Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1916-08-17
CHAPTER xxxilI.

There was q heavy town-fog that
afternoon. smoke-mist, densest in the
sanctuary OF the temple. The people
went about in 1t, busy and dirty.
thlckening their outside and inside
Innings of coal-tar, asphalt, sulphurous
acid, oil of vitriol, and the other famil
lar things the men liked to breathe and
TO have upon their skins and garments
and upon their wives and babies and
sweethearts. The growth of the city
was visible in the smoke and the noise
and the rush. There was more smoke
than there had been this day Of Febru-
airy year earlier; there was more
noise; and the crowds were thicker
yet quicker in spite of that. The traf-
hc policeman had a hard time. for
the people were independent-they re
tanned some habits of the old market
town period, and would cross the
street anywhere and anyhow, which
not only got them killed more frequent
ly than If they chung to the legal cross
ings, but kept the motormen, the chauf-
feurs and the truck drivers In stew
of profane nervousness. So the traf-
fic policemen led harried lives; they
themselves were killed, of course. with
a certain periodicity, but their main
trouble was that they could not make
the citizens realize that it was actu-
ally and MORALLY perilous to go about
their city. 1t was strange, for there
were probably no citizens of any
length of residence who had not per-
sonally known either someone who had
been killed or injured in an accident.
or someone who had accidentally killed
or injured others. And yet, perhaps
1t was not strange, seeing the sharp
preoccupation of the faces-the people
had something on their minds; they
could not stop to bother about dirt and
| danger.
Mary Vertrees was not often down
town; she had never seen an accident
until this afternoon. She had come
upon errands for her mother connected
with a timorous REIMBURSEMENT; and as
she did these. In and out of the depart
ment stores, she had an insistent con-
seriousness of the Sheridan building
From the street, anywhere, 1t was al
most always in sight, like some mon
strous geometrical shadow, murk-col-
ored and rising limitlessly into the
swimming heights of the smoke mist
1t was gaunt and grimy and repellent;
1t had nothing but strength and size
but In that consciousness of Mary's
the great structure may have partaken
of beauty. Sheridan had made some
of the things he said emphatic enough
to remain with her. She went over
and over them--and they began to
seem true: only one girl he could
feel that sorry for" "Gurney says
he's got you on his brain so bad"
The mans clumsy talk began to sing
in her heart. The song was begun
there when she saw the accident.
She was directly opposite the Sheri-
dan building then, waiting for the traf-
| fic to thin before she crossed, though
other people were risking the passage,
darling and hating and lodging par.
| lousy. Two men came from the crowd
behind her, talking earnestly. and
started across. Both wore black; one
was tall and broad and thick, and the
other was taller. but noticeably slen-
der. And Mary caught her breath. for
they were Bibbs and his father. They
did not see her, and she caught a
phrase of Bibbs' mellow voice, which
had taken a crisper ring: "sixty-eight
thousand dollars? Not sixty-eight thou.
sand buttonsw 1t startled her queerly,