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Show Golden Heart 88 By RALPH EMERSON (Assoclnted Newspapers.) WNU Service. "CAY! Take your heavy weight off my glass case, will you. Butch?" laughed Wayne Taylor. "That's my new case and . . ." "Sure, sure, anything to oblige," returned Butch, shifting his weight to the other foot and grinning at his friend. "Why we ever took up with each other is more than I can make out, Wayne. You with your millionaire father and his acres of greenhouses. And my dad a hard worker all his life " "Oh, well, you and I are both working hard enough now, certainly, certain-ly, even if we did take it easy in college," returned Wayne, cutting off a tiny cluster of golden-hearted roses. "Got an order for those?" asked Butch carelessly. "N-not exactly. But a girl comes in here every night and spends a quarter for flowers. Curious thing, too, she doesn't dress like a girl who can afford to spend 25 cents a day for flowers " "Getting kind of soft over her?" asked Butch hastily. "No women in mine, Butch. Now or ever! Just a selfish bunch of grabbers, every one of them." Thoughtfully, Butch picked up one of the tiny roses and cracked the stem in four places before his friend took it out of his hand. "Boob!' laughed Wayne, "first you try to lean your great hulking weight on my best case of flowers and then you snap off the stems of flowers I'm going to sell. On with you, boy, and continue counting the nickels in folks' telephone boxes. Some day, with good luck, you'll be manager of the telephone company." com-pany." "Betcha," Butch said cheerily. He found that his bus had left three minutes before. Eighteen minutes remained until the next one and Butch decided to collect two near-by telephone boxes. Springing up the stairs of an old-fashioned flat building, he knocked at the door. Ordinarily it was unlocked and the thin, pleasant voice of an elderly woman in a wheelchair answered his knock. Tonight, however, a slender girl in pink opened the door. "Telephone man," he said briskly, showing his identification card. Butch put his black carrying case on the floor beside the funny little writing desk that held books on one side. Deftly Butch inserted his passkey pass-key and let the nickels slide forth into his hands. The girl had returned re-turned to the tiny kitchenette and was peeling boiled potatoes. "Nice day, wasn't it?" he said to the little old lady in her wheelchair. wheel-chair. "Yes, indeed," she answered cheerfully. "Emma, dear, you forgot for-got to bring in the water for my ffbwers." "Just a second, grandmother. Thought I'd get the potatoes started first you must be starving. I was a little late tonight " But Butch heard nothing more. He was looking at the golden roses in the old lady's lap golden roses in a tiny cluster, one stem cracked in four places. Emma had gone to the sink and was filling the vase and the old lady looked after her with affectionate affection-ate eyes. "D'you know what I just found out that dear child has been doing?" she said. Butch shook his head, his eyes still on the golden roses. "Why, the girl that works in the same office with my Emma stopped in tonight and told me that Emma has been going without her luncheon every day to buy me flowers on the way home. You see, I've always lived in a small town and I always had a nice big garden full of flowers. flow-ers. But when grandpa died and I had my stroke a person who likes flowers never, I reckon, gets over liking them." Butch counted his coins rapidly, then hurried back to see Wayne. ". . . . and some way or other, I b'lieve I have fallen for that girl," Wayne told Butch a half hour later when Butch dropped in at the florist shop. "You know, I've never even thought of her in that way until you put it into words tonight and when she came in for the flowers say, she'd just take your breath. Butch-great, Butch-great, big eyes she just looks big-hearted big-hearted but " here Wayne sighed. "I suppose she is a gold-digger along with all the rest of them." "And suppose I told you that like those roses with hearts of gold this girl of yours had a golden heart, too." said Butch slowly. "Suppose I told you that she had gone without with-out her noonday meal every day so that her grandmother, who loves flowers, might have a little cluster fresh eyery night, eh?" "I'd say it sounded like a fairy tale," grinned Wayne, "and you couldn't tell me anything like that for you don't know her name any more than I do. But I'm going to find out " "Her name is Emma Martinson," said Butch, "and say, where are you going, eh?" "You stay right here and watch the shop for me," said Wayne, "And give me her address, pronto, see? If you sell a lot while I'm gone well, when Ive popped the question and all maybe I'll let you be best man. Who can tell, eh?" Silently Butch took his place behind be-hind the counter. |
