The Seattle Star Newspaper, December 6, 1921, Page 13

TUESDAY, , DECEMBER 6, MAIN STREET : The Story of Carol Kennicott RY SINCLA) Copyright, 1920, Harcourt, Brace & Hews, Ine. (Continued From Yesterday) CHAPTER XXXI 1 ‘Their night came unheralded. q Kennicott was on a country call Tt was cool but Carol huddled on the | Porch, rocking, meditating, rocking. The house was lonely and repellent, | and tho she sighed, “I ought to go in and read—so many things to read Ought to go in,” she remained. | Suddenty Erik was coming, turning | in, swinging open the screen door, | touching her hand ori “Baw your husband driving out of | town. Couldn't stand it.” “Well— You mustn't stay more! n five minutes.” “Couldn't stand not seeing you. Every day, towards evening, felt 1) had to see you—pictured you so clear, | T've been good tho, staying away, haven't 1!" “And you must go on being good.” “Why must It “We better not stay here on the porch, The Howlands across the street are such window-peepers, and Mrs. Bogart" She did not look at him but she could divine his tremulousness as he stumbled indoors, A moment ago} the night had been coldly empty | mow it was incalculable, hot, treach @rqus. But it is women who are the calm realists once they diseard the of the premarital hunt. Carol Was serene as she murmured, “Hun- Sty? I bave some little honey-colored cakes, You may have two, and then you must skip home.” “Take me up and let me see Hugh | | “t don't believe—" “Just a glimpse! “wen She doubtfully led the way to the hallroom-nursery, Their heads close, Erik's curtis pleasant as they touched her cheek, they looked in at the Raby. Hugh was pink with slumber. ‘He had burrowed into his pillow with much energy that it was almost JS mmothering him. Reside it was a Celluloid rhinoceros; tight in his pore a torn picture of Old King “Shbh™ said Carol, quite auto- matically. She tiptoed in to pat the pillow. As she returned te Erik ahe had a friendly sense of his waiting for her. They smiled at each other, She did not think of Kennicott, the baby’s father. What she did think ‘was that some one rather like Erik, an older and surer Erik, ought to be) Hugh’s father. The three of them! would play—ineredible imaginative | mes. “Carol! You've told me about your own room. Let me peep in at it.” “But you mustn't stay, not a sec ond. We must go downstairs.” pe “Yes. “Will you be good?’ “R-reasonably™ He was pale, serious. “You've got to be more than rea gonably good!" She felt sensible and superior; she was energetic about Pushing open the door. » Kennicott had always seemed out @f place there but Erik surprisingly harmonized with the spirit of the room as he stroked the books, glanced at the prints. He held out Bis hands. He came toward her. She was weak, betrayed to a warm gottness. Her head was tilted back. Her eyes were cloned. Her thoughts ‘were formless but many-colored. She felt his kiss, diffident and reverent, on_her eyelid. | Then she knew that it was im- bie. Pj She shook herself. She sprang from him. “Piease!” she said sharp | He looked at her unyielding. “ft am fond of you,” she said. “Don't spoil everything. Be my friend.” “How many thousands and mil- lions must have said that! And now you! And it doesn’t spoil every- thing. It glorifies everything.” “Dear, I do think there's a tiny | k of fairy in you—-whatever you with it. Perhaps I'd have loved that once. But I won't. It's too) late. But I'll keep a fondness for you. Impersonal—I will be imper- sonal@ It needn't be just a thin talky ems. You do need me. | don't you? Only you and my son; need me. I've wanted so to be want-| ed! Once I wanted love to be given to me. Now I'll be content if I can! give. . Almost content! “We women, we like to do things | tons 1921, LOOK WHAT | DID FOR You “ropay ! | WASHED AND IRONED Fy) THAT SHIRT ALL MY SELF - In LEWIS for mon, Poor men! We swoop on! you when you're defenselessand tums | over you and {nsist on reforming you, But it's so pitifully deep in| us, You'll be the one thing in which | 1 haven't failed. Do something def | inite! Kven if it's just selling cot: | Sell beautiful cottons—cara. | vans from China" “Carol! Stop! You do love me!" “I do not! t's just— Can't you understand? E thing crushes in on me ao, all the gaping dull people, and I look for a way out— Please go, I can’t stand any more, Please! He was gone, And she not relieved by the quiet of the house She was empty and the house was empty and she needed him, She wanted to go on talking, to get this threshed out, to build a sane friend | ship, She wavered down to the liv: | ing-room, looked out of the baywin- | dow. He waa not to be seen. But Mrs, Westlake wan, She was walking | past, and in the light from the cor: | ner arolamp she quickly inspected | NORM LIVES= the perch, the windows. Care dropped the curtain, stood with move. ment and refi¢ction paralyxed. Auto. matically, without reasoning, she mumbled, “I will see him again seen and make him understand we mun’ be friends. But— The house is so empty. It echoes #0.” 1" n Kennicott had seemed nervous and absent-minded thru that supper-hour, two evenings after. He prowled about the living recom, then growled: “What the dickens have you been mying to Ma Westlake?” Carol's book rattled, you mean? “I told you that Westlake and his wife were jealous of us, and here you, Betn chumming up to them and— From what Dave tells me, Ma Westlake has been going around town saying you tolf her that you hate Aunt Bessie, and that rou fixed “What do mustn't ever see Erik again.” But the words did not register, She had no ecstatic indulgence in the sense of guilt which is, to the women of | Main Street, the surest escape from | blank tediousnens. | At five, crumpled in a chair in the THE SEATTLE STAR She Tries to Please AND DID You DO THIS ALL YOUR SELF, DORIS AND DIDN'T ASK ANY BODY P . THAT'S WHERE THAT your own room because I nore. | ving room, ehe started at the sound | and you said Bjornstam was too good for Bea, and then, just recent, that you were sore on the town because we don't all go down on our knees and beg this Valbore fellow to come take supper with us. God only knows what else she says you said.” “It's not true, any of it! I did like Mra. Westlake, and I've called on her, and apparently she's gone and twisted everything 1 said" “Sure, Of course she would. Didn't I tell you she would? She's an old at, like her pussyfooting, hand-holding husband. Lord, if I was sick. I'd rather have a faith. healer than Westlake, and sh other slice off the same bacon. What) I can't understand tho—” She waited, taut. “ig whatever possessed you to let her pump you, bright a girl as you are, I don't care what you told her—we all get peeved sometimes and want to blow off steam, that's natural—but if you wanted to keep it dark, why didn’t you advertise it in the Dauntless, or get a megn- phone and stand en top of the hotel and holler, or do anything besides spill it to her™ “I know. You told me. Put she was so motherly. And I didn't have any woman— Vida's become so mar. ried and proprietary.” “Well, next time you'll have better sense. He patted her head, flumped down behind his newspaper, said nothing more. Enemies leered thrn the windows, stole on her from the hall. She had ho one save Erik. man Kennicott—he wa: im elder brother, It was Erik, her fellow out- cast, to whom she wanted to run for sanctuary, Thru her storm she was, to the eye, sitting quietly with her fingers between the pages of a baby- biue book on home-dressmaking. But her dismay at Mrs. Westlake's treach- ery had risen to active dread. What had the woman said of her and Erik? What did she know? What had she seen? Who else would join in the baying hunt? Who else had seen her with Erik? What had she to fear from the Dyer: Juanita, Aunt Bessie? + hat precine. ly had ahe answered to Mrs. Bogart's uestion! ny ‘ All next day she was too restieas to stay home, yet as she walked the streets on fictitious errands she was afraid of every person she met. She waited for them to speak; waited with foreboding. She repeated, “It won’t do you any good to get angry” “Did Kip steal the key to the En- chanted Cupboard in Brownieland?” asked Nancy of the next gnome. “He didn't tell me,” he answered. “Did he bring it here?” she asked, turning to his next neighbor. “He did if he didn't leave It be hind,” was the reply. “Where did he put it?” she asked another one. “No one said he brought it,” came the answer. “Oh, oh, ob?" cried Nancy stamp- ing her foot. “I think you're all hor- rid. You haven't told me a thing!’ “It won't do you any good to get angry.” remarked Crookabone. “We | ail know that you and Nick came to find Kip and get the key to the En-| chanted Cupheart in Rrownleland sO you can get the magic shovels and belp Pim Pim to die the glittering | stuff to make the Christman toys. Bot I'l) answer your questions for you. Kip did take the key, and he came bere with it and it’s hidden un- “der the largest lump of coal in my} (Copyright, 1921, by Seattle Star) lounly, cellar. There! Now I hope you are happy, for all the good it will do you. Are you?” he asked sharply. “N—" Nancy nearly forgot again. Crookabone had tried over and over trap the Twins into saying “yeu” or “no” so they should turn upside down and he could steal their Magic Green Shoes, “Not very,” she said instead. “Now you come, Nick,” said Crook- abone, motioning Nancy away, “Ask anything you like and be sure that you will be answered well.” So Nick took Nancy's place in the center of the circle and began at once. “Where is your house?” he asked Crookabone, “Where ‘do you live?” “across the sireet from the chim- ney sweep,” was the quick answer, round the corner from the baker's end half 4 block from the bean.pot man’s. Now you know.” “Humph,” said Nick. (To Be Continued) an This kind good | Cy Bogart. | of the bell. Some one opened the door, She waited, uneasy, Vida Sherwin charged into the room | “Here's the one person I can trust!” Carol rejoiced Vida was serious but affectionate She bustied at Carol with, “Oh, there you are, dearie, so giad t’ find you in, sit down, want to talk to you.” Carol sat, obedient. Vida fussily tugged over a large chair and launched out: “I've been hearing vague rumors; you were interested in this Erik Val borg. I knew you couldn't be gulity and I'm surer than ever of it no Here we are, as blooming a* 4 dalry “How does a respectable matron look when whe feels guilty?” Carol sounded resentful “Why Oh, it would show! Be | sides! I know that you, of all peo ple, are the one that can appreciate Dr. will” “What have you been hearing?” “Nothing, really, I just heatd Mrs. Bogart say she'd seen you and Val. borg walking togethers lot.” Vida's | chirping slackened. She looked at) her nails, “But— I suspect you do like Valborg. Oh, 1 don't mean in any wrong way, But you're young you don’t know what an innocen | liking might drift Into. You always | pretend to be no sophistiented and! all, but you're a baby. Just because you aré xo innocent, you don't know what evil thoughts may lurk in that | tellow's brain.” “You don't suppose Valbore could | actually think about making love to me?” Her rather cheap sport ended ab- ruptly as Vida chied, with contorted face, “What do you know about the thoughts tn hearts? You just play at reforming the world. You don’t) know what it means to suffer.” | There are two insults which no| human being will endure: the asser tion that he hasn't a sense of hu mor, and the doubly impertinent as- sertion that he has never known trouble. Carol said furiously, “You think T don’t suffer? You think I've always had an easy—" | “No, you don't. I'm going to tel! you something I've never told a liv ing soul, mot even Ray.” The dam of repredued imagination which Vida |had builded for years, which now with Raymie off at the wars, she | was building again, gave way, “I} was—I liked Will terribly well. One) time at a party—oh, before he met | you, of course—but we held hands, | and we were so happy. But I didn't feel I was really suited to him. 1 let him go. Please don’t think 1 still love him! I see now that Ray was predestined to be my mate. But be- | cause I liked him, I know how sin-| cere and pure and noble Will Is, and| his thoughts never straying from the} path of rectitude, and— If I gave him up to you, at least you've got to appreciate him! We danced together | and laughed so, and I gave him up, but— This is my affair! I'm not intruding! I see the whole thing as jhe does, because of all I've told you. Maybe it's shameless to bare my heart this way, but I do it for hirm—~ for him and you!” Carel understood that Vida be- lieved herself to have recited minute- ly and brazenly a story of intimate love: understood that, in alarm, she was trying to cover her shame ae |ahe struggled on, “Liked him in the | most honorable way—simply can’t) |help it if I still eee things thru his leyes— If J gave him up, I certainly | am not beyond my rights in de) manding that you take care to avoid even the appearance of evil and—"| iBhe was weeping; an Insignificant, flushed, ungracefully weeping wom- Carol could not endure it, She) ran to Vida, kissed her forehead, | comforted her with a murmur of dove-like sounds, sought to reassure | her with worn and hastily assembled | | gifts of words: “Oh, I appreciate it |go much.” and “You are #0 fine and splendid,” and “Let me assure you there isn’t a thing to what you've | heard,” and “Oh, indeed, I do know how sincere Will is, and as you say, n0—#0 sincere.” Vida believed that she had ex phined many deep and devious mat: lters, She came out of her hysteria ike a sparrow shaking off rain-drops, She sat up, and took advantage of hér victory: “] don’t want to rub ityin, but you can see for yourself now, this Is all a result of your being #0 discon: tented and not’appreciating the dear good people here. And another lthing: People like you and me, who | want fo reform things, have to be particularly careful about appear: ances, Think how much better you lean eriticize conventional customs if ! you yourself live up to them, serupu- ‘Then people w*" Sy you're ‘t Has BY CONDO JUST AS I THOUGHT — L-— You car Peopce ware in YouR wHILe OUTSIDE OFmos * Page THE “Was it a white bell all made of flowers that the lad carried?” Pegey asked eagerly. when Miss Margaret was married @ big white bell hanging right over her head.” “No,” Mra. Washburn answer. ed, “the bell the lad rang for that early-day wedding was a common | dinner bell such as farmers use! to let the hands know when to come in from work. “1 think, perhaps, no stranger wedding bell was ever rung. “Well,” she continued, “the! people laughed and told each} other what @ funny wedding it was like to be, but each one planned in his heart to go. “The day before Thanksgiving came, the people gathered at the station’ to see the train come in and to welcome the little old woman who would no longer be alone. “And when she clambered down | from the steps of the car she Jooked like a walking henhouse, for in baskets and little slatted boxes, in bags and in sacks, she brought her chickens with her; her chickens and the fat rooster who was to make for her and the poor woodchopper a Thanksgiving feast. “"Cause was tal attacking them to exc infractions.” ‘To Carol was given a sudden great philosophical understanding, an ex: planation of half the cautious reforms in history, “Yes, I've heard thot plea, It’s ‘a good one, It sets r volta aside to cool. It keeps strays in the flock, ‘To word it differently: ‘you must live up to the popular code if you believe in it; but if you don’t believe in it, then you must live up to it “1 don’t think #o at all,” said Vida vaguely, She began to look hurt, and Carol let her be oracular, your own You arr iN HORS wusT + OLY A ON: x 539 ROOSTER “Afier much squawking and fluttering and stumbling and snatching at falling fowls, the two old people got the chickens to the wood choppers hut, returned to the waiting people at the town hall and were married. “The band played and the peo- ple smiled and when the gift of so many silver quarters was handed to the wood chopper he thought he had reached the end of his troubles, “But—! “Karly in the cold grey dawn of the next morning there came a timid knocking at our door. “What is it? father called out. “Who's there and what is your er- rand at this time of day when honest folks are still in their beds?" “It's only 1! wailed the poor wood chopper. ‘Please, sir, have you seem Nancy's fat rooster? He got Ipose and I dare not return to my hut till I get him dead or alive, for it was to have made a feast for Nancy.’ “Well, such a scurrying and such a laughing among the people and such # squawking of. the rooster when he was caught. But we got him at last, the feast was cooked and the wood chopper and the little old woman lived happily ever after.” Letiaiiel made all agonizing seem so fatuous that she ceased writhing and saw that her whole problem wos simple as mutton: she was interested in Erik's aspiration; interest gave her a hesitating fondness for him; angl the future would take care of the event... . But at night, thinking in bed, she protested, “I'm not a falsely accused innocent, tho! If it were some one more resolute than Erik, a fighter, an artist with bearded surly lips They're only in books is that the real tragedy, that I never shall know tragedy, never find any. thing but blustery” complications that turn out to be a farce? iit Vida bad done her a service; bad “No one big enough or pitiful , | BELIEVE You WOULD HAVE DONE BETTER IF ! You HAD ASKED SOMEONE FIRST - IT SEEMS A TRIFLE STIFF ~ sor 1 USED STARCH PAGE 13 BY ALLMAN HONEY; AS A LAUNDRESS YouR WoRK STANDS T WOULDN'T SOIL SO EASILY - Alek Guessing Now WANE IT WAY \ UP HERE FoR, WH? wrettlebe BY BLOSSER GEE, THEY MUST WANE A AWFUL TALL OUR BOARDING HOUSE I AINT FUSSY= G'WAN, : Y 7 ALL N= TLL TRIM UP TH” PILLOWS AN KNOCK 7M" Confessions of a Movie Star (Copyright, 1921, Beattie Star) CHAPTER XXIX—AN ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP ME A taxi driver hailed us when we, When we left the movie theatre, we imitate the calls of most of the left the theatre. 1 went on thru the fog, 1 observed | that he was following us. Probably | he felt sure of @ fare as soon as we should discover what @ bad night it was. Inside the first block, I forgot all} about the taxi, I continued to re-| view myself on the screen, 1 could | see exactly where I had done badly. | I was annoyed with myself, More- over, I had caught « glimpse of Dick | Barnes watching the film. It had} been shot before he entered the com- pany. He couldn't have come to watch himself. ‘Then—who? At this point of my reverie, I no- ticed that the taxi was tacking to- | ward us. It made me wneasy. Motherdear was wearing a stunning | pin of diamonds and platinum. It} had been my Christmas gift to her | the year I was first starred. She! always wore it over her heart, if! necessary, under, her blouse. This night it adorned her dinner | dress of soft white canton crepe. brellas, The night was muggy as well as misty. The lightest wrap was superfluous, No sooner had we turned from the crowded avenue than the taxi careen- ed to the curb, close to me, and a man, before unseen, jumped from the | vehicle. At the same moment another man | stepped from behind the bole of a} huge elm and blocked the path. “Highwayman! 1 decided. “They are after Motherdear’s pin.” And so I threw myself between her and the men. - I felt myself clutched by one of them. I had been carried half way to the taxi before I surmised that | it was not the diamonds the men were after. @ It was 1, Now came the supreme inspiration of my career. I remembered that Dick Barnes had been in the theatre. Also that Dick whistles marvelously, He can ‘As Motherdear and!were protected only by our um-|In that happy summer of my 4 dream, before the scandal ahd lom drove him from the town, Dick Tis taught me how to whistle the cious note of the meadow lark, © That was our “call,” Dick ‘When he came to see me, that § mer, he notified me from the end © the lawn before he touched the And I called him to me, 7 time, for no reason at all! i had been s0 pleased! Never—never in my life had needed Jimmy as I did that night the fog. As the highwaymen hustled me ward the taxi, T tried to give | meadow lark’s whistle. My lips stiff and refused to shape any 1 tried aguin—and failed. And then, by a supreme my will, I gathered up wi courage I possessed, and I sent the mist of the city street at night, the clear, sweet love ;the shy bind of country m (To Be Continued) enough to sacrifice for. Tragedy in neat blouses; the eternal flame all nice and safe in a Merosene stove.) Neither heroic faith nor heroic guilt Peeping at love from behind mgt curtains—on Main Street!" Aunt Bessie crept in next day, tried to pump her, tried to prime the pump by again hinting that Ken-| nicott might have his own affairs, Carol snapped, “Whatever I may do, rll have you to understand that Will is only too safe!" She wished afterward that she had not been so lofty. How much would Aunt Bessie make of “Whatever I may do"? When Kennicott came home he poked at things, and hemmed, and brought out, “Saw aunty, this after- noon. She said you weren't very po- lite ta her.” Carol laughed. He looked at her in a puzzled way and fled to his newspaper. v She lay sleepless, She alternately considered ways of leaving Kennk cott, and remembered his virtues, pitied his bewilderment in face of the subtle corroding sicknesses which he could not dose nor cut out. Didn't he perhaps need her more than did the book-solaced Erik? Suppose Will were to die, suddenly, Suppose she never again saw him at breakfast, silent but amiable, listening to her chatter, Suppose he never again played elephant for Hugh. Suppose— A country call, a slippery road, his motor skidding, the edge of the road crumbling, the car turning| turtle, Will pinned beneath, suffer- ing, brought home maimed, looking at her with spaniel eyes—or waiting for her, calling for her, while she was in Chicago, knowing nothing of it. Suppose he were sued by some vicious shrieking woman for mal- practice, He tried to get witnesses; Westlake spread lies; his friends doubted him: his self-confidence was so broken that it was horrible to see the indecision of the decisive man; he was convicted, handcuffed, taken on a train— She ran to his room, At her ner- yous push the door swung sharply in, struck a chair, He awoke, gasped, then in a steady voice: “What is It, dear? Anything wrong?” She dart- ed to him, fumbled for the familiar harsh bristly cheek. How well she knew it, every seam, and hardness | of bone, and roll of fat! Yet when} he sighed, “This is a nice visit,” and | dropped his hand on her thin-covered | shoulder, she said, too cheerily, “I! thought T heard you moanin, silly of me, Good night, dear, Vv She did not see Erik for a fort- night, save at church and once when she went to the tailor shop to talk over the plans, contingencies, and strategy of Kericott’s annual campaign for getting a new suit, Nat Hicks was there, and he was not so deferential as he had been. With unnecessary jauntiness he chuckled, “Some nice flannels, them samples, heh?” Needlessly he touched her arm to call attention to the fashion- ry plates, and humorously he from her to Erik. At home she dered if the little beast might not suggesting himself as a rival to but that abysmal bedragglement would not consider, She saw Juanita Haydock walking past the house—as Westlake had once walked past. She met Mrs. Westlake in U Whittier's store, and before alert stare forgot her deter n to be rude, and was shakily co She was sure that all the men the street, even Guy Pollock Sam Clark. leered at her in an ested hopeful way, as tho she re a notorious divorcee, She felt ag it eecure as a shadowed criminal, wished to see Erik, and wished she had never seen him. She fanel that Kennicott was the only p in town who did not know all: incomparably more than there | to know—-about herself and Erik. crouched in her chair as she ‘ ‘inl. _ : : 4 € Rs ree So | ined men talking of her, thick- obscene, in barber shops and the tor” bacco-stinking pool parlor, ‘Thru early autumn Fern Mull was the only person who broke tl suspense, The frivolous teacher come to accept Carol as of her youth, and tho school had begun rushed in daily to suggest dane welsh-rabbit parties. Fern begged her to go ae chai to a barn-dance in the country, | a Saturday evening. Carol couid: go. The next day, the storm: