Show J LUDI t T 7 lay by DAVID gralian RA 11 author A ol 01 1 T C cos TL 1 a E tc 1 by coabe CHAPTER 1 how it all began wo ive can caa hol holdout but alx n onles ion long or at least sw six months sly MY mothers tone made the six months stretch li into inlo six long 1009 years isee her now ively as if it were wele ohly obly yesterday yest erda we f were I 1 af our s scant cant breakfast J as it lue as was ever evet 25 slie she f r brave brave aw n con confident Adent sand and hers was no mere pretense to reassure me no cheerless optimism of ignorance but the through and through courage and strength of those who flinch tor for no bogey that life or death can conjure her tone lifted me I 1 glanced at her and what shone rom her eyes set me on my feet face to the foe the tablecloth table cloth was darned in many places but so skillfully that you could have looked closely without detecting it not nota a lump of sugar nor nora a slice of bread went to waste in tha yet yeti even I 1 had to think ilice twice to realize that we were were poor desperately poor cor she ai did not hadl our pov arty she beautified flea it she dl dignified it into spartan simplicity city I 1 know it is not the glamour over the rase past that makes me believe there are no women now like those of the race to which she sha belonged the world today to day yields comfort too easily to the capable hardship is the only mold for or such character and in those days ih this middle western country even the capable were strangers to hardship when I 1 was young she went on and things aked looked black as they have a habit of looking to the young and inexperienced that put in with a teasing smile at me 1 1 I used to say to myself well anyhow they cant kill 1111 me and the thought used to cheer me up wonderfully in fact it still does I 1 no longer felt hopeless I 1 began to gnaw my troubles a again ala desp despair alris Is still judge granby is a dog said 1 I yes a dog 1 why dog objected my mother why not simply mean man ive never known a dog that could equal a umaji anan who bet et out to be ornery F when I 1 think of 0 all the work ive iva done for him in these three years for yourself she interrupted work you do for others amount to much unless its been first aad best tor for yourself 1 but be was benefited by it too I 1 urged and has taken life easy and has bar had mor MON clients and bigger fees than he ever hail had lefore before id like to give him a jolt id stop nagging nag ing him to put my name la in a mis miserable erble corner of the glass in his door id ban hang out a big sign of my own over my own office door my mo mother her burst into a radiant smile ive been walling waiting a year tc hear that bhe sh airl aid j i thereupon I 1 t had bad a shock h ac ac of fright inside for id rever never have dared to fear before ray my mother theres Flo frothing thing else that makes you so BO brave as a living with v ith some one before whom you avent the courage to let your cowa rUce show its feather it if we keep beep each other up to th the mark emark what a spectacle of fright and flight this athis world drama would be ba vanity the greatest of vices is also the grea greatest teft of virtues or the source of il he trea greatest test virtues which comes to tle the ome thing ahert e A did you do it she went on and then I 1 knew I 1 was in for it and how well founded was tho the suspicion that 4 had been keeping my lips tight shut upon my dream of in depend erice ence ni ill ill HI think about it was mv 2 answer awer in a tone in which I 1 hope sh she would see not hesitating but reflective tive 1 I go too far ar or too fast better go too far and too fast than none at all retorted my wise mother once a tortoise beat a hare once it never happened again yet the whole timid world has been talking about it ever since and she fell into a study from which she roused herself to say better let me bargain for the office and the furniture and the bis big sign she knew hut but could not or would not teach me how to get a dollars worth for a dollar would not I 1 suspect for she despised parsimony declaring it to be another virtue which is becoming only in a woman of course when I 1 began weve veve got to do something in the next six months t she warned and now she nade the six months seem six minutes I 1 had bad at my tongues end something about the danger of 0 drag dragging 1 I 9 her down into misfortune bt but it before speaking I 1 looked at her atrid and locking refrained to say it ii to her would have been too absurd to her who bad ii aa been left a widow with nothing bothin at all who had educated me for college leg ge and who had helped me through my first year there helped me with money I 1 mean but for what she gave besides more immeasurably more but for her courage in me an anaf round rne me and under me id reve levei have got mT m degree or athing elj I 1 tear fear to call that courage help would be like saying the M mainspring aIn spring helps the watch to go I 1 looked at ai her they cant kill me can they SAM said 1 I with a laugh which sounded so brave that it straightway made me brave so it was settled but that was the first step in a light fight I 1 cant remember even now no W without a sinking heart the farmers of jackson county of which pulaski was the county seat found in liti a tion tica their chief distraction from the stUb stupefying Nying dullness of farm lifo life in those gays days lit pause after the indian and natura had been conquered and before the lt aig arteries of thought and action had penetrated the farmers tock eagerly to litigation to save themselves from stagnation still a new lawyer especially if he was young yoong hai had an agonizing time of it t convincing their slow stiff suspicious natures that he bould be t rust sd d in such a crisis as going to law to make matters worse 1 I toll fell in love once it was years aate afterward arward though not maicy many years ago burbank at the time governor was with me and we were going over the main points for his annual message oni on of my suggestions my orders to all my agents high and low have alway been sugar augar coated as suggestions started a new train of thought I 1 is him and lie took pen and paper to fix it before it had a chance to escape As he wrote my glanco glance wandered along of the cases pause F I 1 7 on it the 0 o firt farthest hest and lowest shelf aei I 1 r rose s e and went there and found my old schoolbooks school books those I 1 used when I 1 was in public school no 3 too near 30 years ago in the shelf one book stood higher than the ether tall and thin and ragged its covers torn ftp its pages paged stained and log dog eared looking through that old physical ge was like a first talk with a long lost friend it had bad Indeed been my old friend behind its broad baek back I 1 had eaton forbidden adries I 1 had aimed and discharged the blow gua goa I 1 had reveled in blood and thun der tales that made the schoolroom fade beffie the vast wit wil der berness de ness the scene of 0 breathless struz agles between indian and settler or open into the high seas where pirate er worse than pt elrate rate struck ilag flag to lo american privateer or man mall 0 war on an impulse pulse shot up from the dustiest lust iest depths of memory I 1 turned the old geography sidewise and ex the edges of the cover ye there was the cache I 1 had made b splitting the pasteboard with my jacki knife I 1 thrust in my finger nail came a slip of paper I 1 glanced at a burbank lie he was busy 1 I somewhat healthily you may imagine the paper and well my heart beat more rapidly as I 1 saw in a school ahl ia scrawl ys g aay az rat I 1 was no longer master of a state I 1 was a hoy boy in school again I 1 COUII sea her ber laboring over this game 0 friendship love indifference hate I 1 could see redney Re duey griggs who sal between her and me in the row 0 oi desks between and parallel to m row r and hers could see him swoon and snatch the paper from her look loob it at it grin maliciously and toss it ovet to me I 1 was to fa grade A was ivas 36 16 and was to take myself sei se piously riou sly si she was wag its in grade D was lit tie more than half my age aga but looked older and how bow see mid and pretty sh was she had black bals thick and wavy with little tresses escaping from plaits plait sand and ribbons to bat foat about her foTe forehead head ears aud and neck her skin wag waa darker then I 1 thick than it Is now but it had the sann sam smoothness and glow certainly it could not have cadmore ha had dmore more I 1 think the dart must have struck that day why else did I 1 keep abd tbd tb bit of paper but it did not trois bli me until the first winter of my launch ing ng forth as harvey sayler attorney and counselor at law she wai the daughter of the episcopal preacher and as every one thought wel of the prospects of my mothers son our courtship was undisturbed there ther in n the spring when fortune was at its in coldest and love at ili most feverish her father accepted a call to a church ill n boston eight marn av ay to go to serf see her v was raa ani possible impossible liow how could the money ie be spared 30 50 at the least I 1 incest bhea they had been 0 gone olle about four months my mother ins insisted ted that I 1 must but r refused and I 1 doo do bot know wr zether it is to m my y credit or not for my refusal gave her only bain vh whereas erea the sacrifices she would have had tomake had I 1 gone would have garen her ona on il pie pleasure asure I 1 had bad no fear that betty would change in our separation there are some people you yon hope arl stanch and some people you think will bo be stanch it if and aiki then hber are those many women and a fei bov men whom it is imps ame to think of as false or even faltering I 1 did not fully appreciate thal thai quality then for my memory was not then dotted nith the graves of bf false friendship and littered with the rubbish of broken promises pio but I 1 r uld did appreciate it enough to build seem ely e ty upon it build no that Is not the word there thee may lie be those who wre ale al e seimu bated to achievement by being in love though I 1 doubt VL 12 at any rato rate I 1 was riot not one ne of themi wy MY love tor for her absorbed my and paralyzed my courage of the qui litle tut that have contributed to what success I 1 may have had I 1 put in ali thir firso rank a disposition to ta see the giotti test lest sido r 0 taco atme but it has not to make maka my ute life happler happier thou though gh it has been la in pro venting misadventure from doai catching me napping Z 4 to be continued |