Evening Star Newspaper, July 26, 1931, Page 75

= s and then Fairview had closed the gap. As the shadows were bzginning to lengthen they were running neck and neck, with only a few pairs of players left to come in. Ockepockees and Fairviews, by now hard- breathing and flame-eyed, quit the score board and surged to the eighteenth green. The Fairvi:w club house stands on an elevation. The eighteenth green is set just below it, part- way down the slope. This final hole differs from nearly all other golf,course final holes. Whereas most final holes are an endurance test, streiching cut a quarter mile or more in length, the final at Fairview is a one- shotter. But what a one-shotter! The weary fin- isher stands on one eminence and shoots across a valley of despair to the small green hanging suspended on the farther slope, hedged about with yawning sand traps and tall pines. Arcund this green island of hope in a sea of d-spair githered Fairviews and Ockepockees and watched their remaining champions make hacking swings from the tee and come stag- gering down, across and up. ILD yells from Fairview. Their man had done it! They were ahead. Ensuing screeches from the Ock<pockees as the next two Fairviews made ghastly failure in their own sandtraps. Ockepockee was ahead. How much ahead? How much? By half a point. Half a point! Ahead by half a point and . . . and all the players were in. Ockepockee had won! But wait. Wait! Wasn't there some one else? Hadn't some one been overlooked? Yes! Gilead Wetherby and the terrible-awful of Ockepockee. Oh, my gosh! For the cham- picnship to hinge on them! They were still out somewhere on the course. Or maybe they had quit. Wild hope from the Ockepockees. Agonizing despair from the Fair- vievs. A voice, announcing that they were still go- ing at the fifteenth. Another wait. And then, acioss the vale, beyond the sunset-shadowed last tee, figures zpproaching. An Ockepockee onlooker, unable to indure the strain, dashed down across the vale and up to the tee. He made whispering demand of & caddcie: “How they stand?" *All even.” The Ockepockee messenger made wig-wag back to the green. All even! All even and one to go. A rustling sigh went over the galleryy The Ockepockees did little step-dances of joy. If their terrible-awful only tied—did not more than tie—they would win! The Fairviews staggered on- funeral Not a chance, not a chance! Unless their man won. And that man was Gilead Wetherby. A piayer took st:nce on the tee across the va.e “Which one is it?” rose a loud demand. It was the Ockepockee standard-bearer. Terrible-awful indeed had this gentleman been for all of 17 holes, and the searing memory of those holes was with him as he took stance on the eighteenth tee. One chance left, and he'd show 'em. NeW for it! Into this one shot the terrible-awful gentle- mzn put all that a man should put. And the result was a Frank Merriwell. Across the vale the ball sped, high and true. to drop down, down upon the green so cruelly hedged about with trees and sand, to strike upon smooth greensward, to bounce, to give spent kick, to die. To stop dead a few spans away from the hole. The Ockepockees broke into a roar, which they instantly stilled. It was over. A miracle had happfned. A cinch two. If the Fairview old man could tie that with an equal miracle, Just let him? Miracles don't happen twice. So, Gilead Wetherby stepped to the tee. Gilead Wetherby had carried the Wetherby Stove Co. through the smash of '07, when for a while it looked as though he wouldn't have two dimes to rub together. But this golf tour- nament had been too much for him. More feet. nightmarish things had happened during # than during all the rest of his life put together. It was his first tournament, and it would be his last. How he had hung on this long he had no idea. Well, it was over .now. His opponent’s ball couldn’'t be two feet away from the hole. He took his regular preliminary swing. He settled himself an@ drove. And the drive was exactly what would have been expected of a tired, tired old man. It was awful. It did get off the tee, and it did go out across the vale. But it went obliquely, and the farther it went, the more oblique did its course be- come. Never had there been a more terrible slice. With hollow soul-shattering sound it struck a tree far to the right of the green. The tree sent it hurtling away. Sent it hurtling down toward the green. Past the green. There it struck another tree. The second tree bounced it toward the ground, and here the human element tock over the burden. HE ball, in its despairing flight, came in contact with an Ockepockee shin. It was good, hard-boncd shin, and the ball caromed therefrom with just enough life to hop onto smooth, close-cropped greensward, and there to roll feebly. To roll down, and down, and down. . . . 'To roll ifito the hole. Hole-in-one. The yell that went up from the Fairviews could have been heard in the next county. The silence of the Ockepockees could have been heard into eternity. Gilead Wetherby, standing on the tee be- yond the vale, saw the ball roll into the cup. Heard the roar. Hole-in-one! WHERE LOVE 1S Continued from Eighth Page sentimental fool,” he remarked. “Yet—you said Jjust now that you suspected me of being in love with some one.” “Yes, I did,” the girl said. “But I did not think it any of my business to inquire who it might be. That was your affair—not mine.” “You are a marvel!” the lover exclaimed in unfeigned admiration. “I never knew another girl who could mind her own business and hold her tongue as you can. Nobody could ever accuse you of being a matchmaker.” “No,” she answered, beginning to erumble another bit of bread, “nobody could.” “You are absolutely unsentimental,” the man declared. “The only person I have ever seen you tender with is Betty. Perhaps she is your romance.” “She is yours anyway,” the older sister re- minded him. “Such being the case, suppose you pay for our dinner and go on up home to see her.” “You are coming home now, aren't you?” the man asked when he and his companion had reached the front door. “No,” she said, “I neglected to mention that I have an engagement for this evening. I de- ferred it until after dinner when you told me there was something especial that you had to say to me. But now I must keep it. Good- night, and—God bless you and Betty!” She was gone almost before he could reply. He stood for a moment watching her walking rapidly toward Fifih avenue. Seven years older than Betty—just as old as he, in fact. But she seemed many years older tonight. Probably an unsentimental, practical girl did age sooner than a romantic, loving little c:eature like Betty. L1 OW long have you known about this?” the man at table No. 4 asked. His voice was hoarse. In his eyes was a timid, hounded look. he repeated. “Since yesterday.” “She—she—came to see you and told you.” “Yes,” the wife avcided meeting the fright- ened eyes. “I did not intend to say anything to you about it yet. But—just now when I saw how afraid you were—I had to tell you that I knew—the worst.” “And are you going to—leave me?” the man asked in a low voice. Low as it was, it con- tained a note of pain that made the hearer wince. “If—if—you want—I mean—that depends on you.” “You mean that if I promise—" Now for the first time she looked him squarely in the eyes. “My dear,” she asked solemnly, “do 'you love her?” “How long have you known it?” JULY 26, 1931. The Ockepockee messenger made wig- wag back to the green. All even! even and one to go. For a single, fleeting instant there welled up in him the fiercest, wildest joy that he had ever known. Another hole-in-one! He would get another ventilated cap, a size larger this time. He would specify the sort of leather in the new knuckle-breathing gloves. He would get a sweater not quite so rich in color, yet at the same time having . . . And if the Hole-In-One pipe could be carved just a little less boldly. . . . And that yearbook. The fleeting instant was gone. He pulled himself back from the brink. With clear eyves he saw all. He saw how right the Fair- views had been. Luck. Nothing but blind bull luck to a hole-in-one shot. The truth of their words stood in ghastly clarity before him. Never had there been a finer example of what a hole-in-one really was. One club, two trees, one onlooker, and a hole-in-one. And what had his opponent got for his per- fect pitch shot to the pin? Nothing! What would the brotherly Fairviews think of him now? Old show-off. Old grabber of cheap trophies. And doing it before all these strangers? Wasn't there any escape? Couldn't he get out of it somehow? Illumination came to him. He clutched at a straw. Even as the terrible-awful opponent from Ockepockee dazedly extended a congratulatory hand, Gilead Wetherby had his answer-ready, and gave it. “What?” said the other, mouth agape. “That's right,” said Gilead Wetherby. “But!” said the other. “No buts!” guffed Gilead. there.” He grasped the Ockepockee opponent by an “Let's get over All arm, and together they crossed the swale and toiled up toward a mudhouse green. “Well,” resolutely announced Gilead Weth- erby, “pretty good hole-in-two, eh?” “What?"” screeched the madhouse. “Yep. That first swing I took might have iooked like a preliminary, but it wasn't. I missed the ball entirely. Two strokes. Hole- in-two.” It took five minutes to clear the greem so that the terrible-awful gentleman from Ocke- pockee could putt for his tying two—and for Ockepockee victory. Al that’ he had t¢ do was to shut his eyes and tap it in. ND it was here that the Ockepockee gale lery made fatal error. Had they told him to shut his eyes; had they told him that his putt didn't matter; had they made screech and shout during the stroke, they would have won. Instead, they told him that the oute come of the tournament depended on him, and then froze Into waiting silence that would have made the dropping of a pin sound like the booming of cannon. Small wonder that the Ockepockee standard bearer, when he was finally able to address the ball, made pottering dab at it with locked wrists, and that the wretched ball, instead of going for the cup, skipped crazily past his left toe. And the silence this time could have been heard beyond the stars. Gilead Wetherby, and Fairview, had won. Gilead Wetherby is the most popular meme ber of the Fairview Country Club, but to this day he still has a hazy idea as to the real value of a hole-in-one. (Coyyright, 1931.) By Virginia ‘T'erhune Van De Water “Love her!” he exclaimed. “Love her? God—no!” “Yet,” she began, “you"—she hesitated, then added, “But what I must know is whether if you were free—would you marry—her?” “Never!” he burst forth, in a tense, low tone. “Dear—I never loved her! It was a wild, insane obsession—and——" “Shh!” she warned him. “We cannot dis- cuss such things here. All I wanted to say is just enough to take away your fear. If you loved that woman, and wanted to marry her, I would divorce you. As you do not—my dear, I positively refuse to leave you.” At the fiction writer's table John Glenn was remarking that he could not see the face of the woman at table No. 4, adding—"but from the expression of the man, she must be giving Mim the devil. He looks as if he were going to cry, or swear, or break a blood vessel.” My Henry Ford’s Strange New Hobby Continued from Fourth Page of mass production and efficiency. No ordinary farmer can afford to experiment with things like this. It is too big a proposition. But Mr. Ford has the money and he has the inclination te do so. g “Industry can gain much by a close relation with agriculture also.” ‘When times are slack and men are not needed in industry it may be possible that they can be used on the farm. This is all problematical, of course. Mr. Ford does not know exactly what will come out of all his work—all his experi- menting. He merely wants to spend his time and his energy in a sincere attempt to better the condition of the farmer. Henry Ford has 11 tractors at work in the fields of his experimental farm at Macon. The field fences have all been torn down, leaving only the boundary fences. This gives an oppor- tunity for large-scale operations, for the fields are nearly all “mile-square.” “Collective farming” is a phrase that has lately become familiar to the farmers and other residents of the neighborhood. They have heard the phrase before, in connection with the great Soviet program of farming. Now they are seeing it worked out in front of their eyes. It is literally in front of their eyes, too. They sit there—those who are unemployed—all day long on the steps of John Cowman's store watching their neighbors work. And they all have their own ideas about what is going on. YNTHIA WESTLAKE paused as she and her companion reached her apartment on the top floor of the house in West Tenth street, Her expression was calm as she faced him in her little living room. She removed her hat and coat and threw them upon a chair. “Sit down, won't you?” she suggested. “No, thank you,” he said brusquely. He ree mained standing in front of her. The silence was awkward. It frightened her. “I'm grateful to you,” she broke the silence, “for taking me to Scarlatti’s tonight. I had a pleasant time with you—even if you were blind to possible romance.” She got no further. “Romance! I blind!” he burst forth. *“I§ is you, Cynthia, who are blind! If you not you would know that when I am with I see nothing else, think of nothing that you are my romance—that I love you, that I have loved you for months! “You write about love—but I live it with my whole being! Why—Cynthia—why, datling— you are not crying? Oh, my dear, I am sorry I have hurt you!” “Hurt me!” she repeated with a sound that was a mingled laugh and sob. Oh, John, you have been blind, my dear, not to know that 3 have loved you for a long time. Why—Jo that was why I could not think of other people’s affairs tonight—or of stories about them—for when I'm with you I cannot see any other romance—my dear, my dear!” An hour later, Cynthia Westlake lapsed into a brief silence which she ended by a happy laugh. Her lover looked at her inquiringly. . “I was just thinking,” she answered his une spoken question, “that I went out in search of romance in the lives of people I had never seen before, and found it instead in your life and mine. I fancy I shall see it everywhere aftdy this. For, John, it's there. It is only because people are blind that they do not see it.® A 4