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Show The New Manager By Mary Barrett Howard iCopyrlght. W12, by Associated literary Press.) Mrs. Amos Rood was bustling happily hap-pily about her neat kitchen, her pleas- ant face even more beaming than usual. "Amos is sixty years old today," she explained to the milkman from whom she bought a half-pint of cream besides the customary pint of milk, "'an' I'm goin'. to get an extra nice linner." The 12 o'clock whistle had sounded. The peach meringue pie which was to be the crowning touch of the feast had been brought from the pantry and set upon a side table; the roast chicken was done to a turn; the tomato bisque was ready to pour into the tureen, and as every housewife knows, tomato toma-to bisque will curdle if allowed to stand. "I do wish Amos would come," the little woman fluttered. "That cream o' tomato won't be fit to eat." Glancing, uneasily out of the window she started at sight of a curiously familiar, yet unfamiliar, figure coming elowly up the street. Sure that bowed, bent old man could not be Amos! He had never looked like that, even when his rheumatism was at its worst. But the next Instant she had flung open the door and was running down the garden wa'. "Oh, what is It what ails you, Amos?" she cried, putting her arms about him to help him up the steps. "Don't be scared, Lucy I ain't sick," the man" said, with a brave attempt at-tempt at a reassuring smile. But once under the shelter or his own roof, safe from prying or pitying neighborly eyes, Amos Rood broke down altogether. Sinking into a chair lie dropped his head upon the little table, so gayly decked in honor of the day with tea-roses and heliotrope from the garden beds, and Mrs. Rood's SUM; ! Found the Solitude He Craved. cherished "wedding" china, and his big, shrunken frame shook with a man's painful, tearless sobs. His wife silently unclasped his Clenched fingers from a letter which bore the seal of a great corporation, and as she swiftly scanned the few curt lines it contained she wailed aghast: "'O Amos, it must be a mistake! The company wouldn't take your en-Siion en-Siion from you just because you are able to earn a little something extra, now and then?" "It's the new manager, Lucy," Amos Kood responded dully. "He's trying to cut expenses, and he says it's no part of the company's policy to pension nble-bodied men." "Able-bodied!" the ' little woman echoed, with a hysterical laugh. "1 guews i know what you suffer, Amos, even on your best days. But don't you worry, duar we'll get old Dr. Moore o write that new manager a letter hat will make him ashamed of himself." him-self." "It wouldn't do a mite of good, l.ucy," the man said, shaking his head. "He says he's got proof I can earn a good living if I'm a mind to but I'm afraid I can't. I'm pretty good at fig-ni'in', fig-ni'in', and when the merchants here get their accounts balled up tlx-v re apt to send for me to straighten "em out, but it's hard for a man of my age to get a steady job, even If I could keep it up day in and day out. Perhaps Per-haps I was foolish to snap up those chances to add a little to our in come. And yet," he added with sigh, "that pension wasn't a very bis one for two people to live on." "I should say it wasn't!" agreed Mrs. Rood vehemently. "I call it pretty pret-ty doin's!" she went on fiercely. "Here's you all broken down, and all those years your salary w-as so small that though I've been as saving as 1 knew how, we've just managed to pay for this place and put a few hundred hun-dred dollars in the bank." -."We'd never have done that much if it hadn't been for you, Lucy," her husband said gratefully. "You're a master hand at contriving. But It ain't the company's fault that I got all crippled up with rheumatism, so's I couldn't do my work." "I'd like to know if it ain't, Amos Rood!" she flashed. "I'd like to know if you wa'n't kept all those years in a damp, underground office and not aL lowed half the help you'd ought to have had?" "Well, well, Lucy," the man 6aid pacifically. "The company w?n good to me that time I had typhoid, ten years ago. Didn't I get three months' leave of absence with full pay and passes for us both so we could take a nice trip?" "Three months' leave in twenty-five years!" moaned Mrs. Rood. "And now that new manager's going to take away your pension. Oh, I know you think I'm awful, Amos, but I just hate that grasping, greedy old company that works its men to death just the way it does its poor horses, so's to save a little more money!" "It hurts me to hear you talk like that, Lucy," Amos Rood protested loyally. loy-ally. "The company does the best It can it has troubles of its own." "Well, I won't say another word if you don't want I should, Amos," the little woman promised. "I'd calculated to finish up that job of Brown's this afternoon, but when I got that letter I sent 'em word not to expect rue I didn't feel equal to tacklin' figures today. But I'll paint them storm-doors you wanted done, Lucy. It'll be quiet out mere in the barn, and I I want to think things over." Mrs. Rood looked after him wistfully. wist-fully. "I guess maybe he would be better bet-ter by himself," she thought humbly. But although Amos Rood had found the solitude he craved, there was something terrifying to him in the emptiness of the great barn, and as he resolutely set himself to the task of painting the "storm doors" he had mentioned, he began to wish vaguely that old Dolly were still alive to stamp her iron shod feet and to nicker to him socially from her stall. Then, with a sudden pang, he realized real-ized that he was glad that the old horse who had been his and Lucy's fii'iend and companion for so many years, .had died last month, for how could he have brought himself to sell her when their little home was broken up? Lucy said that they would manage man-age some way, but Lucy, with all her cheery common sense and thrift, had a woman's ignorance of the grim fact that two and two always make four, and never try any chance five or six. Perhaps, by selling their little place and living on the proceeds they might manage to keep together for a few years mere, but the end was Inevitable. Inev-itable. Sooner or later Lucy would be obliged to go to the well-to-do sister sis-ter who had never attempted to conceal con-ceal her conviction that the pretty, energetic girl might have done better than to marry Amos Rood. As for him, there' would be nothing left but the shelter of the county poor house. Something seemed to snap in the man's brain. Why shouldn't he quietly quiet-ly get out of it all, while there was still something to keep Lucy from entire en-tire dependence on a woman like prosperous, pros-perous, self-satisfied Jane Thorn? She would mourn for him he knew, but death is easier to bear than some other oth-er things. Suddenly lie paused, arrested In his grim preparations for the deed on which lie was resolved. "Amos! Amos!" his wife was calling. call-ing. Ten, yes, five moments more and ho would have been forever deaf to that tender voice, and Lucy would have come and found him he shuddered with a sick repulsion. He had been selfish cowardly mad ! But Lucy'a light feet were running along the garden gar-den paths and she war calling again: "Amos! Oh, Ames, do please hurry!" The man stumbled blindly to the door. The next instant he was standing stand-ing in the warm sunlight he had never thought to feel again, with Lucy's arm:, about his neck; her happy tears upon his cheek. "Oil, Amos," she was bubbling joyously, joy-ously, "the general superintendent himself is in the house! It's perfectly lovely to hear him swear. He says the new manager has exceeded his authority au-thority altogether, and that the com' pany does know how to appreciate faithful service such as yours has been! And only think, Instead of tak Ing away your pension, he intends tc increase it! Why, Amos, we'll be rich!" |