The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1914-02-26
MAN ABOUT TOWN
(By Leroy Armstrong;

|
Maybe the world will laugh will
you il you laugh, and maybe you nov
and then need the incentive yourself
Maybe things are little gloomy, anC
If the world would show you some rea.
son for the smile, your heart would gel
lighter and your face would gel
brighter, and the whole day would
seem filled with sunshine-no matter
how many clouds were in the sky.
And 1t was cloudy the other day. As
| came down town | tried to remember
when the sunshine had been visible.
Days and weeks-mabye months-of
gloom! Talk about laughing, and get
ting the world to laugh with me!
didn't want to laugh. and didn't crea
whether the world laughed. | didn't
believe there war laugh anywhere in
it.
And Just then a girl rode along and
tied her horse to the telephone post in
front of the Office and went tripping
gaily away. She was such nice girl,
and seemed so in tune with all good
things and so tempered for the catch
ing of happiness, that she shook my
mood little. ] quit wondering and
half hoping-that it was unlawful for
her to tie her pony to the telephone
pole, and thinking of the look of her
when they arrested her, and what she
would do, and whom she would call,
and what was the possible worst that
the vengeance of an outraged ordi-
nance would enact, as the price of her
perfidy. And then the horse shook
free from the pole, as the girl having
not tied him very securely which is
the habit of girls; and while | was
half wishing he would run away, along
came man and saw the loosened
pony, and caught him and tied him up
again. He hadn't seen the girl. He
didn't have any inducement to 90 out
Of his way catching ponies for strange
people who violated the law. But
remembered him..
Then the marshal found Fan old man
who had served his time as a useful
citizen through many years, had retired
with a little money. but had lived
longer than he expected--or perhaps
had desired; who didn't have dollar,
or home, or friend-or a debt. Get
the last word? Didn't owe debt in
all the world. Helpness, homeless,
pretty badly discouraged, maybe not
so presentable as he had been in his
workaday years, he couldn't see sun
shine even in the jauntiest days of
June. But the marshal told some
women about the old fellow, and they
provided him a decent place to live,
and others found enough for him to
eat, and he had bath aud shave and
a dress of clean clothes, and all the
world looked bright to him. He didn't
say much, but as he sat in silence
where their kindness had landed him,
tear splashed down on his weak old
hand and surprised him. And that
helped.
A big business man came back from
his annual vacation. lie had been all
the way to Portland, and had spent
nearly month there, and had met the
biggest men of his line in the state,
and they had been courteous to him,
had shown him some of the post-gradu-
ate work Of their wide reaching houses.
had taken.him to lunch, and sat through
pleasant evenings with him, and he
had caught glimpses of the deeper
water where they SO strongly swan.
But he said he was glad to get back
home; glad he lived in Hood River
glad of the vacation, but content to
make it only brief and temporary alb
sence. 81 am very happy here," he
said. And all that wasn't easily for
gotten.
A fat little boy of about four years
was walking along the street, not SO
very fast and not very straight, with
a curious look in the eyes that no man
could read. but which a good woman
interpreted at glance as she passed
him. He was lost, and he was far too
brave to admit it even to himself. His
parents lived up in the valley some
and he had ventured to wander
out of the store where his mother was
trading, and she didn't miss him until
he had turned the corner-and was ab-
vanished. But the woman.
who had kiddies of her own, stopped
down and took his hand and said
Where's mother?" And he let 90
one sob, and then caught himself with
manly courage and told her his mother
was lost but he went with his new
found friend back on the main streets,
where it was as certain as day his
mother would be looking for him. And
'he was. And the good woman went
,n-and forgot all about it. But |
lidn't.
A man who has been bothered with
business until he knew his judgment |
vas losing its quality of certainty, that
lis sense of values was being warped. |
md that his enterprise was oozing
rom the finger tips of enforced idle
less-that man laid awake half the |
light trying to think of some turn to
make in his financial problem, and
he had failed to find it. He |
ooled about the house in the morning,
rifled with his breakfast, tinkered at
lslf a dozen things that didn't need
i'm at all, and then started down town,
Vhere there was no profitable need of |
lis going. And the wife, who had
.nown every wave of the trouble that
Washed over him, but never had given
sign-she followed him to the door