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Show I THE HELPER TIMES, HELPER, UTAH V ; lne I i a I u led by HENRY KITCHELL WEBSTER Copyxleht WHAT ty Tin Bobba Merrill Co. watch people talk down at the end of the car. And when she and her father had dinner in the restaurant, his long preoccupied silences did not leave her restless. She would be sampling conversations from all over the room. It was a real bereavement when Mrs. George left the hotel and went to New York WENT BEFORE CHAPTER II 3 WlfTJ to live. But the best friendship of those four hotel years didn't begin until after Mrs. George had gone. It was with Miss Bacon, whose rather incredible first name was Florabel, the public stenographer. Ithoda had been saying good morning to her and sometimes stopping beside her desk for a word or two, for months. But in her loneliness after Mrs. George had gone, she formed the habit of making longer visits when she saw Miss Bacon wasn't busy. Miss Bacon was not, Rhoda perceived, as old as she had thought; her being rather stout and her wearing spectacles made ber look so. But she had a jolly young voice and a nice smile. She didn't ask Continued He'd smiled and told her he was not rich yet, not rich at all. but that he thought It wasn't going to be long, not more than a few months at most, before he was. As soon as that happened he'd stop work, and they'd go roaming the world together. Meanwhile she was to be patient and get along as best elie could. How many times during the next four years had they had that same talk, without essential variation? Dozens scores I Toward the end, the note of it had gone sharper, more like a cry of desperation, until her one care, with him, had come to be to avoid everything that could remind hira of the life she led during the long days from the time he left ber at the breakfast table until lie came back sometimes long after dinner at Dight. She didn't wonder now, looking back upon it, that as the months stretched into years the thought of the little girl left unoccupied and uncared for should have driven him frantic. " And yet, somehow, it hadn't been horrible at all. If she'd been a timid child, of course it would have been dreadful. Or if people hadn't naturally liked her and wanted to be kind to her. Or if her father had been the sort who asked nagging questions and told her she must never do that again. She'd begun doing things from the first day he'd left her there in the hotel that he probably wouldn't have approved if he'd known about. Most of the things done had been sensible ough, she thought, and when she hadn't been sensible she must have been lucky, for she'd never got Into any serious trouble. One thing that went a long way toward making her situation tolerable during those four years was the fact that she'd always had as much money as she needed. From somewhere her father had had a perfectly adequate and regular supply. From her fourteenth birthday on, she'd known exactly how much it was: a hundred dollars a week. At that time he'd begun handing it all over to her except what his small personal wants required and had given her the Job of keeping their accounts and paying their hotel bills. It had always been in jie'd , He'd cash five yellow-backetwenties. Tbere'd never been any sign of a change for better or for worse in their Circumstances. She never knew where the money came from. Once she asked him outright, and he had so pointedly ignored the question that she never asked it again. She was afraid she guessed. She was afraid it was her Uncle William the ogre. Her whole capacity for fear was concentrated, focused upon that one point She lieve that it was he from whom she and her father had fled, thereby frustrating his intentions to take her away. Thp nnlv minims nt nnnlp alio ovpr felt when going about alone on tier small excursions to the shops, the movie theater, library, a near-btook the form of a belief that she had seen him or that he was following her. If he was the source of the money they lived on, then it meant that he knew where they lived and that he was, for some reason she couldn't fathom, biding his time. But she was, as a matter of fact, too healthy and happy, even too well occupied, to think about him much. Really she'd never lacked friends, Bat her father's often repeated instruction not to tell who they were or where they came from, to answer no personal questions at all, brought it about that most of ber friendships were with members of the staff of the hotel, rather than V ' y : xj with residents. There' was one exception among the guests: a middle-agepretly woman who always wore black a widow, Rhoda supposed. She didn't ask many questions because she was deaf, so deaf that you had to shout to make her hear. She was going to a school where yon learned go that ,you could tell what people said by looking at them without hearing their voices nt all. The school was downtown one of the big buildings of the and Mrs. George, whose ."op, ness had come upon her suddenly, deaf-"- to venture down Into that confusion alone. Her need was a godsend to Rhodn, who volunteered to go with her every morning. She went into the class with Mrs. George, and having nothing else to do, she sat and watched and herself. It took learned Mrs. George three months to lenrn, but In half that time Ithoda was infallible ut it. It made life more amusing. She liked to ride In the elevated and 7 hated J rr1c WAR Quick YARNS by Lieut. Fronk E. ' Told Her He Was Not Rich Yet. Smiled-an- d She talked any prying questions. quite a good deal in a nice friendly way, about her own "affairs. Probably she was rather lonely herself. Not that she hadn't any relations, but that they didn't do her any good, tier father, it seemed, had had several wives who had died, one after another, and the children didn't like one another very well, and quarreled. Florabel had been (he youngest and she'd had a horrible time until she'd managed to learn a trade that made her Independent. Independence was Florabel's sacred word. Everybody, she 6aid, even a girl who was almost sure to get married, ought to have a trade. Then if anything unexpected happened, she'd got something to tie to. "Of course, not if she's rich," she added. "I'm not rich," Rhoda said. "At least I don't think we are. Father expects to be pretty soon. I wish I could learn stenography. I suppose it's awful hard." "It's spelling that Is most important," Florabel told her. "Can you spell?" "Oh, I think so," Rhoda said. "Spelling isn't hard. Is it?" "It was for me," Florabel told her. But Rhnda, as it turned out, was one of those lucky people who simply can't misspell a word that they've ever seen In print. "I could teach you myself," Florabel volunteered. "I'd like to, first rate. I haven't much to do, hardly ever, in the middle of the morning or in the middle of the afternoon." There never was a more enthusiastic pupil, and Florabel seemed as excited about It as she was herself. She worked over the preliminary exercises until her hand cramped and then until it came nncranvped She was determined, at again. every lesson, to surprise Florabel by how much more she knew and she never failed. By the end of two months she could write a clean page If she didn't try to go too fast, and she was taking slow dictation that Florabel read not from prepared exercises but out of the newspaper or anywhere. Then one day a client appeared at the desk In the middle of the lesson. Rhoda canght up her notebook and (led. but not very far; only to the nearest sofa. When the man had finished dictating his letters and gone away she went back to Florabel. "Let me see if I can't write them from my notes," she pleaded. "lie talked loud enough for me to hear him, all right, and I know I've got everything." Florabel had been rather shocked and she made Rhoda promise not to do It again, hut she did let her transcribe her notes on the typewriter and there were only a few small mistakes. What they did after that with clients they knew, was to ask permission for Ithoda to sit beside the desk and take the dicta-liofor practice. Thry were mostly awfully nice about It. People were like that, in the main, according to Rliodn's experience kindly, glad to help one out n of a difficulty if it didn't mean taking much trouble and sometimes when it did. The thing she couldn't under stand was why they had been so cruel to her father. He never could have meant, whatever it was he'd done, to hurt anybody In the world. Yet as she remembered with bitter understanding some of the things that had happened in the last few weeks before they left home to come east, the whole town must have turned upon him as if he'd been a leper. They'd broken him, somehow. She couldn't believe, any more, that the happy time he'd used to talk about the long holiday when they'd roam the world doing whatever they pleased would ever come. But the scheme that was to make it possible obsessed him more and more, tie almost never talked to her now j he didn't even want her to read to him. And he couldn't be very well, either. His face had a queer blue color sometimes that frightened her. He insisted It was nothing, and when she found out, accidentally, that he'd been to see the doctor who lived In the hotel he told her ft was for a touch of IndiFlorabel was urging her gestion. now to go out and find herself a regular job. She was better fitted for It than most of the graduates of the schools, and m good as she'd ever get until she'd had some actual business experience. Rhoda wanted to do it, but she felt she couldn't without telling her father about the plan before putting It in execution. So she put Florabel off, saying she would go looking for a Job some time, hut that she didn't see that there was any hurry. At the end of one of these conversations she saw something in her friend's face thnt made her ask. with a catch in her breath, "Is there any special hurry that you know about?" Florahel visibly hesitated over her answer. "I sort of hated to tell you." she said. "Why, I'm not going to be here very much longer. You see, I'm going to marry Mr. Gage. You know. And of conrse that means I'm going to Denver to live. And oh. Lamb, Pd like to see you settled before I go!" Rhoda hated to remember the little scene that followed. She'd said, in her hurt bewilderment, some pretty mean things, about independence and so on, and she'd made Florabel cry. They'd made It up, though, within the hour. She helped Florabel shop and she went to the wedding and saw the couple off on the train. She liked Mr. Gage, herself. He was fat, like Florabel, and jolly. He looked rather solemn, though, to her. He when he said good-bgave her his card with his address on it and told her to keep It care fully. If anything ever happened to her, he said, and she found she wanted any help, she was to write or telegraph. She refrained from asking him what he thought might happen. Of course she really knew. When, about a fortnight later, an hour after she and her father had finished their late dinner, the blow fell she hadn't been surprised at all. She had had the doctor there within ten minutes, but she'd known then that it was too late for his remedies to do any real "The Records of the Sixth" the old soldiers of the army were good ones, you couldn't find their equal in wartime value, her own breath for a matter of sec- anwhere. One of the best of the onds. It came at last with a sob good ones was Sergeant Major Ullof relief. rich of the Sixth Infantry, an outShe cried, rather peacefully unfit attached to General Pershing til, after a while, she beard the himself during part of its career. nurse coming to teil her. She There was little of the military buried her face in the crook of In Ullrich's appearance. He was a her arm and lay perfectly still, and man almost solely, the ser"paper" the nurse, believing her asleep, geant major being, In effect, the went away again, shutting the door general niannger of a regiment. after her. No recruit was so insignificant At that, quite suddenly, her mind that Ullrich didn't know all about went to work. What had her fahim before he'd had a single pay ther been trying to tell her, in in the Sixth; no detail escaped that last flicker of his conscious- day his wise old eyes. And most of ness? But thinking about that, she what he learned be kept on file decided at last, wouldn't do simply by entrusting it to memory. words any good. The fragmentary Shortly after war was declared, worked out to two opposite meanthe army did an almost unpreceings. dented thing. Ullrich, the enlisted lie might, of course, have been man, was commissioned a major telling her to go to Uncle William and ordered to report to the adjuand that she'd find his address tant general's department at Washamong bis papers. But he might ington. The r was to round have mennt that she was to look out his service as an thirty years' out for Uncle William and not let officer. him get possession of the papers. Wearing his major's uniform, old And since her uncle was almost to two of his Ullrich bade good-bas much of an ogre to her as he closest friends. "They've spoiled an had been four years ago, it was awfully good sergeant major to the latter interpretation that she make an awfully poor major," he adopted. confessed to Col. Matthias Crowley What the doctor had said was the of the Fifty-fourtInfantry. Then, thing that frightened her worst tears streaming down his face, he "You're only a little girl!" shook hands in farewell with anothThat of course, was nonsense. er colonel, Robert Noble of the She was sixteen and lots of people Sixth Infantry, Ullrich's own regithought she was older than that. ment and stumbled down the road. She could pass for eighteen, well Noble stood on the porch of his He'd said that only beenough. quarters, eyes following Ullrich uncause he was sorry for her. But til the erstwhile sergeant major sixteen was still a child, according had almost disappeared. Then, You weren't of age until to law. with a shrug of the shoulders toyou were eighteen or was it twenty-oward the departing soldier, he said ne? And if Uncle William sadly to his adjutant: "Captain, knew where she was and learned there go the records of the Sixth of her father's death, he'd come Infantry I" and get her, and she wouldn't be able to get away from him. Well "The Fast Mountain Mail" then, the only safe thing for her Persons as distinguished as the to do was to disappear before he late Mrs. Potter Palmer of Chicago had time to find out what had haprode in the cab of Philip Goldstein pened. before the war. They should have in now back those days, Looking later, In the Vosges, as he after the passage of two years so seen him"Goldstein's Fast Mountain piloted packed with life that they seemed Mall." longer than the four that had preGoldstein emerged from the war ceded them, she wondered that she, reca mere child of sixteen, had been as a sergeant with a sterling the least of his able to follow out that resolution ord of service. Not accomplishments was delivering the so steadily that no one had tried mail on time to his regimental to put an obstacle in her path. headquarters during one of its for a telegram, purportExcept visits on the line. early Denin ing to come from Florabel Goldstein was a corporal and ver, which she had slipped out early mall in the mountains. He that morning and dispatched to her- made orderly, a single, toiling passage with self, she had nothing to show anymail sacks to an advanced one as an indication that she had heavy c. Then lie decided his duties p. a friend in the world and the telmust be lightened. egram wasn't much good since if On his second delivery, the mail you looked at it closely you saw bags were strapped on the backs that it hadn't come from Denver of two burros. They were tiny at all. animals but one of them could have She couldn't have done it, of handled all the sacks. It became course, if she had not had plenty the custom for cooks nlong the of money, and, likely enough, not steep mountain trail to tempt the then if the hotel people hadn't been little burros ns they straggled past, accustomed to her paying the bills. with kitchen delicacies from the She paid everything in cash, that army stores. morning, and when this was done "Hey! You're delaying the Goldshe had a little over three hundred stein Mountain Mail," Corporal dollars left, fifteen twenty-dolla- r Goldstein would shout Indignantly bills and a few small ones. And he'd urge one to the cooks. The papers her father had tried burro, then the other, into action to tell her something about had alup the narrow trail. "I gotta use two of 'em," he exways been kept in a big leather hat trunk that must have been hpr plained confidentially to tlte regimother's. Srle opened it and looked mental adjutant one day. "So's 1 in with the Idea of seeing whether can leave spot3 on 'em to reach her uncle's address was there, but with a spur." Saying which he as the trunk was nearly full she swung the limb of a tree against decided against going through It the nearest burro with a resoundAnd the "Fast MounShe didn't much want to, anyway. ing whack She took It, as it was, along with tain Mail of Goldstein" was on Its her own small trunk in a taxi to a way again. It convenient railway station. hadn't mattered much which staThe Passing of a Sea Power tion except that it had to be one Exactly ten dnys after the Armisthat had a train that went to Dentice, the German navy surrendered. ver. aboard the New York, Sailors The next day she took her suitArkansas and Wyoming, case with her to the funeral and Texas, Florida (the Sixth Rattle squadwent from the cold little chapel ron) on November 21, 1918, particistraight back to the station. She pated In the surrender. si.ent that night at the Y. W. C. A., The five American where nothing happened except that were In what was known battleships as the red her new she inadvertence picked by line of two groups which maneuname. She'd had one all chosen, vered into position so that a high but when they gave her the regisof victory was formed down way writshe'd to ter card begun sign which the German vessels steamed ing her old one, Rhoda Whitehouse to lower their colors at sunset. MacFarlnnd. Halfway through Directly abend of the American she'd seen what she was doing and that day was the British ships Well, Rhoda White made stopped. Fifth squadron. a good enough name, and she was The British destroyer Cardiff glad that she hadn't discarded went ahead to pick up the German Khoda. She'd have felt lonely, devessels. This It did and the long prived of that black forms of the enemy boats The very next day she found a were first sighted by the allied fleet Job and met Babe Jennings. The shortly after 'nine o'clock. It was Job was at the News, where Floraan impressive sight as the German bel had told her they took girls fleet led by the Seidlltz. Moltke In stenothe without experience The and Hindenburg, passed by. and trained Allied vessels were in complete sigraphic department If you were lence. them, themselves. Every man was at his post. good you had a chance to be prowas manned. gun Every moted to be private stenographer closed In behind the' lines The or even secretary to one of the exfleet which had passed in surrenecutives. der. A band aboard Admiral Beat-ty'The only technical untruth Rhoda flagship, the Queen Elizabeth, told the employment manager was played "The Star Spangled Banthat her name was Rhoda White. ner.' A second band, on Admiral (TO BE CONTINUED Rodman's flagship, played "Hail to the Chief." German sea power was Names Taxed Alphabet no more. A woman with 28 names, all but (& 1930. Wertern Newspaper Union. one of which are Christian names, Work and Leisure received power of attorney In a The balanced good life consist will filed In London recently. The names of the woman appear in the neither of work and service alone nor of leisure alone. Recreation Imdocument In this alphabetical order: Ann, Bertha, Cecilia, Diana, plies work, and the pleasure of Emily, Fanny, Gertrude, Hypathla, travel, contemplation, reading and Inez, Jane, Kate, Louisa, Maud, enjoyment of the (Iner arts and Nora, Ophelia, Quince, Rebecca, graces are greatly enhanced by Starkey, Teresa, Ulysses, Venus, plenty of methodical and useful work. Exchange. Winifred, Xcnopbon, Yetta, Zenus, h 1 good. The one thing that It was unendurable to remember and Impossible to forget was the way her father had pleaded with the doctor for one more day. He frantically believed that enough of the drug they were putting into his veins would give him the little handful of hours that was all he needed. They did give him more stuff out of the hypodermic syringe, but this time it was morphine and under It he relaxed, so thnt for a while he talked to her, comfortably hut conHe thought It was Just fusedly. after her mother died, when she was five years old. But a little later after the nurse had come, he roused, as from a sleep, stared at Rhoda In a frightened" way and tried Jo speak to her, waving the nurses away ns he did so. The only intelligible word she had been able to hear, when he lapsed Into unconsciousness, were "papers" and "your Uncle William." The doctor had been giving some Instructions to the nurse. Rhoda Intercepted him on his way to the door. "Will he wake up again?'' she asked him. He looked at hpr steadily a moment before he answered. "No, my dear child, he won't. This Is the end." And then, surprisingly, his eyes filled up with tears. "You're only a little girl!" he said, as If It were a discovery. "Won't yon let me get some woman here In the hotel to take you In until your friends can come and get you? And won't yon let me telegraph now, for them?" She told him, afraid her voice was betraying her sudden panic, that she would telegraph and that she'd rather go and lie down by herself In her own room. The words must have sounded all right, since he assented, though a little dubiously. Even with the door shut she could hear her father's terrible Pepper. breathing. She wanted to think, Keep It in Mind but she could not. She could only Another aid to longevity is the listen. It lasted a long time. When It stopped the cessation brought her realization that the other driver bold upright in bed, unable to draw may be a fool. Kansas City Star. . VI COMFORT Hagan for fretful When At a dance Martin Forbes, newspaper reporter, meets "Rhoda White." He overbears a conversation between Max Lewis and a woman which he believes concerns Khoda. He recalls a "blind ad" inquiring for "Rhoda McFarland" and senses a newspaper story. He believes that Rhoda's real name is McFarland. She refuses to admit or deny it, but .Martin was right Her life In California had been happy after her mother's death until misfortune overcame her father. Professor McFarland. They move to Chicago. , rank WORLD g ' Tbti Dumb Fisb Fish, according to London Humorist, Is not brain food. Perhaps some Ikdi we eat are the ones too dumb to stay away from the hook. Miami Not Naucow - upset children 3- children are subject to little They come at unexpected times. They seem twice as serious in the dead of night But there's one form of comfort on which a mother can always relyj good old Castoria. This pure vegetable preparation can't harm the tiniest infant. Yet mild as it is, it soothes a restless, fretful baby like nothing else. Its quick relief soon sees the youngster comfortable once more, back to sleep. Even an attack of colic, or diarrhea, yields to the soothing influence of Castoria. and rpi A ALL ) hatful fr"" "" lilllE' ill For sale by all druggists. Be sure to get the genuine product with Chas. II. Fletcher's signature on wrapper, and this familiar name-plate: Keep Castoria in mind, and keep house always. whose tongue is coated, or whose breath is bad. Continue with Castoria until the child is grown! a bottle in the Give it to any child Comic Opera Army Pot Private A. E. Daily, U. S. A., is a garrison. He is commandant of the army post on th dunes facing Grays Harbor, Wash. Each morning for five months Private Daily has blown his own reveile, Issued his own orders and then carried them out. Every day he polishes the two disappearing guns built too late for the last war and never fired since. The guns and Daily's quarters are all that is left of the post, built to form a link in the chain of coast defenses and abandoned with the signing of the armistice. one-ma- To keep clean and healthy take Dr. Pirrer'u I'lenaaiit Pellets. They regulate liver, bowels and stomach. Adv. Bolstering Up Confidence "Clothes always give me a lot of gated the source of the whistling she heard and found her son In his crib trilling dulcet tones through puckered lips. Since then he has practiced his music lesson daily without parental urging. 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