| Show the lucky laurences lawrences Lawren ces goc a by KATHLEEN NORRIS by harris SYNOPSIS the th boston lawrences Lawren ces came to california lit at the beginning of the tb gold rush but the til holdin 92 of the family have shrunk to small farm and the old id family home in phil twenty alv to li working in tile the iron works gall in the public library and edith in the book department of a tore store sam li Is in school and seventeen year old arlel ariel la is becoming a problem ph phil 11 is 1 fascinated by that terrible lily cass casa whose husband tins has deserted her yount young van murchison hlson scion of wealthy family returns from yale A and nd gall has visions vl glona through ugh marriage wa with th him of the turning of the lawrence luck dick stebbins Blob bing phils friend has the run of the house gall goes with van for a weekend week end with the chipps his hi uncle and aunt she Is recel receive vel I coldly at a roadhouse gall sees arlel ariel at midnight next day ariel admits she hei was at the place and displays dl play no remorse A policeman brinks brings ariel home announcing that a child has been killed in an automobile smashup arlel ariel w was a driving one of the cars dick steb bins who hits haa been admitted to the t bar ar has bits the case against ariel dis dismissed d gall suddenly realizes alises re that she loves dick and not van stebbins and arlel ariel slope lope according to 9 note left by tho the girl phil and lily now widowed are married and lily and her three children make their home in the Taw lawrence renco house edith Is fatally injured in an accident for which little danny one of lilys children Is innocently responsible CHAPTER IX continued 19 the oil company began to build a trim little station all red and white paint and fences on the corner of the lawrence place and phil spent his saturday afternoons and sundays clearing the overgrown garden at the other side aide of the house chopping down moldy old shrubs and trees starved and cramped for light and air sunshine flooded the house that had been robbed of it for forty years the rusty marks of the vines tines showed on the shabby paint the trees fell ell with long crushes crashes in the hot january sunshine and lay jay prone across the pampas grass and verbena bushes light streamed oddly into the dining room and into the downstairs sitting room where E edith adith had lain muttering on a chill octo october her after afternoon the old house seemed shah shabbier than ever in this humiliating undressing and yet it was good to have the great oaks on the western sid side e ot of the garden exposed in all their stalwart beauty and to obliterate the old paths with their bottle borders and roll the tortured and raked earth smooth for a lawn phil and sam tolled and sweated happily at the changes the small boys tumbled ecstatically like worm hunting robins in their wake great brush fires smoked up into the clear wa warm rm spring air and the ashes sifted softly upon lily and gall who sat on th the e steps of the side porch and gave general directions as to the pruning of vines tines and the lopping of branches the heavily massed foliage gave way parted fell in great clumsy masses to the ground sometimes both men got tangled in it and had to be helped out with panting and laughter they are happy gall thought seeing phil grow younger simpler more contented every hour the disreputable it old house weather beaten without and within was heaven to him lily paler now than she had been her slender shapeless body already rounding out toward motherhood again held in her stubby little common hand band the keys of life for phil ile he had never been ambitious soc socially lall v or in a business way what other men did what the neighbors meant signified nothing to phil they are happy and I 1 spoil it sam will marry here in clip pers vUle ville just as phil has and always be friends and when I 1 can ill III go away ill find my sort of living too but until I 1 go I 1 must add to their happiness nobody nobody ought to suffer buffer if theres any way out it if lily had ever annoyed gall she did not annoy her now lilys complete lack of culture was nothing gall never thought of it lilys little airs slid 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 tor for gall was at home anyway and the children adored her she spent a wet march evening pasting pictures in her camera beok turning the pages backward lingering against her will over the little prints arlel ariel about ten a fairylike little creature with ringlets edith in her white sweater laughing and holding the dog what was his bis name phil what was the name of that mongrel we had for or awhile bin blin pictures taken out on the Stant stanislaus place with the Stebbin ses dick a rough headed long legged fellow ot 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 ot of olives papa going off bicycling with doctor smith and edith again and again and again in her bathing suit la in A kitchen ap yo ron n with a big spoon in her with her drying hair all over her shoulders 1 I think I 1 could bear it better phil gall uld mild sometimes it if edith had bad had bad the beauty an and sweetness the she wonted wanted to if she had bad to plug to day after day in her shabby little litile corduroy dress I 1 but she was wag happy gall GAIL she w wag as one of the happiest girls I 1 ever knew it if she could just have you but this would be too much gall must flash from the room flying hurrying bowed before the storm on a certain march sunday phil asked gall rather timidly if she thought it would woula de be a good day to take their luncheon 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 olt oh phil be a marvelous day for it I 1 ile he looked at her as 1 it lie he had never seen her before although lie be gave no sign of finding a change in her but there was something actu ally beautiful in galls face now something bisci spiritualized spi ritualized something for or which phil this morning found the word noble somehow he celt it a blur over his eyes and a certain dry thickness in his throat as she began with all her ber old readiness and easiness the familiar preparations of course you never saw any sandwiches like them because I 1 invented them when uncle sam was only a little boy he and my sister arlel ariel stat stab stab stab at her heart tier her voice went on he and my sister arlel ariel used to ask for heavenly sandwiches and I 1 used to make them this way deviled hani ham and jelly and cheese and anything else I 1 had bad all together her mild sweet tempered took look went kindly to the little boy her skillful bands went on slicing the big loaf trimming crusts pressing the filled halves of the sandwiches together see it there are any of those paper napkins on that shelf phil she looked up caught her brothers gaze what Is it phil nothing 1 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 it if the sight of it hurt her she gave no sign phil noted that her thick dark eyelashes were wet and her eyes ringed fatally faintly w ith umber busily efficiently she set out about the preparing of the luncheon she and lily murmuring as they made coffee and toasted little sausages on sharpened sticks afterwards the children dug and splashed in the creek and their elders grouped themselves on the shingle talking of Clippers ville affairs and folk lily had bad 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 ala and gram all her life gall listened fascinated to her stories they were never sensationally 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 gall found inexhaustibly entertaining old sirs airs lily would recount always felt that jim canna was there the night belle white was killed or knew something I 1 about it anyway and she used to go to the courtroom ma had gone over to get a cup of yeast from lizzie gunn she says do you spose you have a piece of that gray volle voile in your piece bag mis ma have her clothes oil oft for foar nights she always sets up with the rogers ro gers family when they die and A d old mrs gansey tore her hair gram grain 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 oconnor was dying he kep sorter groping on the bed and daisy she was expecting any minute then daisy says do you want your big blackthorn stick pa yes he says 11 1 I dont know where here im going daze and id just as soan have my stick in my hand just now when the waters of her own soul were running so low lilys stream of conversation had bad its uses it soothed gall it diverted her from too constant a contemplation of the dark current of her own life it was all real all human gall was conscious of a little thrill thrift of 0 pleasurable anticipation when lily got into a narrative vein and ot of course there was always plenty to talk about in Clippers ville there was waa always a ure fire an accident a marriage or divorce to supply interest and to lead the conversation off into countless collateral 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 putting on an ounce a day nobody in ClIppers ville could believe it least ot of au all the happy parents he acts gall said like a person in a dream ma and gram said lily went over to see the baby because gram nursed mrs lira wilcous Wll Wil coxs mother for seven years she was a paralytic and she says ay that mrs wilcox was crying and she ast aft her would she look at sterling what do you know about sterling for r a name I 1 and she he says lay shall wo w call the doctor she ahe says say he fie been lying like that for fifteen minutes I 1 and ma says all hes doing is snoring louise and honestly said lily with a pathetic serious look at the others honestly I 1 thought ray my grandmother would pass quietly out of the picture I 1 honestly didt did I 1 and when gall who laughed so rarely now would laugh lily would look surprised but she liked to hear bear gall gail laugh just the same and phil always rewarded his garrulous little wife with a look of gratitude today they also bad to discuss as did all ClIppers ville the amazing the sensational bankruptcy of the murchison flour mills had been playing with this possibility for some time but Clippers ville was as full of rumors rumor as an army camp and nobody had bad taken seriously the idea that the invincible murchison hlson fortune might fall but fallen it had completely entirely the Clippers ville mills the salinas offices the new jersey plant had all passed into other hands the chipps mansion was tor for sale and the file chipps were going goin g to live without a servant on the los gatos ranch and try to make it pay latwas all too bewildering 1 why the mere name murchison hlson had been one with which to conjure tor for a generation and for years everybody had bad told everybody else that they had been coining money that they had scads fit that it they were made of it I 1 the murchisons sons and the chipps with theli their trips to new york and their fashionable alfil lations with san francisco and Burlin burlingame gamel this was a tumble for them sure enough they say that arthur murchison hlson could have been sent to halll ClIppers ville said not without satisfaction what ayou suppose will happen to van gall 1 I was thinking ile he was working at the new jersey plant the last I 1 heard 1 I thought he was abroad lie ile was with another boy or he was going mrs airs chipp told edith A pause gall gail saw book department part ment and the fashionable white gloved sirs mrs culpp chapp pausing to patronize grave little edith in her corduroy dress hell have to get to work bowl phil said with a chuckle every penny he had came from his stepfather gall added and it if mr hlson really Is down and out van will have a hard tamel grobly Pr obly the alie best thing that could happen to him lily opined opened heartlessly they talked of other things but they always came back to the furcht son failure the march day grew very hot at the dam there was no wind lilys three little boys after lunch crept into the shade near the grownups grown ups and laying uh whining ining panting and fretting their faces flushed and wet with heat dreamily as it if absently gall began to tell them a story well once there were three little boys just the ages of you and miles and danny wolfe their names w were ere hammy jammy and nd sammy H Y jammy and sammy Formal formaldehyde deb y e they were relations of the immortal family asked phil in the pause his heart beat quickening gall had fallen to dreaming with her eyes far away they were she roused herself smiled a little they were Mo manicas Monica nicas 8 children oh monica married then monica married a sewing machine agent oh said phil A look ot or peace came into his kind worried eyes he settled back go ahead 1 he said the hot spring sun beat down upon the sapphire waters of the dam but where the creek widened and spread at its mouth the shade of the redwoods fell and tb there cre was greenness and coolness only the dragon dragonflies flies were moving in the fragrant march world there was no cloud in the italian blue of the sky no splash of fish in the dam up on file surrounding ring of the guardian hills the lilac was still blooming in pale blue plumes the manza tills streaked the summits submits with creamy lines even the bay trees bore golden tips lips A 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 galls slow rich hesitating voice beginning the new chronicles of the formaldehydes but no formaldehyde story had ever affected gall before quite as this one did this was new this was creation the hour marked a change in gall and she felt jt t without realizing just what it meant slie she knew vaguely that everything was differ different enton on tills this march sunday the sky bluer than she had ever known it before the buttercups butter cups more mysteriously golden every new leaf every crystal shadow in the file dam or flash of diamonds in the creek penetrated with new meaning with unearthly light phil in his shabby old clothes lily already a little clumsy and slow in movement seemed to thrill and throb with the cosmic pulse of the whole great world and more than all more than sky and trees creek water and blossoming bloss oming spring gall felt herself alive alive with everything that lived gall lawrence nearly twenty seven years old tawny headed blue eyed lithe strong adequate feeling kemem ti bering ering acting loving and suffering was living at last I 1 the miracle maracle of it remained with her as they went home in the late afternoon stayed with her illuminating in eban changing ing all the commonplaces of life into glory gall 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 of f dreaming a in 1 g TO DM BB |
