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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 1916)
A Heart Its H By William Slavens McNutt Illustrated by Irvina K. Manoir i GOT a hangover. My feelings are all pale gray and poverty struck. When I look at the sun I wonder play different systenjs for calling' atten- her wire. "But what do you mean by sor- what time of night it UouVo their cargoes. Some claim they're row?" I says. "The worst grief he ever is, and the "Texas sober, some tell you how spiffed they are, had wag a headache on the morning after." Tommy" sounds just and Freddie's game was to apologize for "Ah, but he hasn't found himself," she the same to me as a Methodist hymn on, a being so stewed. "When the elevator boy says. "That is the whole trouble. And so rainy Sunday. On, don't get me wrong; J haven't dons anything Bryan wouldn't, but yon know wine ain't all. No! When I get sick of common sense you never see me melt ing my brains . with highballs and such like, do you? You do not 'Cause why? 'Cause I got a habit that can lose me more friends quicker and make me sadder and sicker sooner than lots of quarts. keep company with troubles. I fait one of them sympathy Jags coming on me two weeks ago, and I put up a battle to keep it off. I act ed mean to everybody for day a I rowed with the boss and gave all my regular patrons a grouch, but it w,a no use. My sympatny was ripe ana reaay to pick. was due to get soused on other people's trouble the brand didn't matter. Freddie Van Sicklen mixed me my first earful of the deadly stuff a cocktail of woes that would have made a stone lion m cry all over the front steps. All Freddie bad was an uncle, and that was enough. Seems like all the uncle had was enough money and Freddie; and Fred die was too much. So the old man sent him out here to Seattle "to absorb the virility of a new and growing country." But Freddie put one over on the old man. He absorbed the same brand virile spirits out here that he'd had an ap petite for on Broadway, Freddie was one of these rough and ready kind of fellbwsT meet any sort of emergency, you know. He didn't have to stay in bed if his valet got sick. N-o-o-d! He could put on his clothes himself, if necessary; sit tight down on the spur of the moment and figure out which shoe went on which foot. Inventive cuss! He made his home here in tlfe hotel. That is to say, he was here less than 'most any place else except church and. his of fice. It was just an address for him and his mail to be sent to; a place where peo ple brought him when he was too fat -gone to tell them where he'd rather be taken. And he had a way with women. Yes! It was wide and long, and paved with - check stubs set on edge. He had a large staff to pick and choose from, but he never . dWL When he was sober enough to see, he was too busy getting soused to make a selection; and when he was woozy enough to be sentimental, he couldn't see well. A woman didn't need to be good look ing to land Freddie; all she needed to be ' was first. He was a fish, but he thought he was a hook and line. But all women were Just part of his expenses ya him, mere incidents. I ki "She's an actress, and she's, a regular girl, so behave." got all wet and shiny like a hungry kid's lookin at a mince pie. "What a victory, what a proof of the truth of my theories!" she says. II. DIDN'T know what she was talking about any more than she did, but I " knew the look. She had a man on the brain; or at least she thought Freddie was a man, and it counted up the same, "listen," I says to her. "Don't got off wrong about this male thing," I says. "He's a mistake, and he'll go right on happening:, no mat ter what anybody says or does." "Ah!" she says, like as If I'd stuck her with a hatpin. "How blind! I shall reclaim him," aha !ays. "I know I shall be victorious." Well, of tourse. If you main to call Freddie as victory, she was. Oh, sure, Freddie fell in love with her first pop! Ain't It funny? When a rounder falls hard, it's al ways for some gentle thought like her; and one of I them perpetual does like Bliss Marsh always fastens onto some broken -winded old stag that wants to he good 'cause he ain't healthy enough to be bad no more. Anyhow, Freddie was hers. He got no's he could say "Seashells" at 3 p. m. as a regular thing, and he learned about the other things water was used for besides filling bathtubs and oceans; and then of course they got en gaged. Oh, sure! She itftsT reforming him to marry him fattening him up to kill, itt a manner of speaking. She wore him all around town as ' conspicuous as one white duck shoe with a dress suit, and Freddie got tea-broke and tame. They were both much too happy to be contented; so one rainy afternoon she asked him to confess all of his past life to her, so that they could float to heaven together Without any an chors dragging. So Freddie started In. After he come to, he picked out my right ear for the overflow from his bucket of sorrow, and I didn't have the will power what? Oh, sure, they split! Pasts don't cut a lot of ice with a woman as long as she don't know the horrible details A man can confess to murder and arson, kidnaping and bigamy, and shell think he's naughty but nice; but if he tells her he kissed Sadie until he met Miss Marsh, and she was an explo ton. She was one of these thin girls with lifted him up he begun to cry and wave young and boyish,?- she says. "All he a, nice mind. She'd found out the world his arms. needs is the guiding Hght of a sympathetic KaBoot8kI three times m front parlor was made wrong, and she was always "Terr'ble!" he bawled. "Goo' woman soul to lead him into the true light." on nfght Jn Querthm caU busy fixing it over. She was all eyes and shee me thish deplor'hle condition. Shame! "All be needs Is eight hours' good sleep & cop aQd press cnarK,. . . , i "i t .I'.n T'm Vinmr1 mvilf" and an absinth frame." I say 8 to her. ..nu. . "LT'T"'"" "".l" 111" eH never speak to me again." Fred- She come down irom ner room one men me ooy yanaeu uim mv ure so " - afternoon, on her way to some thought and Miss Marsh came over to me. sympathy, don't waste it on Freddie Van narty to read a paper on "How to Feed "Isn't It horrible?" she says. "And he Sicklin," I says. "He does ust what he'd "Oh, what am I going to diet says to me. dor N the Poor Without Giving Them Anything has such a good face; such fine, frank eyes! rather dpand he's got money enough to "yo l" py past to EaV or something like that, and "He's a bum." I says to her, and she keep it up. ,Envy him, if you want to," I performances, I d say that you were going stepped out of the elevator right onto looks at me as If I'd murdered my poor says, "but, gee, don't sympathize with him!" a drink." Freddie. Then she stepped off him and old grandmother for the family album. , "How little you understand," she- says. fAh, but I can't." he saya "I trlod get hopped" away, and says: , "That's just it," she says. "No one un- "the mystery of the soul, and its pitiful 4ing pickled, but It didn't do any good. ;.'Oh! How terrible!" derstands him. Nobody sympathizes with blindy groping for the light through the Sh taught me the horrorand shame of T nvr vet saw a souse that wasn't him. so he wandersoa, alone, hopeless " devious paths of darkness," she says. "He that dreadful life," he says, "and now I proud of what he had aboard, but they- "He's hopeless, all right." I cut In'oa can be reclaimed," she says, and her eyes (Continued on Pegt 8)
