The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1919-10-30

LLlkAk,EfSC O >SAE<N4
I'VE plan 10 stay six weeks IL tn
place agrees with him. 1t does really
e seem 20 already! He's Just called x
: the door TO say he's waiting. DOM
, smoke too much. darling boy.
"Deyotedly. your mother.
ISABEL"
But she did not keep her husband
there for the six weeks she ANTICIPATED
She did not keep him anywhere that
long. Three weeks after writing this
letter. she telegraphed suddenly to
George that they were leaving for
home at once; and four days later,
when he and a friend came whistling
Into his study, from lunch at the club,
he found another telegram upon his
desk.
He read II twice before he compre-
hended it's import.
Papa left US at ten this morning,
dearest.
MOTHER"
The friend saw the change In his
face. "Not bad newsf'
George lifted utterly d~umfounded
eyes from the yellow paper.
MY father" he said weakly. "She
says-she says he's dead. I've got to
go home"
His Uncle George and the
Major met him at the station when he
arrived-the first time the Major had
ever come to meet his grandson. The
old gentleman sat In his closed car
rage (which still needed paint) at the
entrance 70 the station, but he got out
and advanced to grasp Georges hand
TREMENDOUSLY, when the latter appeared
Poor fellowi" he said, and patted him
repeatedly upon the shoulder. poor
fellow Poor George !"
George noticed that the Majors
RIGHTEOUSNESS did not disappear. as
they drove up the street, and that he
seemed much feebler than during the
summer. Principally. however, George
was concerned with his W emotion,
or rather, with his lack of emotion
and h anxious sympathy of his grand
father and his uncle made him fed
hypocritical. He was not grief-stricK-
en-; but he felt that he ought to be.
and, with a secret shame, concealed
his callousness beneath an affectation
of solemnity.
But when he was taken into the
room where lay what was left Of VIII
bur Minafer. George had no longer to
pretend his grief was sufficient. 1t
needed only the sight Of that forever
inert semblance of the quiet man who
had been always Sc quiet q part 81 his
sons life-sO quiet a part that George
had seldom been consciously aware
that his father was indeed a part of
his life. AS the figure lay there, Its
very quletness was what was most life
like; and suddenly 1t struck George
hard. And In that unexpected, racking
grief Of his son. Wilbur Minafer be-
came more wildly Georges father
than he had ever been In life.
When George left the room, his arm
was about his black-robed mother. his
were still shaken with sobs.
He leaned upon his mother /; she gently
him; and presently he re-
covered his composure and became
self-c0nscious enough to wonder IL he
had not been making an unmanly dis
play of himself. ''T'm all right again,
mother" he said awkwardly. Don't
worry about me: you'd better go lie
down, or something; you look pretty
pale"
Isabel did look pretty pale, but not
CHASTITY pale, as Fanny did. Fanny's
grief was overwhelming she stayed In
her room, and George did not see her
until the next day, a few minutes be-
fore the funeral, when her haggnrd
face appalled, him.
The annoyance gave way before a
recollection Of the sweet mournfulness
Of his mothers face, as she had said
good-by TO him at the station, and of
how lovely she looked In her mourning.
He thought OF Lucy. whom he had seen
only twice, and he could not help feel
Ing that In these quiet interviews he
had appeared to her as tinged with
herolsm-she had shown, rather than
said, how brave she. thought him.
When he went back to college. what
came most wildly 10 Georges mind,
during retrospections. was the despair
Ing face Of his Aunt Fanny. Again and
again he thought Of it; he could not
avoid It's haunting. Her grief had been
so silent, yet II had so amazed him.
George felt more and more compass
sion for this ancient antagonist of his,
and he wrote to his mother about her:
I'm afraid poor Aunt Fanny might
think now fathers gone we won't want
her to live with us any longer and be-
a / always teascd her so much she
might think I'd be for turning her ont.
I don't know where ON earth she'd go
or what she could live on II we did do
something like this. and Of course we
v would do such a thing, but I'm
pretty sure she had something OF the
kind on her mind. She didn't say any
thing. but the way she looked Is what
makes me think 80. Honestly. to me
she looked just scared sick You tell
her there isn't any danger II the world
OF my treating her like that. Tel: Slur
4v~orvthfnep q - - - xsssk &c ~ ~