Newspapers / The Elkin Tribune (Elkin, … / Nov. 15, 1934, edition 1 / Page 2
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SECOND INSTALLMENT SYNOPSIS . . . "Prelude" . . . "Love lightly." Mrs. Church warned gent ly, and Ellen wondered why? Posing for her talented mother, first as a new baby, then a bubbling child, then a charming young girl, Ellen had lived always in a make-believe land of beauty. Of the outside world her knowledge was meager. At 17 years of age, posing in the gar den, Ellen at last is learning the story of her mother's broken life, the stolen kiss, marriage—then years of loneliness, waiting for the husband to return Mrs. Church is now telling Ellen of the father . . . GO ON WITH THE STORY: "Your father was away when I made my discovery. He'd been away for several weeks on something that he called a 'big deal.' I was ex pecting him home the very night that I saw the doctor and I planned to tell him all about you, at once. So I sat in the garden and waited for him, and watched for his train. And finally I saw it—the train that should have brought him to me - sweep across the valley below the house. I saw it stop at the station, and I saw it go on again. And I waited, with my soul full of the news I had to tell—tl waited to give him the tidings of his son (for I thought, darling, that you were do ing to be a boy!) but he didn't come, although I waited all of that night. . . And the next day, when I got the message that told me he wasn't coming back, ever, I went upstairs, and into my room and locked the door. And I sat down and began to knit a blue sweater for you. And I whistled, hard, as I knitted. I haven't whistled since— and I certainly never whistled be fore, Ellen! That's why, I guess, you were a girl. ... A boy wouldn't have had any use for a mother who whistled so badly. ... A boy—" All at once Ellen's mother had stopped talking. Her voice had dwindled away into a funny, tragic silence. And Ellen saw her lace go oddly white, felt her hand go chill and limp. It was then that Ellen, starting to her feet, saw her mother's head sag forward. "I'm going for the doctor," she half sobbed. "Your chest. . . .Is it your heart, darling? Is it—" Ellen's mother had rallied. Her smile was less wan than it had been. "My heart?" questioned Ellen's mother. "Oh nonsense! Indiges tion, no doubt. Something I—" even then she managed a trifle of gayety, "something I ate as a child, no doubt! I'm quite well, now. . . . " ♦ * * It didn't occur to Ellen in the weeks that passed, to ask her mother for the details of what had happened to her father. In her mind she had a vivid impression of some major calamity—of a train wreck or an automobile disaster. Only a calamity could have kept her father from her mother at such a time, she was sure! And then, perhaps a month later, the special delivery letter arrived. It was the boy from the postof fice who brought the letter. Be cause her mother was at work she had signed for it, and dismissed the boy, before she spoke to the woman who painted so absorbedly. "It's a letter," she said, " a spe cial delivery for you. I guess it's about the drawing you sent away last week. We were expecting some word." Why , Liquid Laxatives are Back in Favor Hie public is fast returning to the use of liquid laxatives. People have learned that the right dose of a properly prepared liquid laxative will bring a more natural movement with out any discomfort at the time, or after. The dose of a liquid laxative can be varied to suit the needs of the in dividual. The action can thus be regulated. A child is easily given the right dose. And mild liquid laxatives do not irritate the kidneys. Doctors are generally agreed that •enna is a natural laxative. It does not drain the system like the cathar tics that leave you so thirsty. Dr. Caldwell's Syrup Pepsin is a liquid laxative which relies on senna for its laxative action. It gently helps the average person's constipated bowels until nature restores their regularity. You can always get Dr. Caldwell's Syrup Pepsin at any drug store, ready for use. With a start her mother came back from the land of her own creation, to reality. With listless hands she took the envelope from her daughter, and slit it open. Ellen watched her mother idly—so idly that at first she could scarcely be lieve what her eyes were seeing! For, as she stood watching, she saw her mother change completely and dreadfully. More dreadfully than she had changed on that other day, weeks before. In a minute she saw a lovely, white-haired woman become a broken, shriveled, parch ment-cheeked figure. "You're ill!" Ellen cried, as she started forward. "Was there bad news in the letter? You're upset—" But when the answer came it wasn't an answer. For Ellen's mother, her hand again pressed to her breast, was rising. And as she rose to her feet, she was looking beyond Ellen. She swayed slightly —and then, as if she couldn't help it, she sat down again. But her voice was steady, though toneless, when she spoke. "It's that indigestion, I guess," she said, gaspingly. And then— "Bring me my check book, dear. fl Ellen didn't speak. She sensed a desperation in that toneless voice, a need of hurry. Turning, she ran into the house, scampered to the desk where the check book lay. She brought it, and a fountain pen and stationery, to her mother, and watched as her mother's shaking hand wrote a check—wrote it to what, in Ellen's knowledge of the family finaces, was an alarming amount. It was only after the check was carefully made out to a strange name, and as carefully blotted, that the woman spoke again. "Ellen," she said, "dear. Get your hat and take this, at once, to the post-office in the village. And send it special delivery, and register it." Ellen, even in the face of her mother's tragic hurry, couldn't quite grasp the seriousness of the letter. Her mother's sudden illness seemed so much more important. "Too bad I didn't ask the boy to wait," she said. "He could just as well have taken the letter back." "I couldn't," said her mother with a great effort, "have trusted it to anyone else, thjs letter! You'd have had to take it, anyway. . . . And I'm glad—remember that, always, Ellen!—that is just about all the money I have. I'm utterly grateful that there was enough. And—l don't want a doctor. I'm not ill. I'm never ill. . . . She rose again. She turned heav ily away, toward the house. And Ellen, with no other word, but clutching the envelope, went out of the garden and started townward. She walked so fast that she didn't have time to wonder about any thing. But she reached the post office with a good margin of min utes, and followed her mother's in structions soberly, and started back home. The way back led past the doc tor's square white house. He wasn't in. But she left a message with the doctor's aged housekeeper—who eyed her with a frank curiosity— and hurried on. "Mother'll be cross," she told herself, as she scuffed her feet along in the dust of the road—"because I've asked the doctor to stop by. But she can't go on, having these funny spells! I wonder who the letter was from," ■ • (, „) The letter! Ellen couldn't help being curious about it—couldn't help feeling that it held the ele ments of mystery. It didn't, of that she was sure, relate to business, for what business dealings could have to do with such a large check? It must be something strange and ominous. It might almost go back, across the years, to her father. And yet. . . . The house lay in the last light °f sun, it was her world. Its four walls bounded all of her life, and her childhood, and her fragile store of experience. It was her home—surrounded by her gar den. Down the path she went, with its border of fading beauty, in through the wide opened door. In the hallway she paused for a mo ment before a dim mirror and au tomatically fluffed her hair. Sud denly, without knowing why she did it, she was calling wildly, was run ning toward the stairs. Screaming— "Mother! Mother darling! Where are you? Where are you—" There as no answer, only a whis pered echo from the quiet rooms. Ellen, with the cold fingers of dread touching her heart, found herself running up the flight of stairs that led to the second floor. Ellen knocked, not too softly, upon the panel of her mother's door. And then when she heard no sound from within, she jerked the door open and paused, panting, up on the threshold. At first, as she stood there, she THE ELKIN TRIBUNE, ELKIN. NORTH CAROLINA knew a great sense of relief. It was as she had supposed—her mother was lying on the bed, resting! As she tiptoed across the room, Ellen thought that her mother was really asleep. For her lips were smiling very beautifully, with their old magic; and her eyes were softly closed —it was as if, in truth, she were the sleeping beauty. At first Ellen thought her mother was asleep. And then suddenly she knew completely and utterly, and with an- overwhelming sense of aloneness, that her mother was not sleeping! Perhaps it was something in the sweetness of her mother's smile. Perhaps it was something in the chill magic of the room. But Ellen knew surely. ... And yet, know ing, she did not touch that still figure, and neither did she cry out. Instead she walked very close to the bed. And as she came close, she saw that her mother's fingers held a letter, ever so slightly crump led. It was the letter that had come only the space of a few hours ago. Ellen, scarcely knowing what she did, reached over and took the let ter from her mother's hand. She smoothed out its wrinkles very methodically, and read. And then, suddenly, she was ly ing on the floor, beside her moth er's bed, sobbing out all of her heartache and her disillusionment and her pain. For the letter, written with brutal frankness, in an untaught hand, i : " ! A -r* iiHflHflHDHiAl Do you have difficulty in reading your newspaper at night? ig* Do you realize that sewing on dark goods requires more light than stwing on light goods? -fi The question of comfortable seeing for various visual tasks is very im portant from the standpoint of your eyesight as well as your general health * and well bein? For the first time it is now practicable to determine the amount of illumination which your eyes themselves would select for various tasks. You can ascertain whether or not you are straining your eyes when read ing. sewing o" studying. You need no longer guess the size of bulb needed fci the table or floor lamps. ** We invite you to visit our office and make your own Sight-Light test with the new Sigh-Light Demonstrator which we have made available for * your use. 1 he lamp in this demonstrator is equipped with a lever which enables you to adjust the amount of light falling on the seeing task. This lever is moved slowly from left to right until the illumination is most comfortable for the task. The flap which covers a Sight Meter is then turned over and © the illumination which your eyes have selected is measured accurately and scientifically. , Various visual tasks, such as reading a newspaper or a telephone direc- * . torv, or sewing cn dark or light colored goods are included in this test. Thus ynu can determine how similar tasks which your eyes are called upon to ♦ The New 3-Lite do at home, in the office or other work place, require more or less light. Indirect Charts in this cabinet show the proper bulb sizes for various types of lamps FLOOR LAMP as well as their cost of operation. I >J£ j Your eves are your most precious possession. For the sake your own $1 095 18 well as those of y° ur entire famil y be sure the lighting y° u r home • I mm Bulb is right. 95c Cmih —sl per mo. W e invite you to make use of this new service to help you to preserve with electric bill. |j l()se p rec j ol|S # y es ■ 'sr Southern Public Utilities Company 1 I ' , -1 •,? • *1 w. V *kJ j was from a woman. A woman who told of a man's death in a cheap lodging house In another state. "Toward the last," wrote the wom an, "he spoke of you, often. But still and all, there wasn't any rea son why he should have seen you! He'd stopped loving you—and he did love me. Maybe he thought you were well to do—and, at the end, he hadn't anything. And after all, you were his wife, for there was never any divorce. And now that there's no money for funeral ex penses—well, of course, if you want charity to bury him. . . But a grave and a marker and all the rest—" here she named a sum of money, a sum that Ellen had seen her mother write upon a check. "I don't suppose, though," the letter ended, "that it matters much, now. Only he was sort of proud, always. ..." Ellen, sobbing, understood at last. But Ellen was never to know the details of her father's final degen eration, or of his death, or of his burial. All that she ever knew was that the last check her mother had written was returned, duly endorsed by some distant firm of undertak ers, to the bank. She never knew the final chapter of her mother's tragic story! But she did know, at last, why her mother had crept away from the city, from people—why she had tried to shield her only child from cities, and from people. The darkness, creeping ghostlike into a room of sadness and death and despair, brought with it a swift memory of the garden, the garden as It had been a month before. Through that darkness Ellen could hear the approaching rumble of the doctor's Ford. But she was aware of it subjectively. The only actual sound that she heard was the echo of her mother's voice, speaking. Saying— "Love lightly. Don't get intense All HOSTESS. "When I'm off duty, my first move it to light a Camel," lays Mis* Marian McMichael who travels with the American Airlines. "A Camel relieve* JSttttMs iDy fc*'' n 8 of tiredness and how it FAMOUS SPORTSMAN-WRITER. Rex Beach 'MmjjjjS says: "Wheo I light a Camel, it quickly gives r , '^H me a sense of well-being and renewed energy. As a steady smoker I have also learned that Camels do not interfere with healthy nerves." Thursday, November 15, 1934 about love. Don't give anything . . . Take everything, but don't—" Oh, It had been a magnificent lie! Ellen's hand, wet with her own tears, reached up to touch her mother's chill fingers that had been clenched upon a cruel letter. Continued Next Week The temperature of the moon goes down as low as 400 degrees below zero.
The Elkin Tribune (Elkin, N.C.)
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Nov. 15, 1934, edition 1
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