The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1915-03-05

There are two ways of doing battle
against disgrace. You may live i
down; or you may run away from II
and hide. The first method is heart
breaking, but sure. The second can
not be relied upon because of the un
comfortable way disgrace has Of turn
ing up at your heels just when you
think you have eluded her in the last
town but one
Ted Yerrill did not choose the first
methed. He had it thrust upon him.
After Ted had served his term he
came back home to visit his mothers
grave, intending to take the next train
out. He wore none of the prison pal
lor that you read about in books, be-
cause he had been shortstop on the
penitentiary all-star baseball team, and
famed for the dexterity with which he
could grab up red-hot grounders. The
stored lock step and the clipped hair
effect also were missing. The super
intendent of Ted's prison had been one
of the reform kind.
You never would have picked Ted
for a criminal. He had none of those
interesting chronological bumps and
depressions that usually are shown to
such frank advantage in the Bertillon
photographs. Ted had been assistant
cashier in the Citizens National bank.
In q mad moment he had attempted a
+. little sleight-of-hand act in which GER
tain Citizens National funds were to
be transformed into certain glittering
shares and back again so quickly that
the examiners couldn't follow it with
their eyes. But Ted was unaccustomed
to these now-you-see-it-and-n
don't feats and his hand slipped. The
trick dropped to the floor with an
awful clatter
Ted had been lovable young kid,
six feet high, and blond, with a great
reputation as a dresser. He had the
first yellow plush hat in our town. 1t |
sat on his golden head like a halo !
The women all liked Ted. Mrs Dank- |
worth, the dashing widow (why will |
widows persist in being dashing?), |
said that he was the only man in our |
town who knew how to wear a dress
suit. The men were forever slap |.
ping him on the back and asking him
to have little something. Ted's good
looks and his clever tongue and GER
tain charming Irish way he had with
him caused him to be taken up by the
smart set. Now, if you've never lived
in small town you will be much
amused at the idea of its boasting a
smart set. Which proves your igno-
rance. The small town smart set is
deadly serious about its smartness.
1t likes to take six-hour runs down to
the city to fit pair of shoes and hear
Caruso. Its clothes are as we'll made,
and its scandals as crisp, and it's pace
as hasty, and it's golf club as dull as [
the clothes and scandals and pace and
golf club of it's city cousins.
The hasty pace killed Ted He tried
whose fathers had made our town. {
And all the time his pocketbook was
yelling, "Whoa!" The young people q
ran largely to scarlet upholstered tour y
ing cars and country-club doings and a
house parties, as small town younger il
generations are apt to. When Ted il
went to high school half the boys in k
his little clique spent their after-school o
hours dashing up and down Main Y
street in their big, glittering cars, sit n
ing slumped down on the middle of if
heir spines in front of the steering h
Wheel, their sleeves rolled up, their W
lair combed a militant pompadour. m
)ne or the other of them always took b
Fed along. 1t is fearfully easy to de- II