The Palatka news and advertiser., 1916-01-14
TRADITION UP SET
MARY LANlER MAGRUDER MAGAZINE
A few ponderous, magnificent gentle
men shook hands with him, but fad

A few ponderous, magnificent gentle
men shook hands with him, but fad
ed away into the depths of circles
gossiping and quoting Shakespeare in
sunny corners. Over by the big win
dow in the circuit court room stood
the county Judge, the mellow remem-
brance of seventy summers and many
times seventy juleps pervading his
manner, his bearing. From the very
pinnacle Of tradition the judge looked
down and casually nodded at Jimmy.
Jimmy jerked out bow, redeemed,
and made mental mark of that nod,
lurid and indellible, had the judge but
known it.
Three years of Jimmy's term had
passed when on that April afternoon
he ran down the steps and bent his
trail to the westward. Yet Jimmy
lived far to the south of the court
house in that thick, treeless, huddled
row of cottages well up from the mill
folks dwellings, but not within sight
or sound of the somnolent elegance
of Cherry Hill. Jimmy set his hat
straight and yanked at his tie when
he crossed, cat-a-corner, to the north
side of the street square above J..
judges grey stone house.
At this psychological moment Mary
Ella, the judges niece, looked up from
her book for the forty-ninth time. A
very f1eeting, naughty glance it was.
Then Mary Ella turned her shoulder
instead of her profile to the window
and leaned upon her elbow, her lips
apart and as red as the Meteor rose
blooming on the ledge beside her. A
very absorbing and thrilling book it
must have been to hold her to one
page for an hour and fifteen minutes!
When Jimmy looked up expectantly
as was his won't, hopefully (as also
had grown to be his WON'T, the chill,
line of shoulder, the Indifferent poise
of the head were all he had of MARY
Ella for another twenty-four hours.
A meager, diluted, thin-as-charity-
soup sort of thing to fire and feed
upon, unless Jimmy, involuntarily
looking back with stifled sigh, was
not mistaken in the wild assurance
that Mary Ella had looked back, too
He took this home with him, mood
ily surveying the different angles of
it. For Mary Ella might have glanc-
ed back over her shoulder to see if
some expected friend were coming
up the quiet street-August Single
tary, for instance, or that anemic
scion of her own race, Randolph E.
Randolph III.
"The yellow sapsucker!" Jimmy
scowled. "I'll show him up for all
yellow on that darned cement deal"
"What's eating you, jimmy" said
a friendly voice behind him. "Chew-
in 'em up and spittin' 'em out over
at the temple of justice?"
"Uh-huh," Jimmy said. "Leaves
a morning-after taste"
whats this little row hear about
you runnin' for county judge?" The
friend buttonholed him, as is the way
of friends when seeking information.
1'm going to run, all right" "
snapped Jimmy.
"See here"-the friend was Tom
Lally and he was persuasive and
concerned. you're going to buck
"a tiger IN tnat JudgeSnlp business,
Jimmy. The old judge-well, you
know, he's calculating to hold down
that bench till his knees waggle un-
der him and they tote him out. Then
there's Timothy Connolly of the G. C.
amt got any bowling love for you
since you got his road upon the back
tax business. You better keep from
under the Hon. Timothy; creased
amt nowhere"
"How much do you get for this lit
tie spiel?" Jimmy said brutally.
Lally spat-and released Jimmy's
buttonhole.
"I'm talking for your own good,
Jimmy"
"Aw, thanks!" Jimmy said satiri-
cally. "Don't be too uneasy about
mo. kaen your shirt on. and If YOU