Newspapers / Carolina Watchman (Salisbury, N.C.) / Oct. 26, 1934, edition 1 / Page 2
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SECOND INSTALMENT "Your father was away when ] made my discovery. He’d beer away for several weeks on some thing that he called a 'big deal.’ ' was expecting him home the verj night that I saw the doctor, anr I planned to tell him all about you at once. So I sat in the garden anc waited for him, and watched foi his train. And finally I saw it—th< train that shot*Id have bro.-.ght hin to me—sweep atross the vallev be low the house. I saw it stop at th< station, and I saw it go on again And I waited, with my soul ful of the news I had to tell—I waitec to give him the tidings of his sor (for I thonght, darling, that yot were going to be a boy!) but h< didn’t come, although I waited a)] of that night. . . . And the next day, when I gor the message that told me he wasn’t coming back, ever, I wrent upstairs, and into my room and locked the door. And 1 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 befor;, Ellen! That’s why, I guess, you were a girl. . . . A boy wouldn’t have had any use for a mother who whistled so bad ly. . . . 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 face 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 that 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 calmity—of a train wreck or an automobile disaster. Only a calamity could have kept j 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 post . office 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 wo man 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.” 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 broken, shrivelfcd,, 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 spoEe. "It’s that indigestion, I guess,” she said, gaspingly. And then— "Bring me my check book, dear. Ellen didn’t speak. Slie 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 finances, 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 . "i "I’m going for the doctor,” she hall sobbed, "Your chest .... Is i your heart, darling?” hat and take this at once, to thi post-office in the village. And sene it special delivery, and register it.’ Ellen, even in the face of he mother’s tragic hurry, couldn’ quite grasp the seriousness of thi letter. Her mother’s sudden illnes seemed so much more important "Too bad I didn’t ask the boy t< ; wait,” she said. "He could just a wall have taken a letter back.” "I couldn’t,” said her mothe: with a great effort, "have trustee it to anyone else, this letter! You’< have had to take it, anyway. . . . And I’m glad—remember that, al ways, Ellen!—that it is just about all the money I have. I’m utterly grateful that there was enough And—I don’t want a doctor. Fir not ill. I’m never ill. . . She rose again. She turned heavi ly away, toward the house. Anc Ellen, with no other word, bui clutching the envelope, went out jof the garden and started town Jward. She walked so fast that sh< I didn’t have time to wonder about (anything. But she reached the post office with a good margin of minutes, and followed her mother’s instructions 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 vet. . . . The house lay in the last light of the setting 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 gard en. 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 auto matically fluffed her hair. Sudden ly, without knowing why she did it, she was calling widly, was run ning toward the stairs. Screaming— "Mother! Mother darling! Where are you? Where are you—” There was no answer, only a The house lay in the last light of the setting sun, it was her world. whispered echo from 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 knew a great sense of relief. It was as she had supposed—her moth er 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 moth er was asleep. And then suddenly she knew completely and utterly 'and with an overwhelming sensi i of aloneness, that her mother wa: not sleeping! I remaps it was sometning in mi sweetness of her mother’s smile Perhaps it was something in th< chill magic of the room. But Ellei : kne.w surely. . . . And yet, know : ing, she did not touch that stil figure, and neither did she cry out • Instead she walked very close ti : the bed. And as she came close 1 she saw that her mother’s finger held a letter, ever so slightl; • crumpled. It was the letter tha : had come only the space of a fev : hours ago. ; Ellen, scarcely knowing what sh , did, reached over and took th i letter from her mother’s hand. Sh i smoothed out its wrinkles ver; methodically, and read. • And then, suddenly, she was ly l ing on the floor, beside her moth 1 er’s bed, sobbing out all of he . heartache and her disillusionmen and her pain. For the letter, written with brut al frankness, in an untaught hand , was from a woman. A woman wh< told of a man’s death in a chea] lodging house, in another state "Toward the last,” wrote the wo man, "he spoke of you, often. Bu still and all, there wasn’t any rea son why he should have seen you He’d stopped loving you—and hi did love me. Maybe he though 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 fun eral expenses—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 endors ed by some distant firm of under takers, 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 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. QOOR CHILD /and the school By Dr. ALLEN G. IRELAND Dtttifr. Pbjucml auti Health f£d*(0lt4a • Nr* frtiej Simla Dtfmrimtml •) Pabhf Iniituatoaa Learning at Luncheon No one really expects children to have a knowledge of their nutri tional needs, or calories, vitamins and the like.,-* If left to them selves with an op portunity to choose, they would eat chief ly of those things that “taste good.” Hence, a problem faces par ents and teachers alike, for,when such important information is available we can’t just let it accumulate and ay idle. It is too significant to health and success and happiness. It must be put to work in the lives rf people. But the majority cf parents either do not have scientific knowl edge of foods and nutrition or they don’t know how best to teach chil dren. Thus the responsibility falls to the educational institution of the community which these same par ents support and to the staff of teachers who understand how to make knowledge function in the lives of children. It is in this light that the school lunch is taking form. Instead of being just a convenience for those who can’t go home at noon, it is coming to be regarded as a learn ing situation. It is a laboratory where one of the chief essentials of life is practiced in a correct manner until habits and attitudes are formed. Parents say that a good school lunch situation influences food selection and table manners at home. Principals say it makes for better school morale. And the pu i pils approve because they like it. What about home work? Dr. • Ireland will discuss it next week. It is claimed there are 6,000,000 L children with defective vision, but ■janyway they can see all the fruit > trees. * ... - 1 - > People are warned against tht 7 danger of falling down stairs, but : falling off the water wagon often produces more lasting injuries. Black-Draught For ' ■ Dizziness, Headache Due To Constipation “I have used Thedford’s Black ■ Draught several years and find : it splendid,” writes Mr. G. W. Hol ley, of St. Paul, Va. “I take It for . dizziness or headache (due to con stipation). I have never found | anything better. A short while ago, we began giving our children ’ Syrup of Black-Draught as a laxa ’ tive for colds and little stomach ailments, and have found It very : satisfactory.” ... Millions of pack ages of Thedford’s Black-Draught are required to satisfy the demand : for this popular, old reliable, purely vegetable laxative. 25# a package. "Children like the Syrup." Democrats Shift Drive Into High This Week i__ Imposing Array Of Speeches Slated To Appear At Points All Over The State An imposing array of Democra tic men and women has been lined up to carry the party fight into many sections of North Carolina next week as full-steam ahead was called for by Chairman J. Wallace Winborne, in charge of the cam paign leading up to the November 6 election. Governor Ehringhaus, Robert L. Doughton, Senator J. W. Bailey, Clyde R. Hoey, Congressman Harold D. Cooley* Congressman Walter Lambeth and others will be making speeches almost every day this week while one or more speak ing dates are listed for J. Frank Spruill of Lexington, Lieut. Gov. A. H. Graham of Hillsboro, Con gressman William B. Umstead, Maj. L. P. McLendon of Greens boro, Charles Ross of Raleigh and Phil C. Cocke of Asheville. Motorists complain that they have to watch the road all the time, but some find their attention whol ly occupied by the girl on the front seat. DO NOT GET EXCITED A fascinating story revealing re markable experiments of a famous Russian psychologist, which lead him to conclude that a conflict ex ists between our nerves and our brains. One of many interesting illustrated articles in the American Weekly (issue of October 28), the magazine which comes each week with the BALTIMORE SUNDAY AMERICAN. Buy your copy from your favorite newsdealer or newsboy. The game isn’t in much danger from some hunters now going out, but not so much can be said for [the friends who accompany them. I Heat with Coke , . . the clean efficient fuel 3|r“G00DNE$$... * f YOU LET THE HALL LIGHT n\BURN ALL NIGHT’” I —that s all it costs the average customer to burn a 25-watt lamp for 12'^ hours. So suppose you DID forget the hall light? That penny saved the possibility of stubbed toes, barked shins, and maybe a nasty tumble over Junior's unparked toys. And did you ever hear of a night prowler that failed to give a lighted home a wide berth? One cent! It may not buy much in other ways. You need several of them for a newspaper or to post an out-of-town letter or for a package t>f chewing gum. But—because electricity is so cheap—ONE CENT SPEN1 ELECTRICALLY BUYS HOURS OF SERVICE! One cent, for instance, will— furnish reading light with a 75-watt bulb more than four hours . . . or . . spot-light your face with a 2 5-watt bulb for more than a month of shaves . . . or . brighten the card table with an indirect lamp for several rubbers of bridge. lc Keeps A 25-Watt Lamp Lighted From Dusk To Dawn (121/2 Hca ) Southern Public Utilities Co. PHONE 1900 Ride the street cars and avoid the parking nuisance | DR. N. C. LITTLE Optometrist Eyes examined and glasses fitted Telephone 1S71-W. 10754 S. Main Street Next to Ketchie Barber Shop. Shoes rebuilt' the better way. All kinds of harness, trunk and suitcase repairing. FAYSSOUX’S PLACE Phone 43 3 120 E. Innes St. STAR LAUNDRY "The Good One” Launderers and Dry Cleaners Phone 24 114 West Bank St. ONE DAY SERVICE NOW ON DISPLAY FAIRBANKS-MORSE STOKER The World’s Greatest Automatic COAL BURNER C. J. W. FISHER Your Humber 113 E. Innes St. Phone 570 ! AGENTS KIRK’S STERLING SILVER NORMAN INGLE RADIATOR REPAIRING Let us inspect your radiator for spring driv ing. We flush, clean and recore all makes of ra d ia tors. We sell or trade new and second hand. We are the oldest and most reliable See us. EAST SPENCER MOTOR CO. E. Spencer, N. C. Phone 1198-J
Carolina Watchman (Salisbury, N.C.)
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Oct. 26, 1934, edition 1
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