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Show BSEggssT3 Efss5a grgr-rea EISSS I iarH Baaaj Was He a Coward? By CARL JENKINS KK5-S!Sa KJSZi23i EgSSgja KA ESSSgsESa jjf;-?7aa Copyright, 1910. by Associated Literary Press Dr. Hargraves, retired and said to be wealthy, has more or less business to do with a certain safe deposit company. com-pany. He thus came to know young Austen Parker. There came to' be a social as well as a business side, and after a time Mr. Parker was a caller at the house. Dr. Hargraves was a widower and in poor health. The light of his eye and the joy of his heart was his daughter May. A sister oversaw the house, but the doctor used to say that his daughter oversaw him. The friendship friend-ship between them was almost selfish. Miss May's handsome face attracted many, but she received them all as callers until Mr. Parker came. In his case, after a bit, the father thought he delected more than usual interest, and be was secretly pleased. He knew that his ailment must carry him off at the end of a few years, and he hoped the daughter's future would be settled set-tled before the dark day came. The doctor and his daughter -were at (he Harbor hotel when Mr. Parker and his mother arrived. It was simply sim-ply chance that brought them together I there, and all were pleased over it. A week had passed very pleasantly when one day the doctor, Miss May and Mr. Austen were on the long wharf below the hotel to sit in the band house and enjoy the cool breeze. There were women and children about, and here and there a man was lazily fishing. Of a sudden a women screamed scream-ed out.. Her boy of five had climbed the railing and fallen into the water. There were shouts and screams from others, and a hubub all aiong the wharf. The accident occurred within thirty feet of the band stand. Mr. Parker reached the railing in four or five bounds, tore off his coat and kicked off his shoes, and was on the point of "Oh, Go-Go-Gol" Called Miss May. leaping the rail into the water when he suddenly halted and stepped back. "You can get him you can get him!" urged the doctor as he came up. "There's his hat there he rises!" "Oh, go go go!" called Miss May to the man -who stood wringing his hands ami his face pale as the dead. " I can't!" they heard him say. "Man man, are you going to leave the boy to drown?" cried the doctor in astonishment and indignation. Mr. Parker advanced to the railing, looked over at the child struggling in the water and then threw up his hands with a groan and retreated. He even picked up the things he had cast off and almost ran from the wharf. splash! Splash! Splash! Three men leaped the railing, one after another and, as the little lad was sinking for the third time, he was rescued and there were tears, cheers and shouts of congratulation. The doctor and his daughter returned to their seats and sat for a long time without a word between be-tween them. Then the girl asked in a hesitating way: "Was it because Mr. Parker can't swim?" "He could have got the boy and hung to a spile until a boat came leavens, but If I had been In his plaoe!" "Then then what ailed him? He seemed to be frightened." "He was!" was the grim reply. "Father, you can't mean " "But 1 do, dear. You have only to hear what the people around us are saying. Too bad. I feel sorry for him He and his mother will have to go today." A hundred people on the wharf had words of praise for the three men, and words of censure for the one. It Is at such times that men curse in their throats and women refuse to forgTTe. A man Is either recorded as 1 a hero or a coward. If a hero, it is I forgotten in a day; if a coward, not for years, if ever. Mr. Parker hurried straight to the hotel. People who saw Mm in hia flight looked and wondered. Mrs. Parker Par-ker had not come out. The son burst into her room and flung himself down and covered his face with his hands and wept. "What is it?" she asked as she stood beside him with her hand on hia head'. "A child fell off the wharf," he an-swereJ an-swereJ after a time. I "And you were there?" "I was the one to have leaped in after him." "Poor boy! We should not hav I come to the water." With that she turned away and commenced taking her garments down off the hooks and foldjng and, packing them. When the son could .control hl3 voice he stepped to the telephone and asked for his bill and ordered a carriage car-riage for the depot. Two hours later mother and son were on their way home. When they talked it was not of what had happened on the wharf. "Don't you see he couldn't have done anything else?" queried Dr. Hargraves Har-graves at lunch, when some one said that "the coward" had departed. "He passes out of our lives, of course." And it so comes about. When the doctor again visited the safe deposit company he saw young Mr. Parker, but neither bowed. Some one else waited on the patron. People wjjo had met the young man socially at the doctor's residence inquired about him in a careless way, and were as carelessly care-lessly answered. Now and then the father wondered if the daughter had been interested enough to care or be disappointed, but he could not mnke up his mind. The affair had never been referred to again after the first day. A whole year passed. Father and daughter were again bound for the same hotel, but this time they were motoring a part of the way, the car being driven by a chauffeur. In the middle of the afternoon, on a broad highway, four foreigners who had struck work in a quarry not far away and were ripe for mischief, halted the auto to commit highway robbery. The chauffeur was a poltroon. pol-troon. He could have run them down, but he halted the machine. The doctor was not armed, but he refused to leave the car, and struck I at the fellows who sought to pull the daughter out. Such a one-sided conflict con-flict could not last long, and must terminate in a victory for the attackers. attack-ers. They were pushing the advantage advan-tage of numbers when a second auto rolled up quietly behind them and a young man leaped out. Without any weapons but his bare fists he sailed into the four. They drew knives on him, but he struck one after another and fought fiercely and silently. The uaule raged up and down the road for five minutes, and then the used-up men retreated to the woods. The doctor and his daughter had watched It without a word. They knew the attacker, and they saw blood on his face and hands as he waved to them that the road was clear and walked back to his own machine. "It is Mr. Parker!" whispered Miss May. "Hanged if it isn't!" replied the father. "But folks said he was a coward." "I'm! I was among those who said so. Guess we made a mistake somewhere." ' I I hope ro ! " "Eh? Eh? You hope what?" The words were not repeated. A week later, at the Harbor hotel, the doctor called his daughter into his room to say. "1 wrote to a rrlend of mine in the city and asked him to do me a favor He had an interview with Mr. Parker's mother. Say, dear, while the public nas a notion that your father is a great doctor, 1 want to admit to you ihat he is a great fool." "Why, what is it?" "I ought to have suspected something some-thing of the kind from the first. When Mr. Parker was a child of two his nurse let him fall into the water. He had a close call from drowning, u gave him a dread and n horror of the water, and it will always be with him He's no coward, lie simplv fears the one thing. Plenty of cases like It I'm writing him a very abject letter this afternoon. Don't you want to In close something? If he'll be sensible " and forgive, I'll take him for a son-in-law about a year hence. Eh? pii? That makes you blush, doesn't if' i believe you've been his champion right along!" |