The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-11-05

BEST SHORT STORY OF THE MONTH
Victory
By Helen Golfers Weekly for September 80
By Helen Palmer in Golfers Weekly for September 30

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
/ The short stories in the weeklies and
MAGAZINES this month show distinct
faIling-off in quality, and suggest that
the editors used up the cream or their
stories in the Fiction numbers OF
midsummer. In spite of this fact, how
ever, several very readable tales ap-
pear The Century, for instance, mas
an interesting study of famlly's 10Y
atty 10 a worthless father in Il. w.
Ogden's ''Pauly c." and Outing has a
stirring sketch of love and death
among the French-Canadian habitants
in Lawrence Motifs Friends. Mike
Grady's Safety" in Everybody's, by
VIII E. Lewis. is an amusing story OF
a baseball team that got into foot
ball game by mistake, and THE Alarm
of AngeIone,' by William Hamilton
Osborne. in the same magazine, is al
most equally entertaining. Such a
vast number of short stories appear
each month. of widely varying quality
that it is of interest and Importance
to indicate to our readers which one
is the best. An examination of the
best weeklies and magazines seems to
show that the following story deserves
that distinction:
Hiram Fenner dragged himself up on
the pillows and fixed his eyes upon the
window at the side of the bed. The
fields We're already a vivid green in
patches where the snow had lain, and
the swollen brook, touched here and
there with foam, showed black through
the sparse, shining leaves of the birch
es and alders that marked its course
The pleasant, hoarse murmur of the
water reached his ears, broken from
time to time by the impatient call of
a calf and the answering low of her
mother. A thin column of smoke rose
from beyond the brook, drifting over
the hillside, now pink with maple buds.
"Rans Creytons burning a fallow,
the sick man muttered. watching the
blue wreaths. I'D ought to clear up
my hill lot, an the north pasture
wants brealkin' up-it had ought to
been done by rights last fall" Moving
restlessly in the big four poster bed,
his eyes fell on his out-stretched hand;
he lifted his arm against the light
stripping back the sleeve, and scanned
it closely. 1t was the strong, knotted
arm of a man who had been counted
a great worker all the days of his
fifty years, but it was thin now, and
shrunken almost to the bone; the
fingers were long ano pale. He let it
fall. What was the use of planning
work with an arm like that? Doctor
| had said t want likely he'd live to see
the crops brought in
A figure moving across the meadow
caught his eye; it was his neighbor,
| Rams Creyton, who had moved from
/ Cohoes two or three years before and
bought the adjoining farm. He was a
F. young man, strongly built and quicker
! in his motions than a farmer born
| and bred. Instead of leisurely climb
| ing the fence that stood in his way,
he put his hands on the top rail and
vaulted over, then he hurried on to
/ the Fenner barns, where he had done
| the heavier work since Hiram had been
laid up.
| The sick man watched him swing
| past with a pang of envy. A moment
| later he heard burst of laughter from
! the shed that sagged in an irregular
| line between the farmhouse and the
! barn. Drina must be out there, he
+, thought, fussing with her chickens
Rams laughs easy he sighed: "Drina
=
a man she ought to have married
F! some one that can laugh easy, an take
a four-barred fence as nat'ral as a colt.
= The amt any one left in her family
to take care of her." he unused; shes
got to marry. They won't let her alone
long-not with such farm in her
hand, every stump pulled an every
piece of wet land drained. She'll be
like a lamb among the shearers." he
muttered, frowning. Why, she might
take that long, lazy, good-for-nothing
Jim Sears-he can eenamost talk me off
my feet. If thes got to be some one. .
he groaned, seems to me, I'd liefer
'tWould be stranger like Rams than
some one she'd known all her life An
Rams is as good as the best
In his excitement he had pushed
down the bedclothes. leaving his gaunt
shoulders and long arms uncovered:
the chill air struck him and he began
to cough Tn done for." he gasped
when, the paroxysm over, he lay back
exhausted: Tn goin' to die. Doctor said
L wouldn't live to see the crops brought
In-not unless 1 tried. An I amt a
goin to try. I'm bound to die, an
guess its the best thing 1 can do"
He closed his eyes and lay still, but
his thoughts ran on: "Drina's been g
. good wife" he told himself, mo one
could ask for a better-she couldn't
heIp bein' good. But it amt in nature
that she should like me as we'll as a
young man her own age. [ don't sup
pose she'd ever have married me if he1
gran'-ther hadn't wanted it so much
an he just dyin. That's what folks
SAID, an guess mebbe they was right
We thought of it a good deal sence
: Wen, she'll have her chance now. It's
only fair. I've took good care of her.
, he added, after moment. his throat
swelling He turned his head and let
, his eyes roam over the familiar objects