The Seattle Star Newspaper, December 25, 1919, Page 9

@verrone is mildly interested in home Rachae! an and how her lived in a girl's paradise There she York by Mra Gouverneuer Po enridge, whose first Then had come the ye Gaughter and drink, but not to b Wal of Dr, Warren Gregory, the Susy a: that he ts glad to my Gregory and Rachael are old @ Intends to divoree her husband the home reflecting on this strange devotion, And h Vinited by her husband Kory again # of luxury tn Amertoa e the prof and her husband, her's ma woman, ffair with @ aplendid yo wite had died, She married him, and ond wife, Rachael's con nd highly effictent bachel atl, She undurdens her hei swept bY @ desire to have Me recalled how his mother meet ¢ Breckenridge appears on t Th Gregory in 1 and to be clever The follow Woods, and Billy declaring # __ (Continued From Yesterday) | To this sho responded merely with . Perhaps the bishop suspect: | that such a calm confidence in} future indicated more’ or less plans, for he gave her a) and searching look, but there) nothing to be said. The lovely) continued to stare at the soft with unsmiling eyes, and the, could only watch her in) falls—fails openly, I mean—for, urse, there are hundreds that get that far. Sixty thousand year!” those are the statisties,” said Dishop, warmly, “it is a disgrace ‘& Christian country!” “But you don’t call this a Christian 2” Rachael said, perversely. | “It is supposedly so," the clergy: asserted. “Supposedly Christian,” she mused, ind yet one marriage out of every 12 in divorce, and you Christians i, you don’t cut us! We may keep holy the Sabbath day, we not honor our fathers and moth- we may envy, our neighbor's yes, and his wife, if we like, stilt—you don't refuse to come our houses!” don't know you In this mood,” Bishop Thomas, coldly. Call it Neroism, or Commonsens- , Or Modernism, or anything you “ Rachael said, with sudden fire, while you go on calling what taking a decided stand in the . Divorce is a sin—a sin one of God's institutions. when I find a lady in this mood,” continued, with a sort of magnifi- forbearance, “I never attempt p combat her views, no matter how ordinarily jumbled and—and they are. As a clergyman, as an old friend, I am grieved I neo a hasty and undisciplined ture about to do that which will its own happiness, but I can give a friendly warning, and on. I do not propose to defend institutions to which I have ded- d my life before you or before ty one. Shall we go back to the ” “Perhaps we had better," Rachael reed. And as they went slowly the wide brick walk she added a softened voice: “I do appreciate affectionate interest in—in us, op. But—but it does exasperate when #0 many strange things done in the name of Christianity, have—well, Florence for instance Imly decreeing that just these certain things shall not be v | “Then, because we can’t all be per fect, it would be better not to try to | Be good at all?” the bishop asked, “yestored to equanimity by what he | chose to consider an unqualified apol- | ogy, and resuming his favorite atti # tude of benignant adviser. Rachael sighed wearily in the) depth of her soul. She knew that Kindly admonitory tone, that compla- ent misconception of her meaning. " Bhe said to herself that in a moment would begin to ask himself ques ' tions, and answer them himself. “We are not perfect ourselves, 4 the clergyman, ister we expect perfection in others tore we will even change our own e9 we like to look around and see other people are doing. Per. on natural? Of course, it's per ly natural, but at the same time MMB one of the things we must fight. ‘1 shall have to tell you a little story ef our Rose, as I sometimes tell “some of my boys at the College of YY Divinity,” continued the good man. an exemplary unmarried wom- of 20, was the bishop's daughter. | ery’—something of that sort -{a hurry and bustle and rush it all | ple boughs. at tea by Gregor: enough to make her home conditions hy i chapter opens with Hill does not want to go, and w “Rose,” resumed her father, “wanted to study the violin when she was about 12, and her peculiar old pater decided that first she must learn to cook. Her mother quite agreed with me, and the young lady was accord ingly taken out to the kitchen and introduced to so pots and pans. I also got her some book, I've forgot ten its name—her mother would re- member; ‘Complete Manual of Cook A day or two later I asked her mother how the cooking went. ‘Oh," she said, “Rose has been reading that book, and she knows more than all the rest of ust" Rachael laughed generously. They had reached the house again now, and Florence, glancing eagerly toward them, was charmed to see both amil- ing. She felt that the bishop must have influenced Rachael, and indeed the clergyman himself was sure that| her mood was softer, and found op- portunity before he departed to say to his hostess in a low tone that he fancied that they would hear no more of the whole miserable business. “Oh, Bishop, how wonderful of you! said Florence, thankfully. Two weeks later the news of the Breckenridge divorce burst like a bomb in the social sky. Immediately pictures of the lovely wife, of Clar ence, of the town house and the coun-| try house began to flood the eve ning papers, and even the morning journals found room for a column or two of tho affair on inside pages. | Clarence was tracked to his moun-) tain retreat, and as much as possible was made of his refusal to be inter. | viewed. Mrs. Breckenridge was no- where to be found. The cold wind of pubdlicity could not indeed reach her in the quiet! lanes and along the sandy shore of Quaker Bridge. Rachael, known to) every one but her kind old landlady as “Mrs. Prescott,” could even glance interestedly at the papers now | and then. Her identity, in three long} and peaceful months, was not even #0 much as suspected. She did not mind the plain country table, the in convenient old farmhouse; ahe loved her new solitude. Unqueationed, she dreamed thru the idle days, reading, | thinking, sleeping like a child. She spent long hours on the seashore watching the lazy, punctual-flow and tumble of the waves that were never hurried, never delayed; her eyes fol- lowed the flashing wings of the) gulls, the even, steady upward beat of strong pinions, the downward drifting thru blue air that was of all motion the most perfect. And sometimes in those hours it seemed to Rachael that she was no more in the great scheme of things than one of these myriad gulls, than one of the grains of sand thru which) she ran her white, unringed fingers. Clarence was a dream, Belvedere bay | was a dream; it was all a hazy, dim| memory now: the cards and the cock- tails, the dancing and tennis, the powder and lip-red in hot rooms and about glittering dinner tables. What} was—for nothing. The only actual ities were the white sand and the cool green water, and the summer sun beating down warmly upon her bare head. She awakened every morning in a large, bright, bare room whose three | big windows looked into rusting ma-| The steady rushing of | surf could be heard just beyond the maples. Sometimes a soft fog! wrapped the trees and the lawn in its) pale folds, and the bell down at the| lighthouse ding-donged thru whole warm, silent morning, but with the gradual reatix mplation of the peat f physician and frien but that her husband's {liness does not nee Rachact and Breckenridge about to entrain to the Wd rath ried tite and oun nan ended when he at her his spoiled little fon that lireckenridge was devoted to was suddenly ended with the of the Hreckenridges, He tells tel this, wor with wh Breckenridee and telle Ki py, and get her husband Interested in go to Califor chael, whose life had been too crowd. ed, gloried in the honey-scented emptiness of the sand hills, the measureles#, heaving surface of the THE SEATTLE STAR—THURSDAY, DEC. 25, 1919. ocean, the diszying breadth and space in which, an infinitesimal speck, she moved. Sho had sensibly taken her land lady, old Mra, Dimmick, into her con fidence, and pleased to be part of the little intrigue, and perhaps pleased | as well to rent her two best rooms) to this charming stranger, the old/ lady protected the secret gallantly. | It was all much more simple than | Rachael had feared it would be. No | body questioned her, nobody indeed | paid attention to her; she wandered | about in a bilsaful isolation as good | | for her tired soul as was the primi- tive life she led for her tired body, Yet every one of the idle days left ite marks upon her spirit; gradu | ally a great many things that had) seemed worth while in the old life showed their, true and petty and sor. did natures npw; gradually the purt-| fying waters of solitude washed her soul clean. Bhe began to plan for! the future—a future so different from the crowded and hurried past! Warren Gregory's letters came) regularly, postmarked London, Parts, Rome. They were utterly and wholly | satisfying to Rachael, and they went) far to make these days the happtent| in her life. Her heart would throb| like a girl's when she saw, on the) Uttle drop-leaf table in the hallway. the big square envelope, addressed in) the doctor's fine hand; sometimes— | again like a girl—she carried it down | to the beach before breaking the | weal, thrilled with a thousand hopes, | unready to put them to the test. | Yesterday's letter had maid: “My/| dearest,"—-had said: “Do you realize that I will see you In five weeks Could today's be half as sweet? She was never disappointed. The strong tide of his devotion for her rome steadily thru letter after letter tn August the glowing letters of July seemed cold by contrast, In Septem- ber every envelope brought her a flaming brand to add to the fires that) were beginning to biase within her. In late September there was an tn- terval; and Rachael told herself that now he was on the ocean—now he was on the ocean— Ry this time the digging babies were gone, the beach was almost de werted. Little office clerks, men and women, coming down for the two weeks of rest that break the 50 of work, still arrived on the late train) Saturday, and went away on the last train two weeks from the following Sunday, but there were no more dances at the one big hotel, and some of the smaller hotela were closed. The tall, plain, attractive! woman—with the three children and | the baby, who drove over from Clark's Hille every day, and who, for| all her graying hair and sun-bleached linens, seemed to be of Rachael's own | world—stil brought her shrieking and splashing trio to the beach, but! the had confided to Mra. Dimmick, who had known her for many sum: mera, that even her long holiday wi drawing to a close. Mrs. Dimmick brought extra blankets down from the attic, and began to talk of seeing her daughter in California. Rachael, | drinking in thé glory of the dying summer, found gach day more ex- quisite than the*¥last, and gratified her old hostess by expressing her de | sire to spend all the rest of her life in Quaker Bridge. She had, indeed, come to Ike the Villagers thoroly; not the summer the | population, for the guests at all sum-| grasses, mer hotels are alike uninteresting, Quickly getting to her feet, the broken line of kelp and weeds, driftwood, and cocoanut shells that fringed the tidemark, and more often there was sunshine, and/ but for the quiet life that went on| rather fascinated by the sudden om Rachael took her book to the beach, | got into her stiff, dry bathing suit, In 4 small, hot bathhouse furnished only by a plank bench and a few) rusty nails, and plunged into the de licious breakers she loved so well, Busy babies, digging on the beach, befriended her, and she grew to love | their sudden tears and more sudden! laughter, their stammered confl-| dences, and the touch of their warm, sandy little hands. She becamo an adept at pinning up their tiny bag- ging undergarments, and at disen- tangling hat ¢lastice from the soft bair at the back of moist little necks. If @ mother occasionally showed signs of friendliness, Rachael accept- ed the overture pleasantly, but man. aged to wander next day to some other part of the beach, and ko evade the definite beginning of a friend. ship. The warm sunshine, flavored by the salty sea, soaked into her very bones. Everything about Quaker! Bridge was bare, and worn, and clean; nothing was crowded, or hur-| ried, or false. Barren dunes, and| white, bleaching sand, colorless little | houses ing the elmlined main street, colorless planks outlining the| road to the water; the monotonous | austerity, the pure severity of the little ocean village was full of satis- fying charm for her. If she climbed a sandy rise beyond Mrs. Dimrmick's cottage, and faced the north, she could see the white roadway, winding | down to Clark's Bar, where the ocean fretted year after year to free the| waters of the bay only 12 feet away. Beyond, on the slope, was the village | known as Clark's Hills, a smother of great trees with a weather whipped spire and an oceasional bit of roof or fence in evidence, to show the habitation of man In other directions, facing east or west or south, there was nothing but the sand, and the coarse straggling | Sundays ling an old, bushes that rooted in the sand, and the clear blue dome of the sky, Ka- ar in and year out in the little side) streets; the women who washed clothes and «wept porches, who gar dened with tow-headed bables tum: | bling arownd them, who went on to the ‘little baid-faced| ch@Ph at 10 o'clock chael got into talk with them, trying to real ize what it must be to walk a hot mile for the small transaction of sell ing a dozen eggs for 30 cents, to spend a long morning carefully darn clean Nottingham lace curtain that could be replaced for $3. She read their lives as if they had been an absorbing book laid open for her eyes. The coming of the Hol laday baby, the decline and death of old Mra. Bird, the narrow escape of Sammy Tew from drowning, and the thoro old-fashioned thrashing that Mary Trimble gave her oldest son for taking a little boy like Sammy out beyond the “heads,”—all these things sank deep into the consciousness of the new Rachael, She liked the whitewashed cottages with their blazing geraniums and climbing honeysuckle, and the back door yards, with chickens fluffing in the dust, and old men, seated on up: turned old boats, smoking and whit tling as they watched the babies “while Lou gets her work caught up.” October came in on a storm, the most terrifying storm Rachael had ever seen. Late in the afternoon of September's last golden day a wind began to rise among the dunes, and Rachael, who, wrapped in a white woolly coat and deep in a book, had been lying for an hour or two on the beach, was suddenly roused by a shower of sand, and sat up to look at the sky. Clouds, low and gray, were moving rapidly overhead, and altho the tide was only making, and high water would not be due for another hour, the waves, emerald green, swift, and capped with white, were already touching the landmost water: mark, | completely,” bustling about with housewifely ac-| folks said inous change in sea and sky. In the | little village there was great clapping of shuttets and straining of clothes:| darkness lines, distracted, bareheaded women) nounced morning, and a neighbor’s| Hills ‘fore the bar was under water! ran about their dooryards, doors bani flutter. Clark's Hills going to be shut said Mrs. Dimmick, tivity, and evidently, like all the vil lage and like Rachael herself, a little exhilarated by the oncoming siege. “What will they do?” Rachael de manded, unhooking a writhing ham- mock from the porch as the old wom an briskly dragged the big cane rock ers indoors. “Oh, ther’ wunt no hurt t'um,” Mra, Dimmick said. “But— come an awful mean tide, Clark's Rar is under water. They'll just have to walt until she goes down, that’s come Shell I bring up some candies from suller? We ain't got much kar- osene!” Florrie, the one maid, de- manded excitedly, Chess, the hired man, who was Florrie's “steady,” began to bring wood in by the arm: ful, and fling it down by the airtight stove that had been set up only a few days before. The wind began to how! about the roof; trees in the dooryard rocked and arched, Darkness fell at 4 o'clock, and the deafening roar of the ocean seemed an actual menace as the night came down, Chess and Florrie, after supper, frankly joined the family group in the sitting room, a group composed only of Rachael and Mrs. Dimmick and two other terrified young stenographers from the elty. These two did not go to bed, but Rachael ewent upstairs as usual at 10 o'clock, and drifted to sleep in a world a creaking, banging, and roaring. A confusion and excited voices below stairs brought her | down again rather pale, in her long sve started briskly for home, following | SE 5-PATIERSON Co, SECOND AVENUE AND UNIVERSITY STREET Announcing Clearance Sale of Women’s Winter Apparel Beginning Tomorrow Includimg All Winter Coats, Suits, Dresses and Hats At Remarkable Reductions —In the Apparel Section, Third Floor and —The Special Price Basement wrapper, at The Barwicks, mother, father and three babies, had left their beach cottage in the night fad the storm to seck safer shelter and the welcome sound of other voices than their own. | After that there was little sleep for any one. Still in Whe roaring the clocks presently an-| 3. jboy, breathless, dripping in tar everywhere was rush and] pauting, was blown against the door, jand burt, in “Dtlare if don’t think th’ folks at) off to say with youthful relish that the porches of the Hol comb house were under water, and| the boardwalk washed aw and that the road was all gone betwixt here and the light house. Rain was still falling in sheets, and the wind was still high. Rachael braved it, late in the after: | noon, to go out and see with her own eyes that the surf was foam- ing and frothing over the deserted bandstand at the end of the main street, and got back to the shelter of the house wet and gasping, and with the first little twist of personal fear at her heart, Suppose that lim- itless raging green wall down there rose another 10—nanother 20—feet, swept deep and roaring and resist- less over little Quaker Bridge, plunged them all for a few strug: fling, hopeless moments into Its em- erald depths, and then washed the little loosely drifting bodies that had been men and women far out to sea again? What could one do? No trains came into Quaker Bridge today; It was understood that there were washouts all along the line. Rachael sat In the dark, stuffy little sitting room with the placid Barwick baby drowsing in her lap, and at last her face reflected the nervous unensi- ness of the other women. Every time an especially heavy rush of rain or wind struck the unsubstan- tial little house, Mra, Barwick said, “Oh, my!” in patient, hopeless ter- ror, and the two young women looked at each other with a quick hissing breath of fear. The night was long with horror. There were other refugees in Mrs. Dimmick’s house now; there were in all 16 people sitting around her lt wee tle stove listening to the wind and the ocean, The old lady herself was the mdst cheerful of the group, al- tho Ra 1 and one or two of the others managed an appearance at least of calm. “Declare!” said the hostess, more than once, “dunt see what we's all thinkin’ of not to git over to Clark's | They've got 60-foot elevation there!” “I'd just as soon try to get there} now,” mid Miss Stokes of New York, eagerly ‘There's waves eight feet high in’ over that bar,” Ernest Bar-| wick said, and something in the sim-/ ple words made little Miss Stokes look sick for a moment. “What's our elevation?” asked. “"Bout—" Mr. Barwick paused. “But you can’t tell nothing by that,” he contented himself with remarking after a moment's thought. “But T never heard—I never heard of the sea coming right over a whole village!” Rachael hated herself for the fear that dragged the words out, and the white lips that spoke them. “Neither did I!" said half a dozen voices. There was silence while the old clock on the mantel wheezed out a lugubrious eight strokes, ‘Lord, how it rains!" muttered Emily. Bar- wick, Nine o'clock—10 o'clock. ‘The young women, the old woman, the maid and man who would be married some day if they lived, the husband and wife who had been lovers like them only a few years ago, and who now had these three little lives to guard, all sat wrapped in their own thoughts, Rachael sat staring at the stove's eye, thinking, thinking, thinkin) She thought of Warren Gregory; his steamer must be in now; he must be with his mother in the old house, and planning to see her any day. Tomor- row—if there was a tomorrow— might bright his telegram. ‘What would his life be if he might never seo her again? She could not even leave him a note, or a word; on this eve of their meeting, were they to be parted forever? Should she never tell him how dearly—how dearly— who loved him? Tears came 4. Rachael | yard, eyes, her heart was wrung with ex- quisite sorrow. She thought of Billy—poor little Billy—who had never had a mother, who needed a mother so sadly, and of her own mother, dead now, and of the old blue coat of 13 years ago, and the rough blue hat. She thought of her great-grandmother in the little whitewashed California cottage under the shadow of the blue mountains, with the lilacs and marigolds in the And colored by her new great love, and by the solemn fears of this endless night, Rachael found a ten. derness in her heart for all those shadowy figures that had played a part in her life. (Continued Tomorrow) Of all the ground animals that are also tree climbers, the leopard is the only one that will run down a vertical trunk head foremost. Ticket to Prison Present for T: A commitment order to the penitentiary for a period of from to 20 years was the Christmas ent given Frank Holmes and Kines, convicted highway Thursday morning by the clerk's office, SANDSTEDT LEADS CLUB B. A. Sandstedt, of the Scandi. navian American bank, was re-elect. ed president of the Swedish club at its annual meeting here, He oe preside at a Christmas be held at the club house at ree B December 28, A native Sitka widow, when puts on mourning, paints the part of her face a deep black, “I Don’t Need to Tell You” says the Good Judge ~ Why so many men are going to the small chew of You get real tobacco eat ce isfaction out of this small chew. The rich taste — lasts and lasts. You don’t need a fresh chew so often, Any man who uses the Real Tobacco Chew will tell you that. Put Up In Two Styles RIGHT CUT is a short-cut tobacco W-B CUT is a long fine-cut tobacco ech