Show tt as crimson ramblers great love 1 by DOROTHY DOUGLAS dlinn t begin to express the havoc wrought in barbers big frame when they carried him oft the football field and swiftly to the nearest hospital after they had finished with him the nurses and surgeons barber looked out from his multitudinous bandages with mournful eyes and sensed the truth iso more football for me he es sayed to smile you ve been overgenerous with sour bandages you be queried not more than you needed my lad said one kindly surgeon aside from a seriously smashed knee you have a twisted wrist a dislocated collar bone and a slightly cracked nose bridge but apart from that im quite all right barbers twisted smile hurt the tender hearts of those nurses who had helped the surgeons patch up the battered player suppose have to take to addressing envelopes for a career or writing poetry suggested the surgeon its certain boull never play football again and the country s going to miss you my boy the nurses turned away barbers fine mouth despite the effort he made was quivering A beloved idol he was and now he lay physically shattered and rudely sundered from all that made life interesting there was one however who looked upon barbers plight with eyes that bad a glint of triumph in them she the girl whom barber wanted to marry had persistently refused to marry a professional football player perhaps now that football as a pro had been snatched from him he would listen to reason and take up some business which would mean a regular salary and some kind of definite future assured marcella never quite knew whether it was a touch of snobbishness on her part or whether she dreaded being merely the wife of the famous barber at any rate she had often said to barber 1 I would much prefer to love a man who made his living by means of bis brain power instead of his bodily accomplishments you dont love me marcella or you mind my profession being what it Is it Is perfectly honor able so in the hospital barber lay there thinking over all that marcella bad said and realized that she certainly had a right to her views certainly athletes could not be called interesting as a whole and as week upon week went by and barber still lay in the hospital the time began to hang heavily upon him tired of reading bored with cross word puzzles quite fed up with ills own inner resources barber fell a prey to depression it was his little red haired nurse whom he crimson rambler because of her hair and her natural tendency to ramble happily all over the place in search of amusement for her patients who brought him some modeling wax its what children love to play ath on a rainy day now you just start right in and try to model me or that bed post whichever interests you most barber laughed and pressed the soft clay with fingers now sensitive to suffering and strangely unlike his own strong hands As a matter of fact barber had always had a secret longing to model things but had crushed down the feeling lest he be considered a first class nut and so in another weeks time there was a roost amusing array 0 tiny figures standing upright on his bedside stand nurses short and nurses tall nurses smiling and nurses glum and a generous sprinkling of white robed surgeons and a kiddle or two all joined in that curious group of small images but above all barbers eyes had faken on a new interest in things about him the depression was grad bally way to something akin to hidden fires bursting outwardly into flame and that career of art started in so curious a way was to carry barber to the very heights for the little figures standing so bravely there in the hospital held that in their work mansilp which only the master hand can give marcella felt her heart bent trl for surely now she would say yes to the question which barber had so many times asked it was through crimson rambler that the dragging forth of a sculptor to be tn k blare for in her ramblings about she came across one who was well in a position to express a verdict on those little nurses surgeons and children and when they were carried carefully away to the great ones studio for inspection a tear squeezed through the dark brown lashes of crimson rambler barber saw it and his heart gave a great bound darling 1 he cried swiftly and the white hand hanging limply beside bis bed would you have loved roe it I 1 had still been a football player 1 I would love you if you were the uh man crimson rambler admitted |