Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1894-04-26

UI.S#aESSN nings as it gets
.lEN#7lNNRSgSS more prosperous,
o OU0 w y and with the true
Philistine spirit changes its name to
that of the discoverer of America.
There were two great apartment houses
opposite each other, with the constant |
roar and jerk of the elevated road |
lying between. Workmen had been
coming and going upon a third
tall white building on an opposite
corner, with an empty lot lying ad.
jacent, and boys of his own age had
been playing in there, playing all sorts
of tantalizing games, ever since Will |
bur Clint had moved into the fifth |
fat.
He used to stand at the window in
his nightgown and look at them. He
wore his nightgown half the day some
times, because it seemed so senseless
to dress himself when he could not go
out. His mama gave him his bath and
tucked him into bed at night, and
then in the morning, long before he
was up, she took the elevated and
went away down town to magazine
Office where she read stories which
other people wrote, and patiently
sealed them up again and sent them
back to the writer's.
Sometimes her heart used to ache
at the old fashioned, provincial views
of life which SO many of the stories
showed. When Wilbur's mamma, sit
ting there at her desk, in her neat
black gown, hesitated over a page of
afoIlaryy md al A
the corners of her mouth, it was a GER
tain sign that she had found another
love story, told in the good old way,
where cruel fate had at last allowed
the lovers to fly into each other
arms, and they made their exit amid
shower of rice to the tune of wedding
bells, their sorrows ended forever.
al do wonder, she said to herself
as her pen hung over the au-
thor's address she was putting
upon one of these manuscripts
one day, chow a Mrs. ever came
to write such story as that. Well
we'll May be her husband died on
their honeymoon, poor thing!"
One day the editor of the magazine,
who was very busy man indeed,
came into the tiny little room where
his reader sat, and fumbled over some
of the thick packages which were piled |
all about
''Mrs. Clint, he said, 'are all the
story writer's getting cynical? What
is the matter? 1t seems to me we
haven't had really cheerful tale for
six months.
Mrs. Clint used to think great deal
about her little boy as she went up
and down on the elevated, and as she |
sat by the lamp and darned his little |
stockings at night, or lay with his
curly little head upon her arm. She
looked at him anxiously to see if he
were getting pale with the confne-
ment. She knew that it was all wrong.
but she knew no other way little
lad of five could not be allowed out on
the street by himself.
Sometimes she too saw the bows |
playing on the vacant lot where the |
builders piled their waste. They used |
to take an old tin pail and build a fire |
in it, and swing it in blazing circle
about them, and then Mrs. Clint would
shudder all over, and make Wilbur
promise that he would never go out
alone.
The fiat was little more expensive
than Mrs Clint could rightly afford,
but she had taken it because the
ianitor's wife was an old acquaintance,
an old servant III the boarding house
where Mrs. Clint had lived when she |
had hrst come to New York, fresh |
country girl with an ambition to write
for the magazines. She had had a
number OF stories accepted, had done
all sorts of work for syndicsteg and
newspapers, and had gone to the
theatre with nice, ambitious young
newspaper men, who threw work in
her way, and told her stories Of
prominent people and their humble
beginnings. And then finally she had
married one of the most ambitious of
them, and had gone to Paris with him
for year, and had been delightfully."-
happy.
They had gone to all the places
where artists and writer's had dis
covered the unusual and the pictur- |
esque, They had had little anart-
ment up under the roof with a wide.
wide window looking out over ali |
Paris and there had been azaleas in
pots on the sill, and gay cushions on
the couch beneath, and young Mrs.
Clint had wondered if there we're ever
two people in all this world so bannv
1t was here that Wilbur had been
born, and two months later they were
called back to America by the paner
Clint worked for. A Presidential
campaign was just coming on, and
worker like Clint was needed. Il was
summer, hot, close summer, and Clint
took his wife and baby down to Long