Evening Star Newspaper, April 21, 1940, Page 96

16 THIS WEEK MAGAZINE "PRETTY PECULIAR PEOPLE" don’t feel kind of homesick or any- thing — do you, Norma?”’ Norma paused, the lipstick in mid- air. “Homcsick?”’ she demanded, in astonishment. “You mean am I home- sick for Medville?”’ “Well, I don’t know why you act so horrified. We had a pretty darned good time back in good old Medville!” “Sure we did,” Norma said lightly. “I"m going to put it in my memoirs — Recollections of a Happy Childhood. THE ONE AND ONLY "PHILADELPHIA" CREAM CHEESE IS THE BRAND MADE BY KRAFT AND LOOK FOR THIS BRAND NAME «pHILADELPHIA® N THIS SILVER FOIL PACKAGE Two 50¢ bottles of HALO for 51¢ W hether your hair is dry, normal or oily, see it sparkle as never before . .. yet set perfectly when dulling soap film is re- moved with Halo . . . Colgate’s exciting new shampoo that contains no soap. To make it easy for you to se¢ these Beauty revelations, for a limited time only you can get a full size 50¢ bottle of Halo for a single penny with purchase of one 50¢ bottle at regular price. So act today. Don’t miss this sensational 1¢ Sale now at all drug and department stores. You, too, can have dazzling hair Continved from page thirteen But I've positively got to go now, my dear! I’ve a dinner date with Bill.” “Well,” Audrey said, politely, “‘en- joy yourself while you’re young.” Norma laughed and went out. The door closed with a bang behind her. Norma, thought Audrey, was just a little bit immature. And now, sud- denly, Audgey was sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at the perforat- ed toes of her new brown shoes, re- membering the day she bought them. She hadn’t been quite sure about them. “But you can’t go around in saddle shoes, like a tramp, all the time!’ her mother had said firmly. The brown shoes were really goocf- looking, Audrey admitted to hersell, and the stockings were so sheer you couldn’t even see them. It was a shame they weren’'t going anywhere. Everybody else would be going some- where in their new shoes — every- body in the whole university. It would be a big night. Audrey ran her finger gently over the smooth brown instep. Then she clenched her teeth. She was not going to cry, she in- formed herself, over a mere pair of brown shoes. As she made this resolu- tion, the telephone rang. IT wAs like a reward. She fell over flat on the bed and reached for the telephone. It had to be Gene, she thought — and it was. They exchanged guarded saluta- tions — but that was all right, she thought anxiously. /fter all, he had telephoned!™ “It was about your raincoat,” he blurted out. “You left it in the car. I didn’t know what to do with it.” Audrey’s cheeks burned. It was quite as if she had been struck in the face. “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said. “Why didn’t you jug} give it to the Salvation Army?”’ “Well, I don’t expect to be seeing you,” he reminded her coldly. “I didn’t know whether you wanted me to mail it to you — or what.” “Oh, I wouldn’t want you to go to all that trouble!”’ said Audrey. ‘“But I'll tell you — you could give it to Bill and he could give it to Norma and Norma could give it to me.” ‘‘Okay,”” he said, then, after a pause, ‘““Hope you have a fine time in college — hope you get along all right.” “Thank you,” said Audrey. “I hope you do too. I hope you graduate with honors.” She had sounded just as bright and this easy. new way. HALO SHAMPOO REVEALS THE BEAUTY HIDING IN YOUR HAIR - casual as he had. And they had said goodby, without wasting words. SHF. wandered over to the window and looked down on the students pass- ing below. Their bright voices drifted up to her. It was a mellow September evening, the maple leaves glowing under a round and golden moon. . . Audrey turned away hastily, and be- gan to unwrap the textbooks she had bought that morning. They were stout and important- looking, bound in sober brown and blue. Audrey uncapped her fountain pen and wrote in the flyleaves — her name, and the date, and ‘Class of '44.’ She stacked the books on the little table by her bed, and she couldn’t think of anything else to do. The telephone was a temptation. She thought, for a moment, how pleased and surprised her mother and father would be if she were to telephone them. Because anyhow they cared for her. But firmly she resisted the im- pulse — long-distance, after all, being * for something important, like having influenza or needing money. Well, she told herself gloomily, perhaps people like Barbara Randolph could be perfectly happy, taking other people’s men away from them. Perhaps they could sleep perfectly well at night. She, Audrey, might as well get used to a world that was full of pretty peculiar people. She herself might as well start getting hard — hard as nails. She was trying to control a wob- bling lower lip — as the first step in this hardening process — when there was another knock on the door. But this time it was Barbara Randolph who burst into the room. “Hey, Audrey!” Barbara said. “Look at the fool of the world!” “Who?’ Audrey said, staring. “What?”’ ““The who is me,”’ Barbara said, in- coherently. ‘““And the what is we're going down to Mike’s place for waffles . a few of the freshmen have had their orders. I'll take you in my car because I know where it is— and is it a dump, my dear!” “I'm afraid I have to write some letters,”’ Audrey said, politely. Barbara waved aside that obvious untruth. “Say, listen,”” she said. “I've been a complete sap. When I raved about Gene, 1 didn't know he belonged to you. But he about told me sowhen I ou heard me right. I ls- chned him out of it while he talked. I don’t know his name nor where he works."He came in here lookin’ like he’d been bit by his own dog. Mad, hurt, discouraged and so bottled up inside he was fit to explode. He sat down and ordered sink- ers and coffee. Now, my sinkers are as digestible as most, but that fellow couldn’t have digest- ed water, the shape his temper was in. I never said a word, for fear he'd swing at me. Pretty soon he cracked and began to talk. He was mad at his boss, the dirty, double-crossin’ louse. This bhoss had bawled him out and threatened to fire him for some- thin’ he didn’t do. Trouble with this blankety- blinkety world, he went on, was they ought to shoot a lot of such puffed-up so-and-sos, and if he didn’t have a family to support he’d quit and tell the boss what he could do with the whole busi- ness. All this took my blisterin’ cus- tomer maybe twenty minutes to get out. We was all alone in the joint so he didn’t get a single interruption. Except that when ran into him just now. I was angling for a date at this waffle dump, in my bold and brazen way, and he just muttered something about you — you might be going with him — he didn’t know — positively fussed he was! My dear! There’s nothing for you to look embarrassed about! I didn’t actually fall for him, you know — I was only getting all the attractive men lined up in my mind’s eye . . . but he’s crazy about you. .. Look! Aren’t you getting ready for those waffles?"’ Audrey smiled at her — radiantly. “Darned right I am — "’ she said. Tm-: feast of the waffles was in full swing. Carrie Barnes was in Mike’s place, and a number of other girls Audrey had met earlier in the day. Audrey and Barbara were greeted with loud acclaim, and in the midst of general pandemonium waffles and coffee were ordered, and new selec- tions were debated, hilariously, for the nickel record player. Audrey’s eyes kept going hopefully towards the door. . . Young men were drifting in, singly and in batches, the arrival of Brick Randolph being the event of the evening. That young redheaded giant was plainly interested in Audrey. He clasped her hand in his huge warm paw and smiled broadly. ““You're out of luck,” his sister said. She whispered, then, in Audrey’s ear. “There he is now, my dear! Oh, my poor broken heart!”’ Gene stood by the door and looked irresolutely about the room. Audrey caught his eye and lifted her hand in a little salute. “Hey!’ she said. ‘:Come over! Bar- bara wants you to meet her brother!”’ Gene came over, looking more than a little dazed. It had been a wonderful evening. By the time Mike came out in his big WALLYS WAGON 2728 "I Listened a Guy Out of Trouble” he seemed to run out of words I asked him how long he’d worked on this job. “Seven years,”’ he said. “‘Seven lousy years. It wasn’t so bad for a while, but that ingrown old buzzard gets worse every day. “‘Say, I used to think he was really O.K. He still kids me about the time I took, learnin’ the busi- ness. And last year, even, when my old lady was sick he sent his doctor to see her. But now he’s turned against me.” Little by little he gets around to laughin’ at how mad the boss was when they was goin’ round and round this mornin’. Several times I started to interrupt him to tell about some of my pet hates but somethin’ stopped me. At the end of half an hour, I guess, he was actually grinnin’ and | could see he was over his workout with the boss and ready to let his digestion start on them sinkers. I wonder how it would be if we had protessional listeners so peo- ple could talk themselves out of their worries? It would probably work O.K., but I bet it would kill off a lot of the listeners. white apron and told everybody to go home, at least forty young people who had never met before that morn- ing were on terms of lifelong inti- macy. Audrey settled back in Gene’s bat- tered old car with a little sigh of pure content. “You know,” she confided, “I think 1 like Barbara best of all. I like her brother too. Those Randolphs have something.” “Well,”” he said cautiously, ‘‘you seemed to change your mind all of a sudden.” Audrey reddened. “Yes,” she said. “It was all my fault about today.” “Sure it was!”’ “Well,”” Audrey said meekly, “she is just about the most attractive girl in the whole freshman class!” “She would be,”” he said, “if you weren’t around.’”” It was all he needed to say. The last faint doubt was lifted from Aud- rey’s heart. . . And slowly, now, Gene was driving past the campus. All the paths were abandoned — but the buildings had a friendly look under the tangled pattern of the giant trees. “The old place doesn’t look so bad,” he said. “No. . .. Alma Mater,”” murmured Audrey. “What did you say?”’ “Nothing.” She smiled in some em- barrassment. “I just seemed to be talking in Latin.” “You're getting so smart!” “Sure. I’ve practically got B.A.”’ “Gosh, Audrey!”’ “What?”’ “Well! All I mean is —it’s going to be pretty swell.” They looked at each other, eyes very solemn for a moment. After all, in this strange, confusing day, they had somehow managed to turn the page — and a new chapter had begun. The End my 4-21-40