The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1908-10-01

ton square the streets nave run
crazy and broken themselves into
small strips called places. These
places make strange angles and curves.
One street crosses itself time or two.
An artist once discovered valuable
possibility in this street. Suppose a
collector with bill for paints, paper
and canvas should in trayersing this
route suddenly meet himself coming
back without a cent having been paid
ON account!
So to quaint old Greenwich village
the art people soon came prowling.
hunting for north windows and eight
eenth century gables and Dutch attics
and low rents. Then they imported
some pewter mugs and chatting dish
or two from Sixth avenue and became
"colony."
At the top Of squatty three story
brick Sue and Johnst had their studio.
Johnsy was familiar for Joanna One
was from Maine, the other from Cal
ifornia. They had met at the table
d'hote of an Eighth street "Delmon-
chicory salad and bishop sleeves so
congenial that the joint studio resulted.
That was in May. In November
cold, unseen stranger. whom the doe
tors called Pneumonia. stalked about
the colony, touching one here and there
with his icy finger. Over on the east
side this ravager strobe boldly. smit-
ing his victims by scores, but his feet
trod slowly through the maze of the
narrow and moss grown places.
Mr. Pneumonia was not what you
would call chivalric old gentleman.
A mite of little woman with blood
thinned by California zephyrs was hard
ly fair game for the red isted, short
breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he
smote, and she lay, scarcely moving,
on her painted iron bedstead looking
| through the small Dutch windnwpanes
at the blank side of the next brick
! house.
| One morning the busy doctor invited
Sue into the hallway with shaggy
gray eyebrow
"She has one chance in. let US say,
ten." he said as he shook down the
mercury in his clinical thermometer
"and that chance is for her to want
to live. This way people have of lin
ing up on the side of the undertaken
makes the entire pharmacopoeia looh
silly Your little lady has made uI
her mind that she's not going to gel
we'll. Has she anything on her mind p
"She-she wanted to paint the bay
of Naples some day." said Sue.
paint? Bosh! Has she anything OF
her mind worth thinking about twice
man, for instancey"
"a man?" said Sue, with jewsharl
twang in her voice. "Is man worth
But, no, doctor, there is nothing of th'
!, kind"
"Well. it is the weakness, then," SAT-
the doctor II will do all that science
: SO far as it may filter through my ef
forts. can accomplish. But wheneve
my patient begins to count the car
riages in her funeral procession sui
tract 50 per cent from the curatiy
power of medicines. If you will ge
her to ask one question about the ne,
winter styles in cloak sleeves wi
promise you one in five chance fo
her instead Of one in ten"
After the doctor had gone Sue wen
into the workroom and cried Japs
nese napkin to a pulp. Then she swas
gered into Johnsy's room with be
drawing board. whistling ragtime.
Johnsy lay. scarcely making ripp
under the bedclothes. with her face t
ward the window Sue stopped viii
thing. thinking she was asleep.
She arranged her board and began
pen and ink drawing to illustrate
magazine story Young artists lnu
pave their way to art by drawing pi
lures for magazine stories that your
authors write to pave their way
literature.
AS Sue was sketching a pair of el
CANT horse show riding trousers and
|monocle on the figure of the hero. ;
Idaho cowboy. she heard low souI
several times repeated. She we
quickly to the bedside.
Johnsy's eyes were open wide. y
was looking out the window and coul
ing-counting backward.
..Twclye," she said, and little LAT
eleven and then ten" and "nin'
and then eight and seven almt
together.
Sue looked solicitously out the W
| dow. What was there to count? The
| was only Il bare, dreary yard to
! seen and the blank side Of the brl
Il house twenty feet away. An old.
ivy vine gnarled and decayed at
roots climbed halfway up the br
wall. The cold breath Of autumn f
stricken it's leaves from the vine VI
it's skeleton branches clung aim
bare to The crumbling bricks.
"What is it. dear?' asked Sue.
"Six." Said Johnsy in almost a wi
per. ",Ihey're falling faster M
Three days ago there were almos
hundred. 1t made my head ache
count them. But now it's easy. III
goes another one. There are only
ct, left now"
"Five what, dear? Tell your Sud
. Leaves on the ivy vine. When
last one falls l must go too.
known that for three days. Didn't
doctor tell you?"
"Oh, l never heard OF such !
sense" complained Sue. with q
nificent scorn. What have old
leaves to do with your getting y
And you used to love that vine SO,
naughty girl Don't be goosey. Y
the doctor told me this morning
your chances for getting we'll real .