The Portland daily press., 1896-02-29

he must despise himself as the meaner
partner in the robbery of her poor brain.
So thinking he hailed q cab aud was
| driven to The Blazer Office. There he
found little hutter about the telegraph
desk. Some one was reading aloud over
the telegraph editors shoulder. Pen
caught the words ''6 O'Clock express"
tunnel - collision bare, bald de-
tails of an everyday horror, thrilling in
spite of its commences.
He bent forward and let his own eye
run over the 1llmy yellow sheets. A new
page caught it. 1t read:
The rear car was occupied by the
Lily Martin burlesque troop, at least
| five of whose members are among the
killed. They are James Edgar Elton and
wifa''-
Pen got no farther.
He turned away steadily, but his lips
were dry, and there was hard note IN
his voice as he asked of the old man,
"Have you sent anybody?'
what do you take me for? Is this a
last year Officer the old man began IN
his choicest roar. Something IL PENS
face stopped him. He dropped his eyes,
drummed hard with the ruler on top of
his desk and saidss~ Maybe you'd better
60, too, and look out for poor Mrs.
Elton. No doubt she's better off so, but
I'd like to have everything done decent
ly for her, and she told me once that
outside the Office here she had nobody
alive to look to-
/ Pan 70 E,,I
charred wrecks of humanity as made
recognition out of the question. One of
them, though, had been Martha Elton.
Her name was among the passengers Of
the ill fated Car. Moreover the agent re-
membered perfectly her coming barely
IN time, her wan face and heavy eyes.
In the face of it all Pen could not
doubt her fate. So one of the black
husks that once enveloped a soul was
borne by his order far away from set
cemeteries to'a fair hilltop whose crown
of signing pines made all the tenderer
the sunlit silence that lay all about.
| Pen could not bear to think of her who
all her life had loved nature the great
mother, sleeping her last sleep amid
the trim, clipped splendors of city Of
| the dead.
There he left her to the healing of si-
lence, the loving of wind and dew and
rainy clcud-left her with thanks
| giving upon his lip to the power that
had vouchsafed her the mercy of death.
Five years later city theater in its
| first night fervor rang with cries OF
Author Author I" Termination! Pom
ningtonl'
The audience, unusually brilliant,
rocked and reeled in it's enthusiasm.
With good reason too. A master hand
had laid hold upon its breast and stirred
it to tears, to laughter as the sough Of
wind stirs tall meadow grass. Three
we'll known critics were already explo.
sive in their enthusiasm. A fourth, the
best known of all, disciple of Tolstoi
and 1bsen, was in rage, three adjectives
deep, for the play was wholesomely, nat
urally real throughout-a most potent
moral antiseptic to the high flavoring
he loved. Besides he hated Pennington
on personal grounds.
Yet even his rancor dropped little
as Pen, bowling again, yet again, to the
storm of applause, said with thick un-
dertone of tremor: II thank you more
than mere words can say for the honor
you do-the play. do not say my play.
1t is not mine. The seed thought came
to me from a dear soul long dead. ]
have been, am, but the artifcer who
has polished the gem and given it prop
er setting"
A storm of bravas, of hand clapping,
drowned his words, made his heart leap
SO wildly further speech was impossi-
BILE. Again he bowed low and turned
to 60 away. Those thrilling shouts, that
tempest of glad sound, forbade.
He stood still, his face tense, his eyes
burning over the sea Of faces alight and
a-thrill.
An usher hurried down the aisle.
What his hand bore almost stopped PEN
nington's breath.
1t was a cluster of pea blossoms-not
the bright winged creatures of the field,
but poor, pale, drawn, as though grown
in a narrow. crowded window that got
only morning sun rays.
The hearts, though, lacked nothing
of perfect sweetness. The breath of ii
brought back to Pen the August day. the
August night. so curiously linked with
this supreme moment.
He laid the flowers against his cheek,
bowed again and went slowly out Of
view.
Very early next day he had climbed
dangerously near heaven and stood be-
side slender, black robed woman look
ing earnestly at a mat of leafy vines de-
spoiled of all their blossoms. Stripped
as it was, it brought cheer to the plain
room, of whose plainness Pennington,
the superfastidious, was quite unaware.
Touching his companions ann, he said
softly as she ceased speaking:
You were cruelty wise to let me be-
lieve you dead. Otherwise l should
have sought you the world over Tell