Evening Star Newspaper, June 8, 1937, Page 27

THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, DAILY SHORT STORY By Leon MacDuff. BEACH BEAUTY ; Dm T ever tell you about how I nearly got mar- ried orce? No? Well, last Summer was when it hap- pened. You see, it was my first season as life guard out at Ban- ton’s Beach. Not bragging, of course, but I was pretty husky even then, and what with those letters “life guard” across my chest it wasn't long before I knew most of the girls. They didn't seem to mind my face, which ma tells folks got stepped on once when I was a kid. I don't know about that part, but, liké you see, I got a big scar here on my cheek where I got sliced once by a foot ball cleat. The women seemed to think it was from a knife fight or | something and I didn't tell them different. They got so finally they | Just flocked around. Well, I was just a kid then with- out any experience, Just out of high | school. So I guess you can imagine | how I fell for all this. I used to | stand around there like one of lhnse‘ movie guys and kid them along by the hour. Nothing ever happened . out at the beach, except once in a while a kid getting out too far. So the girls and me just lay around and killed time., That was before Eme- line came. The first time I saw her she was coming across the sand on tiptoe, hugging her elbows so you could see she wasn't used to a swimming suit. Maybe she wasn't the fattest girl I ever saw, but she was a good runner- up. All you could see was big arms and legs; you didn't notice her face. Well, she stood there looking at us funny-like, till all the dolls around me took to snickering and she ran off. But the next few days she was there again, standing and looking over this way a lot. She didn't swim | much—just wandered around. LR HEN one day I notice shes b rented a canoe down the beach. Lord knows how she ever got into it. I didn’t pay much attention and went on chewing the fat with the girls. But all of a sudden there was a big yell down the beach, and I looked up. The canoe was there all right, a hundred yards out, but up- side down. There was no sign of the fat girl. I hopped in and swam like the dickens out there. Well, I got her on the first dive okay, and hauled her in. That part was pretty easy; fat people make easy towing. But when I got her landed, she looked kind of limp and goofy, so I/ stretched her out on the sand and started to work on her like what they tell you in the manual. Every- body stood around with their mouths open and pretty soon she came to. She didn't say thanks or anything; Just swayed a little and then got up nn$pmrled off alone for the lock- ers. So I let her go. But the next day the same darn thing happened, and I had to tow her in again. Only this time, I had to pump at her for over 10 minutes. She was pretty limp, but when she come around she just got up and walked off. No thanks this time either. But that night old man Ban- | ton stops me and gives me an en- velope with a five in it. He says a fat girl give it to him for me. * ¥ o x W'ELL. when the same thing hap- pened twice more that same week, I thought I'd better talk to her, tip or no tip. So after I'd worked the wind into her again, I asks her what her name is. “Emeline John- son,” she says. “What of it>” “Oh, nothing,” I says, “only you better learn how to swim or give up ca- noeing, one or the other. Something might happen some time,” I says. “If it does,” she says, “that's my worry.” So T left it at that. Now, you can believe it or not, | but three or four times a week for | the rest of the Summer, Emeline's | canoe would go over and I'd have | They just flocked around. | Suppose, only you hadn't noticed it | |1y spilled over. | marry me. to go through the same old act. She could take a ter- rible lot of punish= | ment. Once she! lost a canoe al-| together, but that's none of my busi= ness. I guess she settled for it all right; money didn't seem to mean much to| her. Every Sat- urday the old man gives me the en- velope from her, and every time there’s the five. So I should squawk, huh? I| figured if she could | stand it, I could. "But the dolls around there took me for an awful ride. “Bulgey,” they called her, and kept asking me about her. | Well, if got so finally it was just automatic. I never even looked at her or gave it a second thought, just hauled her in, laid her out and thumped her ribs till she came to. It was old stuff by this time; no- body even bothered to watch, 'cept to point her out to a stranger as one of the sights. I wondered why she kept coming back for more, but I never suspected till one day along toward the end of the season. * X % % HE was stretched out, limp as usual, and I a-pounding her back and thinking about what I'd do my next day off. I happened to look at her for some reason, and I noticed something looked different. After a minute I saw what it was. Eme- line wasn't fat any more. Then I saw through it and felt pretty funny. | She’d always had a pretty face, I‘ much. But now she was down to normal size, I saw what I'd been missing. I got to thinking so hard | I didn't stop whacking her till she | rolled over and got up. Gee, she was some class! Well, after that I used to watch for Emeline and her cance. A couple of times I was out there before it's hard- | The other dolls didn't | bother me much from then on. Sev- | eral times I got up nerve to talk to | her, but she didn't have much of a line—just say a word or two in a snooty way and shut up. I liked to think she was just shy or some- thing. So pretty soon comes Sep- tember 15, when the beach is due to | close. I'd been thinking it over, and I made up my mind: “Now or never.” So when the daily act comes off, and | I'm squeezing the air back into her that day, I takes the plunge. I told her I loved her and all that old line, you know, and then I asked her to Well, sir, she sits up quick and looks at me and snaps, ““Certainly not!” * Xk x | THAT made me sore, so I grabbed ahold of her arm. “Listen, Eme- line,” I says, “you're not foolin’ me any. You ain't been fallin’ outa ca- noes and drinking up the bay all Summer just for the fun of it. You wanted attention, so don't let on you don’t like me when you get it.” Emeline stood there and laughed | at me. “You don’t really think all that was for you, do you?" says she. She was turning a ring 'round on her finger that had a diamond the size of your fist in it. “Besides,” she says, “I didn't drink much water—outside of the first two or three times; those were accidents. But then I discov- ered that your pumping and thump- | | ing had cut four pounds off me. No- body else has ever been able to do that. So what did I do?> Why, I faked it the rest of the Summer, and now look at me. You krow,” says she, “you'd make your fortune in a re- ducing parlor; you're wonderful!” i Well, T didn’t know what to say or whether she was kidding me or what, | 50 I just stands there. Emeline’s | voice was different when she spoke up again. “Next week,” she says, | “I'm being married to Freddie Dun- can of Lascombe, Sewell & Duncan, | the investment brokers. I'd never have done it without you.” Then she grabs my hand and says, “Thanks awfully,” and before I knew it she's | almost to the lockers. (Copyright, 1937.) $1,000,000 VANDERBILT | TRUST FUND TAX UPHELD Countess Gladys Szechenyi lle1 quired to Pay Levy Against | | $5,935,572 Bequest. By the Associated Press. PSYCHIC MESSAGE COUNCIL 1100 12th St. N.W. Cor. of I12th and L CIRCLES: 2 and 7 P.M. DAILY $1 Private Interviews from 11 a.m. GRACE_GRAY DELO! —Reader Telephone: MEL. 5234 NEW YORK, June 8—Constitu- tionality of a tax of more than $1,- 000,000 on a $5,935572 trust fund for Countess Gladys Szechenyi, the for- mer Gladys Moore Vanderbilt, was upheld by Surrogate James A. Foley yesterday. The fund was the share of a $10,- 000,000 estate bequeathed to Countess Szechenyi by her late mother, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, sr. 1‘ Surrogate Foley held, however, that | the countess’ share “must be elimi- nated from the gross estate of the| decedent and the tax recomputed.” | This revised recomputation is expect- | ed to reduce a tax of $1,335,812.19 by | about $112,000. | SUFFERED 40 YEARS | FROM CONSTIPATION “Por 40 years I had been praying for a Iagting remedy for constipation and its | evils. Pinally, I tried Kellogs's ALL-BRAN. | Since that time (nearly 10 years ago), I heve not taken any medicine. Have been well and entirely free from constipation.” —Mrs. I, H. Kendis, R. F. 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