Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, April 2, 1915, Page 2

and could scarcely wait for the dawn. He talked to Jean. The stars were “There, so, Jean"—he reached for his boots—“so, Jean, keep up your He raised his flask and tasted of its contents: “So, Jean, a few drops, they put heart in a man.” He stuffed a loaf of bread into his knapsack. “Now, & crumb, Jean—so!” He gathered up gauze and dressing for & wound and thrust it into his knapsack. “So now, Jean, let us see. Ab-h-h-h, that is bad, but we'll get you well. Let me tie on this bandage. They’ll do better for you at the hos- pital, but this will serve till we get there.” He flung his knapsack over his back. “80, Jean, put your arms around my meck. Gently, gently; I'll not jar you. That's better, eh?” He laughed “The uhlans didn’t get you, Jean.” It was gray when he went down the road. People had their houses open, dut the shop windows were closed. At the city gate an officer talking with a sentry recognized Maurice. “Hello, Beaujon!” he called. “You ‘have been promoted for bravery.” Beaujon nodded as a matter of course. He had fought like a demon to kill men; he must have yelled like & maniac; his throat was raw inside; he had risen to a kneeling position in the trenches to snatch a flag which had been shot away from Jean, and he had waved it high above his head to cover the retreat of his companions. And then the uhlans were on him again, but he was up and running with the flag, and he had escaped; somehow he had escaped. It was a miracle. He .mever doubted Jean's safety until the 1ad could not be found. “Where are you going, Beaujon?” “For Jean,” Beaujon answered. “Valles, he is missing?” the officer asked. “Have you been through the Dospitals?” “He is not in them,” Beaujon an- This delay tortured him. He knew he could make his search better ‘Defore the sun was up, for the gleam of the bayonets had dazsled him yes- terday, and from the fleld they would flash in his eyes again. Beaujon pointed. ‘Valles can't be far” he added. “We were right in ;i { HH SEE g% gi sk : 5 : i 3 iF ] ) ger i% i i E 1 ;EE She must be proud of her big booby. He chuckled again. He had forgotten that word which had impressed him so strongly—that word which would help him. He knew it was important, but he had forgotten it again. He hummed a tune—a little, old, Alsatian tune—as he continued his search; the men whose faces he looked at made no impression on him; he only knew they were not Jean. The sun flashed on the bayonets and sabers lying about; it was pretty as a sparkling sea. He bent over a body. Some instinct made him rise and whirl about on his heel. He was face to face with one of the uhlans. The German was on foot. Each man was but a mirror of the other, so identical were their expres- sions; each had believed himself alone searching gor a friend. They stared at each other; they turned; they ran in opposite directions as if pursued by demons. ‘The fight was out of both of them. Beaujon dropped his rifle as he ran. Horror was on his heels. He stumbled and fell and lay as if dead, then reached slyly for his rifle. As his hand gripped it he realized that it must be another man’s, for he had dropped his own He sat up and looked over the fleld. The enemy had disappeared. He turned his head, and there beside him lay Jean. It was Jean's rifie he held. He knew by the smile on Jean's face that the lad was dead. Only dead men were happy like that; that is, the right sort of dead those trenches, just back of those bushes.” “Well, go on, then,” said the offi- oer; “but be cautious. Remember the ‘wounded have been taken off the fleld. You won't find him alive.” “Alive,” thought Beaujon impa- tiently; “no, not if this talking keeps up much longer.” He saluted and burst away. He stepped out into the fleld. He had known he should see the rifles and the bayonets first, but they did not flash upon his eyes now. No, they were dull and gray like the sky. He gazed blankly into the senith; his first instinct was to look away from the ground. ‘There was still a star shining; it was yellow and very faint. He met its gaze. It looked at him steadily, dlinked, and went out. The thought of Jean gripped him, and he forced Rimself to look down again over the fleld. | There were spots on the bushes; thin, slow streams furrowed the ground; as the light increased these sluggish trickies, these splashes, were scariet This was a shambles; the world & grh ply of gone All the pano war was 3 all that made it brilliant, all that goad- ed him on, was gone. Why had he been promoted for bravery? was not brave now. mind was confused; he must he must be clear. There was & which would help him if he could remember it. , He pressed his hand to his forehead, struggling for that word. Ab, he had §t! Sure. He must be sane. ! He strode firmly forward, looking neither to the right nor to the left, his gaze on those bushes just beyond the farther trench. . He heard low moans and cries, but he did not heed them. L Something moved in a heap of bodies. How dead men struggled! He passed on. There, out on a free space of ground, a dead Belgian was lying forward on his face. Beaujon paused. Clutched in the man's hand was an arm. He stared. Then he saw that the man's other arm had been shot off. His heart jumped. Could that slender fellow be Jean? to be Jean, he saw how comical it was. a restaurant thought be joke with the waiter, and he LT ";lisgi e, He Chuckled Again. men, not the kind who struggled to get back to life. Jean's blue eyes looked straight up into the sky. Beaujon touched the boy's face. It was still warm. Then he knew . ; “Well, he can keep on followiag us,” “There's’ no law | : . ii'g i 4 3 E H soothe & feminine heart—especlally , .. one that could not have been more than twenty years old; but, as she &gazed out over the terrace of Armenon- ville, with an elaborate pretense of recognizing no one in the fashionable throng, there was a dangerous sparkle in Miss Dracon’s eye. Her mother, a personification of American dollars and well preserved youih, looked at her with an indul- gent smile, “His title is perfectly good,” she purred. “I looked it up—in the Al- manach de Cotha, where only royal and—" % “Look out! He's coming over.” lthdmnlndmnrykmvhhnl on the part of Prince Frederick von Hohenstaufen to see the mother and daughter. An omniscient head waiter, in the first place, with an eye to a ten-franc tip, had placed them at a table where all might see. And, in the second place, they were not the sort of people who escape observation. Great wealth, sagaciously used, stamps its possessors with an imprint as un- mistakable as the sterling mark on solid plate, Prince Frederick was likewise mno- ticeable, but otherwise. As he made his way, with a queer mingling of eagerness and anxiety vis- ible in his face, through the perfumed, well-dressed, gayly chatting swarm of Parislans and foreign notables who were enjoying themselves in the Bois that afternoon, he.suffered badly by comparison, in spite of his youth. So Miss Dracon thought. His features were smug and homely, giving his clean-shaven face an expres- sion she associated vaguely with gro- cers or grooms. His skin was fresh enough, but exposure to the sun had “Look Out! He's Coming Over” made it red in spots instead of giving it the even tan possessed by most of the other men she knew. And his clothes! They also reminded Miss Dracon vaguely of grocers and grooms, dressed L3 “Ah, Mrs. Dracon; again! me to salute you.” The prince had taken the tips of Mrs. Dracon’s fingers and lifting them ever so slightly, was performing the acrobatic feat of bending forward from ' the hips without fiexing the knees. He ' Permit | had touched the fingers with his lips. | that he was carrying Jean's rifie in- stead of his own. It was a measage that he must fight for them both. He was grim but ex- ultant as he strode on. Where he had killed one man before, now he would kill two; it would be double the num- ber always, double for Jean. The ground was uncertain and he stumbled; then he realized he was trampling over the dead with his boots on. He laid Jean down and took off his boots, then lifted his friend again and went on in his stocking- feet. When he came into the city again no one offered to help him, for Beau- Jon was a giant in strength and he bore Jean as though he had been a He climbed the road and turned into a small hotel. Mme. Valles sat at the table with the one guest left in the hotel; she | B;!II!JOH'I figure filied the doorway Popular Russian Beverage. A popular drink among the peas- ants of Russia is called quass. It is | versity, made by pouring warm water over “Ah, Miss Elizabethi” L He repeated the salute. “8it down here with us, dear prince,” said Mrs, Dracon. “Or, are you with friends? When did you leave Amer fca? The heir of Hohenstaufen dropped into the chair that a waiter had al- ready pushed into position, gave one meaning look at Elizabeth Dracon, then turned once more to the older | woman, ' “As soon as I learned you had gone, then I left,” he said. Elizabeth bit her lip, while her| mother smiled easily. “A coincidence,” said Mrs. Dracon. “A coincidence,” conceded the | prince, “but designed by me.” g He looked from mother to daughter. Mrs. Dracon was listening intently, no doubt, although she had the air of one who 1s rather preocupied with some- thing else. The daughter’s eyes met his with the suspicion of a challenge in them. Hadn't they settled this, once and for all, th~+ wieht tha princa had m! Adversity. A high character might be produced. 1 suppose, by continued proeperity, but it has very seldom been the case Ad- however it may sppear to be our foe, is our true friend; and, after & little acquaintance with it, n»i celve it as a precious proph- ecy of a coming joy. It should be 0o ambition of ours to traverse a path without a thora or a stone.~Charles | H. Spurgeon. | ening night. t ‘The band zinged louder. Her remark drew blood apparently. i “It is true that I have debts,” the prince went on; “but they are the ' that. They are like state debts—what you call national debt. A national| debt is never paid. But why mention | | such things? It is you I love. You ! I followed again back to Europe.” { { “Will you have cream or lamon‘!"| i asked Elizabeth, suddenly remember-| ing the tea things. | “So why—why—will you not hvel me?” i “Shall I go over it all once more?” | asked Elizabeth, smiling but cruel. i “I've seen enough of these inter- national marriages to make me sick. {1 1 ever marry—which I doubt—I'll | marry an American. I'll marry a man | | who can take care of me, just as| | though I didn’t have a cent in the world; onc who will work, accomplish | something, be someone by his own ef- | | forts. Since you owe so much, by your own admission, why don't you work and—" “Elizabeth!” Mrs. Dracon was scandalized, as she often was by this ultra-modern daugh- ter of hers; but the prince was listen- ing, sober, intent. “I can’t work, the way you mean,” said Prince Frederick with bated breath. “I'm a Hohenstaufen. I be- long to the empire. If it were not for that, there is nothing in the world 1 wouldn’t do to show you—show you how I love you. Even now, could I do so with honor, I'd blow out my brains—" “I've dropped my fan,” sald Mrs. Dracon. ‘The prince recovered it for her with a little laugh just as the music, with a succeasion of rippling scales sugges- tive of a flight of butterfiies, went up into the air and was silent. Silent, also, for most of the time were Mrs. Dradon and her daughter as they drove home a little later through the higharched allees of the Bols. They were stopping at the Bristol, would be moving on soon to one of the German spas, Wiesbaden most likely. And they were both willing to pretend that it was this approaching departure from Paris that kept them a little re- strained, a little blue. Finally Mrs. Dracon spoke, “Don’t you think you’re & bit brutal with him, Beth? Young Germans have been known to kill themselves—" “Oh, he'll show up again,” said Elizabeth. Paris was like a pond overstocked with goldfish—filled with the rich and idle from the four quarters of the world. Came the end of Grand Prix week, and it was as though some mighty hand had opened all the sluices of the pond. The goldfish scattered. The Dracons lngered longer in | Paris than they had expected—a mat- | ter of new gowns—and then floated on, with other goldfish, to the German | resort. But still there was no sign of Prince Frederick von Hohenstaufen. ' It troubled them both a little secretly. , He wasn’t acting in accordance with | form. Generally when an impover- ished prince once fixes his attention on a dazsling bait like Elizabeth Dra- lcon—hnndlmna. educated, immeasur- ably rich in her own right—he be i comes as a ravening pike. ! 80 they both thought. They were not without experience. But they said ' nothing about it. Not until one night. It was the night that followed a hideous day. From early morning they strangers had been crowded with whom they feared and distrusted in the tiny, suffocating compartment of a third-class rallway carriage. All day the train had crawled and stopped, then crawled again, like a wounded worm, while other triins rushed by with lordly authority. Soldiers, hel- meted, brusk, impersonal, had jerked the door of the compartment open at times, had stared and talked among themselves, but had answered no ques- tions. Even more lugubrious was the deep- 1t had begun to rain. Then, finally, as though the wounded worm was completely exhausted, the train came to a halt and moved no more. There was another hour of stifiing misery, then once more the door was jerked open and there came the order in the clipped, military Ger- man of Prussia: “All passengers get down!" It 'was almost panic as the shudder ing civilians—men, women and chil- dren, Dutch, Belgian, French, English, American—clambered out; but infor- mation somehow got about that here they were to remain until mobilization was complete, that there was a hotel in the peighborhood that was to be their temporary prison. “And what Is the n"me of the | — ! | Chis? Uses for Platinum. i One-third of the world's supply of | platinum ts required in dentistry and snother ihird tor electrical purposes HHTE R with a shade of hope in her eyes, because she was | not afraid of ghosts. “Oh, yes, certainly I did, but they rather fancied the idea of seeing & real, live ghost. They sald city peo- ple seldom got a chance at anything 80 exciting.” Doreen sniffed at the cold-blooded lack of imagination and walked slow- 1y back to her own cottage that lay back to back with Fir' Vale and did not face the blue water of the sound. She did not know that a second ap- plicant for Fir Vale entered the real estate office even before her footsteps had died away in the distance. A young man more keenly disap- pointed than Doreen left the agent signed by the fortunate couple from the city. lucky by the time I have become a ghost and haunted them into ghostly specterless city flats,” muttered Jimmy Barker as he made his frustrated way Jimmy boarded in a sort of farm- house and was sick of boarding. He badly. It was the only cottage in all his days that made Jimmy Barker plan The new couple had scarcely settled | in Fir Vale before the specter of imag: % shadowed property. A restless spirit | . floated about, fleeing from its own |3 never before had a harmless bit of garden been so charged with nerve Her diaphanous white robes, for it was a female ghost, seemed ever Twigs underneath her feet snapped, and from time to time a cone head and dragged a swiftly stified scream from the ghost’s lips. Doreen for her ghostly maneuvers for the suo- cess of her purpose. preparatory to making a brave ef- fort at baunting, when a grue- loomed up at her very elbow and the lurid blue light in its waving hand after her one glance, swayed and knew no more until she felt herself held laborious breathing of a human being. She stirred and tried to peer but all she saw was more white veils. “You are not a ghost, then after having been shown the lease “They won't consider themselves fears of insanity and longings for back to his own abode. wanted Fir Vale, and he wanted it hideous tricks. 2 ination began to wail about the fir fright. It seemed to the ghost that racking sounds. to be clutched by unseen hands. dropped from the branches over- wished she possessed greater courage She was drawing a deep breath some and frightful specter had burned with sinister glow. Doreen, firmly in muscular arms and heard the through the thickness of her vells, questioned when she felt- reason: | confident of an answer in the nega- tive. “Great Scott—you gave me an awful fright,” Jimmy Parker said, and | mopped his brow with a portion of his ghostly raiment. “What in the deuce are you doing | % prowling about in this dark garden?" & he questioned, wishing he coud get | %' & look at her face. ' | “If you want to know the truth,” she told him with a soft laugh that Jimmy found most charming, “I am simply trying to haunt these people out of that new home. I want it so badly that I am going to wait about this property until they get out for fear of losing their minds.” Jimmy laughed and drew a trifie nearer the other ghost. “Two baunts would certainly move them quicker than one—don't you think so? Now, I have come hers with the same evil intentions as your self, 50 the best we can do is to joln forces and do our haunting together.” Doreen certainly wanted the pres- ence of a strong, muscular man. He would never see her face to face, and they would always be strangers, so why hesitate? Night after night they performed their most ghostly tricks, but the couple within maintained a comfort able, unimaginative sense of security “It is very strange” Jimmy was saying on one of the trips to a fallen tree that nightly became more pro- longed while haunting was forgotten. “I seem to be in love with you, but at the same timo,” he paused a mo ment hesitating to continue, “I am desperately interested in a girl I have met in the world of society. Do you bappen to know her—Doreen Woodward? [ cannot tell her I love her because you always come in be- tween us—I think I am losing my mind over the two of you.” “And 1 have met one Jimmy Barker at dances and on the beach and ia so- clety,” laughed the girl softly. 1 Wonder it you happen to know him?* “Doreen—darling.” “Jimmy—dear.” The vells of the ghosts were fer the first time swept aside. Ootim’etin Thaught, We may desp < world cannot do without v but we ] il B OBPIEIPRPIODE T LB I eDSey SIS Every man of integrity and thrift in this community requires satisfactory banking connections. It does not make so much differen r advantages to the largest or smallest depositor. o (‘)uvra mfi of satisfactorily serving you are many and we invite your account. Yours very truly, e. %W m FIRST NATIONALBANK BANK IS A MEMBER OF THE FEDERAL e RESERVE SYSTEM. TS R S SOl ST 7 7 Sl Y Yt (e aia s O R S Y, T 1Y The Financial Crisis Over We are now in shape togive you the benefit of our Low Kxpenses. Let us wire your House and save you meney, Lower Insur- snce, Cleanliness and Convenience are the results. T. L. CARDWELL Phone 3907 With Lakeland Sheet Metal Works Armour Star Hams Uncanbassed at 18 Cents E. 6. TWLEDELL PHONE 59 D R R 2R R D e et etttsssiotesosssst ways Ready to Talk with you about building plans, furnish estimates on your lum- ber and material bills, and to im- part any information we may be able to give. We don’t expect an order every time you hove in sight, and will just naturally be glad to see you at any time. Lakeland Manufacturing Company LAKELAND, FLA. l