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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1921-05-13, Page 7emmbarom By Frances Hodgson Burnett Toronto—William Briggs. earmaa (Continued from last week.) CHAPTER' IV. • Mrs. 'Bowso's boarding-house be- gan to be even better pleased with him than before. He had stories 'to tell, festivities to describe and cheer- ful incidents to .recount. The board- ers assisted vicariously at weddinnggse and wedding receptions, afternodf teas and dances, given in halls. "Up- town" seemed to them largely given to entertainment and hilarity of an enviably prodigal sort. Mrs. Bowse's guests. were not of the class which entertains or ie entertained, and the details of banquets and ball-dreeaea and money -spending were not un - cheering material for conversation. Such topics suggested the presence and dispensing of a good deal of de- sirable specie, which in floating about might somehow reach those who need it most. The impression was that T. Tembarom was having "a good time." It 'was not his *ay to relate any inci- dents which were not of a cheering or laughter -inspiring nature. He said nothing of the times when his luck was bad, when he made blunders, and, approaching the wrong people, was met roughly or 'grudgingly, and found no resource left but to beat a retreat. He made no mention of his experi- ences in the blizzard, 'which continu- ed, and at times nearly, beat breath and life out of him as he fought his way through it. Especially he told no story of the morning when, after having labored furiously over the writing of his "stuff" until long after midnight, he had taken it to Galton, and seen his face fall as he looked over it. To battle all day with a bliz- zard and occasional brutal discourage- ments, and to sit up half the night tensely absorbed in concentrating one's whole mental equipment upon the doing of unaccustomed work has its effect: As he waited, .Tembarom unconsciously shifted from one foot to another, and had actually to swal- low a sort of lump in his throat. "I guess it won't do," he said rather uncertainly as Galton sheet ,down. Galton was worn out' himself and hurried by his nerves. "No, it won't," he said; and then as he saw Tembarom move to the other 'foot he added, "Not as it is." Tembarom braced himself and cleared his throat. "If," he ventured—"well, you've been mighty easy on me, Mr. Galton —and this is a big chance for a fel- low like„ me. If it's too big a chance —why—that's all. Blst if it's any- thing I could change and it wouldn't be too much trouble to tell me—" "There's no time to rewrite it," answered Galton, "It must be hand- ed in to -morrow. It's too flowery. Tog many adjectives. I've no time to give you—" He snatched up a blue pencil and began to slash at the paper with it. "Look here—and here —cut out that balderdash—cut this— and this—oh,—" throwing the pencil down,—"you'd have to cut it all out. There's . no time." He fell back in his chair with a hopeless movement, and rubbed his forehead nervously with the back of his hand, Ten peo- ple more or less were waiting to speak to him; he was worn out with the rush of work. He believed in the page, and di not want to give up his idea; but he didn't know a man to hand it to other -than this untrained, eager ignoramus whom he had a queer personal liking for. He was no business of his a mere stenographer in his office with whom he could be expected to haye no relations, and yet a curious sort of friendliness verg- ing on intimacy had developed be- tween them. "There'd be time if you thought it wouldn't do any harm to give me an- other chance," said Tembarom. "I can sit up all night. I guess I've caught on to what you don't want. I've put in too many fool words. I got them out of other papers, but' aon't know how to use them. I guess I've caught on. Would it do any harm if you gave me till to -mor- row?" "No, it wouldn't," said Galton, des- perately. "If you can't do it, there's no time to find another man, and the page must be cut out. It's been no good so far. It won't be missed. Take it along." As he pushed back the papers, he saw the photographs and picked one up. "That bride's. a good-looking girl. Who are the others? Bridesmaids? You've got a. lot of stuff here. Biker couldn't get anything." He glanced Rheumatism Neuritis, Sciatica, Neuralgia. Templet on's Rheumatic Capsules. 4e broaght Wold rSrbio half -a -million Lhoalthfn1, money -saving remedy; we for fifteen years, pr. !sed doctors, sold r $1. 0 a box. Ask our Trite fora free trial pack lie. *tons, 142 King W., Toronto Local Agent, E. UMBACH. �• , ,q, race '�"I 1t Ydlt'M. Ilow did yo get 4114/110. "I beat the streets til T found it," said Telnha en "I had luck'- 4014 away. I wenn in t a: aonfeetionery store where- the make'm!eddlag-cakes. A good -nature Tittle, butehman and his wife kept it, and I"tallied to them—„ • . ; I "Got next?" said Galton, grinning a little. • ' "They gave ale addresses, and told me a ,whole lot of things. I got ,into the Schwartz wedding motion,. and they treated me Mighty well. A good many of them were willing to talk. I told them what a big thing the page was going to be, -and I—well, I said the more they helped me the finer it would turn out. z said it seemed a shame there shouldn't be an up -town page when such swell entertainments were 'given. I've got a lot of stuff there." Galton laughed. "You'd get it," he said. "If you knew how to handle it, you'd make it a hit. Well, take it along. If it isn't right to -morrow, it's done for." Tembarom didn't tell stories or laugh at dinner that evening. He said he had a headache. After dinner he bolted upstairs after Little Ann, and caught her before she mounted to her upper floor. . "Will you. come and save my life again?" he said. "I'm in the tightest piaci I ever was in in my life." "I'll do. anything I can, Mr. Tern - berm," she answered, and as his face had grown flushed by this time she looked anxious. "You look down- right feverish." "I've got chills as well as fever," he said. ' "It's the page. It seems like I was going to fall down on it." She turned back at once. "No you won't, Mir. Tembarom," she said. "'I'm just rightdown sure you won't." They went down to the parlor again, and though there were people in it, they found a corner apart, and in less than ten minutes 'he had told her what had happened. She took the manuscript he handed to her. "If I was well educated, I should know how to 'help you," she said, "but I've only been to a common Man- chester school. I don't know any- thing about elegant language. What are these?" pointing to the blue- pencil marks. '4'embarom explained, and she studied the blue slashes with serious attention. "Well," she said in a few minutes, laying the manuscript down, "I should have cut those words out myself if— if you'd asked me which to take away. They're too showy, Mr. Tembarom." Tembarom whipped a pencil out of his pocket and held it out. "Say," he put it to her, "would you take this and draw it through a few of the other showy ones?" "I should feel as 'if I was taking too much upon myself," she said. "I don't know anything about it." "You know a darned sight more than I do," Tembarom argued. "I didn't know they were showy. I thought they were the kind you had to put in newspaper stuff." She held thesheets on her knee, and bent her head over them. Tem- barom watched her dimples flash in and out as she worked away like a child correcting an exercise. Pres- ently he saw she was quite absorbed. Sometimes she stopped and thought, pressing her lips together; sometimes she changed a letter. There was nu lightness in her manner. A badly mutilated stocking would have claim- ed her attention in the sante way. "I think I'd put 'house' there in- stead of 'mansion' if I were you," she suggested once. "Put in a whole block of houses if you like," he answered gratefully. "Whatever you. say goes. I believe Galton would say the same thing." She went over sheet after sheet, and though she knew nothing about it, she eut out just what Galton would have cut out. She put the papers together at last and gave them back to Tembarom, getting up from her seat. "I must go back to father now," she said. "I promised to make him a good cup of coffee over the little oil stove. If you'll come and knock at the door I'll give you one. It will help you to keep fresh while you work." Tembarom did not go to bed at all that night, and, he looked rather fag- ged the next morning when he hand- ed back the "stuff" entirely rewrit- ten. He swallowed several time& quite hard as he waited for the final verdict. "You did catch on to what I didn't want," Galton said at last. "You will catch on still more as you get used to the work. And you did get the 'stuff.'" "That—you mean—that goes?" Tembarom stammered. "Yes, it goes," answered Galton. "You can turiteit in. We'll try the page for a month." "Gee! Thank the Lord!" said Tembarom, and then he laughed an excited boyish laugh, and the blood came back to his , face. He bad a whole month before him, and if he had caught on as soon as this, a month would teach him a lot. He'd work like a dog. He - worked like a 'healthy young man impelled by a huge enthusiasm, and seeing ahead of him something he had had no practical reason for aspiring to. He went out in all weathers and stayed out to all hours. Whatsoever rebuffs or difficulties he met with he never was even on the verge of losing his nerve. He actual- ly enjoyed himself tremendously at tines. He made friends; people be- gan to like to see him. The Muns- bergs regarded him as an inspiration of their own. "He seen my name over de store and come in here first time he vas sent up dis vay to leek for t'ings to write," Mr. Munsberg a$s-aye ex- plained. "Vo vas awful busy—time of the Schwartz wedding, an' dere vas dat blizzard. He owned up he vas new, an' vented some von what knew to tell him vhat.vas goin' on. 'Course I could do it. Me an' my wife give him addresses an' a lot of items. He vorked 'em up good. Dot up -town yip �ed bt7MA ii; ' , IC71 "1 tg'p oafg tut P er i9 a aRslkt Ih10g�° tp7 �$tpA�g �p norm I ego tloRr}F"&n4 9,4% Nef tdrfp" • .d0 1Qs work Al{ • Druggists, Circulars free S J. Cheney & Co., Toleare, ,tibio.' • page is gett.n first-rate. He says he don' • kno'w what he'd have done. if le' hadn't 'turned up here dot day." Tembarom, having "caught en" to !his• fault of style, applied himself with vigor to elimination. fie kept his - tame dictionary chained to the leg of his table—an old kitchen table 1 which Mrs.Bowse scrubbed and put in- to his ball ,bedroom, overcrowding it greatly. die turned to Little Ann at moments of desperate uncertainty, but he was man enough to do his work himself. In .glorious moments when he was rather sure that "Galton was far from. unsatisfied with fiis progress, and Ann had looked more than usually -distracting in her aloof and ,sober alluringneee,—it was her entire aloofness which so stirred his blood,—he sometimes stopped scrib, bling and lost his head for a minute i or so, wondering if a fellow could "get away with it to the extent of making enough to—but he always pulled himself up in time. "Nice fool I look, thinking that way!" he would say to himself. "She'd throw me down hard if she knew. But, my Lord! ain't she just a peach!" - It was in the last week of the month of trial which was to decide the permanency of the page that he came upon the man Mrs. Bowsela boarders called his "Freak." He never called him a "freak" himself even at the first. Even his somewhat un- developed mind felt itself confront- ed at the outset with something too abnormal and serious, something with a suggestion of the weird and tragic in it. In this wise it came about: The week had begun' with another blizzard, whioh after the second day had suddenly changed its mind, and turned into sleet and rain which filled the streets with melted snow, and made walking a fearsome thing. Tembarom had plenty of walking to do. This week's page was his great effort, and was to be a "dandy." Galton must be shown what pertinac- ity could do. "I'm going to get into it up to my neck and then strike out," he said at breakfast on Monday morning. 'Thursday was his meet strenuous day. The weather had decided to change again, and gusts of sleet were being driven about, which added cold to sloppiness. He had found it dif- ficult to get hold of , some details he specially wanted. Two important and extremely good-looking brides had re- fused to see him because Biker had enraged them in his day. He had slighted the description of their dresses at a dance where they had been the observed of all observers, and had worn things brought from Paris. Tembarom had gone from house to house. He had even search- ed out aunts whose favor he had won professionally. He had appealed to his dressmaker, whose affection he had by that time fully gained. She was doing work in the brides' houses, sad could make it clear that he would not call peau de cygne "Surah silk," mer duchess lace "Baby Irish." But the young ladies enjoyed being be- sought by a society page. It was something to cliecuss with one'3 bridesmaids and friends, to protest that "those interviewers" give a per - eon no peace. "If you don't want to be in the papers, they'll put you in whether. you like- it or not however often you refuse them." They kept Tembarom running about ,they raised feint hopes, and then went nut when he called, leaving no message, but allowing the servant to hint that if he went up to Two Hundred and Seventyflfth Street he might chance to find them. "Ail right," said Tembarom to the girl, delighting her by lifting his hat genially as he turned to go down the steps. 'I'll just keep going.. The Sunday Earth can't come out without those photographs in it. I should lose my job." When at last he ran the brides to cover it was not at Two Tundred and Seventy-fifth Street, but in their own home, to whioh they had finally re- turned. They had heard from the servant -girl about what the young gentleman from the Sunday Earth had said, and they were mollified by his proper appreciation of values. Tem- barom's dressmaker friend also prof- fered information. '�I know him myself," she said, "and he's a real nice gentlemanlike young man. -He's not a bit like Biker. He doesn't think he knows everything. He came to me from Mrs. Munaberg, just; to ask me bhe names of fashion- able materials. He said it was more important than a man knew till h found out." Miss Stuntz chuckled. "He asked me to lend him some bits of samples so he could learn them off' by heart, and know them when he saw them. He's got a pleasant laugh; shows his teeth, and they're real pretty and white; and he just laugh- ed like a boy and said: 'These sam- ples are my alphabet, Miss Stuntz. I'm going to learn to read words of three syllables in them."' When late in the evening Temba- rem, being let out of the house after his interview, turned down the steps , again, he carried with him all he had wanted—information and photographs even added picturesque details. He was prepared to hand in a fulled and. better page than he had ever handed in before. He was in as elated a frame of mind as a young man can be when he is used up with tramping the streets, and running after street UR,NETeaCannotBuy New Eyes Dm u can Promote a F�/ eleao I!esl hyyConditlos OUP E S tsaMurinere Remedy Night and Morning.^ Heap your Wen Clean, Cle,ir and Healthy. Write for Free Eve Care Book. Marine Eve itemtdr Co..9 Cosi Obio Street, C6leafa.. cruel b in tYId ntte reaeli tlt6 tt e walk aayops -eerted Stre*Qfi., beingbuilt u founded bye z . ed with huge d4 - ' ising . posters, The ball bedroom,'vysth the gas turn- ed up anti' the cbep ,; red -cotton cord - fort on the ),,.xflade an alluring picture as he.f nil the eleety �vifd; ' • "If I cut across tfr the avenue and catch the 'L,' Its 'bound to get there, sometime, .anyhow," . he said as he braced himself . and set out on his way. . ,• r The blister on hlh heel had given him a .good deal of trouble, and he was obliged to stop.a moment to ease it, and he limped when he began to walk again. But he, limped as fast as he could, .while the sleety rain, beat in his face,' across one street, down another fora block or so, across another, the melting snow soaking even the new boots as he splaajied through it. He bent his head, how- ever, and' limped steadily. At this end of the city many of the streets were only scantily built up, and he was passing through one at the corner of which was a big vacant lot. At the other corner a row of cheap houses which 'had"bnly reached their second story waited among piles of bricks and frozen mortar for the re- turn of the workmen the bilzzard had dispersed. It was a desolate -enough thoroughfare, and not a soul was in sight. The vacant lot was fenced in with high boarding plastered over with flaring sheets advertising whiskies, sauces, and theatrioal ventures. A huge picture of a dramatically inter- rupted wedding ceremony done iia reds and yellows, and announcing in large letters that Mr. Isaac Simonson pre- sented Miss Evangeline St. Clair in "Rent Asunder," occupied several yards of bhe boarding. As he reached it, the heel of Tembarom's boot press- ed, as it seemed to him, a red-hot coal on the flesh. He had rubbed off the blister. He was oblir'-d to stop a moment again. "Gee whizz!" he exclaimed through his teeth, "I shall' have to take my boot off and try to fix it." To accomplish this he leaned against the boarding and Miss Evangeline St. Clair being "Rent Asunder" in the midst of the wedding service. He cautiously removed his boot, and find- ing a hole in his sock in the place where the blister had rubbed off, he managed to protect the raw spot by pulling the sock over it Then he drew on his boot again. "That'll be better,"'he 'aid, with a longbreath. As he stood on his fee'. again he started involuntarily. '1'ha was sot because the blister had hat him, but because he had heard behind him a startling sound. "What's that?" broke from him. "What's that?" He turned and listened, fueling his heart give a quick thump. In the darkness of the utterly empty street the thing was unnatural enough to make any man jump. Ile had heard it between two gusts et wind, and through another he heard it again— an uncanny, awful sobbing, broken by a hopeless wail of words. "I can't rememberl I can't—re- member! 0 my Cod!" And it was not a woman's voice or a child's; it was a maul's, and there was an epfie sort of misery in it which made Tembarom feel rather sick. He had never heard a man sobbing before. Ile belonged to a class which had no tine for sobs. This sounded ghastly. "Good Lord!" he said, "the fellow's crying! A man!" The sound came directly behind him. There was not a human being in sight. Even policemen do not loiter in empty streets. Hello!" he cried. "Where ' are you?" But the low, horrible sound went on, and no answer came. His physical sense of the presence of the blister was blotted out by this abnormal thrill of the moment. One had oto find out about a thing like that --,one just had to. One could not go on and leave it behind uninvestigated in the dark and emptiness of a street no one was likely to pass through. He listened more in- tently, Yes, it was jest behind him. "He's in the lot behind the fence," he said. "How did he get there?" He began to walk along the board- ing to find a gap. A few yards far- ther on he cam@ upon a broken place in the inclosure—a place where boards had sagged until they fell down, or had perhaps been pulled down by boys who wanted to get inside. He went through it, and found he was in the usual vacant lot long given up to rubbish. When he stood still a mom- ent he heard the sobbing again, and followed the sound to the place be- hind the boarding against Which he had supported himself ovherr•he took off his boot. etatlon a• up�; ough severiil dp=,: first ata eg pf.. scant, lot �1 fencing Gaya* A man was lying en the ground with his arms flung out. The street Lamp outside the•boarding cast light enough to reveal him. Tembarom felt as though he had suddenly found himself taking part in n melodrama, —"The Streets of New York," for choice,—though no melodrama had ever given him this slightly shaky feeling. But when a fellow looked up against it as hard es this, what you had to do was to hold your nerve and make him feel he was going to be helped. The normal human thing spoke loud in The, "Hello, old man!" he said with cheerful awkwardness. "What's hit you ?" The man started and scrathbled to his feet as though he were frightened. He was wet, unshaven, white and shuddering, piteous to look at. He stared with wild eyes, his chest heav- ing. "What's up?" said Tefidlarom. The man's breath caught itself. "I don't remember." There was a touch of horror in his voice, though he was evidently making an effort to control himself. "1 can't -_I can't remember." What's your name? Yon remem- ber that?" Tembarom pat It to him. "N -n -no!" agonlzingljv. "If I could! If I could!" • bei Ore VON �l�iiw+. t iron dt *dee ya Kafir ! 'My GPO. t Ill, boron apd he' ell to tsbudd��i11g' again put bis arnq agaiiiat leeelglar'diui;find tdyopped his bead.- agai it low, hideous, sobbing tole ':him again, T. Teubarom could net stand it, In his newsboy days ;he had nev bcea able to stand starved dogs an -- tameless cats. Non. Bowse, was tak- ing care of a wretched dog for him at the,pfesent ucoment a bad not wanted the poor brute --.he was not' Rxrticulariy fund of dogs -=but it had 'followed him home, and after be had given it a bons or so, it had licked its ehpva and turned up Its eyes at him wi"h such abject appeal that he sad. not been able 4o turn it into the st: sets again. He was unsentimental, is t ruled by primitive emotions. Also he Continued onipage six y. • A GRUESOME REMINDER OF THE PAST A English novelist once wrote a story of a man who fell into a hollow tree and perished miserably. Now a correspondent writes us a similar in- cident, not fiction this time, but truth. A Mr. Gleek, of Ottawa township, in Minnesota, in clearing a piece of lad on his farm, found it necessary to fell a gigantic white oak tree. In falling it broke and proved to be hollow for perhaps fifteen feet. Beginning sev- eral feet above the ground, the cavity ended in a large opening not readily noticed among the branches on the lawer side of the tree, which leaned considerably. Within the hollow, the horrified choppers found the body of e man, not at all decaaed, but dried and sbivelled by the lapse of time, into something very like the best - preserved Egyptian mummies. The frightened laborers summoned Mr. Gleek, who at once recognized the body as that of Jean La Rue, a farm laborer who had mysteriously disap- peared on August.30, 1862. That day, which fell during the Sioux uprising, a boatload of soldiers on their Way up the Minnesota river from St. Paul to New Ulm, thought- lessly discharging their muskets many times as they steamed up the river above Henderson, carried terror to the hearts of the people along the river, ' who were already about to flee from the dreaded Indians. Mr. Gleek says that when Jean La Rue heard the firing he seemed to go crazy with fear. He rushed into the house, seized his rifle and some other belongings, including about $700 in money, and fled into the woods. Ap- parently he had gone straight to the hollow tree and in seeking to hide in it had slipped down too far, and, being unable to extricate himself, had per- ished. Preserved in the living oak, his body did not decay. His rifle, his bullet pouch and his powderhorn were there in the tree with him and in his pocket was $783.50.' In another pocket was the diary that Mr. Gleek says La Rue always kept; and in it, undated, but nn the page following the one dated Friday, Aug- ust 29, 1862, was written in trembling letters the following: "Cannot get out; surely must die. i If ever found, send me and all my money to my mother, Mademe Suzann, La line, near Tarascnn, in the prov- ince of Bouc•hes du Rhone, France." ' aa2=a92.- Ju17 u For Information and Calendar Of intorost to men n who shave HEN the barber's razor loses,. its extreme keenness — what does HE dot Does he throw his razor away? Not he he strops it. The Valet AutoStrop Razor strops itself. That's why it always gives -you a clean, smooth and satisfactory shave. The Valet AutoStrop Razor is an economical razor. There are 500 per- fect shaves guaranteed from every dollar packet of AutoStrop blades. With a Valet AutoStrop Razor the morning programme is strop, shave, clean (without taking it to pieces), and place on the shelf ready for use next morning. 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