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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1913)
' t', ' ' ' r r : ' Si,'!". THE OREGON .SUNDAY JOURNAL,, PORTLAND. SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 21, 1913 Indian Summer Arthur Stringer (OopTttftrt by Wi MtortJi American Compear.) IT WAS ne thm wta and atsiMratw daya a April wtoen the Immuring; brtok and eton af th city seamed Ilk th walla of prima that lUcfcart Deerlng first appeared at my doer. When the three Moorish tells had tinkled etrt thatf n musical Moorish discord I turned away from the open window and the pearl mitt that huna; arer th Wat. tin roof, and tared with languid dlaoontant toward that door. ; . , ' It wu a modal. I told myself, for tt was nearly -ways a model la that Wgb.-oeill.nged old atudlo building; where at loaat two doaea of vi toll ad at art Ilka so many tinker In their booth. X scarcely know wbthe It was the CorotUka pearl miat or the humid hothouse warmth of 'the world or the outlandish Moorish bell tinkle, but something; touched my tired spirit into sud den ApriUan lightness. And I hoped that the applicant ' at my door would, be a girt, a slender and Umpld-eyed girl In white lawn and with flower In hef hat. "It eeemed only fitting, with all he world yaamln and bursting1 toward tha rapture of Urlng, the one's visitor, should be something; ; ardent-ayed and youthful-bodied, with the joy of Ufa valiantly burgeoning from her In nocent vernal headgear. When I opened tha door, however. Instead of finding a girl with flowera on her head, I found Richard Deer lug with bjs hat In his band. I found the sorriest figure that tha tides af Ufa could wash up on the shores of mischance. The sorriest ha seemed, for he stood there auoh a wreck of what toe must once hare been! He reminded ma of a last year's bird's nest. ' ' There was somatMng autumnal about the seedlnesa of his attire, about ths dingy hat with its abraded brim, about the Shiny and threadbare frock coat that' adorned the gaunt flg-ura This figure Itself waa upstanding and tinned to eat with tha atudtoos otmoentratlon a a hungry child. There ware poUte baattatloaa, there wars , half-ihearted momenU of reluotanoa, to be aura. But they ware nothing mora than a aop to convention. He ate. In fact, until tha taboret 'top waa as bare as a ' tombstone. And I saw that my surmise bad not bean wrong. Tha man waa almost famished. "X believe, after all." I said as I 0I more filled his cup, "that I could use you now and then, But the trouble la I'll only have two or three week more In the city. I'm packing for, a year or so la Europe and the atudlo here wlU be taken by a ohlna painter from Syracuse. "I'd be glad of anything," he humbly acknowledged. "Has It been a bad season 7" I ventured. "A terrible season, sir, a terrible aeaaonr ha heat - edly declared. . I remembered that every season In that world of, his seemed to be a terrible ona There were the stars with Broadway, engagements, of course, who smoked In their clubs and ate their suppers In bemlr rored restaurants and visited their photographers and telephoned for their motorcars, 'who might be finding it the best of seasona They were having their brief hour, and when an aotor has his hour aJl tha world knows about H. But here, I told myself, was one of the underdogs, one of the army about which tha out Side world hears and knows little, the army of proud spirited, easy-going, empty-handed children who haunt the back comers of rooming' house and make the rounds of the agencies as feverishly and foolishly sa a hyena making the rounds of his cagw. "What's made this a terrible sesaonr X aaked. Ha turned slowly about and faced ma The lines of his face deepened. The look of revolt about the flaccid old mouth became almost vinHlotlva "The same thins; hat is ruining; tha stage, tHr," h "He was like a crazy man" wide-shouldered enougth. But every calamitous Una off It was still eloquent of fruition, of exhaustion, of some thing gone to seed. About its very erectness there was something pathetic, something too vooal of the fact that Its valor was factitious. And his voice itself when he spoke was funereal, a husky and wintry ghost of a voice that made me think of a December wind la a Florentine cypress top. "Do you use modelsT" ha wistfully aaked. Tea I somewhat petulantly reminded myself, I could have used a model in that last pearl-mist hour of an idle April afternoon. But It would have to be a blithe lipped Ariel floating In blossom y laughter and touched with the sunny lightness of meadow birds. "Sometimes," I answered, with - my hand stia on the door knob, for 1 was studying his solemn and shadowy eyes. "Could I be of service to youT" And he put tha Question almost automatically, with a calm hopelearasas) that carried Its own answer. "Who sent you to met" I temporised. "No one," he acknowledged. "I was merely looking for work, sir." "But what," I inquired, 'Is your line?" He seemed puziled by the question. The great gaunt face was clouded by a frown of perplexity. He put forth an expostulatory arm, as though to argue nle adeptness, but I cut short his gesture. "Are you a professional model?" The funereal eyes were fixed on me as the funereal black shoulders were thrust back into their forlorn line of dignity, It was like the wing stir of a caged eagle. "I have been on the stage, sir," he solemnly Intoned. "I have never posed before, it Is true. But I hoped that my career as an actor might have equipped me for for a kindred art!" "It very seldom does, I'm afraid," was my deliber ately candid and none too encouraging; retort. There was no resentment on his lean and hungry face as he essayed Ms courtly bow. "I'm sorry to have troubled you. sir," he said. I watched him as he turned mournfully away. It hurt me In some nameless manner to see him go. There was something so poignant, so arresting, about that autumnal figure that I found myaelf moved by It even against my will. Inured as I was to the Impor tunities of the needy, I could not find the heart to dls- ; miss him in that blunt manner. wui you step liusaef i retina myseu saying.. Ana with a look of wistful wonder- he stepped into the atudlo. He stood there, solemn and gaunt, a blur of gloom enfiladed by the gayeties of color from my wall canvases. "Won't you sit down?" I said, motioning him toward my most comfortable chair. And he . solemnly seated himself placing his hat on tha floor beside him. "Have you given up tha stage ?" I asked him, won dering just how to begin. "No-o!" he hesitated. "I have not precisely given it upl" "But you prefer posing?" I went on. "I waa looking; for something to tide ma aver, aa it were," was nis answer, s I studied- hli" face In Mia unequivocal strong Ught of the unshaded studio window. And in that betraying light I saw what I had not seen before. The man was ill. It was ten to ona I told myself, that ha waa 111 and weak from sheer want of food. That a man should go hungry In a city of such waste seemed almost incomprehensible to ma But such seemed to be the case. "By the way," I announced with an Innocent glance at the clock, "this Is my afternoon tea time." And I casually filled my copper teakettle and lighted the al cohol lamp. Then on my old taboret, eireckled wtlh cigarette burns, I put out a eherry decanter, a plate of biscuits and cream .oheeee and wafers. Tha solemn eyes watched me as I did so. "Will you Join met" I oaralessly Inquired. Tha Ught In those solemn wistful eye of his reminded ma of a neglected animal too sternly disciplined in tha past to think of protest. , "With great pleasure, air," ha replied. Bo I swung the taboret out between ua, brewed tha tea and made a pretense of falling to. ; My visitor did not eat ravenously, as I had expected and had even half hoped. Ha ate solemnly and steadily, munching each cheese-covered biscuit with an unctuous ness that translated avidity out of mar animalism. He permitted ma to fill hi cup. acknowledging' tha attention with one of M courtly bowa But ha eon- burst forth. "The same thing that hasdegraded our noble art of acting!" "What's that?" I queried. "Those moving-picture contraptions!" he retorted. "This mania for what they call the canned dramal The canned drama! Brrrh!" And his head shook with that Inarticulate cry of disgust. An accidental pose of that fiery old face as he spoke caught my eya I began to see that ho had poastbllltlea "I believe that I could use you for a charcoal sketch," I told him as I stepped out and swung ray sasel Into place. "I can use you now If you keep Just as you are and, of course, if you can give me an hour or so!" "By all means, as long as you wish," he answered In his pompous boom. And I set to work while the mood waa on me, for I knew the light would not last much longer. "It's not very often that I can use men." I explained aa I drew. "My work calls mostly for women." He looked up at this. "You could use women?" he asked. "I do use them," I admitted. He cleared his throat, paused, grew reflective, and again cleared for action. "J. TM wondering If If my wife might chance to suit you?" he finally ventured. "What's she like?" I aeked. Intent on my work. Yet I could see him look sharply about at my question, as uhough to make sure it was not an Inaipertlnence. "She was a very beautiful woman." he said, and he said It with a childlike simplicity that made it pathetic. "Is she on the stage with your I asked, trying to picture what the struggles of that strange couple oould have been. "Not of late," he pensively admitted. "The fact Is, sties not overly strong. She'd be better out of New York, her doctor telle ma But I have been tied down here. And she would not go without me, I'm afraid." I began to understand the situation. "Could' she pose for me?" I aaked. "I think she would like It." he announced with blithe solemnity. at tTUlA y0U """ hr mjr tudl bera say tomorrow 1 saw the look of anxious doubt that crossed hi seamed old face, and for a moment it troubled me. Then I remembered the fact that I was disregarding a fixed habit of the profession. The day, with them, only began with noon. "'Or perhaps two in the afternoon would be better?" "If It would be tha same to you," was his courtly re Joinder. And as I worked away at my drawing .nd an atrociously bad study it proved to be he told me a lit tle of his past life, of the Shakespeare repertoire with whloh he had once been successful on the road, of the later melodramas in which he had been compelled to play, of the decline of the dollar houses, of an unhappy excursion or two Into vaudeville, of the Increasing diffi culties confronting an aotor of the old school. They wanted only "types" now, he complained. Stage acting was no longer an art; it waa a trade. He spoke wist fully of the days of McCullough and Barrett and Booth, of those golden days when an actor waa an actor, when people still looked to the boards for the beauty and sonority of the English language. Nowadays they paid $2 to hear a dancing comedian sing ragtime through his nose, to see a dlvoroe court oelebrlty trail a J500 gown through a transplanted French farce! "I should think you'd give up the stage, you'd turn to somsUiing else!"- I mildly suggested, as I sat back and waited for him to round out one of his Johnsonian periods. "What Is there to turn to?" he asked with the wist ful helplessness of ' a child. And In the ways of the world, I knew ha waa still a child. taken a second glass of Madeira that ana began to talk, Ttian ahe talked with that frankness wfhloh X bere a' often remarked in women of the stage whoa Uvea are lived In candid and dally contact with men. She told ma mora perhaps, than ahe had intended. X am afraid that after I had "placed" her and ahe was openly disappointed that It waa not on the model throne I even enoouraged her to be communicative. She talked mostly of her husband, of toow hard he had worked and how long he had studied. She acknowledged, thanks to the Madeira, that they were quits at the end of their rope. And Richard had felt so proud of his art, and was now so hopeless about getting an engage ment. "But Why shouldn't he get work?" I maintained, de- pressed by the thought that such a fine figure of a man ahould find no foothold on the stage of the day, the possessor of an art to which years of study must havs gone should find himself of no possible use in tha world. She looked across the studio at me with her wide and Infantile blue eyea "They say Richard's old-timey," ahe admitted, with the ghost of a sigh. "They all say the day of the ro mamtia method has gone." "But look at his voice," I declared, a little at sea as to what the romantlo method meant. "Look at the volume and power he must have there!" "Tea. he has a wonderful voice. But It doesn't seem the sort they want nowadays. They keep saying It went very well for the old-fashioned ptaya But they claim the moving plat urea have killed that kind of play, that the romantlo drama's dead now!" "It seems to ma" I said as I went on with my work, "those moving pictures have a lot to answer for." "Tea, they've thrown a kt of good actors out of work," wistfully acknowledged the faded little woman. ' "But surely, somewhere. there must be work for an Intelligent and willing aotor!" "Richard has tried and tried. But nothing ever comes of It Ha even had to give up the dollar housea Then he tried Shakespeare In the aerodomea, and then a Hiawatha play he'd work ed out for the open-air cir cuit. But even that failed!" "WhyT" "Evsrybody seemed to go to the moving ptcturea They said we were too old fashioned and cancelled our tlma" "But what do they mean by old-fashioned?" I de manded. "I'm afraid it's rather hard to describe," complain ed the little woman. "But one year you've an engage ment and a good part and get good notices. Then some thing seems to happen, eomethlng you cant account for. But you wake up and find the younger people are taking your place, and say ing you belong to the older school and have had your dayr "But why should they say that of your husband?" "I can't quite under stand it all, but they com plain that Richard's gestures are too theatrical, that his poses are too obvtoua They call It barnstorming nowa days. And It' second nature to Richard now. It's tha only method he knowa H can't get rid of It!" Her faded and babylike smile, as she spoke, carried home to me more poignantly than the most tragi o postur ing could havs done the actual hopelessness of that forlorn coupla I had to bury my face behind the drawing that she might not see my expression. During all the rest of' that month, as I quietly made ready for my year In Europe, 1 kept up a pretense of using the Deerings. My work suffered througrh them, as must all work Into which the personal equation obtrudes Itself. Tbey were not professional models: they were not even adaptable. And, what waa worse, they seemed to carry about with them an aura of foreordained failure, a blight of as sured unsuccess. It's a law of life that we must' Inure ourselves to those forces Which too repeatedly or too poignantly as sail our sympathies. I reached a state where I no longer worried actively and acutely about the Deerings. 1 no longer woke up at night laboring over the hopeless puzzle picture of their predicament. I became more Impersonal In my contemplation of their faded careers. And one reeiilt of this release waa a portrait study I did of Richard Deerlng one sunny afternoon, a por trait of which I was rather proud. I was so proud of It, In fact, that I was blinded Into letting Deerlng him self see it It was not until ! watdhed nils face aa he studied the canvas that I aotually comprehended What I had done. I had painted him as he was, a hopeless failure. 7 had memorialized his misery. I had elucidated and elaborated on his broken and useless life. Deerlng studied the picture In silence. But I could mystified by her huabanda behavior, and sighed a nttle ever his wayward moods. A few days later aha Came to ma with tha startling news that Deerlng had a ehanoa to "go on" with a vaudeville aketch, a very silly sketch called "The Jeal oua Huaband," put It might ,after all give him the start ha had been waiting for. It was three days later that aha came back to the studio with the dolorous Information that Deerlng had refused to appear In "The Jealous Husband" when he found It was merely to be an Interpolated number In a Harlem movlng-plcture hall. He refused to be In any way Identified with the celluloid drama, aa he contemp tuously termed it It was a week later that she came to the studio again and acknowledged that her husband had found work as a "ballyhoo" for a Third avenue museum. It was hard work, and It kept him out In all sorts of weather, but ha was getting a dollar and a half a day for It Before the week was over, however, Deerlng had to give up his work as a "ballyhoo." His wife brought me the news that he was down with the grip. He recovered In a week's time, but his throat kept troubling him, my emissary reported. It grew so bad, In fact, that she became alarmed and proceeded to take things In her own usually docile hands. This belated energy led to an operation on Deerlng's throat at a Bellevue clinic, where a email fibroid tumor was removed. . A week later she brouglut me the news of, his re covery. But there waa neither relief nor Joy on her face aa she told me of It When I asked If I mlgiht go and see him, she hesitated, flushed, and said she would ratihar that I did not "But won't he look for work again? I Inquired. The torn-up studio about us, for it was my last day to the city, only added to the sorrow of tha encounter and mad the afternoon seem heavy with a vague sense of desolation. "He can't now," were bar answering words. And in the cerulean baby-blue eye ware actual tears, tha first I had ever seen there. ' "Why not?" I sharply Inquired. "His voice Is gome!" she huskily admitted. And this proved. In a way, to be trua His voice, his speaking voice, was not completely lost. But from the standpoint of the stage It waa a thing of the past. As an organ, as an instrument, it had parted with its power. The final blow had fallen. Tha seal of ultimata failure had been imposed on him. "Could I come and see him before I sail?" I asked, exasperated by the knowledge there was no way la whloh I could actually help them. Money, I knew, they would not accept from me and evso tha gift of that, aa I could give it, would be merely postponement of the inevitable. "It wouldn't do any good!" waa her response, "But why can't I see him?" I demanded, and I tried to picture the broken man In his gloomy back room. "He likes being alone nowl" was the only answer she gave me lt was late In the second fan whan I finally returned from abroad. I came back without that sense of exhila ration which should accompaLnx Che return to one'a native lountry. And In eome way I waa able to blame tha Deerings for It My very studio seemed shadowy with their eonrbei figures. I had several times written to their old ad drees. It is true, but no word had come back from them. And now, back between the walls on whldh they had left their memories, I waa mora than aver troubled aa to their fata I made my way to their Id rooming house, but could learn nothing about them. I made Inquiries, but no one seemed to remember them. They were merely two small units In that tumultuous and ever-hurrying flood tide of city life whloh had been swept away and forgotten. They were forgotten, but with me at least they had left a vague heritage of unrest, of discontent, of revolt It was this feeling of discontent, late In October, which drove me away from the studio and off on a sketching tour in the Jersey hills. The open air and the clear skies and the Jocund coloring of that autumnal landscape brought my lost spirits back to me. it was early one afternoon when I had set out my sketching box in a little amphitheater of hills aflame with surub oak after a black frost. I had felt myself blissfully alone with my trees and skies and rocks, when the entire valley was filled with a sudden In vasion tending to make one's back hair stand up. For sweeping down from the far side of that placid parliament of hillocks I beheld a galloping and scream ing band of half-naked Comanche Indians, sinister with war paint and emblazoned with feathers and suggestive of the wildest days of our wildest West The chieftain of that fleeing band, I saw, carried across his saddle pommel a slender-bodied white girl of about sixteen, a white girl on Whose face I could plaindy see protest and horror. But I had no time to dwell on that startling and somewhat distressful figure, for tearing on after the fleeing Indians came a galloping, swarming, shouting band of cowboys. And these cowboys, I perceived, kept discharging their huge six-shooters as they rode. They were nothing more or leas than a band of moving-picture actors going through their turns for a "Western" film. I had wandered Into the realm of th "movies." I had caught a glimpse of "canned drama" In the making, as Deerlng had called it I tried to go on with my sketching. But It was use leas. That little landscape of peace seemed as denuded of tranquillity as though a fire had swept through It from end to end. So 1 repacked my sketch box, folded up my stool, and moved on to the other side of the village whose spires showed over the next dip In the hills. There I stumbled on a road vista that seemed to meander off Into some misty second valley of romance. That road, with elms on one side and the raw color of a circus poster flaming along an old barn on the other, caught my eye and neld me thera And there I painted It waa promptly at I o'clock tha next afternoon that Richard Deering'a wife came to my atudlo. She was a small blonde with a faded little smile and a petit regu larity of feature. The very clothes that aha wore, only too plainly the residuary makeshifts of earlier stage costumes, carried tha aama sense of Incongruous bllnhe ness. Tha ona vital and unfaded thins; about her were her eyes, and these were stilt ardent and lnfantlla They were th bluest eyea I have ever seen, a mild cerulean blue, ak serene and soft as any April aky, , I had craftily delayed ordering la luncheon ao that aha might be compelled to Join me In that midday meat And this ahe did. a little timidly, eating with the fas tidious haste of a hungry bird. It waa not until aha had "A slender-bodied girl of about 10, on whose face I could plainly see protest, and horror" aaa tha tightening of the line about that flaccid old mouth grown large and loose In the delivery of heroics. It waa 'In silence, too, that he took his pay for posing, and left the atudlo. He never returned to it- He not only understood, but he understood that I understood! 1 Deerlng never came back to tha atudlo, but his wife did. X aaw to It, however, that the picture waa well out of glgnt . before thjp time af her arrival. She seemed myself back Into a humor of contentment with Ufa in general and Jersey roads In particular. l was sun joyously working on tna mysterious sort "Instead of a girl with flowers on her headl found Deerlng n My name must have bean called out several time before I became actually aware that I was being ad dressed. When X looked about I beheld an elderly man, with a shook of silvery whit hair showing from beneath tha rim of his sombrero, smiling down at me from tha driving seat of the automobile. It puzzled me a little aee that he was olad in a Jacket of stained and weather worn bUckskln adorned with much fringe and mbelllsh ed with a wall-weighted cartridge belt The blue-eyed woman beside him was also clad In a much-fringed gar ment of buckskin, with a colored handkerchief knotted loosely about her plump throat, and a tip-tilted som brero pinned tack on her head. ! . These two extraordinarily dad figures would hays Startled me more, t suppose, if my thought had not gotaa promptly back to the morning's panorama of th film actors and their antlca "He daesnt even know tie!" cried eh ladv in bunk akin, with a half-humorous wall I stood up and turned about at the sound of that votoa, for there waa something etartllngly familiar In K. X stared at the benignant sunburned face of th mas with the silvery hair Showing under his sombrero. "He doesn't know us!" echoed that benignant figure, wj Lit u. gesture 01 imkk uiaigu&iaun. Tet I knew him the moment I aaw tha geaturatilt waa Richard Deerlng. And the woman In the cowboy suit beside him was his wife. , I stepped over to the running board of their car. I stepped slowly over to them, ao wlde-yed and In credulous that they laughed together at my uncouth amassment. Equally startling to me waa the easy Ught- . heartedness of that laughter. "It's the artillery he's afraid of!" crowed the Jocund xseerujg. ajiu hi ciuv iwimau ui mm vur, ior uj ui.i time, I saw the Utter of carbines and blue-barreled six- shooters. r. " "What are you doing with this stuff?" I weakly in quired as I reached up and shook hands with them. Th movement on my part was abstracted and automatic. 1 could not co-ordinate' things Into anything approaching the rational. And tha two of them seemed to be enjoy ing my obvious distress of mind. r "Oh, that's only a part of our equipment 1" laughed Deerlng. V i. "Your what?" I demanded, hllnklnr nn Into hla wind- roughened and aun-darkened faca " cThey're only some of our studie props," hi wtf.: explained. I could see the two of them exchange glances, like children -with a happy secret between them. It was hard to comprehend: - It waa tha last thing In the world I was prepared for. You're you're not a moving-picture man?" I almost gasped, staring from the carbines to the oll-stalned buck skin Jacket. At the back of the car, I noticed, trotted : a mouse-colored burro with a packsaddle on Ita back. Deerlng seemed a little hurt by my Incredulous in qulry. . c "D'you never go do see the movies?" ha demanded. I had to confess that I did not, though that morn lng. I somewhat maliciously added, they came to aee me. 'Richard's been the character man for tha Rudln Film Company for nearly a year now," Interposed hla wife, as though in dread I might say something to com mlt myself. . "A contract for fifty-two week In the year!" gloated the sun-bronzed Richard. "Nine-tenths of the work la the open air, the best equipped studio In aU Jersey, and seven weeks off to California In the winter!" And tha surreptitious squeeze that his bucksktnned arm gave 'to the quiet-eyed woman at his side did not escape ma She glanced half -guiltily about, and chanced to sa th burro placidly browsfhg on the hood lining of tha ear. "Look at Bepplno! ' she cried. "He's eating our new car up!" And their duet of happy laughter aa tha -great gaunt figure of the man In the buckskin Jacket swung down from his driving seat and untethered the burro was good to hear. It seemed like the laughter 'of contented and happy children. Then Deerlng pointed up past ft he poster-covered barn. "You see that shack?" he called out. "Well, there's a dago up there who makes five dollars an afternoon renting us this donkey. He Just fits into the Wsstsro, setups. And now I've got to take him back to hla horn." -, He looked about as he swung the broken gate open. "He's llkeme, this old burro. He wasn't even worth burying, until the movies got Mini And now they can bed him down with dollar bllU!" I sat down on the auto's running board and stared X after the stalwart leather-clad figure aa it strode up tha f path with the burro at Its heels. "How did It happen?" , 1 asked as 1 heard through the meUow autumn air Deerings Jovial chirrup to tha donkey trotting behind them. . - v The woman in the car stared after tha chlrrupfcg man and the mouse-colored burro. "It was Just after you went away." she said. "Every. thing seemed to be hopeless. I was going to a Brooklyn studio as a super In the mob scenes. Richard found out and came to take me away. The studios are Ifk ' stages, you know, with scenery and back drops and all that with a square of tape tacked down to mark wnr ' tha action mut take place to get In the lena von know. We were rehearsing, snd Richard came right Otl- me stage, nt was ue a crazy man. He stormed and railed at me, at every ona 1 thought they'd arrest html" ' "Go on!" I prompted as she paused. - . "Something about him, a hs stormed around there, caught the manager's eye. lie took Htohard to one aids and talked to him. He told him he'd have to pay tor a whole film he'd spoiled, or come and work It out" , 1 looked up at the woman aa she stopped again. From under the elms the low October sun shone across her celestial blue eyea and ruddied her round and child like chin. She seemed. In that Ught, Uttl mora than' girl. "So Richard had to come back and work it out He pretended to hate it But it was mora like stag wof 4 than h'd Imagined. And he knew more than the others, because he'd been a better aotor. And when 1 saw hint working In another setup, 1 understood! U was liking It. Against lais own will hs was liking it And his very xaults. as an aooor, were at last a help to him. Those gesturea and things that seemed overdone In real drama -were Just what they wanted for film work, it didn't matter, either, that his vole wasn't strong. , Voice aren't needed." She atopped again, and for soma absurd reason,' be gan to cry softly and contentedly. Then, as she eaugnf sight of her husband striding back down th farm path, he hurriedly wiped her eye. , , . , "You must corns along with us for dinner, aha aid. "or IUchard will feel hurt" ' "Along where?" I asked, atlll watching tha approach ing figure aa It swung down toward us, bathed In that meUow evening light that turned everything to gold. . "Why, we've a Uttle farm now, mile th other M Of in mm eiuam. na m garusn, my near, ana wrum 1rhnrni nd cherry blossoms sverv sniins!" Kha lift 1 tones of that meandering road, making the most of the her head and emitted a happy Uttl sigh. "It a a c alowly waning light when I became conscious that a Uf for ua isn't It?" ; - s v "it aounas 11 K inoian summer," i said. ' Tea It's urXndtaa lunroir, ah choed Cro fter happy teara . touring; car had stopped somewhere close beside m and that I was being stared at by th occupants of that car. m i J"
