Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-04-07
EFFECT = OF CONSCIENCE

Jim, do not hit me, today Of all days.
Spare me Just today. Do you not know
that this is my birthday and the ami
versary of our marriage besides?'
The huge. jagged truck driver had his
brawny fist raised to strike the beseeching
little wife who knelt imploringly before
him. 1t was Saturday afternoon and he'd
been hitting up the book beer fagons all
the way home. He was savage because his
evening meal was not ready for him three
hours ahead Of time, and he had made for
her. with his hairy paw appraised to strike,
as said above.
Don't you remember, Jim, that we were
married just nine years ago today?' said
the frail little woman, again. He hesitated,
and his arm slowly fell to his side.
1t all came back to him. AS in a dream,
ne saw the little woman who now knelt so
beseechingiy before him as she had been
ten years agone, as she tripped back and
forth from the cigarette factory where she
worked. Her slender. girlish figure, her in
expensive but neat Bingham dress, her
pretty tiptilted nose the three little freckles
on her chin that he had so delighted to
twit her about-he saw them all. as if Time
had turned backward. O. turned backward
In Its flight and made him a swain again
Just for that night. Yes, there was the same
little woman before him, here hands raised
up appealingly-but what a change! He
glanced out Of the second-story window
where this scene took place. and saw the
rapidly unfolding leaves, and he thought of
the little cottage in the suburbs where he
mad wooed her. with the honeysuckles
climbing over the porch and the birds "a
singing and the crickets a-chirping in the
nearby thickets. Ali he remembered now
she had played THE Black Hawk Waltz
and the "Maiden's Prayer and ocean
Waves Gallop' and Monastery Bells for
him on the little $50 parIor organ, and how
o 7 Eir- Tnnly
Home" to her accompaniment, and how he
had spent fully twenty minutes every true
he meditated calling on her in plastering
down his front hair and brushing it after
he mad put his hat on. Yes there she was,
the same little GIRL heaven help him. The
years had come and gone, and he had gone
on from bad to worse in his drinking, and
they mad steadily become poorer. The neat
little cottage in South Washington in which
they had set up housekeeping after their
marriage had long since been abandoned.
and for years past they had been fitting
around from one squalid room to another
in coarse. evil-smelling, crowded roons-for-
rent rookeries, occupied by the poorest Of
the city's inhabitants. And drink had done
II all. He had been unable to hang on to
any truck-driving job for very long, and
what miserable wages he was occasionally
able to earn when he fit to work he
squandered in drink, that his poor uttle
wife, with four BARNS to take care of, had
for years been compelled to take in wash
ing and ironing to feed the little mouths
And the piaintiVe, tender voices of some
strolling negroes outside. uplfted in song.
moved him strangely Here he had fallen
into the habit of punching the little woman
into ribbons just as regularly as Saturday
afternoon and his regular skate came
around, and now things had come to such
pass that she was compelled to remind him
that it was her birthday and the ami
versary Of their marriage to keep him from
beating her once-fresh countenance into a
jelly.
The huge truck drivers brawny hand fell
to his side.
Heaven help me-" said he, In a thick
voice. Il cannot strike her such a day
this
So he raised the sash. picked her up,
If she had been paper sack of cornmeal,
and threw her out of the window.
All! this were a dreary. brutal enough old
world were it not for that little thing called
Conscience!