Evening Star Newspaper, May 1, 1935, Page 25

THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1935. DAILY SHORT STORY: CLUMSY BY MEREDITH SCHALL. SNOWED the night that Ben Freeman left his wife. He stomped into Doc Somer’s kitchen all covered with powdery white crystals, and his cheeks glowing red from the sting of the wind. Pres- ently he saw me sitting there beside Doc, with my feet cocked up on the stove, and he scowl- ed and I began to wish I hadn’t chosen this week end to visit my old «gng you, Ben” friend. But DOC, *yowre the baby all unperturbed, was dorn.” said: “Haul up a chair, Ben, and get acquainted with, Phil Lott. We just been remarkin’ on | what a bitter night it is for a man| to be abroad.” Plainly Ben wanted to talk, and presently I sensed that he would, de- spite my presence. He seemed to ponder a bit, weighing the advisability of conflding to Ben while I was there to hear, and after a while he seemed reassured. “I've left Bess,” he said, speaking low and looking at neither of us. “For good.” Doc stood up and stuffed another etick of wood into the stove. ‘“Per- haps,” he said, “you should have | waited till morning. Tending fires on a night like this is no job for & woman.” “She’ll make out all right. There’s plenty of wood in the box, and tomor- row Joel Sprague will be over to do the chores.” He sat silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was slightly raised and vibrant. “Oh, I know what you're thinking, Doc. I'm & cad and a rotter and all that, but I tell you I can't stand it any longer. You know Bessie, always breaking things, she is; always | falling over something. Clumsy. Never thinking of what she’s doing. Why, tonight she was ironing and threci times I heard the flat crash on the | kitchen floor. Oh, I know it sounds | silly. But I tell you, man, if you had to live with that sort of thing it would | get on your nerves. Lord, I find my- self sitting around listening, waiting | for something to happen, expecting to hear a dish break or a lamp fall over— and. rarely being disappointed.” Doc Somers struck a match and ap- plied it to his pipe. “I know how you feel, Ben,” he remarked, smiling a lit- tle. “Cy Langtree was the same way,\ Exactly. His wife, Martha, was about | the clumsiest thing you could imagine. | At first Cy thought it was cute, be- cause she seemed so helpless, and he used to kid her about it. But after a while it got on his nerves. He'd get settled down to spend an evening read- ing and something in another part of | the house would go bang! And he'd know that Martha had dropped some- thing or fallen over something. “All thumbs, she was. He'd sit and watch her. tense and strained. while she placed a dish on an upper shelf with her right hand and wrung out a dish towel with her left. It seemed to him she was stupid: didn't know how to go about the simplest tasks, making a mess of everything. And so his kidding became less bantering and | more serious. Martha sensed the change and it made her worse. She tried hard to break herself of the habit, but couldn't. | “And at last Cy left her. His nerves | couldn’t stand it any longer and he came over here one night, just like | you've done and told me all about it. ‘Well, I could see the lad’s point of | view. I was young then and Cy and | I were close friends and I knew he wanted sympathy. So we sat and talked all through the evening. { “Along about 11 o'clock Davie Cur- | tain came to the door and he looked | kind of wild and scared. Davie and | | ought to go back to Bessie before she | thing is all right for story books. But his mother lived next door to the Langtrees and about an hour be- fore, they had heard Martha call- ing out. Mrs. Cur- tain had gone over and found Martha on the kitchen floor, where she'd fallen and hurt herself. “Cy’s face went white at the news. He looked scared and he looked ashamed, too. The thought thndc was in his mind was said Doc Somers, who almost mever that Martha had hurt herself and that she was his wife and he loved her. And 8o he went to her and I grabbed my bag and fol- lowed. By the time I had arrived Cy had got her into bed and was running around like a wild man, because there wasn't anything he could do to help.” Doc ceased speaking and puffed on his pipe, staring into the fire. And Ben Freeman said harshly: “I suppose you're telling me this because you think I'm like Cy Lang- tree and & fool; becaure you think I falls and hurts herself. That's rather idiotic. It won't alter the situation any and it isn’t my fault because she’s so clumsy. Great guns, she'd be like that whether I married her or not.” “That,” said Doc, “is the point. It was Cy's fault because Martha was like that. You see, he'd kidded her so much she began to think she was clumsy. Inferiority complex, sort of. And later, conscious that he was al- ways listening and watching and ex- pecting, made her nervous. Why, it was only natural for the poor kid's thumbs to get in her way.” “Rubbish!” said Ben. “That sort of | it doesn't happen in real life. If a woman is clumsy, she’s clumsy, and that's all there is to it.” | Doc lifted a cover on the stove and | knocked out his pipe. “Maybe,” he said, u're right. But it worked out | with Cy and Martha. You see, Martha | was going to have a baby and when Cy found that out he became just the opposite of what he used to be. So- licitous and kind and never complain- ing or nagging or telling her she was clumsy. He did it, not for Martha, but for the kid that was expected in four or five months’ time. And the effect on Martha was marvelous. She got a grip on herself, became self- confident and assured, stopped drop- ping things and tripping over things.” Ben Freeman sat silent for a mo- ment, and by the expression on his face you couldn’t tell what effect, if any, Doc’s words might have had. | And after a while Doc went on: | “Five months later, Martha's baby was born. And by that time Cy was | so used to treating Martha like he'd | treat any normally intelligent person, | he continued to do so—and I don't | believe Martha's broken a dish since.” “You see,” Doc turned and looked Ben squarely in the eyes, “Cy's and Martha's real name was Freeman. And vou, Ben—you're the baby who almost never was born because your | mother tripped and fell that night all due to your father's lack of confi- dence in her.” Ben Freeman gave a little start and after a moment he got to his feet and went over to where his coat and hat lay, both damp and steaming from the snow that had melted. 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