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Show Battered Barber By DOROTHY DOUGLAS by McClure Newspaper Syndicate. WNU Service BATTERED didn't begin to express the havoc wrought in Barber's big frame, when they carried him off the football field and swiftly to the nearest near-est hospital. After they had finished with him the nurse and surgeons Barber looked out from his multitudinous bandages with mournful eyes and sensed the truth. "No more football for me?" he essayed es-sayed a smile. "You've been over-generous over-generous with your bandages, haven't you?" he 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 I'm quite all right." Barber's twisted smile hurt the tender hearts of those nurses who had helped the surgeons patch up the battered player. "Suppose I'll have to take to addressing envelopes- for a career." "Or writing poetry," suggested the surgeon. "It's certain you'll never play football again and the country's going to miss you, my boy." The nurses turned away. Barber's fine mouth, despite the effort he made, was quivering. A football hero he was and now he lay physically shattered shat-tered and rudely sundered from all that made life interesting. There was one, however, who looked upon Barber's plight with eyes that had 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 profession pro-fession had been snatched from him, be would listen to reason and take up some business which would mean a regular salary and some kind of definite def-inite future assured. Marcella never quite knew whether it was a touch of snobbishness on her part or whether she dreaded merely being the wife of the famous Robert Barber. "At any rate," she had often said to Barber, "I would much prefer to love a man who made his living by means of his brain power instead of by his athletic accomplishments." "You don't love me, Marcella, or you wouldn't mind my profession being be-ing what It is it is perfectly honorable." hon-orable." So in the hospital Barber lay there thinking over all that Marcella had said and realizing that she certainly had a right to her views. Certainly athletes could not be called interesting interest-ing 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 crossword cross-word puzzles, quite fed up with his own Inner resources Barber fell a prey to depression. It was his little red-haired nurse whom he nicknamed Crimson Rambler Ram-bler because of her hair and her natural nat-ural tendency to ramble happily all over the place in search of amusement amuse-ment for her patients, who brought him some modeling wax. "It's what children love to play with 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 suf-fering and strangely unlike his own strong bands. As a matter of fact, Barber had always bad a secret longing long-ing to model tilings but had crushed down the feeling lest he be considered a first-class nut. And so, In another week's time, there was a most amusing array of tiny figures standing upright on his bedside stand. Nurses short and nurses tall nurses smiling and nurses glum antl a generous sprinkling of white-robed surgeons nnd a kiddle or two all joined In that curious group of small Images. But above all Barber's eyes had taken on a new Interest In things about him. The depression was gradually grad-ually giving 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, hos-pital, held that In their workmanship which only the master hand can contribute. con-tribute. Marcella felt her heart heat triumphantly, trium-phantly, for surely now she would say yes to the question which Barber had so many times asked. It was through the Crimson Humbler Hum-bler that the drugging forth of a sculptor-to-be took place, for In her rambllngs about she came across one who was well In a position to express a verdict on those little nurses, surgeons sur-geons and children. And when they were carried carefully care-fully away to the great one's studio for Inspection, a tear squeezed through the dark brown lashes of Crimson Rambler. Barber saw It and his heart gave a great bound. "Purling P ho cried swl ft ly . and seized the white hand hanging limply beside his bed. "Would you have loved me If I had still been a football player?" "I would love you If you were the nsb mnn." Crimson Humbler ud milled. |