Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1910-10-20
CHAPTER xvlI:-(continued.)

Beyond the looming roofs as they
descended the hill she saw white sails
sink out of sight. All the panorama
upon which she had looked down
.sprang up around her, large and liv-
ing. He whistled to the car as he
helped her down the last steep pitch,
whistled and waved, and they ran
for 1t.
This was never the car one went
out the front door to take. This creak-
ed and crawled low, taking the cor
ners comfortably, past houses with
all their windows blinking recogni-
ton. Hadn't 1t passed them so for 20
years? Old houses In long gardens,
and little houses creeping back behind
their yards, not vet ~encroached upon
by fresher ties of living. Past all
these and gliding down under high,
ragged banks, green grass above with
wooden stairways struggling up their
naked faces; past these again; past
lower levels; past little gray and
scluttered houses; past loaded carts of
vegetables; past children playing
sshrilly, bearing down always on the
green square of the plaza wide, worn
and foreign, and the Greek church
doomed" with blue and yellow, bear
ing down as il 1t had fairly determined
to make its course straight through
this stable center. Then in the very
shadow 1t swerved aside to clatter off
In quite another direction along a
wider street with winter shops, and
more glittering windows with gilded
letters flashing foreign names, with
more marked and brilliant colors NOV
ing in the crowd, with a clearer
stamp on all Of Latin living.
Then suddenly for them the slid
ing panorama ceased. The car had
stopped and they had left it, and were
standing upon the corner Of a still
street that came down from the high
hills behind them and crossed the
car track and climbed again a little
way to curve over into the sky. Dingy
houses two blocks above them stood
~=silhouetted against the blue. They
were walking upward toward this no.
Iizon, leaving color and motion be-
hind them. With every step the street
grew moro empty, lonely and color.
less. Many of the windows that glim-
msfed at them, passing, were the
blank windows Of empty houses. Were
they taking this way, this curious
roundabout, out-of-the-world way, Of
dropping over into the shipping which
lay under the hill? For all she knew
this might really be his notion, for
since they left the garden gate,
though they had looked together at
the light and color Of the pictures
moving past their eyes, they had not
exchanged a word.
But all at once he stopped at the
intersection of two dusty streets, and
his ayes veered down the four per.
spectives like a voyageur taking his
.~soundings. Elegant as ever and odd
enough, yet he wasn't any odder here
at the jumping off place Of nowhere
that he had appeared in the box at
the theater or In the picture gallery.
She had the clear impression all at
once that he wasn't too odd for any
thing.
Here we are!" he said, and indi.
Gated with his glittering stick straight
before them a little house. It was low,
as IL 1t crouched against the wind,
faded and beaten by the sun to the
-drab of the rock itself, and made SC
secret with ~tight-drawn curtains that
1t seemed to have shut itself UP
against the world forever. She wa
vered. She wasn't afraid of herself
out here, out-of-doors under the sky.
but she was afraid that those -four
walls might shut out her new un'
reasoning Joy, might steal away bis
new tenderness, and bring her back
face to face with the same ugly fact
that had confronted her in her draw
ing room.
ooh, no." she said, and put her
hands behind her with a determine
ton that she wasn't going to move.
"Oh, yes" he said, but he didnh
smile. He looked at her quite grave
". reproachfully, and the touch Of bis