Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1920-01-08

THE BIG HOPE
BY LAURA DREW.
1N1N1NNN1N9,


business way
he had been so accustomed to tn
way people regarded him up home i
had been distinct shock to be over
looked. In Saginaw his father was tn,
old lumber king Jackson Lindley. Hi
boats were leaders in lake shipping
his name power in state politics anC
he had just one son to slip into hi.
! place.
The trouble was that son had inner
tied the temperament and looks of his
mother, Nanon Sevrier, a French-Ca
madam girl from the straits, whose
dark eyes and capricious ways had
drawn the silent Yankee lumberiack to
her, back in the early days in the
! northern forests.
Lindley had come out of Ann Arbor
with new viewpoint and the wander
! lust. His love affair with Bah Welles-
ley had been a natural result. She was
with little musical comedy company
that happened to strike Saginaw on its
route up the lake, and to Lindley she
was the personifcatiOn of the New
York world he longed to see and be a
part of. In his senior way he had
tried TO meet her and make her four
day stay whirlwind memory, but the
trouble was you couldn't find the max
ings Of a whirlwind In Saginaw. At
the end of the motor trips and little
Suppers after the show Bah said
good-by.
you're an awfully nice kid, Lind
If you ever hit New York you'd get
along great, If you'd keep your head
and not he like they are down there"
He had asked what she meant, and
she had only shrugged her shoulders.
+ Nothing she had said, only nobody
cared about anybody else down there.
They weren't neighborly; they just
didn't care whether you lived or died,
even if you happened to be next door
to them.
"You'n know what l mean If you
ever go there" she added.
Now he knew. He had moved from
the McAlpin into little furnished
room on a side street Not that he
had to. He could have wired home
for money. but he wanted to show the
old man he could stand on his own
and make good. There was nobody in
the roDming house who ever spoke to
him excepting the old Irish woman
who came to clean up his room.
But when he passed In and out he
often saw a girl at the telephone in
the lower hall. She attracted him
oddly, because she seemed like one of
the girls back home
Then one night he was wakened by
a smarting sensation in his throat
and he opened his eyes to find himself
in gray cloud.
From the basement windows the
smoke was pouring out thicky A
man passed in the falling snow and he
hailed him, telling him to turn in the
alarm at the corner while he reused
the n st of the house. He tried as he
made his way through the SmOke-filled
halls to remember the people in the
rooms above but on the third landing
Miss Donald met him, and She was
wrapped in a long gray cloak,
1--WE called them all" she told him
quietly. 1T is Just the furnace There
isn't any real danger of fire. Nora for
got to open the draughts before she
went to bed, and the house is filed
with coal gas and smoke. It's all right
now She went down to fix it.
'When there's so much smoke there
isn't much flame, Mr.. Lindley," she
said seriously.
How did you know my name?
didn't think anybody in New York
knew their neighbours names even" he
told her,
She laughed and hesitated.
you see. | know some one who
knows you. Bah Wellesley. She's in
the same show I am this season up az
the Jardin dps Fleurs, a roof show,
you know. I'm from the West, too,
Omaha, and we're friends, She was
down here to see me and recognized
YOU as you came through the hall but
YOU didn't seem to remember her. But
| know all about you, and I've wanted
to talk 10 you so much and tell you
to 60 back home"
"Go back2' he repeated. "Why?"
Before you lose your big hope.
Bah wanted to be the new Marlowe,
and ] thought would be at the opera
in year, and here we are up there al
the Jard.n, and glad to get the en-
gagement, too. She's going home, too.
/ would, too, If had any to go to, but
my mothers dead and my fathers
married again, so I'm not wanted
At the end of three months old Jack
son Lindley landed in New York to
look up his lone and only" as he told
Nora when she led him into the old
red brick house. And Nora broke the
news to him confldentially and jubi-
lantly.
Sure. he was the finest young man
ever lived here, and that free, too
with his small change to a body who
needs 1t. And she was so pretty, sir
YOU would have loved her yourself
And it was just like Cinderella, foi