The Montgomery tribune., 1910-08-26
CHAPTER VIII.
The Second Section.

Have you ever been picked up out
Of your three-meals-a-day life, whirled
around in a tornado of events, and
landed In a situation so grotesque and
yet so horrible that you laugh even
while you are groaning, and straining
at its hopelessness? Mcknight says
that is hysteria, and that no man
worthy of the name ever admits to it.
Also as Mcknight says, it sounds
like tank drama. Just as the revolv-
ing saw is about to cut the hero into
| stove lengths, the second villain blows
up the sawmill. The hero goes up
through the roof and alights on the
bank of stream at the feet of his
lady love, who is making daisy chains.
| Nevertheless. when / was safely
home again, with Mrs. Klopton brew
| ing strange drinks that came In paper
packets from the pharmacy, and that
| smelled to heaven, l remember stag.
| gering to the door and closing 1t, and
then going back to bed and bowling
out the absurdity and the madness OF
the whole thing And while / laughed
my very soul was sick, for the girl
was gone by that time, and knew by
all the loyalty that answers between
men for honor that l would have to
put her out of my mind.
And yet, all the night that followed,
filled as it was with the shrieking de-
mons of pain, saw her as | had seen
her last, in the queer hat with green
ribbons I told the doctor this, guard
ed'y. tho next morning, and he said it
wos the morphia, and that was lucky
not to have seen row of devils with
green tails.
/ don't know anything about the
wreck of September 9 last. You who
swallowed the details with your coffee
and digested the horrors with your
chop, probably know a great deal more
than do. / remember very distinctly
that the jumping and throbbing in my
arm brought me back to a world that
at first was nothing but sky, heap OF
clouds that thought hazily were the
meringue on blue charlotte russo
As the sense of hearing. was slowly
added to vision. heard woman neal
me sobbing that she had lost her hat
pin, and she couldn't keep her hat ON
l think I dropped back into uncon
sciousness again, for the next thint
remember was of my blue patch O.
sky clouded with smoke, of a strange
roaring and cracking, of a rain o
fiery sparks in my face and of some
body beating at me with feeble hands
opened my eyes and closed then
again. The girl in blue was bending
over me- With that imperviousnes'
to big things and keenpess to small
that is the first effect of shock. tries
to be facetious, when spark stunl
my cheek.
"You will have to rouse yourself!
the girl was repeating desperately
You've been in fire twice already.
A piece of striped ticking fioated slow
ly over my head. AS the wind caugh
1t its charring edges leaped into flame
Looks like kite. doesn't it?'
remarked cheerfully. And then, a
my arm gave an excruciating throb--
love, how my arm hurts."
The, girl bent over and spoke slow
ly. distinctly, as one might speak to
deaf person or child.
Listen, Mr. Blakeley," she sal
earnestly. "You must rouse yonrsel
There has been terrible accident
The second section ran into US. Tn
wreck is burning now. and If we don
move. we will catch fire. Do yo
hearf"
CTo BE coNTINuED)
Prelude to Immortal Life.