The Washington herald., 1913-07-13
CHAPTER H-Continued.

Rube, you old Indian!
Rube grinned all over his swarthy
face. "Old top. how are you?
High, wide, and handsomep
"You don't look that last Wiley.
How's the old Lady,"
Aunt Abby's fit as silk. Come up
dinner"
Il intend to. Hey, the kids still
playing ball on the lot like they did
when / was kidG'
Season closed. Rubes Where did
your bunch wind up?'
in the cellar. I'm through with the
game, Wiley. I can't throw to second
no more. My arms all in. No more
of this bush-league ball for me. Car
michael's still got that job for me
chambermaid to his livery horses:'
Mr.. Curran laughed sorrowfully. So
did Rube Van Hart. He rubbed his
big red hands and then a telltale big
red nose and looked down at the town
kids who had assembled to gaze in
awe One raced off to the high
school practice to spread the news:
Hi, Rubc Van Harris got back"
Everybody knew Rube. Poor old
Rube The whole nation knew Rube
a while back-let's see. Was it with
the Cubs. 1901 or 'o2? Eh, the bubble
reputation! There were other mighty
men now. Rube had gone back to the
bush
Next spring." went on the former
Lacquer, I'll stay and coach the high
school bunch, Wiley
when you begin to read the Sunday
down in San Antonio you'll be missing
some fine morning. Gone TO help break
III the Cub recruits, and then you'll
play out the season with the Cotton
League or the Three-C."
No more. Here's my finish, Wiley
right here where | learned the game
next the News lot. Back in the old
town where you come back, too. Wiley.
Back where we was kids together
The editor looked wistfully across
the courthouse square. The big leag-
uer's glance followed. A bar of the
sunset lighted the dingy old court
house. The windows were open. From
the courtroom above came the voice of
some lawyer droning his plea~to a
f:rmer jury. In an Office on the lower
floor one could see a woman bent seri-
ously over a desk Uttered with pa
pers and reports.
The old red, west side school"
murmured Rube. And there's Janet
Vance, and now she's county superin-
tendent. and I'm all in, and you're a
fool editor. That girl got ahead of us
all, Wiley. since we was kids together"
Wiley sighed. He pulled his short
brown beard. that Vandyke which, in
Rome. lent him foreign air and gave
him the reputation of being literary,
whatever that meant Nobody, not
even the fool editor, knew exactly. Yet
nobody was afraid of Mr.. Curran. The
kids spoke of him as Wiley" all the
old women came in to tell him their
neighborhood troubles; and on High
Street the best families ignored him,
even with the irritated feeling that on
points of the worldly manner he was
infinitely better versed than they, and
that he was laughing at them. 1t was
known that Mr.. Curran had been to
Europe. 1t was rumored that he had
been in jail One can learn a deal in
each. Mr. Curran, i, seems, had
learned to laugh.
Every time / come back to the old
town." unused Rube, q wonder why
you didn't marry Janet. Everybody
thought you would" He added apollo |
getically: She thought you would"
Wiley shrugged. Old friends can
say much and hurt little.
WHY the blazes," resumed Rube, |
don't you marry her yet? You and
your old shop! Then you'd make a |
living. If she'd married me, I'd been
batting 400. Now, see, I'm a busher
and going down"
Wiley sat listening. q suppose" he
murmured, like a man who relishes |
his anticipation, but draws back from
its ends. He had swung the circle of
the West like most of the Midland
young men: Homesteading in Dakota.
mining, timber cruising, selling real es-
tate, running country papers, leading |
forlorn hopes of impossible reforms in |
the wide-open camps of Nevada and |
Montana, fruit-raising on the Mata-
gorda coast of Texas, exploiting rec
iamation projects in Louisiana-always |
the enthusiast, the dreamer, gaining for |
himself nothing at all except the ardor |
of the game-the mighty and expiring |
drama of the old West in the nineties |
be had seen and lived and exulted in +; |
free-footed and shiftless for sixteen
years he had missed nothing of the |
last of the great days. He had written |
once of the final roundup in the
southwestern cattle country, and its |
epic note had aroused the magazine
makers for its brilliance and its pathos.
A dying fame with the life it cele-
brated. He had done nothing more
he was back in the old town, and mere
ly Curran of the News
He looked from Janet Vance's Of
fee window to his shop, a long one
story building, unpainted, gray, like
worm that crawled hungrily down
from the bluff to High Street to stare
at the courthouse from its two grimy
windows. You would never have
thought that out of this lethargic mon
ster came more contraband opinions,
and into it more unpaid bills than any
printshop in Iowa.
Over the lawn from the basement
Jail came man who smelled of car
bolic acid. The town kids knew he
was a "trusty" and that some of the
prisoners came every day to get ex-
changes from the News office. The
fumigated one spoke pleasantly TO the
EDITOR and went in for the papers. He
the editors desk, opened a
drawer and filled his pipe from the
adifor's fohacco and came or,f In the