Show V 4 4 7 11 11 the lucky lawrences Lawren ces AL v v v I 1 by kathleen norris by kathleen Kath leon norris awo T T SYNOPSIS the boton boston lawrencea Lawren ces came t to 0 california forr ils at the beginning ot of the gold rush ruh but the holdings of the family have hav shrunk to a small farm and the he old family home in Clippers ville the family consists of phil the olde oldest agail gall edith sam who Is in schoola school and d sev ev enthen year old ariel arfel something of a problem problem phil Is fascinated by hint terrible lily cass young van murchison scion of a wealthy cami family I 1 Y returns reison from yale and gall has vision through marriage with him of the turning of the lawrence luck dick stebbins phils friend has the run of the house gall goes with van for a weekend week end with the chipps his uncle and aunt she Is received coldly at a roadhouse road bouse gall sees arlel ariel at midnight next day ariel arfel admits she was at the ills place and displays no remorse dick stebbins proves himself a true friend of the lawrences Lawren ces and gall ret that she he loves him and not van stebbins Ste libla and arlel ariel elope according to a note not left by the girl phil and ally ar are e married and lily and her three children make their home in the lawrence house edith Is fatally injured in an accident for or which little danny ono one of lilys children Is innocently re after Ril ltha death gall passes through a period of heartbreaking grief always a great reader she begins to write and her first story Is accepted by the editor of a leading magazine the colossal murchison hlson fortune to Is swept away and van faces the almost penniless CHAPTER IX continued 20 Is this you yon with me edith her soul would ask as she stamped and penciled books and slips smiled and answered at tile the library desk are you heleln help helping ln me at last and then a week after the picnic came a sunday of deluge when phil and lily went to a movie and gall took the three little boys for a wet walk the older two came back contentedly enough to blocks and crayons but little littie danny was almost too tired for luncheon and quite too tired to play and at three gall sponged his sticky little face and put him down on oil her bed with her old woolly dog tor for a nap riffraff riff raff she said to him affectionately straightening her big roo room m putting another log of wood wood d from the famous old lawrence pine I 1 that had come down only anlyn a few weeks ago into the little stove wair waff danny as affectionately returned gall closed bureau drawers straightened books on the shelves she carried a finished fat satin bound micro blue blanket into lilys room stood looking thoughtfully at lilys upper bureau drawer that was already filling with bands and knitted jackets for philip junior in the hall she ehe called down to the titling sitting room wolfe everything au all right im down here sam called back im building these kids a cattle barn I 1 gall went back into her room little riffraff riff biff 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 ot of the kitchen root roof Clippers ville was burled 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 galls desk lay a heap of paper large sheets and her own green fountain pen she sat down dreamy eyes fixed on space the pens smooth butt pressed against her cheek 1 I dont know why I 1 write stories she mused halt half aloud ive read enough 6 ede it be tunny funny it if I 1 were really to be a writer some day 0 to the dear memory of my sister edith partington lawrence the pen touched the paper began to move danny slept deeply luxuriously in the center of the big bed the old woolly dog tightly clasped to his shabby little alst rain streamed steadily down the high windows and drummed on the tin root roof the high leathery feathery new tops of the trees below moved gently in the constant onslaught of the warm drops wood fell in the stove and flamed up and was quiet again after awhile gall threw a covered sheet aside numbered a second covered that she pushed back her hair her face was pale her eyes shining the scratching of the pen recommenced the clock struck struck again danny slept on and the rain continued to fall but at six when lily was home and the boys having supper in the kitchen a hot golden sunset suddenly broke over the world gall walked up past the old stables and shw saw the light shining red on the trunks of the oaks and on the village and on the woodpile and straining itself through the screen of the young grape leaves everything bpark sparkled led and glittered scents heavy wet and delicious crowded the air the broken tumbler that had been on the hirunp ever since gall could remember gay thine qt it all was a diamond tonight and the tiny yellow balls of chickens cheeping and tumbling after their oell clous mother across the wet grass crass were almost more of beauty than the human heart could bear she reflected that she would do her full share of th the dinner work and of the dishwashing afterward then she would take a bath and get into pajamas and wrapper and arrange shoes and dress for the library day tomorrow and airry carry her weeks laundry for this was sunday night out to the big basket in the upper back ball and she lighted her desk lamp and drew those live five scribbled pages toward her and in a silence and solitude of her own room read them once again and found them good the loss of ariel arfel the deeper blow of dicks loss phils marriage had bad been earthquake the unbearable last burden after the burdened years and beyond that had bad been the consuming name flame of editha going the unthinkable thing the death of something that was herself that was her own life the earthquake and the ore fire and now into galls heart comfort came creeping back new interest new hope the still small voice of the lord thus began the new life in the unchanged setting of the old gall did not know whether what she dreamed and what she wrote was good or was not good nor did she care it had to come I 1 and the coming was a sort of ecstatic bearing a giving of life in april she had the letter a dozen typewritten lines dear miss lawrence the readers report that delightful as this story Is it Is not quite in our tone the feeling of the atlantic ts Is that when a tale Is as intimately true to life as this Is of yours the tone Is surely a tone for the atlantic Atlant fc to adopt it gives us much pleasure to accept so admirable a story very truly yours the editor the dull old grimy kitchen swooped and soared about her she had bad been hulling strawberries putting every jai 1 I dont know why I 1 write stories twelfth one into dannys expectant mouth open at her knee the letter from the atlantic had strawberry juice on it no matter it shook like a tacking sail as she read it phill look here a minute my gandl 1 said phil upon reading it read it sam ill I 1 WheW Wh enjoo joo write a story I 1 sam said incredulous oh phil you dont suppose you dont suppose im rm im going to write ili 1 well for heavens sakes lily said patiently the way you carried on I 1 thought some one was dead gall sat at the table ll 11 her r elbows resting on the worn oilcloth pressing the crushed letter against her face she felt as it if her body had taken wings and was about to lift itself up into the air phil lawrence she whispered presently taking her hands down regard ang ang him seriously ive sold a story I 1 he looked at her kindly from the old rocker lily tired easily now and had bad established her shapeless person wearily on his knee phils eyes looked over lilys head bout time something good came t to 0 you gall phil said simply ills his sister felt the words to be an accolade oh I 1 cant believe it it mell mel gall whispered its its the lawrence luck coming back bacch she got up and carried the glass dish of strawberries into the dining room she lifted the cover of the pall and poured the lightly tumbling hulls down into it then with a damp old rag she wiped the oilcloth afterward at the sink rubbing her finger ups tips with a withered halt half lemon and all the time the juice stained letter blazed in the breast pocket of her old mans blouse like a burning jewel CHAPTER X so came ClIppers vIlle to be proud of another lucky lawrence A thousand pleasant little episodes as the summer wore along told gall that she was famous and that her old friends and neighbors were glad the challenge ran her picture with a flattering natt ering article patrons of the old library coming and going in the hot afternoons smiled at her over the broad desk top tickled to death to bear we have an autho authoress the women whispered nodding and smiling gall would flush brightly joyfully in return she saw them all differently now these busy strained young mothers with their bables babies in rompers and sun dun bonnets these shapeless big middle aged women with their corsets corset showing under their dingy volles tolles they were her marionettes now they moved to the strings la in her fingers walking home in the burning bright sun sunset she blie looked nt at the hills that ringed sleepy ClIppers ville those gauzy transparent hills that were the color of the sky all summer long lone she looked at the great oaks and the locusts that lined the calle and the mai magnolias and peppers on the lawns she looked at the stout women in cottage gardens women with hair wetly smoothly dressed women watering marigolds and wallflowers wall flowers in the niter after noon shadows they were all beautiful to her if lily telephoned her and she hati haa to stop in the market she saw the market or the fruit store or the five and ten with new eyes their wilted wares their wearied sale sales stolk folk their anxious bargainers bar gainers were newly dramatic when some shabby woman from thomas street hill with a fat drooling baby on her arm and another stumbling and whining at herkner her knee priced the pork chops priced the chopped beet beef looked worriedly from one to the other gall felt her heart go out on a rush of love and sympathy for all poverty all motherhood she did not know why she had letters from persons faraway unknown persons praising her story when it was published gall answered them simply unable to believe the words that flowed from her fountain pen she could presently write it if you liked simply impossible I 1 hope you will like post office closed tomorrow it Is coming out very soon in some magazine the great barnes rutherford III idling in it a palace on the maine blaine coast wrote her he sixty five the dean of 0 the greatest profession of all could find time to write to a little clippers ville girl and tell her he thought simply impossible was a good story I 1 even more touching were the literary folk of Clippers ville it had so BO danyl wistful discarded men and women living in shabby little cottages smothered in dusty vines suddenly appeared on all sides and proudly claimed kinship with the writer gall accepted their condescend graciously she knew that she was not of their ilk miss libby gatty had sold a story to the clack black cat twenty five years ago a story that one of the judges had thought deserved first prize miss lou bennett had known edward townsend who wrote the chimile fadden stories when she had been in new york with her uncle in 1897 and had met archibald clavering gunter oh lob my uncle knew everybody ll 1 said miss bliss lou tossing her withered head growing splotchy in the face at the mere exciting jn memory emory he knew frank munsey he be knew every everybody bodyl 1 tottering old kane rissette had had quite a literary experience as one 61 b the publicity agents ot of a big railroad in the days before he drank so BO hard lie ile lived with a widowed sister tioff and min rissette gs kepf him in order ue he delighted in remembering all the literary lights who had bad come into the office of the railroad magazine and paid their written and sometimes rhymed tributes to california then there were the poets most of 0 them women they tremblingly brought out for galls inspection their hoarded clippings discolored strips of newspaper or magazine pages mrs jadwin who ran a boarding house down by the lour flour mills had once won a twenty five dollar prize for a poem called cloud voices oh my dearl said hatty schenck who wrote club news for the newspapers all over the state and nature poems beginning halll haill and whose pen name was lillian lynne oh my dear Is there any moment in the world like the one when you know youre get getting ting it youre in the mood for you know I 1 cant always write hatty rushed on sometimes there were times when she just felt dull and blank as it shed never written a line and then suddenly perhaps when she was in the kitchen with mamma oh I 1 knowl gall would sympathize with dancing eyes and all the time deep within her she knew that she and hatty blatty were not alike she knew that she could lean down to hatty but that hatty could never reach up to her it made her humble and sometimes when it came to her with a fresh pang of realization that only edith could have shared all this truly that only edith would have appreciated it indeed that she owed much of it to the poem loving book loving truth loving little sister she felt a deeper sorrow even th than anthe the younger sorrow forroi had been lily sat sewing or idling on the side porch in the afternoon and the three little boys worked in the wide yard sam and phil had bad carried their work as far as trimming olt oft the dry limbs ot of oaks and peppers the shorn trees sent rich lacy shadows across the new sheen of the grass lily for dinner gall would ask out of a dream the cream puffs and corn and the peaches and theres a lot of cold rice I 1 thought maybe poached eggs 11 its too hot for meat silence again thinking up another story gall well theres one kind of teasing me 1 I can kinder tell by your eyes when youre thinking of your sister lily said once edith well I 1 was thinking of arlel ariel then arlel ariel gall always spoke the name on a long sigh she wait she would muse aloud sorrowfully it seem funny lily for a person to go away just as it if she had bad died and never to write never to send any word TO SS BE |