Evening Star Newspaper, June 29, 1930, Page 88

18 TH E SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTO N, D. it C, JUNE. 29, 19%0. THE GREATEST EVER-—8 fumie s A Complete, First-Run Story by One of the World’s Leaders in the Fiction Field—She Will Contribute Another Story to the Magazine of Next Sunday’s Star. OR 20 years the woman known as “Aunt Em” had sold newspapers in the dcorway of a haberdasher’s shop in the theater section of New York's Broadway. A broker who bought papers from her on the fly had nicknamed her that because she re- minded him of an “Aunt Em” who had reared im. htl?ike most happy misnomers, it stuck. Aunt Em's real name was—well, no matter. There was something short and stout and matronly about the appellaticn “Aunt Em”; something kind and wholesome. The name fitted the little woman in black and the straw poke bon- net which she wore both Winter and Summer as she sold newspapers to the flying world that hurtled past her docrway. Every evening at 5, rain, snow, shine, storm, Aunt Em stood shouting her wares in her door- way. When the last theater light blinked out she wrapped up her loose change in a red handkerchief, tucked under her folding camp chair for that purpose, and with her daughter, Wenda, who called for her, marched her way home. N a way, Aunt Em was quite a character - about that busy neighborhood. In the quick tide of its ebb and flow she had known great people by sight (some as customers), and hun- dreds of clerks and petty folk on their way to subway and tram nodded Aunt Em their good- morrow as they tossad their pennies, snatched their dailies and ran. That little tucked-in ccrner in the doorway had yielded Aunt Em 20 years of livelihood. Enough, mind you. to rear into successful maturity six offspring with whom she had struggled, a widcw, through years so lean, some of them, that the gutters in her face still showed the ravages of pain, deprivation, even hunger, All that was changed now. Five of the six . of her children had left the nest, three sons and two daughters, married, and were on their -.own. A fairly prosperous little flock of petty - ‘tradespeople, set up here and there about the . great city in such small enterprises as sta- tioner's shop, fruit stand or notion store. All of them given their start, too, by willing, if lean, contributions from the old lady’s change *handkerchief. ‘When she was 60 Aunt Em might well have ' felt entitled to sit back and let those for whom “'she had toiled through the years do some of the toiling for her. ‘That was what lay heavily on the heart of * Wenda, the only unmarried one of the flock. Of course, the others all offered to contribute . to the upkeep of the old woman, but some- “how to Wenda, who felt passionately about it, there was something half-hearted about the profferings of the sons and the daughters and _ the In-laws, In hear heart Wenda felt bitter toward these ‘brothers and sisters. It did not seem to twist their hearts the way it did hers to see the old .woman standing humped in her doorway, shouting. OT that the old woman could be easily dissuaded from her labors. On the con- - trary, Wenda had occasion to know that all tod emphatically. After all, on her own earn- --ings as stenographer at $28 a week, Wenda was ~:well able to take the burden of the labor of ‘long hours, outdoor exposure, to say nothing of the menial aspect of the work, off her +* mother's shoulders. ' ‘Night after night, calling for her mother i after theater hours, Wenda argued with her along these lines. It was rather an incongruous ""'spectacle to see the girl and the woman ' huddled there together in the doorway. 'Wenda, who had a pretty, eager sort of face, "'as if she were smelling at a star, and who was ,..' attired in all the mock splendor of the New :\{ork office girl, wrapping the old newswoman " carefully across the shoulders in the knitted jacket she had worn for years and stacking the unsold newspapers in their corner of the doorway, where, by arrangement, a small boy called for them before sun-up. . _Sometimes Wenda had to admit to herself S that it was the sting of the social stigma that _went with her mother’s occupation, almost as much as the desire to spare her effort, that prodded her on to remonstrance. .. ."Mams, how do you think a girl feels having " & newsboy for a mother?” , “Go along! A newsboy for a mother was what kept enough warm milk in your baby- h_.ottle to make you what you are.’” . “You're entitled to rest now.” “Yes? My boys and girls got enough strug- gle to raise their own families.” “I” never marry. What fellow, the kind .dnke,ltlukemy.'ould-u'ulnto. Night after night, Wenda called for her mother after theater hours. newsgirl’s family? On my salary I could come home evenings to a home with a supper on the table instead of having to know my mother is out newsboying!"” “You're a good girl, but I'm a good newsboy.” “Don’t you think—a—a girl in an office, meeting the kinda people I do all day—kinda —feels it—having a newsboy for a mother? It’s not like with the others. They never got out in the world. A newsboy mother don't help a girl’s social position.” “Not if she’s an honest newsboy?” “Mama, let me take care of you.” “Go ’'long. I won't be made a granny of. When I haven't got any more chicks to take care of, at least I can take care of myself. You've got your own life. Live it.” “1 tell you I'll never marry.” Will Rogers on ZLL all I know is just what I read in the papers, Now just what has been agitating the Natives? The fine humanitarin Ramsay McDonald visited this Country and received tremendous -publicity. Mr. Cool- idge closed up a Dam and Indians come for miles. But when Scar Face Al Capone was smuggled through half the jails in Pennsyl- vania to avoid the crowds on his release, that really comes under the heading of front page Then anywhere you go some Bird will get up and tell “How our Civilization is advancing, and how primative it all was a few years back.” Honest there is times when it looks like we haven't got over two ideas above a Flea. Just give “anything enough publicity, and we would pay admission to see folks Guillct' ned. I happened to be playing last Spring in a Theatre in Philadelphia when this estimiable Gentleman Capone was arrested there. That 1s, he arranged for his arrest. An opposition Gang was just two Machine Gun lengths behind him and he was looking for a refugz, so he just had himself arrested and put where the exponents of Americas thriving Industry couldent get at him. He had looked all tre Jails over and decided that the Pennsylvania ones were the hardest to break into. He told the Policemen that he was carrying a gun, and for them to arrest him on that charge. Can you imagine arresting 4 man in America for carrying a gun nowadays? Why in Chicago there is Pistol pockets put in your Pajamas. There is thousands there that are faultlessly dressed in artillery that havent got underwear on. He has a wonderful place at Miami Beach, Florida. We made an offer to get him to come " to Beverly Hills, but Plorida people knowing " 'what an asset he was made him a better offer. Capone just run the poor old Dissarmament Conference ragged. We havent heard of them -in years. They drew on us for $150,000 more the other day. We better put them on a Com- mission basis. They get 5o much for what they agree to sink. Poor Ramsay McDonald it takes all his time finding out if he is still at the head of his Gov- ernment. Every time a problem comeés up and is voted on in the House of Commons why if the side he is on loses, why that means that BU’!‘. of course, one day Wenda, who was stenographer in a lawyer's office, did meet a young clerk named Laddie Evans, to whom her little young moon of a face was beauty and delight. He was a straw-colored young man with a lithe, athletic body, great, sqguare, white, healthy young teeth and a hand grip that was youth and vitality in one. In the office they met, these two, and life suddenly became something to tingle and flush over. New impulses to cry, to laugh, to dance, to shiver ecstatically, raced over Wenda all of a morning. When Laddie Evans pessed her typewriting machine goose flesh popped out over him like little bells ringing. Yet Wenda had a head on her. The daughter who had a mother-who-was-a-news- “Scarface’ Al he has been defeated, and should resign, that the people have lost confidence in him, and losing confidence in a Public Official over there means something. It means he is not with you long. Imagine what would have happened to our Senate if such a proceedure had been in effect over here. Course McDonald is still strong over there, and they are afraid to put him out as he would run at the next election and come back stronger than ever. But poor old Conference. It dont look like it will get anywhere. Course they are going to have to make some kind of a makeshift agreement before they come home, they cant just leave and do absolutely nothing. But it just wasent in the cards to get anything done. For the very problems that have stumped em there, they knew existed before they went and what I never could understand is why they dident find out before the thing was called if it would be possible to do these certain things. Well lets see what else we got. Oh, Yes, the Literary Digest it has got us in the throes of another heated Campaign. We are straw voting around. Straw voting is about low: form of voting there is. It don{ de- m but it works em up while it lasts, Literary Digest Boys have got it boy locked back into the eyes of Laddie with her heart crying, but her lips firm. It was hard, because, almost from the first day that they had begun to be conscious of one another, Laddie was for plunging into tha heart of the affair. He hung over her desk at noon-time and importuned her to go te an automat for lunch. He slid little paper bags of cherries which he had purchased off a push cart into her lap. He waited for her at ciosing, and she evaded him by sneaking out a side doeor. One day—he was a bold youth—he wrote her & note in long hand, sending it in to her by an office boy. “Why won't you go out to dinner with me tonight and give me the chance to tell you that I love you? You might as well give in and get it over with. I'll get you yet. I love you.—Laddie.” With her lips quite firm, Wenda wrote him back: “Yes, I'll have dinner with you.” They met down in the gulch of Forty-fifth street after office hours. There was something really lovely about Wenda. The dewiness of tears shining behind her b:zauty. And Laddie was like a god. Heady with the wine of new love. “Wenda,” he said, “why have you been so cruel? Nothing can stop the thing between us.” She looked at him with her eyes dry and her heart crying. “You must work,” she said, “and not indulge in nonsense. Some day you will be a big lawyer.” “I know I will if you help me. Come, Wenda, let’s go to dinner—we've all of life to *No—yes—but first—I must stop by and see —my mother—have you a mother? Where is your mother?” “Sure I've a mother, “Where—is—she——"" “Oh, she’s home. We've a little house up near Spring Lake.” The greatest ever.” “A MOTHER in a little house up near Spring Lake? Well, we must see my mother—first——" There she was in the doorway, sending her little old voice, fiuty with the years, out inte the jam of the traffic: . “Poiper—Evening Woild—Telegram—Sun and . Post—— “Mama—this is my friend—Mr. Evans— we're on our way out for a bite of supper——* “Well, if it isn't young Evans. You managed it, did you?” “He—what ; g “Here's a young fellow's been pestering me to fix it for him to meet you every time he seen you calling for me evenings on his way home . from the law library and I told him to shuffie for himself.” “You mean i “I got myself a job in the office where she werks. That's what I call shuffling for myself, “Why—you—why, you darling,” said Wenda, and looked at him with her young moom of & face. “You're a darling yourself,” said Laddie. “Yow're both darlings,” said Aunt Em. “And now rustle yourselves along; you imterefere with (Copyright, 1030.)