The Seattle Star Newspaper, November 1, 1921, Page 13

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1 ; (Continued From Page 6) other in appreciation of the jest; and he chirped, “You're worse than Reverend Bentick! He don't hardly ever strike me for more than ten @ollars—at a time! “I'm not joking. J mean it! Your ebildren in the citigs are grown-up and well-todo. You don't want to @ie and leave your name unknown. Why not do a big, original thing? Why not rebuild the whole town? Get a great architect, and have him plan a town that would be suit. able to the prairie, Perhaps he'd €reate some entirely new form of @rchiteeture. Then tear down all these shambling buildings—" aPees eS R55 573 ‘ Mr, Dawson had decided that she! Ally did mean it, “Why, He would cost at walled, least that three or four million doRars!” “But you alone, just one man, [AY have two of these millions!” “Me? Spend all my hard-earned ash on building houses for a lot of shiftiess beggars that never had the sense to save their money? Not that I've ever been mean. Mama could always have a hired girl to But her and I have worked our fingers to the bone and—«pend it on @ lot of these rascals——?" “Please! Don't be angry! mean—I mean—— Oh, not spend all of it, of course, but if you led off the list, and the others came in, and they heard you talk about a more Bttractive town——" “Why tow, child, you've got ot of notions. Besides, what's th fraveléd all over the world tell me time and again that Gopher Prair‘e the prettiest place in the Middle Good enough for anybody. geod enough for mama Besides! Mama and me are to go out to Pasadena and | MAIN STREET The Story of Carol Kennicott BY SINCLAIR LEWIS Copyright, 1929, Harcourt, Brace & Howe, Ine. , 1921, stews, possibly a municipal fund for home building. “What do you think of my plans, Mrs. Warren?” sho! concluded, Speaking judictously, as one re lated to the church by marriage, Mrs. Warren gave verdict: “I'm sure we're all heartily in accord with Mra, Kennicott in feel ing that wherever genuine poverty is encountered, it is not only ao diease oblige but a joy to fulfil our | duty to the less fortunate ones. But T Must say ft seems to me we shduld lose the whole potnt of the thing by not regarding it as charity, | Why, that’s the chief adornment of the true Christian and the church! |The Bible has laid tt down for our | guidance, ‘Faith, Hope, and Char. ) tty,” it says, and, “The poor ye have with ye always,’ which indicates that there never can be anything |to these so-called scientific schemes | for abolishing charity, never! And |imn't it better so? I should hate |to think of a world jn which we | Were deprived of all the pleasure of | (giving. Besides, if these shiftieas folks realize they're getting charity, and not something to which they | eratetul.” | “Besides,” snorted Muss Ella Stow: body, “they've been fooling you, | Mrs. Kennicott. There isn't any {real poverty here. Take that Mra. | Steinhof you speak of; I send her our washing whenever there's too much for our hired girl—I must have sent her ten dollars’ worth the past year alone! I'm sure papa | would never approve of a city home- | building fund. Papa says these |folks are fakers. Especially all [these tenant farmers that pretend j they have so much trouble getting |seed and machinery. Papa says |they simply won't pay their debts, | He says he's sure he hates to fore- mortgages, but it's the only way to make them respect the law.” “And then think of all the clothes we give these people! said Mrs. Jackson Elder. "Oh yes. I was going to speak of that. Don't you think that when we give clothes to the poor, if we do give them old ones, we ougit mend them first and make them tall seaweed tree. Flatty Flounder said he was going fo sleep, and he did. He lay over on his little white side and Closed his eyes, altho you could only See one of them, the one on top. That _ 'Was the last thing he would and did say, and the fairyman and the Twins might just as well have tried to get the Sphinx to talk as that lazy | flounder boy. And dear knows, the | Sphinx never did talk, and it isn't | Boing to begin now! The three of*them stood by, look- ig and looking and wondering what to do. Curly, the sea-horse, sald he Was too disgusted for words, and I Suppose the rest were, too, Everywhere asound, the fishes, | Stabs, lobsters and all kinds of Wig- , Matin people were waiting for a | thance to get by. The Cross Roads Were very narrow, what with rocks 7 d seaweed and everything. Not the fishes couldn't swim right the top of Fiatty—my, no! But d they? Wasn't any one of the So Nick made a detour sign and hung it on the trunk of a “I think #0 toot said Madam in. She glanced uneasily at Miss Sherwin. “But what do you think, Vila?” Vida smiled tactfully at each of tee, start anything more right now. But it’s been a privilege to hear Carol's dear generous ideas, hasn't it? Oh! There -is one thing we must decite on at once. We must get together and oppose any move on the part of the Minneapolis clubs to elect another State Federation president from the Twin Cities. And this Mrs, Edgar Potbury they're putting forward—I know there are people likely to stop and eat up Fiatty quicker 'n’ Mr. Frog can gobble up Buddy Blue Bottle? “Well, wellf’ sighed Cap'n Penny- winkle finally, “Nick, you'll have to hang up a detour sign and make ’em all go ‘round. This fellow is here to 1 suppose we may as well pull the covers up and let him alone.” 80 Nick made a detour sign and hung it on the trunk of a tall sea- weed tree where everyone could see, and the Wigslefin people all moved off very reluctantly in that direction. It was just as tho Johnny Jones had taken a notion to rest his tired little bones right in the middle of traffic at corner of Second ave. and Pike st., or where Madison st. crosses Second ave., only worse, for in that case the traffic policeman could call a patrol wagon and have Johnny hauled off to his own house and put to bed properly. Nobody could pick Flatty up. He was too slippery! (To Be Continued) erin as MEE Fe You'D BETTER GO DOWN AND ; TELL THE JANITOR] Tayi ryaT! THAT WE HAVE | ne MICE UP HERE! who think she's a bright, interesting | speaker, but I regard her as very| shallow, What do you say to my| writing to the Lake Ojibawasha club, telling them that if their div trict will suppert, Mrs. Warren for second vice president, we'll support) their Mrs, Hagelton (and such a dear, lovely, cultivated woman, too) for president.” | “Yes! We ought to show up, those Minneapolis folks!" Elia Stow: body said acidly. “And oh, by the way, we must oppore this move- ment of Mrs. Potbury’s to have the state clubs come out definitely in favor of woman suffrage. Women haven't any place in politica. They would lose ail their daintiness and charm if they became involved in these horried plots and log-roiling and all this awful political stuff) about scandal and personalities | *0 on.” . All—save one—nodded, They in-! terrupted the formal business meet- ing to discuss Mrs, Edgar Potbury’ husband. Mrs. Potbury’s income, | Mrs. Potbury's sedan, Mrs. Pot-| bury’s residence, Mrs. Potbury’s Oratorical style, Mra. Potbury’s man: | darin evening cost, Mrs. Potbury’s| coiffure, and Mrs. Potbury’s alto- gether reprehensible influence on/ the State Federation of Women's ctuba, Before the program committee a4- journed they took three minutes to decide which of the subjects sug gested by the magazine Culture Hints, Furnishings and China, or the Bible ag Literature, would be better for the coming year. There was one annoying incident. Mrs. Dr. Kennicott interfered and showed off again. She commended, “Don't you think that we already get enough of the Bible tn our churches and Sunday schools?” Mrs. Leonard Warren, somewhat out of order, but much more out of | temper, cried, “Well upon my word! I didn't suppose there was any one who felt that we could get enough of the Bible! I guess if the Grand O14 Book has withstood the! attacks of infidels for these two{ thousands years it is worth our slight consideration™ “Oh, I didn't mean——" Carri begged. Inasmuch as she did mean, it was hard to be extremely lucid. “But I wish, ‘instead of limiting our- selves either to the Bible, or to anecodotes about the Brothers Ad- ams’ wigs, which Culture Hintsel|] @ seems to regard as the significant point about furniture, we could study some of the really stirring ideas that are springing up today— | * a whether it's chemistry or anthropol- Page 509 ogy or labor problems—the things . that are going to mean so terribly COLUMBUS much.” | Everybody throat, Madam Chairman inquired, “Is/ there any other discugsion? Will| some one make a motion to adopt the suggestion of Vida Sherwin—to| take up Furnishings and China?” It was adopted, unanimously. “Checkmate! murmured Carol, as she held up her hand. Had she actually believed that! she could plant @ seed of liberalism | in the blank wall of mediocrity? How had she fallen into the folly of trying to plant anything what- ever in @ wall so smooth and sun- glazed, and so satisfying to the happy sleepers within? “The campfire blazed and crackled,” grandmother went on with Ben's story. “The big erick- ets sang in the gras, stars shone in the black sky and darkness shut them tn like a friendly wall. It was very corny and very restful after the long day‘s ride, “So all was quiet when the squaw came up with her boy. He was a well-built, sturdy lad about 13 years old and his big dark eyes looked frightened as he saw the circle of strange white faces about the settlers’ campfire. “One of the men got up and went to the woman as she drew near and asked her what she wanted. “Good boy,’ she said, pushing the little fellow forward. The boy shrank back, but she shoved him on, She wanted a horse and she was willing to trade him for a horse, “So one of the white men gave her a good pinto pony and she went away. The Indian boy had long hair Ike a girl and he was wrapped about in a gay blanket cleared her polite CHAPTER XII 1 One week of authentic spring, one rare sweet week of May, one tran- quil moment between the blast of winter and the charge of summer. Daily Carol walked from town into flashing country hysteric with new life. me enchanted hour when she re- turned to youth and a belief in the possibility of beauty. She had walked northward toward) the upper shore of Plover lake, tak-| ing tg the rajlroad track, whose di- rectness and dryness make it the natural highway for pedestrians on the plains. She stepped from tie to tie, in long strides. At each road- crossing she had to crawl over a cattle-guard of sharpened timbers. She walked the rails, balancing with arms extended, cautious heel before toe. As she lost balance her body bent over, her arms revolved wildly, and when she toppled she laughed aloud, The thick grass beside the track, coarse and prickly with many burn- ings, hid canary-yellow buttercups and the mauve petals and woolly sage-green coats of the pasque flow- ers. The branches of the kinnt- kinie brush were red and smooth as lacquer on a saki bowl, She ran down the gravelly em- bankment, smiled at children gath- ering flowers in a little basket, ‘thrust a handful of the soft pasque ee Tw flowers into the bosom of her white blouse. Fields of springing wheat drew her from the straight pro- priety of the railroad and she crawled thru the rusty barbed-wire fence. She followed a furrow be- tween low wheat blades and a field of rye which showed silver lights as it flowed before the wind. she found a pasture by the lake. So sprinkled was the pasture with rag- baby blossoms and the cottony herb of Indian tobacco that it spread out like a rare old Persian “carpet of cream and rose and delicate green. Under her feet the rough grass made a pleasant crunching. Sweet winds blew from the sunny lake beside|after ar Grattle OLY IID nd + from neck to heels. Alan (the young man who had bought him) felt sorry for’ him, but the poor little Indian didn’t know that; he didn’t know that when Alan cut his hair it was for kindness. couldn't understand the words of that he had been sold as a slave. “Now, slaves they treated them as they chose, and it was nobody's busi ness, and you can imagine what @ picture came into his mind of the beatings and lashings his new master would give him. “So when the white men and their families went to bed in their camp fashion the Indian lad tried to run away and Alan had to tie him to a tree. “Then such a how! as he did set up! Nobody could sleep and Alan couldn’t explain to him how he only meant to be kind to him, “The settlers cross att his noisy crying and at last Alan got a little whip and went to him.” (To Be Continued) when her, and small waves sputtered on the meadowy shore. tiny creek bowered in pussy-willow buds, She was nearing a frivolous grove of birch and poplar and wid plum trees, The poplar foliage had the downi- ness of a Corot arbor; the green and silver trunks were as candid as the birches, as slender and lustrous limbs of a Pierrot. The cloudy white blossoms of, the plum trees filled the grove with a spring: time mistiness which gave an illa- sion of distance, as the Wilbur Has Enough E. PUL TELL SAY, JANITOR, WEVE HIM MORE Iwitt Not! THeyLL EAT WHAT WE DO OR “THEY'LL STARVE: WELL GET SOME RAT BISCUITS TWISUT HAD A NICE DIRKY MOTHER UKE You've Gor, TAs! MY MoM DON'T CARE HOW MUCH T RUN WER OUR KITCHEN FLOOR. oil WHOOP ! THERE GOES “™’ LIGHTS! EVERYBODY WOLD ON Yo WEIR WATCHES! Il iL; il By RUTH AGNES ABELING (Copyright CHAPTER LXXVI—TOM KISSES ME ONCE ‘AGAIN “Helga-—you are beautiful! something of that calm poise which gtroubling you, needn’ It was old Tom again—but it Kate Ames possessed in so great a | been waiting for you for a hurt, because in the back of my | degree? time and not once has my brain was the thought of Grace! , “Until what—dear?” His arm was |turned to anothi I drew my hands away and only|&round my shoulders and against} “I've been watching every smiled in response. my will was drawing me around to/since that letter came, H — Together we sought the sitting |face him. haven't been out of my room, with ita cozy settee near the} “Until what?’ he repeated, gently, | once, and not out of my sight long windows which looked out over| when I didn’t answer. for I've been so eager for your the town, Stin I was silent. and “ell being. é Automobile lights were spotting the} “Are you doubting something—lit-| “And I've waited so long, dear, |iandscape like huge butterflies. We|tle girl, foolish little girl?” he asked. | this day, when you would give watched it in silencé for a while. “Is there something troubling you?" |the chance to say all over Tom took my hands again. I drew And as if I haa been 16, I buried | those things I have already by Seattle Star) % * He any of the white people; he only Jj} them away. my face in my hands and began to| “Now whatever it is that knew in his savage little heart “You're different tonight—Helga,| weep off all of the beauty which Ij doubting, if you can’t tell me, We what is it?” he asked. “I thought /had so carefully put on only a short} you forget, dear?” a I had found my handkerchief, had dabbed carefully at my I dared look up, and say: “Yes.” : And he kissed me. 4 (To Be Continued) horse-trading.” Bjornstam ¢ His red mustache caught the ui “Regular hoboes and public b é tors we are. Take a hike like this every once in a while, Sharks © horses.. Buy ‘em from ers sell ‘em to others, We're honest: frequently. Great time. Camp al the road. I was wishing I chance to say goodby to you I ducked out but-——Say, you b come along with us. “I'd like to.” “While you're playing mut peg with Mra, Lym Cass, Pete me will be rambling across D thru the Bad Lands, into the country, and when fall comes, be crossing over a pass of the Horn Mountains, maybe, and in a snow-storm, quarter of a right straight up above a lake, TI in the morning we'll lie snug in 94 blankets and look up thru the at an eagle. How'd it strike Heh? Wagle soaring and soaring ¢ day—big wide sky——" “Don't! Or T will go with you, I'm afraid there might be slight scandal, Perhaps some I'l do it. Good-by,” Her hand disappeared in his ened leather glove. From in the road she waved at walked on more soberly now, she was lonely But the wheat and grass sleek velvet under the sunset; ¢ You, too, were waiting for this hour | we were to have together at the end of the turmoil.” “I was, until’ I started to say and then turned away Why, I wondered, couldn’t I have while before. Even my frock, shim- mering, lovely and white, wasn’t to escape, For Tom was crushing it. “Now can't we just forget, since you won't tell me, dear?” Tom was saying. “Whatever it is ‘that is Indians bought warmed her, This countryman gave her & companionship which she had never (whether by her fault or theirs or neither) been able to find in the matrons and commercial lords of the town. Half a mile from town, in a hol- low between hazelnut bushes and a brook, she discovered a gipsy en- campment: a covered wagon, a tent, a bunch of pegged-out horses, A broad shouldered man was squatted on his heels, holding a frying pan over a camp fire. He looked toward her. He was Miles Bjornstam. “Well, well, what you doing out here?” he roared. “Come have a hunk 0’ bacon. Pete! Hey, Pete!” A tousied person came from be- hind the covered wagon, “Pete, here's the one honest-to- God lady In my bum town. Come on, crawl in and set a couple min- utes, Mrs, Kennicott. I’m hiking off for all summer.” The Red Swede staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the wire fence, held the strands apart ‘for her, She unconsciously | amiled at him as she went thru. Her skirt caught on a barb; he care- fully freed it, Beside this man in blue flannel shirt, baggy khaki trousers, uneven suspenders, and vile felt hat, she was small and exquisite, The surly Pete set out an up: turned bucket for her, She lounged soms lured her from the outer sun- ‘warmed spaces to depths of green gtiliness, where a submarine light came thru the young leaves. She walked pensively along an aban- doned road. She found a moccasin- flower beside a lichen-covered log. At the end of the road she saw the open acres-—dipping rolling fields bright with wheat, “IT believe! The woodland gods still live! And out there, the great land. It's beautiful as the moun- tains, What do I care for Thana- topsises?” She came out on the prairie, spacious under an arch of boldly cut clouds. Small pools glittered. Above a marsh, red-winged black- birds chased a crow in a swift melo drama of the air. On a hill was silhouetted a man following a drag. His horse bent its neck and plodded, content. A path took her to the Corinth road, leading back to town. Dan- delions glowed in patches amidst the wild grass by the way. A stream golloped thru a concrete culvert beneath the road, She trudged in healthy weariness, A man in a bumping Ford rattled up beside her, hailed, “Give you a lift, Mrs, Kennicott?” “Thank you. It's awfully good of you, but I'm enjoying the walk.” “Great day, by golly. I seen some wheat that must of been five inches Ge pigs began to grow She leaped a She ran into the wood, eryiny|high. Well, so long.” on’ it, her elbows on her knees.| prairie clouds were tawny out for joy of freedom regained| She hadn't the dimmest netion| ‘Where are you going?” she asked,|she swung happily into Mi he was, but his greeting for the 0 “Just starting off