River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1920-01-29

tie of it during his years in college,
and then had followed the long an
sence and his tragic return. Since that
he had been scarcely outdoors at ALL
as Fanny complained, warning him
that his health would suffer, and he
had been downtown only in closed
carriage. He had not realized the
great change.
The streets were thunderous, vast
energy heaved under the universal
coating of dinginess. George walked
through the begrimed crowds of hur-
rying strangers and saw no face that
he remembered. Great numbers of
faces were even of kind he did not
remember ever to have seen; they
were partly like the old type that
his boyhood knew, and partly like
types he knew abroad. He saw Ger
man eyes with American wrinkles at
their corners; he saw Irish eyes and
Neapolitan eyes, Roman eyes, Tuscan
eyes, eyes of Lombardy, of Savoy,
Hungarian eyes, Balkan eyes, Scandi-
navian eyes-all with queer Ameri'
can look in them. He saw Jews who
were no longer German or Russian or
Polish Jews. All the people were soil
ed by the smoke-mist through which
they hurried under the heavy sky that
hung close upon the new SkyscraperS,
and nearly all seemed harried by
something impending though here and
there woman with bundles would be
laughing to a companion about some
adventure Of the department store, or
perhaps an escape from the charging
traffic of the streets-and not infre-
quently a girl, or a free-and-easy
young matron, found time to throw an
encouraging look to George.
He took no note of these, and, leav-
ing the crowded sidewalks turned
north into National avenue, and pres
emily reached the Quieter but no less
begrimed region of smaller shops and
Old-fashioned houses. Those latter had
been the homes of his boyhood play
mates, old friends of his grandfather
had lived herein this alley he had
fought with two boys at the same
time, and whipped them; in that front
yard he had been successfully. leased
into temporary insanity by Sunday
school class of pinky little girls. On
that sagging porch laughing woman
had fed him and other boys with
doughnuts and gingerbread; yonder he
saw the staggered relics Of the iron
picket fence he had made his white
pony jump, on a dare, and in thu
shabby, stone-faced house behind the
fence he had gone to children's par
ties, and, when he was little older
he had danced there often, and fallen
in love with Mary Sharon, and kissed
her, apparently by force, under the
stairs in the hall. The double front
doors, of meaninglessly carved walnut,
once so glossily vanished, had been
painted smoke gray, but the smoke
CRIME showed repulsively, even on the
smoke gray; and over the doors a
smoked sign proclaimed the place to
be "Stag hotel"
This was the last "walk home" he
was ever to take by the route he was
now following: up National avenue to
Anderson addition and the two big
old houses at the foot of Anderson
boulevard; for tonight would be the
last night that he and Fanny were to
spend in the house which the Major
had forgotten to deed to Isabel. To-
morrow they were to "mOve out" and
George was to begin his work in Bron-
collapse without fierce struggle-but
the struggle was inward and the roll
ing world was not agitated by 1T.
and rolled calmly on. For of all the
ideals of life" which the world, in its
rolling, inconsderately flattens out to
nothingness, the least likely to retain
a profile is that ideal which depends
upon inheriting money. George Am
berson, in spite of his record of fail
ures in business, had spoken Shrewdly
when he realized at last that money,
like life, was "like quicksilver in a
nest of cracks" And his nephew had
the awakening experience of seeing
the great Anderson estate vanishing
into such a nest-in a twinkling; it
seemed, now that it was indeed so ut
terly vanished.
On this last homeward walk Of his,
when George reached the entrance to
Anderson addition-that is, when he
came to where the entrance had for
merly been-he gave a little start,
and halted for a moment to stare.
This was the first time he had no.
ticed that the stone pillars, marking
the entrance, had been removed TheH
he realized that for long time he had
been conscious Of a queerness about
this corner without being aware OF
what made the difference. National
avenue met Anderson boulevard here
at an Obtuse angle. and the removal of
the pillars made the boulevard seem
cross street of no OverpOwering i'm
enthusiastically 1t did not seem to
no n boulevard