Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1920-10-01
MAY TRIES
BEING A HICK
By WILL T. AMES

WI ASAO' Dy mcclure Newspaper Syndlcate.)
Among the girls of Manhattan island
there is tradition, immutable as the
laws of the Modes and the Perslans,
that never yet save through the opera
ton of extreme violence and utterly
against her own will did one Of the Sis
terhood leave the city and 60 to the
country to live. Wherefore, when May
Dart, expert board operator In the Bry-
ant exchange, informed her friends,
Gladys Stein and Ethel Manning, that
she was quitting the job that night and
going to Stonyport, away off in the
wllds of Connecticut, to live, they ST.
multaneously gaped at her incredu.
lousy, and with one voice cried:
Going to the countreel To stay
Gonna live with the squirrels and be
hlck! For gawdsake, May, hawdja get
that way9"
Jaw, just thought I'd like to do
something different" replied May, nom
chalantly. Which was not the whole
truth.
Doctor MacKintry, who had prac-
ticed in the Ninth ward more years
than May was old, and who had known
her parents-eased their successive
tuberculous departures out of the
world, in fact-had cajoled, command
ed, bullied and finally thoroughly
frightened May into getting away from
New York before, as he phrased 1t,
New York got her.
And so It came to pass that May,
having been given a highly compliment
tary recommendation by her chief, af-
ter a conference with that kindly off,
cial, had applied for place in the
Stonyport telephone central and had
been enthusiastically accepted. you're
going in time" said MacKlntry. "If
you come back In less than year I'll
throw you off the dock"
Stonyport fluttered between the con-
dillon Of big village and the status Of
small city. 1t called itself the lat
ter. and its most sophisticated society
women smoked cigarettes sometimes In
the grills of the big Mnssapeag hotel.
But its people stlll term the railroad
station the depot" and tradition and
politics between them had so far sue
ceeded In preserving the bucollc insti-
tuition of volunteer fire department.
May, as an hereditary cockney, ex-
perlenced sense Of obligation to look
upon Stonyport with amused tolerance;
an attitude In which she persisted,
though she soon perceived that tele-
phone station was telephone station,
whether In New York or New England,
and that the limousines on State street
looked about as costly as the ones on
Forty-second.
The Stonyport air, however, was
fresher and cleaner than the carbon
lied mixture that serves New York,
and the big, airy three-windowed room
overlooking q vista Of gardens, Of
which May was the exclusive mistress,
furnished staggering contrast to the
tiny cell, smelling Of gas, from which
she had looked out on the dreary rear
walls of Bank street.
Also, because there was no Gladys
and no Ethel and no Bryant Exchange
Dancing club, and no long list of the
aters and no Coney-no anything, It
seemed, May got more sleep, and
sounder, than she Ind ever known In
her twenty-four years. So she knew
Doctor MacKintry for the wise old owl
that he was-but she wasn't having a
good time and again she voted Stony
port a Jay town.
1t was inevitable, Of course, that the
coming of Fred Faxon into the life of
the girl at this lonely stage Of It
should be epochal. Logical enough In
any event, inevitable when he was big
and good-looklng and had been through
the thick Of the hell in France and had
come back to laugh over It and tell
funny stories about 1t by the hour.
He was the nephew Of Mays fine
old landlady-that's how their &C.
quaintance came about-and he was
just starting In business, a shining
model dellcatessen shop. He had had
to start on q shoestring, he confided
to May, and his "wop" landlord would
only give him a miserly two years.
lease. But fellow learned to take
chances over there, If he didn't learn
anything else" Perhaps It was be
cause the chances of success were not
less hazardous--his prospects In life
better-that May caught Faxon look
ing at her so wistfulIy every now and
then.
The StOnyport post Of the American
Legion was giving O ball, for the en-
hancement Of Its building fund--a big
affair In the armory. May, respondent
In the selfsame black and gold party
gown that had almost made enemies Of
Gladys and Ethel at the Bryant clubs
reception six weeks before, regally de-
seconded the stairs to find Faxon, in his
service uniform, waiting in gasping ad-
miration in the hall.
"You look wonderful" he exclaimed.
Are you all ready7 We're not going
to be minute too early"
AS soon as put on my wrap" May
had scarcely uttered the words when
."Bangl K-r-r-r Bangl Kr-r-r-Bangi
The great bell In tho tower Of the en-
CINE house three doors away was fairly
rafting the windows.
Goodness graciousi What's thatT
cried the girl. But the effect on Faxon
was amazing. Dbl that is, excuse
mel Walt. Be back. Tirep And
tearing the door open, her escort was
gone.
What's more, he didn't come back.
1t took ten minutes for May to realize
that Faxon had deserted her to go to
a fire and to become fttingly indlg-
nant. swell, Of all the low-down hick
tricks I" she exclaimed. Even then she