The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-05-13
BY Roland A. Phillips.

others punched the clock four times
day at the side entrance of the
Smith department-store, in New
York. Companionship of this sort
did not soften his view of life
If there was such thing as a con-
suming, undying hatred, John Parent
held it against the human ant-hill Of
Manhattan. He likened it to a pitt
less, grinding, ambition-sucking mou-
ster. The Elevated trains growled
at him as they pounded beneath his
bedroom window; automobiles chug-
ged and snorted and pursued him on
the streets; Subways smashed and
battered him underground. To him
Broadway was a vice-ridden, blazing
stretch of asphalt. The women were
so many artificial, painted automat-
ons, callous, buried in finery; the
men brazen, pasty-faced, empty-eyed
and characterless.
John Parent sweltered in summer
and shivered in winter. His landla-
dy watched him, hawklike; cross-ex-
amined and defied him. Of possible
friends he had none. To him there was
never night or day-merely a cum
ming arrangement, divided between
the hours when he stood behind his
silk counter and the hours when he
sat in his high room above the Ele-
waited railroad.
Being fresh from that little known
and little regarded region west Of
the Hudson River, he was an alien.
His tired feet never felt the yield of
soft, warm earth-only wore them
selves out on soulless pavements. In
place of wide, clean skies, he got
smoke and fog and dust; for fra
grant breezes he got the odor of fry
ing steaks and the reek of the river
tunnels. Instead of green fields and
waving trees, his weary eyes found
nothing but steel and stone and hid
eous brick. He could not see the
stars at night because of the cleo
trio signs. He computed the differ
ence between June and December
only in the fact of the temperature
and the change in his room rent.
All in all, John was sick in heart |
and in body, and wondered if he
could ever have courage to write |!
home and ask for his old job on the
delivery wagon that he used to drive.
OF his precious seven dollars a
week, the hawklike landlady took
five, in exchange for the high room
and the wretched food He took his
noon lunch in a musty reimbursement, !
where coffee and crullers cost nick
ell He shined his own shoes, darn
ed his own socks, and pressed his
own trousers. His handkerchiefs ne
washed out in the bowl and pasted
on his wrinkly mirror. On Sundays
he rested, wrote home, and occas-
ionally visited moving-picture
show on Fourteenth street, where
the yellowest sort of drama could
be had for five cents.
One day he saw the girl at the
glove counter with a heavy bunch of
violets pinned at her belt. AS he
passed her in the crowded clock
punching lobby he spoke.
used to pick millions of them
down in the fields back home" he
ventured. Haven't seen any since
then"
"You can get a swell bunch for
two-bits," the girl announced indif-
ferently.
John Parent WINGED, for the idea
of buying a violet was horrible. AT
ter all, he reflected, it was only an
other sham that the ant-heap fore
ed upon its jewellers.
That same night he found let
ter from his mother, which told him
that all the apple-trees were in
bloom, and that the old orchard
looked like a pink and white sea- A
quick lump swelled into his throat
as he remembered the big tree that
reared itself beside his window, back
home. 1t would be one mass of col
or now, and the fragrance would
steal through the curtains.
He came to his feet and shook
his clenched fists out over the vista
of ugly roofs, tapping clothes, and
brick chimneys.
"How I hate it ALL" he cried. "How
hate it all"
The clatter of an Elevated train
Knocked his helplessness.
Mr.. Rufus, the pompous fioor-walk-
er of his department, asked him one
day If he had noticed the improve
ment in the store lights
Yes" ne admitted, "but the sun