Show lumm PARADE by evelyn campbell 0 service by evelyn campbell imam THE STORY linda father neer dowell do well dies when she Is seventeen CHAPTER I 1 continued 2 do they do everything live they live everywhere ue he sent his hi long white liand fine as a wo comans womans mans in a that indicated nil all that tha vast sweep of the city apart from their own environment they have been around you child all of your life only of course you never saw them thein you never would you never will they built the houses you live in they paved the streets they spun the cloth you wear the food you eat Is handled by them in a hundred ways all this passes through their hands yet you have never knowingly seen he stared struck with this stupendous thought linda looked puzzled and faintly distressed she felt as II if she had bad been caught mocking docking at something which after all was not amusing or ridiculous she was more thoughtful than girls of her age usually are and there was novelty in this viewpoint that caught her attention but before she could reply the procession changing every minute yet always the same had bad claimed her wonder again the music came fainter and fainter from its distance the best and show test iest of the hands bands had gone by and the tall of the comet was escorted by the leftovers of drums and fifes cifes there was not a splendid automobile to be seen and no bowing ing the tall silk bats had become extinct patrolmen appeared on corners they shouldered the crowd and women and old men began to garner their flocks of startled awry children before long it was impossible to tell where the marchers barchers mar chers and the crowd were divided for the street was a maelstrom of pushing worrying bodies striving against one another tor for the right of way to nowhere authority lost pa alence behind the bron brotan awnings safe and sound from all this hurry flurry in cousin amys fine house on the avenue jim haverhill talked to his daughter and used ahe sight they had just wit alt ne sed to point his lesson and send it home look down in the street and you will see life I 1 could not show you a fitter picture it if we walked through all the galleries of the earth those poor fools grubs you called them I 1 would the crowd come out to watch them march who cared or watched wat clied after the band and the cars and the uni forms went by its their one day of the year when we our kind are out of the city and they can play of at calling it their own yet even then got to resort to f fine me feathers to make their own little show worth while poor grubs I 1 smart butterflies I 1 let em cm dig and sweat and struggle until doomsday and never be half as important to the world as a red coat a dancing stick life linda it seem fair she r remarked e fair be sneered of course it fair nothing is fair and it Is humanity itself that encourages bleds unfairness As lonz long as men mca have eyes they will be caught with color As long as they have ears they would rather hear must music than groans its the parade that counts linda my love and learned it the people who want to get things done you can put yourself over with a brass band and a bow when you might crawl craw on your knees to the edge of the tied led sea and never be heard from linda who at r sixteen owned sables that were much too fine to be worn until she was twenty five had already brushed close enough to the swamp of 0 poverty to know its chill arenth they lived in cousin amys honse that summer slept in grand mahogany beds but they used the servants sheets and there was only a grouchy caretaker in the basement living rooms often she carried secret packages from the corner grocery bits of food that did not require experienced cooking she did not the like tills this there was something fearsome find and frightening about it much too near the gr esome procession that walked after that day she listened attentively to all her father had to say ie tried to crowd nil all the dubious wisdom of his past into the few days that remained and she readied reached for it avidly a amy ralston alston It returned to america three weeks after Haver hills death she was very much aluch annoyed not of course because the poor creature was dead asbe admitted that no one har bar control of the life forces and she knew that the end hail had to come to every one I 1 but she thought it inconsiderate at 0 him to die in ID tier her house bouse she had expected to begin a series of dinner dances immediately and this feces situated a period of mourning however brief mourning called abr mora cloi clothes lies when her trunks were already bursting with fresh paris toilettes toi tol lettes it was comforting to reflect that only the family and a few old friends knew about jim haverhill and whether he was among the quick or the dead there Is the daughter she said speculatively to her husband who off key but was much fruch too wise to offer suggestions A girt girl like that may he be a frightful responsibility or un an asset as her poor father would nave said but when she saw linda in her slim black poised with a gentle gravity that placed her grief in a sacred secluded background the first pleasurable moment of the whole sad end affair presented itself the girl Is a beauty she exulted as a good showman always alays exults aits nits over beauty she looks like tier her mother wo was a fool or nr she never would hare married jim haverhill Haver hlll but if this child Is as clever as she looks linda was clever slie site was not yet seventeen but hei bei mind was twenty seven a mind as keen and as her lithe body she knew of life as a game in which cleverness and savoir dalre counted largely and f the girl Is a beauty she exulted as a good showman always exults over beauty she calmly regarded her youth and beauty as trump cards the girl was not romantic she was free from silly complexes and she had bad oo no heroes her lips curled when some one spoke of movie gods and she was never known to read a modern novel but with all this linda was a charming creature polished and ine oe CHAPTER il II poor jims daughter when the sad business of erasing asing er jim haverhill was well over and cousin amys house was coming out of its coma linda put on her close little hat fiat one day and went to see senator converse Ion verse there wits was not the slightest dim culty in getting an interview As she sha followed the clerk clarh through one room after another site she thought how rich aud and powerful the senator must be the carpets were like cushions under tier her feet and everything gleamed with shining surfaces and silence only a very important man could command com manil I 1 silence like that in the heart of the city sanator senator converse was extremely warm arm and sympathetic in his greeting lie he heaved its his ponderous body from his swivel chair and waddled to leei tier her As his hot limp hands closed over tiers hers she felt herself smothering site she looked down in embarrassment and discovered that ills his feet were enor enormous long and flat and encased in heelless patent leather shoes that accentuated their shape shapeless less poor jims daughter he wheezed leading her after him upon my word I 1 I 1 hae just learned why you telegraph me at once I 1 would have come coine or sent III he tell fell into a long ions silence looking at tier her in surprise TO BE CONTINUED |