Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1920-12-22

PEELED to make a circuitous detour in
order to reach his objective. He saw
her. lost her; and at last. when he
reached the pew where she had sat,
Ida was gone. He hurried frantically
hither and thither. The church was
empty now; and yet 1t seemed incredi.
BILE that he had lost her for over.
Somebody touched him on the arm. A
clergyman in a long black gown was
speaking to him.
You are looking for somebody,
sir?" he asked kindly.
"My daughter" the old man mum
bled
"She must have gone homo. No
doubt you will find her at home.
There is nobody here"
Tho old man turned and began
stumbling homcward through the thin.
gained the street which led to his
house he began running like a mad
man. Truly it must be as the clergy
man had said. Ida was at home, Of
course. with her little boy. She had
never left him; all that had been
bad dream from which he would
awake when he entered. He let him
self In and switched on the electric
light The room was empty and al
most bare, and it had never looked 30
forlorn and miserable before.
He realized that she was lost to
him forever. She would accept his
silence as final; she would never write
to him again. And her address had
vanished from his memory utterly.
He had barely glanced at 1t once and
purposely refrained from looking at
1t again before he tore the letter into
fragments and flung them into the
stove. He had chosen his miser's gold,
and it lay like dead weight upon his
heart.
scrap Of paper on the floor caught
his eye. He picked it up; it was
morsel Of the envelope and bore his
name. julius Mayo, and the first fig
ure Of the house number. Perhaps
other morsels might have nuttered
out Of the fire-perhaps just the one
which would give him the clue to his
daughters address. Instantly he was
down upon his knees and raking
among the dying cmbers, turning over
the Goals, begriming his hands with
the clinker ash. Another scrap re-
warded his efforts. This was the up
per corner of the envelope, bearing a
portion Of the Cancelled stamp, with
the benign features Of Washington.
There was no more; he could not find
so much as a single charred fragment.
The old man rose slowly and stared
q h 10 whit co. In, fha oil
that hung above the mantel. His eyes
were feverish and his gray hair hung
in disordered mass over his fore
head He remembered the old Ger
man legend that on one day In the
year the souls in hell were permitted
to stand outside the gates of Paradise
and to look in. This was his day;
this was Christmas Eve, the anniyer-
sary Of Minna's death, the one day
In the year on which he might save
his soul. The pride and greed were
there, only dominated for the present
by the influence Of his mood; II he
gave rein to them again he would be
lost irretricvably. And the mood
must pass because he could not find
the letter. Tomorrow. he knew, his
work would absorb him again, his
heart would harden. as old mems
hearts do. The gates of Paradise
stood open wide for him-and he had
lost the key.
He walked slowly across the room.
His mind was made up; he would de-
stroy all the fruits Of his experiments.
batter down that idol which he had
set up to wean him from his own.
He raised his arm to sweep every
thing to the floor--test tubes, bottles.
papers. He hesitated. Could he let
the fruits Of all those years Of expert
ment go7 He might at least save the
formulae Or was that sacrifice neces-'
sary II he was to save his soul from
hellf
Suddenly his rowing eyes rested
upon the test tube which he had left
on the table.
He shouted aloud with Joy. The
mood had passed; the idol had reared
itself again. Ida was forgotten.
Something had happened during his
absence that he had never managed to
bring about before. The liquid in the
tube had passed from gold to brown,
and from brown to a streaky, flaky
mass OF creamy, jelly.like fluid. 1t
was almost artificial rubber.
He was upon the track at last. His
composition, in cooling, had coagulat-
ed as rubber coagulates. This was
not rubber. but 1t was not far from
it. 1t was compound which con.
tanned all the elements OF rubber.
But somewhere, in the building OF 1t.
two or three molecules had gone
astray, or fastened themselves to the
wrong elements, just rs one may put
a picture puzzle together and not
quite fit the pattern. He was very
!. 81 l..