The search evidently bore fruit, from his low whistle of mock surprise. The circle of light that had danced through the brief scene now took its abrupt departure. De Groot reached out in the dark, hooked up the milking stool on the end of a toe, and drew it over to sit on. As he sank down on it he was playing with a knife, which he jabbed methodically into the floor. “T suspect Aunt Ivy’s told you all about me,”’ mused the suave De Groot. “And at that,” he added in a comic dside, ‘she seems to take to me. I honestly believe if I had a clear field I could adopt her—like I did Mother McNab in Nevada City!” The darkness was sepulchral. De Groot might have been alone soliloquizing. “She thinks you are a good boy!” he rambled on. ‘‘She’s expecting you home almost any time now. By the front door, December 29,1925 of course.” He chuckled. ‘It would have been a crime to disturb the dear old lady. I didn’t tell her, for instance, that there are a couple of yellow-bellics hiding out down below the village, awaiting a word from me to come in and call on you. I might have told her that they were the brothers of your departed native wife, laboring under a de- lusion, like herself, that you were bound to show up here almost any time now. Jocko, if you will cry over your little white home in the hills and your sainted mother every time you take a drink, you can’t blame us for following you in!” There was a long pause, during which De Groot played a tattoo on the maple floor with the point of his knife, and whistled softly some dolorous air. “So you brought Mike and Pedro with you,” said Leander quietly. “No. Not so bad as that,’’ De Groot re- plied airily. “I saw them headed this way and I decided their instinct was better than my reason. So I trailed along. I thought I'd hang around and see the fun.”” The rogue laughed harshly. “I had my own little account to settle. If they would be good enough to settle it for me it would save me the trouble of soiling my hands.” Softly, without heat or emotion, Leander Cotton delivered a flow of vile invective. “I didn’t kill her, Charlie,’ he said blandly. “I don’t know why. But I didn’t. She just up and died—conveniently.” “Well,” drawled De Groot, ‘ Mike and Pedro seem to have a divine revelation to the contrary. Anyway, it’s too late to change the minds of your beloved brothers- in-law now. They have taken oaths on their machetes. You know how it is with that breed. The romance of life doesn’t be- gin until something turns up that calls for revenge. I never went into their psychol- ogy, but I wouldn’t be surprised, Jocko, if deep down in their hearts they are actually grateful to you.” “We seem to be having a nice quiet chat,” said Leander dryly. “Oh, yes; why should we quarrel now?” “You've thrown in with the yellow men against the whites—as usual?” “Well, I had.” De Groot drove the knife into the floor savagely. ‘‘Up to nine o'clock tonight I was standing by, waiting for nature to take its own course.” The heavy breathing of the two men was the sole indication of the tension in the dark. “Then who should come in on the late stage,” muttered De Groot, “but our old friends, Meeks and Devore!” “The dicks!” A guttural curse escaped Leander. “The dicks. Man may die—but the dicks go on forever!” There was a long pause. “That alters the situation a little, doesn’t it, Charlie?” There was a note, almost of jubilation, in Leander’s tone. “I ought to cut your throat here in the dark!” De Groot stabbed again viciously at the floor. Leander laughed softly. “You haven’t the nerve. That’s a job you always hire for, Charlie!”’ he sneered. Heavy silence settled down again. “One thing is sure, Charlie—if I go back to Guatemala City, you go with me. And you'll sit there, board and found, until even the rats and fleas lose their appetite for you,” De Groot rose suddenly, as if goaded to desperation. “Tf they had held off for another twenty- four hours ——-”’ he snarled. He broke off suddenly. ‘“‘ Now I’ve got to take you with me,” he muttered. “If that old witch hadn't played me for such a fool your hide would be drying in the sun now.” “Yes, Charlie, you’ve got to take me with you,” said Leander. He rose, yawn- ing and laughing. He threw an arm care- lessly about De Groot’s shoulders. ‘I’m your little mascot now, eh, Charlie? We're rats in the same trap, Charlie!” De Groot broke away from him. “We're not through yet!” he cried. “You damned squealer! Yes, I’ve got to take you with me.” He turned away abruptly to the door. “The car is in the schoolhouse barn. I’ll wait for you below the mill.” “No, you don’t!”’ cried Leander. “We go together!” “Stand off! I’ve got the artillery,” cried De Groot menacingly. Leander laughed easily. “You don’t know the hill roads,” he grunted. ‘‘Without me they would have you before sunup!”

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De Groot seemed to hang fire over the decision for a moment. Then the pair crept off together in the dark. iv RLO SAGE orened his eyes like an animal, and lay listening in the dark. He was trying to determine what had roused him from sleep, when there broke on the stillness of the dawn two quick shots. He sprang out of bed, listening. Through five seconds there was silence; then, two more shots, slow and deliberate. He sprang to the window, thrust out his head. Every- thing was quiet. Up on the Mountain, high behind the Stone House, the dawn had shot its first phosphorescent streamers. He got into his clothes, every movement so stealthy his keen attention was not dis- turbed by the slightest rustle. He slipped out through the open window and moved down the road. His body was bent forward, every sense was alert. He started and held his breath at what seemed the squeak of an animal. He stood rooted in his tracks, his ear bent, waiting. Then it came—the telltale sound he ex- pected. It was a hollow rumble. Every minute of the waking day, if one stopped to listen for it here in the valley, one’s ears could catch that dull rumble like distant thunder. Now in the night before dawn it was vital. It was an automobile rolling over the loose planks of the sawmill bridge. He waited for the flutter of the motor, but there was not a sound. The constable put twoand twotogether. Everything must have been in readiness. The car had waited on the incline. They could start it with a gentle push downhill, move off without a sound. Whose car was it? That puzzled him. None of the cars that belonged in the val- ley, nor either of the two the surveyors used. He could have identified them with his keen ears a mile off by the beat of their motors. Motionless, he continued to listen. A second rumbling sound of thunder should have come from the passage of the red bridge below. There was none. It was a plain trail to the still-hunter. The car had not gone on down the main road that led out of the valley to the south. There was only one possible turn. Up Beech Plain Hilt! He dashed madly back to the house. He seized the telephone receiver and pumped it patiently. Finally he got a re- sponse out of the dead of night. “Thirteen, sister! Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring it! Sit on it! It’s murder! Keep at it! I hold tue wire!” The town constable arranged himself comfortably, and now without irritation waited, a smile on his face. There might be a dead man lying out there in the dawn, not a hundred yards from the house. Undoubt- ediy. There was a grim finality about those last two shots, as if they had been put in, not because they were needed but for some ironic good measure. Some blundering fool was priding himself on the neatness of his plan, and he had taken the one road in the neighborhood where escape was utterly impossible. The Beech Plain road was a one-horse driving track. It led towards Tyringham, where it encountered the state highway. There were no turn-offs for five miles, eee here and there a log road that no automobile made could negotiate. If he was a judge- -and he was a good one— that car was a heavy one-——an engine that ran like silk— probably a long body that wanted all outdoors to turn in—it would go far in the bogs of a wood road! Whatever it was, it was weaving a trail behind as plain as a hangman’s rope. Occasionally Orlo would speak to the night operator and hearten her. Stephen Whitman lived in the only house on the plain that boasted a telephone. Whitman had cut his own poles and strung his own wire for the boom, a fact on which the com- placent Orlo now mused with satisfaction. Suddenly he cocked an ear, put his mouth to the transmitter. “Hello, Steve! Listen! Let me do the talking! Car coming! Stop it! Say, Steve, is that stack of ties still decorating your dooryard? Good! You might accidentally drop a couple of them across the wheel track—then lay back and wait—with your gun! Ain’t you skeered about it?” He chuckled. He waited for no response. He hung up and finished his dressing without haste. He took down his holster and strapped it on, as became his office, and calling into the next room “Oh, Minnie! I’m going out,’ he stepped outside. THE SATURDAY Down by the schoolhouse he came on a shadowy group that broke up as he ap- proached and ran toward him. Jason and gran’ther, Horace Benson, Homer Twining, Angus Weeks—these and a dozen others were there, coming in like crows from the valley and hills. “They made a clean get-away!” bel- lowed Benson. ‘They must have taken to the timber. Nobedy heard them go out.” “Didn’t they?” drawled Orlo content- edly. ‘“‘What did they leave behind?”’ The dead man lay in the old shed. The face had been completely shot away. A dozen lanterns illuminated the ghastly find. A babble of voices demanded ‘Who is it? Who is it?’”’ De Groot came running up. He had drawn his breeches on, over his pajamas, and hadn’t taken time to put on his putties, with which the village had al- ways associated him. He stared down at the body, his lips curling back as with in- stinctive disgust at the forrible sight. He turned his fierce eyes on the circle of faces that looked up questioningly to him, and he, too, asked, ‘‘ Who is it?”’ “We don’t know. Isn’t it one of your men?” asked Orlo. De Groot stooped over and pawed at the clothing as if trying to find identity in some patch or shred. But he shook his head; it was none of his crew. Indeed, as he spoke, his four men ran up with excited questions. “Probably thrown out of some car passing through,”’ said De Groot. ‘“‘Did anyone hear a car go by?” Apparently no one had. This seemed the obvious explanation. They brought horse blankets and a stretcher, and the party moved off slowly down the hill to the vil- lage, gaining numbers as it progressed. Jason, straggling behind, asked Aaron Beddes, the stagedriver, who the two pas- sengers were he brought up on the late trip last night. Beddes said he had come alone on the last trip. No strangers had arrived during the day. No Meeks, no Devore! Jason found himself looking into the watery eye of old gran’ther. They moved on in silence. The stretcher stopped beside the post office, and the village clustered about it like a swarm of bees on a bent limb. The sun was just showing above the Stone House high up on the Mountain when Stephen Whitman telephoned Orlo. “Got ’em,” reported the dependable Stephen laconically. ‘“What do they look like?” “‘Not so much,” mused Stephen. The car had been running without lights and had broken its wishbone against the nest of railroad ties the forehanded Whitman had planted in the wheel track, The two pas- sengers had dismounted through the wind- shield, and there had been little for Whitman to do but pick up the badly shaken pair like meal bags and deposit them safe and sound behind lock and key in his strong woodhouse. “They are yellow men—greasers,”” mut- tered Orlo to Jason as he hang up the wire. A gentle pressure oi Jjason’s fingers on his arm shut him up, wondering. Jason looked for De Groot, but the big surveyor had gone in to dress; he was taking the early stage to run in to the city for the day. “‘ Anyway it’s none of our funeral,’’ com- mented Jason. ‘‘I’d turn the body over to the county. Let them worry over it. We can’t identify it.” A meeting of the elders had already come to this conclusion. The responsibility of an anonymous crime did not rest on the shoulders of the village. Aunt Ivy, punctual to the minute on her day’s work, was com- ing down the red-shop hill, bucket on arm, when at eight o’clock the little truck moved off towards Barrington with its burden starkly appareat under horse blankets. Orlo would follow later and pick up thewo prisoners. Jason took Orlo’s arm, and together they strolled through the hotel to De Groot’s room. “‘Let me do the talking,” Jason whispered as they were about to enter. De Groot was shaving at a mirror; his things were scat- tered around and a suitcase lay open on the EVENING POST bed. Jason and Orlo took chairs with an | assumption of easy privilege. “Well, what do you a of it?” asked De Groot casually. It was Jason who answered him. “Rabbit drive,” said he curtly. “‘I know who the rabbit is,”’ he added. Yie dropped the name like a bombshell: “Leander Cotton!” De Groot’s head pivoted on his bull necx, the features frozen in a moment of swift in- tensity. Orlo half rose, but fell back. “Leander Cotton?” said Orlo. “Why, Leander’s been dead for ten years—drowned with his father.” “No,” said Jason. ‘He hasn’t. Maybe for ten minutes or so. But not for ten years.”” He fixed all his attention on Orlo, while De Groot in the mirror kept watch of both faces. “Orlo,” said Jason, “Leander Cotton has been hiding out at the old Sey- mour place for the last six weeks.” His ome was perfect. “‘ Aunt Ivy’s been feeding im carrying him his food after midnight, | every night,” continued Jason with the air of saying nothing extraordinary. ‘“‘Aunt Ivy wasn’t as crazy as we all thought her, you see, Orlo.” “But where did he come from?” cried Orlo, all at sea. “I dunno,” mused Jason. “I expect Guatemala—-or some place like that.”’ His eye wandered to the looking-glass. De Groot had stopped shaving. He was mop- ping his face with a towel. “But what was he hiding from?" per- sisted Orlo, who had forgotten De Groot. “Retribution, I guess,” said Jason slowly. | “An all-round bad egg! ‘Spect he didn’t have no other place to hide, so he come up here, wished himself on poor Aunt Ivy.” Orlo rose in disgust. bs Rot!” he exclaimed. it!” “It’s true, Orlo,”’ protested Jason mildly. He turned his calm gaze on the mirror again and met the eyes of De Groot. Ina sneering drawl he added, ‘It is true, isn’t it—Charlie?”’ The mimicry of the accents of the sneer- ing Leander was a bit of pure realism. A snarl as of an animal escaped De Groot. “Don’t pull your knife!”’ cried Jason, tense in his chair. ‘‘ You haven't the nerve to use it anyway. That’s a job you always hire for!” In asingle step De Groot was at the door. There was nothing between him and free- dom. And then, quietly, gran’ther stepped out of the shadow and halted him in his tracks. It was only a feeble little old man shaking with palsy, but something in his eye, and something held in one hand in @ ragged pocket as he advanced, made De Groot retreat before him, backing into the room step by step. “Well, I'm damned!” swore Orlo, com- ing to his senses at last; he slipped an arm through De Groot’s two elbows, pinioning him, and quickly went through him for weapons. “Hush!” cautioned Jason. Through the open window he could see a group of women, Aunt Ivy among them, whispering, heads together. ‘Shut that window! Lock the door!” De Groot slumped into a chair. “We've got Pedro and Miguel!” said Jason. De Groot burst out passionately: ‘‘It was their vendetta—not mine! He killed their sister! They followed him up here! My hands are clean!” “You planted them up here! You drove him into their ambush like a rabbit!” snarled Jason. ‘What did he ever do to you * The question was never finished. There came excited cries for Orlo from outside. Someone ran along the hall and pounded at the door. “Orlo! Orlo! Whitman is telephoning!” “Well? Well?" demanded Orlo, thrust- ing his head out. “The two greasers tried to kill themselves in the benishel Slashed their own wrists. He wants you —and the doctor—-quick!” Orlo stepped outside. “Find Doe Cud- worth,” he commanded. “I'm busy now. I'll be along directly.”” And he returned. He encountered a changed De Groot. The big surveyor had risen to his feet. Something of his braggart assurance had returned. A nasty grin was on his face, his eyes shone with an unholy light. “1 knew it! I knew it!” he was crying exultantly. “I knew you couldn’t hold “T don’t believe ~~ Paint Your Car with Murphy Da-cote a Make it look its worth No one questions what your car has under the hood or how staunch it is in the rear end. But a time-eaten finish tells a tragic story! If you have a good car, why not make it look like a good car? Follow the example of over two million other motorists and give ita rich, new dress with Murphy Da-cote. All you do is wash it thoroughly and clean off all grease. Then put in an afternoon flowing Da-cote right over the old surface. When you see how smoothly this creamy enamel flows—when you gee how brush marks disappear after ¢ach stroke— when you see what an even, satiny surface you get and how it dries overnight, you'll wonder you didn’t do it before. Your dealer has Da-cote in black and white and ten popular colors. He'll be glad to show them to you and tell you how much you need. Da-cote is also widely used for renewing all kinds of wood and metal surfaces. Murphy Varnish Company CHICAGO, ILL. NEWARK, N. J. them alive! Their revenge is too sacred | The Dougall Varnish Company, Limited to them! They wouldn’t answer to your | Montreal, Canadian Associate

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Springtime here A few short, enjoyabie hours by Pull- man and you are in the land of winter springtime-—Tucson, Arizona. Lawns are green, Zinnias, roses and chrysanthemums are blooming. Children romp outdoors, ‘This is the season of rest and play in the Sunshine-Climate. Renew Your Health Snap of mountain air and zest of desert climate combine to make each day from October to May 1 delightful naturai tonic, Each year hundreds tind physical regeneration in this perssct climate. For **nerves,'’ “overwork,’’ pulmonary troubles, and some types of asthma there is daily proof of the value of outdoor life here. Reduced Fares Now Winter excursion rates now effective via Southern Pacific, El Paso and Southwestern, Rock Island and connecting lines. Excellent hotels. Rents Golf and country clubs open to Hunting, Old Mexico, primitive In- dians, miles of good highway, delightful social life. 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Kenzies Coy., 128, lagram Street, Glasgow, Scotland. “RECORD OF INVENTION BLANK” A rENTS.: before disclosing inventions. Send modelorsketch of yourinvention forour Freeand Prompt opinion of ite patentable mature. Terme Reasonable Victor J. Evans & Co., 727 Ninth, Washington, D. C. RADIO WALL MAP 10c k Sold everywhere. Pi ts. In Canada Se, H-PIN CO, Philadelphia, Pa. Write for free Guide Books and I'p to date, just off the preas. Shows call letters, location, wave length, and kilocyclee of all radio broadcasting sta- tions, aleo American Relay divisions and radio districta Complete with scale for measuring distances. Size 28x34 inches printed in three colors. Postpaid for a dime. OZARKA, iNC. FRE A 1Se box of Shinon Shoe Polish with any purchase of Shinon Products SALESMEN WANTED to sell above and other of- fers to the trade, Big com- b N.Y, 860 Washington Bivd., Chicago Apply for patterns to | | quite like the old De Groot | stood his ground and De Groot paused, eye “What “Out damned law!” He turned to Jason. have you got on me now?” he cried. of my way!” He strode forward te” It was ut Jason to eye. “What have we got on you now?” drawled Jason. ‘‘Meeks, and Devore!” he cried point-blank. “Oh, you are going back to Guatemala, Charlie. And you are going to sit there—and sit there —till even the rats and fleas lose their appetite for ou!” For the second time the astonished Orlo saw the gigantic De Groot crumple before a word from Jason. “I don’t get this at all,” he said crustily. “Meeks and Devore are dicks,” said Ja- son. “This miserable skunk drove Leander into ambush this morning with the tale that the dicks were on his heels.”” He faced De Groot again. “‘They are on your heels, Charlie! I’ve wired New York for them!” “‘No—no,” murmured De Groot. ‘ Any- thing —I’ll do anything ——”’ “Stand trial for procuring the murder of Leander Cotton?’’ demanded Jason husk- ef And he answered the question him- self: “No, you will not! Outside of this room Leander Cotton died ten years ago! We don’t want him identified as a cutthroat pal of yours. Aunt Ivy has had enough on her poor old shoulders. She will never know if I can help it.” Half an hour later Orlo and Jason, with gran’ther standing by for an emergency, spirited the limp be Groot out of a back door into a closed car and took him to town. That evening two elated detec- tives, Meeks and Devore, with De Groot manacled between them, put him aboard the New York train, en route to Guate- mala. Yes, they wanted him, a little more than usual. He and his side partner, one Horseshoe Jack, had knifed one of their fellow operatives who had been sent into Guatemala to bring the pair to the States on extradition for forgery. Had Jason and Orlo by any chance seen such a man— witha horseshoe on his forehead? No? Well, the two rogues had probably parted company THE SATURDAY EVENING POST there was a story that they had auarreled over some woman. v RAN’THER SEYMOUR lingered over | his carving, through the hot days of | July, on into August. it The fee perfection, he must yet improve it The legend com- plete, ail save that final grim wana that must be carved by other hands than his, the old man must add a spray of laurel, and he labored over the outlines lovingly. ety there among the silent graves o of h his people, he wore the sod smooth under his heavy shoes, chipping and blowing and squinting and smiling. Jason used to stop on his way by, and visit with the old man in silence. Aunt Ivy, bucket on arm, coming home from the day’s work, discovered him late one afternoon, and sat with him, resting, until the light was too far gone to work. It had long n said that Aunt Ivy and Noah should have married in their youth. Again and again she paused to rest by gran'ther and his endless task. Occasion- ally he would spell his old eyes, and sit with one knee coddied in his clas hands. Aunt Ivy said that the time was now at hand when she must prepare a stone for herself, and would gran’ther carve it for her, with a sprig of laurel ever the inscrip- tion, just like his? And she would like a stone for her son, too, one like his father’s. Leander was dead. Gran'ther nodded in sympethy over this news, just as always he had smiled and patted Aunt Ivy on the hand when she told him that she was ex- pecting Leander almost any time now. So once more the cavalcade of oxen straining at the bows, the stone boat with its gear, Jason at the head with cracklin whip, and old gran’ther fetchin behin with the crowbar, toiled up the hill, over to the homestead. off a chosen square in the ample stepstone and drilled and wedged with the nicety of an art that was about to die in the person of its last votary. Before the snow flew that winter Aunt Ivy had gone to rest, and gran'ther, with Jason for silent company, carved the grim numeral on her headstone. Leander’s stone bore no other inscription than his name in Roman letters. never authorized. THE SATURDAY EVENING POST (More Than Two Million and a Quarter Weekly) IS fully protected by copyright and nothing that appears in it may be reprinted, either wholly or in part, without special permission. The use of our articles or quotations from them for advertising promotions and stock-selling schemes is Table of Contents December 29, 1923 Cover Design by J. C. Leyendecker SHORT STORIES Forgiving Minutes— Hugh MacNair Kahler ; 6 Ducks and Decoy Ducks—Oma Almona Davies 10 The Dead End—Frederick Irving Anderson 12 According to His Eyes—C. E. Scodgins 14 Caddies— Clarence Budington Kelland 16 Skookum Chuck: The Adventure of the Abrupt Termination—Stewart Ed- ward White 20 ARTICLES As Simple as Black and White— Kenneth L. Roberts 8 Selling That Last 10 Per Cent—Frederick Simpich 23 The Danger of Europe: Britain's Foreign Policy — Philip Gibbs 26 SERIALS The Priceless Pear! (In four parts)— Alice Duer Miller 3 The Lantern on the Plow (Sixth part)— George Agnew Chamberlain 18 MISCELLANY Editorial 22 Short Turns and Encores 24 Who's Who—and Why: Martin B. Madden address label from a recent copy. Duplicate copies cannot | A REQUEST FOR CHANGE OF ADDRESS must reach us at least thirty days before the date of issue with which it is t- take effect. be sent to replace those undelivered thro» ,h failure to send such advance notice. With your new address be sure also to send us the old one, inclosing if possible your | Once more they ‘chalked December 29,1925 $14.00 IN ONE DAY Spare Time Only RANK W. LYON made that record—$14.00 in one day—in his first month as our subscription repre- sentative, and without pre- vious experience in this work. That, however, is not his only record—for in three months we have paid him more than $250.00 for his spare time alone. Here’s Your Opportunity To Profit, Too If you are interested cashing your spare hours, even though you have only a few a week, we will gladly tell you how Mr. Lyon has made good. Many other men and women earn up to $1.50 or $2.00 an hour. Why not you? Spare Time or Full Time Or perhaps you are looking for a full-time position. If so, let us tell you about our commis- sion and bonus plan. You will find that yourearningsincrease very rapidly for volume pro- duction. Here's the coupon which will bring you all the details. Send it to-day. The Curtis Publishing Company 661 Independence Square Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Gentlemen: I am interested in your cash plan for ( ) Spare time ( ) Full time. Though I assume no obligation in asking, please tell me all about it. Name Street City missions A dandy side tine. Rech. Chem. Co,, B

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THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 83 The small home pictured above is Long-Beli Plan No. 700. Most retail lumbermen can show you floor pians of this home, or will .* - ob:ain them for you. A Which Home will you choose ? WO kinds of homes are being built. One begins to depreciate somewhat rapidly within a few months or a few years. ‘The other maintains long-time investment value. The difference in cost between the two is surpris- ingly slight. When your new home is being planned, a good question to ask is, ‘‘How long will my home be worth the money I am putting into it?’’ The answer to that question rests in the de- pendability of materials and construction. You can know the lumber you buy. Long- Bell trade-marked lumber is safeguarded in manufacture to give the utmost building value, and trade-marked o7 the end of the piece so that you may identify it. The [en | Why LONG-BELL LUMBER IS DEPENDABLE i—It comes from virgin forests. 2—Each log is cut and manufactured for the purposes to which it is best adapted. 3—Milled in our own mills, all operating with modern machinery and efficient supervision. 4—Unsurpassed accuracy and thoroughness at every step of manufacture 5—Surfaced (planed smooth) four sides. 6—Unusual care in trimming 7—Full length—uniform in width and thick- ness. 8—Uniformity of grading. 9—Uniform seasoning. 10—Lower grades receive the same care and attention as upper grades 11—Correctly piled and stored—carefully shipped 12—Minimum of carpenter labor—planing, sawing and sorting—necessary to put into construction. 13—Minimum of waste, due to uniform quality. 14—The product of a lumber company 47 years in the business. 15—Long-Bell Lumber can be identified by Long-Bell trade-mark on the end of the piece. eLL [umber Company R.A.LONG BUILDING Lumbermnsince 16875 KANSAS CITY, MO. Southern Pine Lumber and Timbers ; Creosoted Lumber, Timbers, Posts, Poles, Ties, Piling and Wood Blocks; California White Pine Lumber; Sash and Doors; Southern Hardwoods; Oak Flooring 1; Qe. | HOME i) CONSTRUCTION CcosTs Le) | | | Oe a Everyone planning a home and everyone now building a home should be interested in our new non-technical booklet,“Saving Home Construction Costs" — a valuable contribution to building informa- tion. Send for your copy.

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84 wr strange bundles of contradic- wes we all-are! We tell each other earnestly that health is one of the most precious things in life—and yet what do ve do to keep it, to protect it? It’s a queer kink in human nature, isn’t it, to think one way and act just the opposite! We know so little about our health, and We are like the man that Jerome K. Jerome told about in Men in a Boat”. we imagine so much. “Three Do you remem- ber—the husky, young man who got hold of a medical book? As he read on and on he was horrified to discover that he had symptoms of every disease listed— from Ague to Zymosis—except Housemaid’s Knee. The Harm of Self-Diagnosis You know how idle people love to talk over symptoms and recklessly recommend all sorts of cure-all petals. Have you ever been dragged into a “piazza clinic’’? -Aunt Mary will tell Cousin Jane: “I think the kind of 1 wish you would get me | have same trouble that Caroline has. the prescription Dr. Banks gave her.” What a tremendous amount of harm is done by these attempts at self-diagnosis! Here is an example: A prominent man made up his mind that he was eating too much meat and heroically put himself on a strict diet. Sometime later, he was Ge THE SATURDAY EVENING POST - A Queer Human taken ill. His doctor astonished him by saying that while most men of his age would have benefited by doing what he had done, his case was an exception and that lack of meat caused the trouble. How Long Do You Want To Live? Just so long as you are well and happy? Good!—but suppose you keep right on living long after you have ceased to be well! Take your own family—some relative who has been a semi-invalid for years. The poor soul needs all the sympathy and love that you can give—no matter how many times you have heard the old story of aches and pains. Look ahead a few years. You may be exactly like that—a burden to yourself and to others—unless you take steps now to safeguard your health and learn how to run the machine that you call your body. How much do you really know about your physical condition? Stop right here and think about it. —————— December 29, 1925 Kink You would not treat your car as you treat yourself. You probably know more about the mechanism and general condition of your car than you know about your own body. You constantly test the steering gear and the brake bands. You make sure that bolts are tight. You listen to the motor for the faintest “knock’’ are careful about the fuel mixture You it must not be too rich nor too lean, or the engine will not pull properly. But do you know whether the food—the “fuel mixture’ — that you give your own body is too rich or too lean? You can re- place parts of your car that are damaged or worn-out — but you can’t replace a worn- out heart, an abused stomach, an over- worked liver or frayed nerves. Years Alone Do Not Age Us The physical changes ascribed to age may be due to poison, infection, wrong food or emotional strain, principally worry. And these things are in large degree under our own control. Go to your wisest adviser, your own good friend, your Doctor, within the next few days, and have a thorough examination. If you are well, you will be glad to have his O.K. And if he finds some slight defect, be thankful that it can be corrected in time—before it becomes serious. Begin the New Year right! The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company believes thoroughly in the value of the annual physical examina- tion. All of the 8,000 employees of the Home Office are carefully examined each year; also its field force of nearly 20,000 employees. These ex- aminations are carefully followed up and those employees who show impair- ments receive particular attention. The result of such intensive care is very gratifying. During the past ten years, the Company has arranged for the examination of various classes of its policyholders and is extending this privilege every year. In the first 6,000 policyholders ex- amined, a remarkabie lowering of mor- tality occurred. Instead of 303 deaths in the five and one-half years subse- quent to the examination, only 217 occurred —a saving of 28 per cent. in the expected mortality. It is not difficult to understand why this should happen. Many of the policyholders whe had been examined did not know thet they were im- paired. They took the advice of the physicians seriously; they followed in- structions and thereby averted serious trouble. The great waste of life that still prevails can be prevented. If people will make an annual inventory of their physical condition and will fctlow the advice of trained physicians aad !ive hygienically, they will add whole years to their work- ing lives. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company will be giad to mail you, without charge, a booklet entitled, “An Ounce of Prevention’’. It will help you in guarding that most precious possession—your health. HALEY FISKE, President. Published by METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY~NEW YORK Biggest in the World, More Assets, More Policyholders, More Insurance in force, More new Insurance eack year

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a“ 6S8 : f]} Gass, SS ZZLTIo) {ey = = for white woodwork for bathtubs and tiles Cake or Powder Ron a oa Ami Do You Use it For All These Things? It would take several pages like this to show all the ways in which Bon Ami turns work into play for the busy housewife. But here you see a few of the more important uses—a few of the things which respond to its magic touch. Bon Ami doesn’t scratch as coarse, gritty cleansers do. The soft white powder has a wonderfully gentle absorptive power. It quickly blots up grease and grime. And when you wipe off the Bon Ami—all dirt goes with it, leaving just sparkling, lustrous clean- liness! Even your hands can neither be roughened nor reddened by Bon Ami. Made in both cake and powder forms, with dozens of uses about the house, Bon Ami is truly a ‘‘Good Friend’? of the housewife! rHE BON AMI COMPANY, NEW YORK Cake or Powder whichever you prefer

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Feel! them easily The skin of California Sunkist Oranges comes freely from the fruit so that you may peel a Sunkist Orange very easily. That’s a real advantage when you wish to eat an orange whole or prepare oranges for salads and desserts. Cur them easily Observe also the firm, tender “meat” of Sunkist Oranges—how easily you, ora guest, may cut it with a fork or spoon. No tough fibre to cause “‘saying”’ or the loss of juice. Daintier salads and desserts which may be 4andled in a deintier way are thus made possible with Sunkist Oranges. S/ice them easily For like reasons Sunkist may be s/iced more easily and, therefore, more vea//y, too, because they’re practically seed/ess oranges. There are ten sizes of California Sunkist Oranges. Prices vary accord’ 1g tothe size. So there are Sun- hist Oranges for everybody's pocket-book. You can get fresh oranges the year ’round if you ask for them in tissue wrappers stamped ‘‘Sunkist.”’ Pica pte neg | Look for This Machine | RB y; ISTRIBUTED by the growers of Sun- | rea ast California Fruit Growers Exchange # kist Oranges and. Lemons to enable A Non-Profit, Co-operative Organization of 11,000 Grower soda be pene to quickly make pure Dept. 112, Los Angeles, California Soda fountains using the new Elec- trical Sunkist Juice Extractor serve real orangeade and lem- onade made to order from fresh fruit. q : Watch for this ma- chine—it is your ( visible assurance of quality. : Fountain Own- ers—Write us for i additional informa- tion relative to chit Das Uniformly Good &