Evening Star Newspaper, November 17, 1929, Page 113

Anne looked at Martin and knew, as she had known so certainly, there at the door, she could never possibly, in all the world, browbeat the man into matrimony. In the first place, she no longer wanted to. What woman with any dignity does want to goad a man into marriage? Secondly, she couldn't have goaded Martin to it, had she wanted to. Goad Mariin? A contradiction in terms. She wondered whether she could tell him about the baby! She was really rather curious to see what he'd say. There was certainly no question of his chivalry rising to the situation; he didn't have any. Even if- she told the whole story and confessed her sore need-of a husband, Martin wouldn't think that there was anything that he could do about it. Oh, no, what was the good of telling him? Too intimate, anyway. Now that he was no longer the father of Derry, she wanted Derry to herself. “He shan't even come to visit us,” she thought, spite- fully. But why was Martin such a stubborn. slippery thing, anyhow? T 11 o'clock Martin .stretched his legs and said he was hungry. “Haven't you got anything?” peevishly. “You eat every day. Why don't you have anything left over? Now, don't begin about the time. We're going to eat before I leave here this night.” Anne hesitated. “I have cold chicken.” “Cold chicken!” With a whoop he leaped from his chair, and Anne followed him to the kitchen. “Cold chicken,” he chanted into the ice box. “This woman has cold chicken, and didn't she try to hold out on me, though? What els» is there here? Baked beans? No, no ba'ted beans. Too bad. “Vou ought always to have baked beans with cold chicken.” He pulled forth a sticky bottle. “Jam? Good. And one, two, three, four, seven olives. Butter? Oh, yes, there's plenty there. We'll have a splendid meal.” Smiling triumphantly, his arms full of dishes and jars, he faced her. Rude, nervy old thing, he was rather sweet. “You get the bread,” he ordered busily, “and T'11 make you some elegant coffce. It won't keep you awake. What could? Any mayonnaise? That's the girl,” as she obediently produced th2 maycnnaise. “Oh, aren't we having a splendid time? If we only had some cheese. Next time, don't forget the cheese, old thing—you should have cheese.” Ho sliced the chicken, started the coffee, spcased the olives, and Anne mostly ran around doing nothing. She was thinking. “He is a darling. Why isn’t he the marrying kind? Darn him, we could have such fun in that little house, with Derry and the kittens and puppies.” Thinking these things, her mind didn’t stay on its work, and it was Martin who had, finally, to set up the little table by the fire and find the napkins and lay the silver. He appropriated her best bay-berry candles, too, and when they sat down to the little lighted table, Anne all but started at the familiarity of the whole thing. Martin had fallen to with the gusto of the whole thing. “Cold chicken,” he would grunt. “Delicious coffee. Isn't it delicious coffee, Miss Posey?” It was. And since she couldn't eat, Anne, though she knew she wouldn't sleep until morn- ing, drank Martin’s coffee with the recklessness born of despair. She felt married, but she knew actually that she was divorced. Martin was no longer the husband of her fancy; Derry, their child, was slipping from her, too. The little house stood empty. But here were candle- light and firelight and Martin’s coffee. So she drank,” and Martin, delighted, filled her cup twice and praised her superior taste in coffee. She might be a little stupid, he said, but at any rate, her palate was on the job. Martin leaned back in his chair and surveyed her cheerfully. “Aren’t you glad you're not snoring?” “Uscless to mention that I don’t snore, I sup- e “Quite useless and irrelevant. then, glad I stayed?” “Yes, I suppose s0.” “You suppose £0? Don't you think this is good fun?” At his concern, she tried to nudge herself out of lethargy. “Of course, Martin, I love having fun, and having you down. I'd move away if I didn’t.” “Do I. honestly, come too often?” What was the matter with Martin? She must have gone too far in her pose of unconcern. For the first time in his life, he was actually showing some symptoms of delicacy—faint though they were. Yet how could she go on in their old mood of mockery, how keep up this game of give-and- take of theirs, the game of disrespect and de- rision and jovial rudeness, when she wanted to marry the man or—to slap him? “Of course not, silly. You don’t come too often. You merely stay too late.” He rose. Contrition was on his face. “I'm going &0 wash the dishes,” he said. “Martin, have you lost your mind?” He stopped, the coffee urn in his hand. “Lost my mind, because I'm going to wash the dishes?” “Precisely that. You never wish the dishes, you know.” A ghost of a wince touched Mar- tin. “I mean, they're never washed at night. I wash 'em mornings.” She sounded brisk and bright enough, but as he looked at her, his gray eyes were sorry. “I know. I always leave 'em, don't I? And I shouldn't. But I never saw you so tired before, I mean, I never noticed it. You are fagged to- night, aren’t you? For once in your life, I think, perhaps, you do need a sleep. And I'm going to do the dishes. You're to stay by the fire, and think how nice it is of me to do it, and get all drowsy.” he asked, Aren’t you, WHICH is just what happened. Protests, ridicule, commands, availed nothing. Anne was placed firmly in Martin's favorite chair, her feet planted on the fender, and she was instructed to think nice thoughts about Martin, and she did think nice thoughts about Martin. She even got drowsy, she who had thought her woes would never let her sleep— except fitfully—again. Sleepily, she recounted Martin’s virtues, a scanty lot perhaps, but of \ il e “Pye decided that when we are married 'm akways going to wash dishes. You're too litile and too weak to wash dishes.” great sufficiency to her. He was amusing, he was kind—in his own brusque, erratic fashion, he was kind—he was honest, he was clever, he was sweet. (Anne meant by “sweet” what all women mean by that epithet.) Oh, yes, these were more than enough virtues to satisfy Anne. If he hadn't been clever, for example, she would have loved him just the same. “Heavens'—she Famous Foot Continued from Fourth Page in 1899, where the two service schools met on Franklin Field. The games were played in Philadelphia until 1905, in which year the annual contest was held in Princeton, but re- turned to Philadelphia for the next three years. The first gridiron strife between the two schools occurred after the 1908 game, when they failed to agree on such matters as the right to select the site for the game. As a result of this break there was no game between the two institutions in 1909. The difficulties were ironed out by the following year and games between the two schools were played annually from 1910 to 1916, inclusive, at which time the World War stopped further contests until 1919. From that year until 1928 West Point and Annapolis played annually. SUCH squabbles over eligibility and individual players are quite common in foot ball. Many gray-haired alumni of the Eastern colleges re- member the heated controversy over Frank Hinkey of Yale, A strange tradition has grown up around this 140-pound thunderbolt, who was the main- spring in Yale's great foot ball elevens of 1891-94. Sometimes Hinkey was pictured as murderous, merciless and brutal. Sometimes he was known as a shy, taciturn lad, devoted to his college and friends. In his four years legend has it that no one ever gained a yard around his end, and that was the day of giants in foot ball, with little Hinkey, the smallest man on the field, stirring up all the trouble. An editorial writer on a New York paper wrote in 1894: “No father or mother worth the name would permit her son to associate with the set of Yale brutes on Hinkey's foot ball team.” In the Yale-Harvard game of 1894 Wrighting- ton of the Crimson suffered a broken collar- bone, and Harvard charged little Frank Hinkey with purposely breaking the bone to weaken Harvard. The truth was that Hinkey had broken through and downed Wrightington, tackling him around the knees. The Harvard player attempted to shake loose and draw for- ward when the giant Beard, playing alongside Hinkey, dropped with his knee in front of the ball-carrier to stop the crawl and broke the Harvard man’s collarbone. Hinkey made no denial of the accusation, but Yale was so wrought up over the persistent charges against Hinkey that it demanded a withdrawal of the charges and a formal apology from Harvard, which were refused. So Yale severed athletic relations with Harvard for two years. FOUR years ago Penn played Yale for the first time in more than 30 years. The memory of a certain Yale-Penn game in New York is not forgotten. The game came near destroying foot ball, for at the time several newspapers were engaged in a crusade against the sport, charging that it was murderous, bru- tal and dangerous. Hinkey’s name became a synomym for vicious foot ball. Perhaps no two teams ever fought as des- perately or as furiously. Penn had a power- ful, determined eleven, primed to beat Hinkey's unbeatable team of 1893. Before the game there was much bitter feeling, much talk and boasting. When the game started Penn cut loose with the famous flying wedge, invented by Lorin Deland, a Harvard man. The play was - improved by the Penn team, which commenced started up—*“do I love him? I do.” His cleverness went over her head anyhow, for by cleverness she meant the Einstein theory and the thick brown philosophy books he was always lugging around. But, if he hadn’t been clever, she wouldn't have cared, just as she didn't care that Derry wasn't precocious, but Ball Feuds. forming flying wedge from the line of scrim- mage by dropping linesmen back to form the wedge with the backs and massing against an end or tackie. Hinkey immediately solved the play and screamed orders to his men: *“Don’t ecrash into them; let the interference get past and hit the ball-carrier.” But in five plays Penn carried the ball over the line for a touchdown, and the crowd went wild thinking the great Yale team beaten. But, led by the fierce, harddriving Hinkey, Yale stiffened and commenced one of the fiercest fights ever known to the game. Officials were helpless. Neither side gave nor asked quarter, and players fought to exhaustion or until they were carried off the field. That game caused such bitterness that the two universities severed athletic relations and never played again until four years ago, and then only for one game. They are only too anxious to let bygones be bygones and to stop any more feuds. For many years Columbia dominated the athletic realm of Manhattan. Then along came New York University, blessed with a first- class foot ball coach, Chick Meehan, and an incoming group of skilled foot ball players. Columbia just had to grin and bear the new competition. There is an intense feud brewing between the two institutions, so much so that the authori- ties are a bit wary of having a foot ball game between them, although such a contest would draw a hundred thousand partisans. Unfortu- nately, there is no evidence of even a friendly attitude toward the respective student bodies and the game will be put off indefinitely. If the large institutions cannot overcome intense foot ball feuds, it is only natural that a similar condition exists among the smaller colleges. In Pennsylvania there are Lehigh and Lafayette, who have a feud of long years’ standing with many scores to settle. Just out- side Philadelphia .two institutions, Swarthmore and Haverford, have severed athletic relations and in recent years have not met on the grid- iron. Yes, I suppose . (Copyright, 1929.) Africa’s Sausage Tree. A TREE which bears fruit apparently only to deceive is the so-called “sausage tree” of East Africa, a quecr tree if a queer one is to be found. As the sausage tree is approached while bear- ing fruit the impression of sausages hanging by stems two or three feet long is striking. The .fruit often reaches a length of two feet, with a most inviting look but a most disap- pointing result upon inspection. The exterior seems to be edible upon a glance, but the interior is hard and weedy pulp, neither tempting to the palate nor edible. The tree, which is a member of the catalpa family, has a use, however, and enters into both the religious and medical life of the natives of the country where it is found. The Negro tribes of Nubia consider the tree sacred and hold religious festivals in the moonlight beneath its branches. Poles made from the trees are erected before the houses of the chiefs and are worshiped by other members of the tribes. The natives cut and roast the sausages and place the cut sides against parts of their bodies nlmllct:d with rheumatism and similar com- plaints. was just an average boy. Average boys were good enough for her. Now, dreamily, she dwelt on Derry. The rattle of Martin's dishes came to her ears. Derry would be taught to help with the dishes. She’d make a good husband of him for some girl. Derry would prohably rattle and bang and clatter everything just as Martin was doing now. Males are a noisy lot, but female ears are attuned to them, and there’s room for only one shishing, shushing, pernickety sex in the world, anyway. Oh, yes, her house would be noisy enough, with Derry crashing around it, and dogs barking and cats fighting ,i and radios squawking, and at night, one more noisy person—would this person, could it, pos- sibly, be Martin, after all? For somehow, her sure knowledge of a few hours before had begun to falter. No, no, she shook a sleepy head. No, she was just dreaming now. Martin, with a dish and a towel in his hands; stood, watching her. “Well, you didn’t snore.” “Certainly not.” “Did you do everything I told you to?” “yes” “Did you think nice things about me?” “y_yes—" “Awfully nice things?” : “Silly.” She stirred uneasily. Was Martin flirting with her, the impudent thing? 4 “You want to know what happened to me out there while I washed your cup?” “You broke it?" “No. But I made a great decision.” “Yes?” “T decided that when we are married, 'm al- ways going to wash the dishes. You're too little and weak to wash dishes.” “Martin!” “Anne, darling, this is going to be either the biggest moment in my life, or the greatest flop., I've been scared to death to ask you, you little self-sufficient, smart-alacky brown thing. I've been scared even to see you a lot. And I dom't see why in the world you would want to marry. me, but oh, my dear!” His head was on her shoulder—Martin’s cocky head on her shoulder; ~ and Martin gripping her arms. Martin, on his knees, had flung himself bodily at her, at her, Anne, who had plotted so ruthlessly to fling herself, metaphorically, at him! Anne’s room began to revolve around her head. The table was chasing the fire—the fire was chasing itself, Martin raised his head to look at her. 5 “Oh, Anne, what are you going to do to me?” he cried. For a moment Anne was only dizzy. Then she smiled at him, her own birdlike smile, quick,’ flashing, irrepressible. “I'm going to marry you,” she said. When Anne had recovered somewhat from the sweet delirium of those first few moments, she told Martin about Derry. “Martin, would you object if I—if we adopted a baby straight off? I've applied——" Shyly she told him of the plan that had grown in her heart ever since that day when she saw Janet Pirie. Stone by stone she built up for him the dear walls of the Palace in King- dom Come, the retreat which Derry and the puppies and the kittens, and now Martin him- self, were to fill to overrunning with their own happy noises. She told him about the garden, which she was to tend herself, and she men- tioned the furnace, and his role as furnace man. She omitted the rocking-chair. Martin, she knew, would rear up at that. “Spoiling him, I see. A fine mother you are.” And—wise Anne, kind Anne—she said nothing of her husbande dilemma of a few hours ago. It wouldn't do to spoil Martin's fun. Of course, this marriage d' theirs was all Martin’s doings! Martin listened, grinned over Derry, held her closer as they entered the door of the little house, chuckled over the furhace, boasted largely of his talents as a coal-heaver. “Oh,” he groaned as she finished, “supposing I hadn’t. Supposing I hadn’t stayed tonight! X would have lost another whole day out of King- dom Come. But why,” he asked, “only one? Don’'t we want a whole houseful of kids?"” “Oh, Martin,” sighed Anne blissfully, “you are, without a doubt, the man for me.” “Of course I am,” stated Martin modestly. “Haven't I known that all the time?” (Copyright, 1929.)