Cleveland County herald., 1919-09-18

| was parted Tn the middle, Ike ms l grandson's, and in all he stood as 1 briskly equipped to the fashion as the
 exquisite young George.
 Isabel, standing between her father | and her son, caused a vague amaze
 ment in the mind of the latter. Her
 age, just under forty, was for George
 a thought of something as remote as
 the moons of Jupiter: he could not l possibly have conceived such an age l ever coming to be his own: five years
 Five years ago he had been a child
 not yet fourteen; and those five years
 were an abyss. Five years hence he
 would be almost twenty-four; what l the girls he knew called lone of the
 older men," He could imagine himself
 at twenty-four, but beyond that his l powers staggered and refused the
 task. He saw little essential differ
 ence between thirty eight and eighty
 eight and his mother was to him not | woman but wholly a mother. The
 woman, Isabel, was a stranger to her
 son; as completely a stranger as if 1 he had never in his life seen her or heard her voice. And it was tonight, while he stood with her, receiving"
 that he caught a disquieting glimpse
 of this stranger whom he thus feet
 ingly encountered for the first time. Youth cannot imagine romance
 apart from youth. That is why the roles of the heroes and heroines of
 plays are given by the managers to
 the most youthful actors they can find
 among the competent. Both middle aged people and young people enjoy
 play about young lovers; but only middle-aged people will tolerate a play about niddle-aged lovers; young
 people will not come to see such a
 lovers are a joke-not a very funny
 one. Therefore, to bring both the
 middle-aged people and the young
 people into his house the manager
 makes his romance as young as he
 con. Youth will indeed be served, and
 its profound instinct is to be not only
 sc0rnfully amused but vaguely an
 gered by middle-aged romance So,
 standing beside his mother, George
 was disturbed by a sudden impression.
 coming upon him out of nowhere, so far as he could detect, that her eyes were brilliant, that she was graceful and youthful-in word that she was romantically lovely
 He had one of those curious moments that seem to have neither a cause nor any connection with actual things. There was nothing in either her looks or her manner to explain Georges un- comfortable feeling; and yet it in- creased, becoming suddenly vague resentment, as if she had done some thing unmothcrly to him.
 The fantastic moment passed: and even while it lasted he was doing his duty, greeting two pretty girls with whom he had grown up, as people say, and warmly assuring them that he re- membered them very well-an assur- ance which might have surprised them "in anybody but Georgie Mlnaferp It seemed unnecessary, since he had spent many hours with them no longer than the preceding August. They had with them their parents and an uncle from out of town; and George negli- surance he had given the daughters, but murmured another form of greet ing to the out-of-town uncle, whom he had never seen before. This per son George absently took note of as a "queer-loolling duck" Undergradu ates had not yet adopted "bird." It was period previous to that in which a sophomore would have thought of the Sharon girls uncle as a "queer- looking bird" or perhaps funny face bird" In Georges time every hu man male was to be defined at pleas ure as "duck;" but ''duck" was not spoken with admiring affection. as in its former feminine use to signify a "dear'-on the contrary, duck" inn piled the speakers personal detach ment and humorous superiority. An indifferent amusement was what George felt when his mother, with gentle emphasis, interrupted his in- terchange of courtesies with the nieces to present him to the queer looking duck. their uncle. This em- phasis of Isabel's. though slight en- ahled George to perceive that she con sidered the queer-loolling duck per son of some importance; but it was far from enabling him to understand why. The duck parted his thick and longish black hair on the side; his tie was a forgetful-looking thing and his coat, though it fitted a good enough middle-aged figure, no product of this year, or of last year either. Observing only his unfashionable hair, his preoccupied tie and his old coat, the Olympic George set him down as queer-looking duck, and having thus completed his portrait took no inter- est in him.
 The Sharon girls passed on, taking the queer-ooking duck with them, and George became pink with mortifica- ton as his mother called his attention