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Show plfillirililPI 1 1 MC Kllllee" Morris CHAPTER IX Continued IS "The dove, finding no place to rest her feet, returned to him in the ark," said the priest gravely at Edith's funeral. The oil company began to build a trim little station, nil red-and-white paint and fences, on the corner cor-ner of the Lawrence place, and Phil spent his Saturday afternoons and Sundays clearing the overgrown garden at tne other side of the house, chopping down moldy old shrubs and trees starved and cramped for light and air. Sunshine Sun-shine flooded the house that had ! been robbed of It for forty years; the rusty marks of the vines showed on the shabby paint. The trees fell with long crashes In the hot January sunshine, and lay prone across the pampas grass and verbena bushes. Light streamed oddly Into the dining room, and into the downstairs sitting room, where Edith had lain muttering on a chill October afternoon. The old house seemed shabbier than ever In this humiliating undressing, and yet it was good to have the great oaks on the western side of the garden exposed In all their stalwart beauty, beau-ty, and to obliterate the old paths with their bottle borders, and roll the tortured and raked earth smooth for a lawn. Phil and Sam toiled and sweated happily at4be changes; the small boys tumbled ecstatically, like worm-hunting robins, In their wake. Great brush fires smoked up into the clear warm spring air, and the ashes sifted softly upon Lily and Gall, who sat on the steps of the side porch and gave general directions direc-tions as to the pruning of vines and the lopping of branches. "They are happy," Gail thought, seeing Phil grow younger, simpler, more contented every honr. The disreputable old house, weather-beaten weather-beaten without and within, was Heaven to him. Lily, paler now than she had been, her slender, shapeless ' body already rounding out to motherhood again, held In her stubby little common Wibser hand the keys of life for Phil. He had never been ambitious, socially or In a business way; what other men did, what the neighbors meant, signified nothing to Phil. . "They are happy, and I mustn't spoil it. Sam will marry here in CHp-persville, CHp-persville, just as Phil has, and they'll always be friends. And when I can I'll go away, I'll find my sort of living too. "But until I go. I must add to their happiness. Nobody nobody ought to suffer, if there's any way out!" If Lily had ever annoyed Gall, she did not annoy her now. Lily's complete com-plete lack of culture was nothing-Gall nothing-Gall never thought of it. Lily's little lit-tle airs and graces as Mrs. Phil Lawrence passed unnoticed. Lily could go to the movie with Phil, at the end of the long, busy day; there was no Imposition In leaving the children with Gall, for Gall was at home anyway, and the children adored her. She spent a wet March evening pasting pictures In her camera book, turning the pages backward, lingering linger-ing against her will over the little prints. Ariel, about ten, a fairylike little creature, with ringlets. Edith, in her white sweater, laughing and holding the dog what was his name? "Phil, what was the name of that mongrel, we had for awhile?" "Blm?" "Blm." Pictures taken out on the Stanislaus Stanis-laus place with the Stebblnses. Dick, a rough-headed, long-legged fellow of twenty, little Sam all freckles and elbows. Picnic pictures, up at the dam. Edith, quite a little girl, laughing, with her eyes glowing under a broad straw hat, and In the gingham Miss Lotty had made her. Pictures with Papa in them : Papa opening a bottle bot-tle of olives Papa going off bicycling bi-cycling with Doctor Smith. And Edith again and again and again: In her hnthilig suit; in a kitchen apron, with a big spoon ; In her kimono, with her drying hair all over her shoulders. "I think I could bear It better, Phil," Gall said sometimes, "If Efllth hnd had the beauty and sweetness sweet-ness she wanted and If she hadn't had f plug to Muller's day after day, In her shabby little corduroy dress!" "Bm she was happy. Gall. She was one of the happiest girls I ever knew. If she could Just have you " But this would be too much. Gail must flash from the room, flying, hurrying bowed before the storm. On a certain March Sunday Phil asked Gail rather timidly if she thought It would be a good day to take their lunchean up to the dam. Gall looked up with her perplexed little smile, bringing her thoughts home, drawing her thick dark brows together for a second. Then her serious face brightened. "Ob. Phil, it'd be a marvelous day for it!" He looked at her as If he had never seen her before, although he gave no sign of finding a change in her. But there was something actually ac-tually beautiful in Gail's face now, something disciplined, spiritualized, something for which Phil this morning morn-ing found the word "noble." Somehow Some-how he felt a blur over his eyes and a certain dry thickness In his throat, as she began, with all her old readiness and easiness, the familiar fa-miliar preparations. "Of course you never saw any sandwiches like them, Milesy, because be-cause I Invented them. When Uncle Un-cle Sam was only a little boy, he and my sister Ariel . . ." Stab, stab, stab at her heart. Her voice went on. ' "He and my sister Ariel used to ask for 'heavenly' sandwiches, and I used to make them this wsy deviled dev-iled ham, and jelly, and cheese, and anything else I had all together." Her mild, sweet-tempered look went kindly to the little boy. Her skillful hands went on slicing the big loaf, trimming crusts, pressing the filled halves of the sandwiches together. "See if there are any of those paper napkins on that shelf, Phil." She looked up, caught her brother's broth-er's gaze. "What is it, Phil?" "Nothing !" Phil said. If the sight of the shining dam, surrounded by feathery spring greenery, hurt her when she and Phil, Sam, Lily, and the children reached it at a glowing noontide If the sight of it hurt her, she gave Its uses; It soothed Gail, it diverted divert-ed her from too constant a contemplation contem-plation of the dark current of her own lire. It was all real, all human; Gail was conscious of a little thrill of pleasurable anticipation when Lily got Into a narrative vein. And of course there was always plenty to talk about in Clippersville. There was always a fire, an accident, acci-dent, a marriage or divorce to supply sup-ply interest and to lead the conversation con-versation off into countless collateral collat-eral and connected lines. Today there was the astonishing fact of the Wilcox baby to discuss. An eight-pound boy normally born to a normal and happy mother, and rutting on an ounce a day nobody In Clippersville could believe it, least of all the happy parents. "He acts," Gail said, "like a person per-son In a dream." "Ma and Gram," said Lily, "went over to see the baby because Gram nursed Mrs. Wilcox's mother for seven years she was a paralytic and she says that Mrs. Wilcox was crying, and she ast her would she look at Sterling whqt do you know about Sterling for a name! and she says, 'He's been lying like that for fifteen minutes !' and Ma says, 'All he's doing Is snoring, Louise!' and honestly," said Lily, with a pathetic, serious look at the others "honestly I thought my grandmother grand-mother would pass quietly out of the picture, I honestly did !" And when Gail, who laughed so rarely now, would laugh, Lily would look surprised. But she liked to hear Gail laugh, just the same, and Phil always rewarded his garrulous little wife with a look of gratitude. Today they also had to discuss, as did all Clippersville, the amazing, the sensational bankruptcy of the Murchison Floor mills. Rumor had been playing with this possibility for some time, but Clippersville was as full of rumors as an army camp, and nobody had taken seriously the idea that the invincible Murchison fortune might fall. But fallen It had, completely, entirely. en-tirely. The Clippersville mills, the Salinas offices, the New Jersey plant had all passed Into other hands, the Chipps' mansion was for sale, and the Chipps were going go-ing to live, without a servant, on the Los Gatos ranch and try to make It pay. It was all too bewildering ! Why, the mere name Murchison had been one with which to conjure for a generation, and for years everybody had told everybody else that they had been "coining" money, that they had "scads," that they were "made" of it! The Murchisons and the Chipps, with their trips to New York and their fashionable affiliations with San Francisco and Burlingame! THE STORY FROM THE BEGINNING The luck that brought the Boston Lawrences to California a,t the beginning be-ginning of the gold rush seems to have deserted the present generation. From a 4,000-acre ranch, their holdings have shrunk to a small farm and the old family home in Clippersville. Phil, twenty-five, is in the iron works. Sam and seventeen-year-old Ariel are in school, Gail in the public library and Edith in the book department of a store. Young Van Murchison, Bcion of a wealthy family, returns from Yale. Dick Stebbins, Phil's friend, has the run of the Lawrence house. Ariel is sneaking out at night for joy rides. Gail, who would marry Van, feels she is making no progress in his affections. Phil suggests inviting Lily Cass, his sweetheart, to supper though Gail and Edith feel she Is not "respectable." Gail goes with Van to a house party at Los Gatos with the Chipps, his uncle and aunt. She is received coldly. At a roadhouse Gail sees a drunken man with Ariel. Next day Ariel admits she was there, and displays no remorse. Ariel and the driver of another car are booked for manslaughter, as the result of an accident in which a child is killed. Dick Stebbins, who has been admitted to the bar, has the case against Ariel dismissed. Gail suddenly realizes that she loves Dick and not Van. Stebbins and Ariel elope, according to a note left by the girl. Phil and Lily are married and his wife and her threo children make their home in the Lawrence house. Edith is fatally injured in an accident for which little Danny, one of Lily's children, is Innocently responsible. no sign. Busily, efficiently, she set out about the preparing of the luncheon, she and Lily murmuring as they made coffee and toasted little lit-tle sausages on sharpened sticks. Lily had the peculiar quality, not unusual in women of her alert, keen type, of being able to make even the most casual gossip interesting. What she did not herself know about the old families in town, her mother and grandmother did, and Lily had been listening to Ma and Gram all her life. Gail listened fascinated to her stories. They were never sensationally sensa-tionally told, although they dealt with murders, mysteries, feuds, crimes, life, and death. But there was something in the details in the general pictures Lily painted about them, that Gail found inexhaustibly entertaining. 'Old Mrs. Peevey," Lily would recount, "alwnys felt that Jim Can-na Can-na was there the night Belle White was killed or knew something about it anyway and she used to go to the courtroom. "Ma had gone over to get a cup of yeast risln's from Lizzie Gunn . . . "She says, 'Do you s'pose you have a piece of that gray voile in your piece bag, Mis' Wibser?' . . . "Ma didn't have her clothes off for four nights. She always sets up with the Rogers family when they die. . . "And old Mrs. Gansey tore her nairGram says she just twisted it like it was so much cotton yarn and she says, 'It was them boots drug him to his death !' . . . "They say when Old Man O'Connor O'Con-nor was dying he kep' sorter grop ing on the bed, and Daisy she was expecting any minute then Paisy says, 'Do you want your big blackthorn black-thorn stick. Pa?' 'Yes,' he says. T don't know where I'm going, Daze, and I'd just as soon have my stick in my hand!'" .Inst now, when the waters of her own soul were rnniiina so low. Lily's stream of conversation had This was a tumble for them, sure enough. "They say that Arthur Murchison Mur-chison could have been sent to jail !" Clippersville said, not without satisfaction. sat-isfaction. "What d'you suppose will happen to Van, Gail?" "I was thinking. He was working at the New Jersey plant, the last I heard." "I thought he was abroad?" "He was with another boy. Or he was going. Mrs. Chlpp told Edith" A pause. Gail saw Muller's book department, and the fashionable, white-gloved Mrs. Chlpp passing to patronize grave little Edith in her corduroy dress. "He'll have to get to work now !" Phil said with a chuckle. "Every penny he had came from his stepfather," Gail added, "and If Mr. Murchison really is down and out, Van will have a hard time!" "Prob'ly the best thing that could happen to him 1" Lily opined heartlessly. heart-lessly. They talked of other things, but they always came back to the Murchison failure. The March day grew very bot at the dam ; there was no wind. Lily's three little boys after lunch crept into the shade near the grown-ups, and laying whining, panting, and fretting, their faces flushed and wet with heat. Dreamily, as if absently, Gall began be-gan to tell them a story. "Well, once there were three little lit-tle boys, just the ages of yon and Miles and Danny, Wolfe. Their names were Unmmy, Jammy, and Sammy Ilammy. Jammy and Sammy Sam-my Formaldehyde." "They were relations of the immortal im-mortal family?" as-ked Phil in the pause, his heart bent aulckeninc. Gail had fallen to dreaming, with her eyes far away. "They wore " She roused herself, her-self, smiling a little. "They were Monica's children." "Oh. Monica married then?" "Monica married a sewing-inn chine agent." "Oh?" said Phil. A look of pence came into his kind, worried eyes, lie settled back. "Go ahead!" he said. Tl hot spring sun beat down upon the sapphire waters of the dam, lint where the creek widened and .spread a Us mouth the shade of the redwoods fell, and there was greenness and coolness. Cp on the surrounding ring of the guardian bills the lilac was still blooming, in pale blue plumes; the manzanita streaked the summits with creamy lines ; even the bay trees bore golden tips. A bluejay screamed like a bullet through the air and was gone. Then silence, and the ripple ripple ripple of the water that accentuated the silence once more, and Gail's slow, rich, hesitating hes-itating voice beginning the new chronicles of the Formaldehydes. But no Formaldehyde story had ever affected Gail before quite as this one did. This was new. This was creation. The hour marked a change in Gail, and she felt it without realizing realiz-ing just what It meant. She knew, vaguely, that everything was different, differ-ent, on this March Sunday. Phil, in bis shabby old clothes. Lily, already al-ready a little clumsy and slow in movement, seemed to thrill and ftp. if if pl IP "I Don't Know Why I Shouldn't Write Stories." throb with the cosmic pulse of the whole great world, and more than all more than sky and trees, creek water and blossoming spring Gall felt herself alive, alive with everything every-thing that lived. Gail Lawrence, nearly twenty-seven years old, tawny-headed, blue-eyed, lithe, strong, adequate feeling, remembering, acting, loving and suffering was living at last! The miracle of It remained with her as they went home in the late afternoon ; stayed with her Illuminating, Illu-minating, interpreting, changing, all the commonplaces of life into glory. Gail felt dazed with felicity; it must not stop, this penetrating, poignant sweetness. She knew it would not stop. She went through a week of floating, float-ing, of dreaming. "Is this you with me, Edith?" her soul would ask as she stamped and penciled books and slips, smiled and answered at the library desk. "Are you helping me at last?" And then, a week after the picnic, pic-nic, came a Sunday of deluge, wher Phil and Lily went to a movie ami Gail took the three little boys for a wet walk. The older two came back contentedly enough to blocks and crayons, but little Danny was almost too tired for luncheon, and quite too tired to play, and at three o'clock Gail sponged his sticky little face and put him down on her bed, with his old woollj dog, for a nap. "Riff-raff," she said to him affectionately, af-fectionately, straightening her big room, putting another log of wood-wood wood-wood from the famous old Lawrencf pine that had come down only a few weeks ago into the little stove. "Wiff-waff," Danny as affection ately returned. Gail closed bureau drawers 'Straightened books on the shelves She carried a finished, fat, satin-bound satin-bound microscopic blue blanket into Lily's room, stood looking thoughtfully thought-fully at Lily's upper bureau drawer that was already filling with bands and knitted jackets for Philip, junior. In the hall she called down to the sitting room. "Wolfe I Everything Every-thing all right?" "I'm down here," Sam called back. "I'm building these kids a cattle barn !" Gail went back into her room. Little Riff-Raff was asleep, looking like a tousle-headed angel. The room was warm and orderly and still, rain tapped, tapped, tapped tirelessly on the tin of the kitchen roof. Clippersville was buried In wet tree tops, In the silent Sunday afternoon ; here and there blue smoke struggled up above the oaks and elms and pear branches. On Gail's desk lay a heap of paper pa-per large sheets and her own green fountain pen. She sat down, dreamy eyes fixed on space, the pen's smooth butt pressed against her cheek. "I don't know why I shouldn't write stories." she mused, halt aloud. "I've read enough ! I TO BE COSTiXUS.il |