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Show By EDNA FERBER (, Doubled?. Putt 4 Co.) WNU Barvlca. ' .t-1 .t-1 S . V 11 1 , ;j ri " " ' "" -- "WHERE'S YOUR MAN?" BTN0PSI3. Introducing- "8o I Bl(f" (Dirk- DeJong) In hla ln- fancy. And hla mother, Sellna ,;, DeJong, daughter of Simeon a Peake, gambler and gentleman of fortune. Her life, to young i womanhood In Chicago In 1888. ha been unconventional, some- k what aeamy, but generally enjoy- f able. At achool her chum la Julia Hempel, daughter of August , i Hempel, butcher. Simeon la killed In a quarrel that la not hla own. and Sellna. nineteen yeara old .; and practically destitute, centres f a position as teacher at the Itlfrli Prairie school, in the outskirts of Chicago, living at the home of a truck farmer, Klaas Pool. In Roelf, twelve years old, son , : of Klaas, Sellna perceives a kln- i dred spirit, a lover of beauty, ' like herself. Sellna hears gossip k concerning the affection of the t "Widow 1'aurlenberg," rich and good-looking, for Parvus DeJong, poor truck farmer, who la losen- slble to the widow's attractions. 4 Pervus buys Sellna's lunch bo I at the community "auction." I Over her lunch box, which Sellna V and DeJong share together, the , t school-teacher arranges to In- r struct the farmer, whose educa- '4 tlon has been neglected. I'ropln- i qulty leads to mutual affection. Sellna becomes Mrs. DeJong, a , "farmer's wife," with all the ,: hardships unavoidable at that , time. Dirk la born. Sellna (of ' Vermont stock, businesslike and nothing to fear from this sruall gaunt creature with the biasing eyes. Nevertheless Never-theless as lie gathered up his reins ter ror was writ large on his rubicund face. "Teufell What a woman 1" Was off In a clatter of wheels and hoofs on the cobblestones. Sellna unharnessed swiftly. "Ton stay here. Dirk, with Pom. Motherll he back In a minute." She inarched down the street driving the horses to the burns where, for twenty-five cents, the animals were to be housed In more comfort than their owner. She wns back soon. "Come, Dirk." "Are we going to sleep here!" He wag delighted. "lllglit here, all snag In the hay, like callipers." The boy lay down, wriggling, laughing. laugh-ing. "Kike gypsies. Ain't It, mom?" "Isn't It,1 Dirk not ain't It.'" The school teacher. She luy down beside him, put one arm around htm and drew hliu to her, close. And suddenly he wus asleep, deeply. The street became quieter. The talking and laughter censed. The lights were dim at Chris Spunknoebel's. Sellna lay looking up at the sky. There were no teurs in her eyes. She was past tears. She thought, "Hers 1 am, Sellna l'enke, sleeping In a wagon, In the straw, like a dog with its puppy snuggled beside It. I was "How d'you do, Mrs. Vender SIJdeT A prim reply to this salutation. Pis-approval Pis-approval writ large on the farm-wife's Hushed face. "Hello, Cornelia I" A pretended start, notable for Its bad acting. "Oh. Is It you, Mrs. DeJong I Sun's In my eyes. I couldn't think It wag you like that." Women's eyes, hostile, cold, peering. Five o'clock. Six. The boy climbed over the wheel, filled a tin pall with water at a farmhouse well. They ate and drank as they rode along, for there was no time to lose. The boy had started out bravely enough in the heat of the day, sitting up very straight beside his mother, calling to the horses, shrieking and waving his arms at chickens that flew squawking across the road. Now he began to droop. "Sleepy, Soblg?" "No. Should say not." Ills lids were heavy. She wrapped the old black fascinator about him. In the twilight the dust gleamed white on weeds, and brush, and grass. The far-off far-off mellow sonance of a cowbell. Horses' hoofs chipping up behind them, to the seat, yawned, smacked his Hps. ruhbed his knuckles Into his eyes. Soon he was awake, and looking about him Interestedly. They turned Into the Haymarket. The wagons were streaming In from the German truck farms that lay to the north of Chicago as well as from the Dutch farms that lay to the southwest, whence Sellna came. Fruits and vegetables tons of It acres of It piled In the wagons that blocked the historic square. Through this little section, and South Water street that lay to the east, passed all the verdant growing things that fed Chicago's millions. Something of this came to Sellna as she maneuvered her way through the throng. She felt a little thrill of slgnlilcance, of achievement. achieve-ment. She knew the spot she wanted for her own. It was Just across the way from Chris Spanknoeltel's restaurant, restau-rant, rooming house, and saloon. Chris knew her; had known I'ervus for years and his father before him; would be kind to her and the boy In case of need. Dirk was wide iwnke now; eager, excited. He called to the horses; stood up In the wagon ; but clung closer to her as they found themselves In the thick of the melee. "Here's a good place, mother. Here 1 There's a dog on that wagon like Tom." I'om, bearing his name, stood up, looked Into the boy's face, quivered, wagged a nervous tall, barked sharply. "Down, Pom 1 Quiet. Pom I" She did not want to attract attention to herself and the boy. It was still early. She had made excellent tune. Pervus had often slept In snatched as he drove Into town and the horses had lugged, but Sellna had urged them on. tonight. Halfway down the block Sellna espied the place she wanted, from the opposite oppo-site direction came a truck furmer's cart obviously making for the same stand. For the first time thut night going to be like Jo In Louisa Alcott's book. How terribly long it Is going to be until morning. . . . I must try to sleep. ... I must try to , sleep. . . , Sii did sleep, miraculously. As she here, the child In her arms, asleep, peace came to the haggard face, relaxed the tired limbs. Much like another an-other woman who had lain In the straw with her child In her arms almost two thousand yeurs before. Chapter VIII It would be enchanting to be able to record that Sellnu, next day, had phenomcnul success, disposing of her carefully bunched wares to great advantage, ad-vantage, driving smartly off up Hal-sted Hal-sted street toward High Prairie with a goodly profit Jingling in her scuffed leather purse. The truth Is that she had a duy so devastating, so catastrophic, catas-trophic, as would have discouraged most men and certainly any woman less desperate and determined. She hud awakened, not to dnyllglit, but to the three o'clock blackness. The street was already astir. Sellna brushed her skirt to rid It of the clinging cling-ing bay, tidied herself as best she could. Leaving Dirk still asleep, she called Pom from beneath the wagon to act as sentinel at the dashboard, and crossed the street to Chris Spunk-noehel's. Spunk-noehel's. She knew Chris, and he her. He would let her wash at the faucet at the rear of the eating house. She would buy hot coffee for herself and Dirk to warm and revivify them. They would eat the sandwiches left from the night before. As Selina entered the long room a wagon passing In a cloud of dust, a curious backwurd glance, or a greeting exchanged. One of the Ooms boys, or Jakob Boomsma. "You're never going to market, mar-ket, Mis' DeJong I" staring with china-blue china-blue eyes at her load. "Yes, I am, Mr. Boomsma.' "That ain't work for a woman. Mis' DeJong. You better stay home and let the men folks go." Sellna's men folks looked up at her one with the asking eyes of a child, one with the trusting eyes of a dog. "My men folks are going," answered Selina. But then, they had always thought her a little queer, so It dldu't matter much. She urged the horses on, refusing to confess to herself her dread of the destination which they were approaching. approach-ing. Lights now, In the houses along the way, and those houses closer together. to-gether. The boy slept. Night hud come on. The 'figure of the woman drooped a little now as the old wagon creaked on toward Chicago. A very small figure fig-ure In the black dress and a shawl over her shoulders. She had taken off her old black felt hat. The breeze ruffled her hair that was fine and soft, and It made a little halo about the white face that gleamed almost luminously In the darkness as she turned It up toward the sky. "I'll sleep out with Soblg In the wagon. It won't hurt either of us. It will he warm In town, there In the Haymarket Twenty-flve cents maybe fifty for the two of us, in the rooming house. Fifty cents Just to sleep. It takes hours of work in the fields to rmi ha fiftv rents." ( snrewui nas plans ror building ' up the farm, which are ridiculed by her husband. Maartje Pool, Klaas' wife, dies, and after the requisite decent interval Klaas marries the "Widow Paarlen-.i Paarlen-.i berg." The boy Koelf, sixteen years old now, leaves his home, to make his way to France and study, his ambition being to be come a sculptor. Dirk is eight i years old when his father dies. , ' Sellna rises to the occasion and, v with Dirk, takes a truckload of vegetables to the Chicago mar-' mar-' ket, to the amazement of her neighbors. The men at the Haymarket Hay-market regard Sellna as an ln-. ln-. truder. i . CHAPTER VII Continued 10 ' Sellna turned the horses' heads toward the city. "You'd be surprised. Jan, to know of all the things you're going to hear of some day that you've never heard of before." Still, when twenty yeurs had passed and the Ford. . the phonograph, the radio, and the rural mall delivery had dumped the world at Jan's plodding feet he liked to tell of that momentous day when Sellna DeJong had driven off to market like a man with a wagon load of liand-scnihbed liand-scnihbed gurden truck and the boy Dirk perched beside her on the seat. If, then, you had been traveling the nalsted road, you would have seen a decrepit wagon, vegetable laden, driven by a too-tliln woman, sallow, brlght- J eyed, in a shapeless bluck dress, a battered bat-tered black felt hat that looked like ' a man's, old "fedora" and probably ,k was. On the seat beside her you would have seen a farm boy of nine or , thereabout s a brown freckle-faced lad In a comically home-made suit of v. clothes and a straw hat with a broken there was something heartening, reassuring reas-suring about Chris' clean white apron, his ruddy color. From the kitchen at the rear came the sounds of sizzling and frying, and the gracious scent of coffee and of frying pork and potatoes. pota-toes. Sellna approached Chris. His round face loomed out through the smoke like the sun In a fog "Well, how goes It all the while?" Then he recognized her. "Urn Gottes! why, It's Mis De-Jong!" De-Jong!" He wiped his great hand on a convenient towel, extended It In sympathy to the widow. "I heerd," he said, "I heerd." His inarticulateness made bis words doubly effective. "I've come in with the load, Mr. Spnnknoebel. The hoy and I. He's still asleep in the wagon. May I bring him over here to clean him up a little before be-fore breakfast?" "Sure! Sure!" A sudden suspicion struck him. "You ain't slept In the wagon. Mis" DeJong! Cm Gottes!", "Yes. It wasn't bad. The boy slept the night through. I slept, too, quite a little." "Why you didn't come here? Why " At the look In Sellna's face he knew then. "For nothing you and the boy could sleep here." "I knew that! That's why." "Don't talk dumb, Mrs. DeJong. Half the time the rooms Is vacant. You and the hoy chuat as well twenty cents, then, and pay me when you got She drove along In the dark, a dowdy farm woman In shapeless garments; Just a bundle on the rickety seat of a decrepit truck wagon. The lights of the city came nearer. She wus thinking think-ing cleurly. If disconnectedly, without bitterness, without reproach. "My father was wrong. He said that life was a great adventure a fine show. He said the more things that happen to you the richer you are, even if they're not pleasant things. That's living, he said. No matter what happens hap-pens to you, good or bad, it's Just so much what was that word he used? so much oh, yes 'velvet.' Just so much velvet. Well, It isn't true. He had brains, and charm, and knowledge and he died In a gambling house, shot while looking on at someone else who was to have been killed. . . . Now we're on the cobblestones. Will Dirk wake up? My little So Big. . . . No. he's asleep. Asleep on a pile of potato po-tato sacks becnuse his mother thought thut life was a grand adventure a fine show and that you took It as It came. A lie! I've taken It as it came and made the best of It. That Isn't the way. You take the best, and make the most of it. . . . Thirty-fifth street, that was. Another hour and a half to reach the Haymarket. , . , I'm not afraid. After all, you Just sell your vegetables for what you can get. . . . Well, It's going to be different with him. I mustn't call him Soblg any "I'm Here to Sell the Vegetables I Helped Raise. Get Out of My Way, You!" Sellna drew the whip out of Its socket and clipped sharply her surprised nags-With nags-With a start and a shuffle they broke into an awkward lope. Ten seconds too late the German farmer perceived her intention, whipped up his own tired team, arrived at the spot Just as Selina. Se-lina. blocking the way, prepared to back Into the vacant space. "Heh, get out of there you " he roared ; then, for the first time, perceived per-ceived In the dim light of the street that his rival was a woman. He faltered, fal-tered, stared open-mouthed, tried other tactics. "You can't go In there, missus." 'Oh. yes, I can." She backed her team dexterously. "Yes, we can !" shouted Dirk In an attitude of fierce belligerence. "Where's your man?" demanded the defeated driver, glaring. "Here," replied Selina; put her hand on Dirk's head. I The other, oienarlne to drive on. re- Ji and flopping brim which he was for 1 ever Jerking off only to have It set $ firmly on again by the woman who : i seemed to fear the effects of the hot ' nf'ernoon sun on his close-cropped , bead. At their feet was the dog Pom, a mongrel whose tall bore no relation to '. his head, whose ill-assorted legs ap-I ap-I peared wholly at variance with his sturdy barrel of a body. He dozed now, for It bad been his duty to watch i ' the wagon load at night, while Pervus slept. '- A shabby enough little outfit, but magnificent, too. Here was Sellna De-' De-' f Jong, driving up the Halsted road toward the city Instead of sitting, J black-robed, in the farm parlor while t High Prairie came to condole. In Sellna, Se-llna, as they Jogged along the hot "i dusty way, there welled up a feeling 't very like elation. More than ten years ago she had driven with Klaas Pool up ' '( that same road for the first time, and in spite of the recent tragedy of her father's death, her youth, her loneli-i loneli-i ness, the terrifying thought of the f- new home to which she was going, a ' stranger among strungersv she had 'I been conscious of a warm little thrill I of elation, of excitement of adventure adven-ture 1 That was It. "The whole thing's i Just a grand adventure," her father, " Simeon Peake, had said. And now the i sensations of that day were repeating themselves. Now, as then, she took ' (4 stock. Youth was gone, but she hud health, courage; a boy of nine; twenty-' twenty-' five acres of wornout farm land; dwelling and outhouses In a bad state of repair; and a gny adventuresome spirit that was never to die, though it led her Into curious places and sbe I often found, at the end, only a track- less waste from which she had to re- " trace her steps painfully. But always. ' to her. red and green cabbages were to '.-J - be Jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and : porphyry. Life bus no weapons against a woman like that. Down the hot dusty country road. I She was serious enough now. The cost is of the funeral to be paid. The doctor's bill.- Jan's wages. All the expenses, "' :i large and small, of the poor little farm S: holding. t!' On down the road. Here a bead at a front room window. There a woman's calicoed figure standing In the door- ' way. Mrs. Vander Sijde on the porch. f fanning her flushed face wiyi her apron; Cornelia Snip In the yard pretending pre-tending to tie ap tli6 drooping stalks of the golden glow and eyeing me ap- ; oroachlng team with the avid gossip's V gase. To these Sellna waved, bowed, vailed It. Hut anyway you don't come in reg'lar with the load, do you? That ain't for womans." "There's no one to do It for me, except ex-cept Jan. And he's worse than nobody. no-body. Just through September and Octoher. After that, maybe" Hei voice trailed oft. It Is hard to be hopeful at three In the morning, before breakfast. It looks like a case of make or break with Selina. Does she succeed or fail? (TO BE CONTINUED.) ceived this with incredulity. He assumed as-sumed the existence of a husband in the neighborhood at Chris Spanknoe-bel'8 Spanknoe-bel'8 probably, or talking prices with a friend at another wagon when he should be here attending to his own. In the absence of fiis, her natural protector, pro-tector, he relieved his disgruntled feelings feel-ings as he gathered up the reins. "Woman ain't got no business here in Huymarket, anyway. Petter you're home night time In your kitchen where you belong." This admonition, so glibly mouthed by so many people In the past few days, now was uttered once too often. Sellna's nerves snapped. "Don't talk to me like that, you great stupid 1 What good does It do a woman wom-an to stay home In her kitchen If she's going to starve there, and her boy with her I Staying home In my kitchen won't earn me any money. I'm here to sell the vegetables I helped raise and I'm going to do It. Get out of my way, you !" Now she clambered ovr the wagon wheel to unhitch the tired horses. It Is Impossible to tell what Interpretation the dumfonnded north-slder put upon I her movement. Certainly he had I more. He doesn't like it. Dirk. That's a fine name. Dirk DeJong. ... No drifting along for him. I'll see that he starts with a plan, and follows It. He'll have every chance. Every chance. Too late for me, now, but he'll be different dif-ferent Twenty-second street ... Twelfth. . . . Look at all the people! . . . I'm enjoying this. No use denying IL I'm enjoying this. Just as I enjoyed driving along with Klaas Pool that evening, years and years ago. Scared, but enjoying It. Perhaps I oughtn't to be but that's hypocritical and sneaking. Why not, if I really do enjoy It I I'll wake him. . , . Dirk I Dirk, we're almost al-most there. Look at all the people, and the lights. We're almost there." The boy awoke, raised himself from his bed of sacking, looked about, blinked, sank back again and curled Into a ball. "Don't want to see the lights. . . . people. . . ." He was asleep again. Sellna guided the horses skillfully through the downtown down-town streets. They were within two blocks of the Haymarket, on Randolph Ran-dolph street. "Dlrkl Come. now. Come up here with mother." 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