Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1920-11-19
II. LEONORA.

Together with the Faces, its win
dows made the Street, being of many
sorts, to each its own significant illu-
minatfon: hard plate glass masks of
saloons beaming false fellowship,
mean shop fronts of ingratiating
shine, windows of homely golden glow,
others through whose latticed shutters
filtered sinister CLEANS bespeaking
the unspeakable, others again that
gave only dull reflections in begrimed
panes of naphtha flames flaring lurid-
ly above pushcarts arrayed in IN
broken lines along the curbs.
Through this welter of light and
shadow, in the sidewalk channels, the
Faces passed and repassed. lurking
darkly in forbidding >doorways, seek
ing brazenly the brightest glare, COM
ing and going without rest, in uncouth
carnival: kind and brutal, cunning
and naive, wicked and innocent,
swarthy, fair, unique, commonplace !;
faces that disgusted, faces that al
lured, faces that meant nothing, that
were mere empty nouthing masks !;
faces of oriental cast, yellow and red
and brown negro faces in every shade
of quartering.
She knew them all: they all knew
her. The sense of strangeness ebbed /;
with every step, with every look
around, with every breath she drew,
she was losing touch with her other
Self which had so singularly renounced
it's authority and faded into impotence
at the Dark Corner, but which still
kept step with her. clung to her more
closely than her shadow, and like a
wrath of the living, watched, noted
and compared while taking part in ac.
tions wholly foreign to its nature and
experiencing reactions obscure to II
and unintelligible.
Now the girl moved swiftly, with
ease and boldness, even with a hint
of arrogance: giving the Faces look
for look, smile for smile, frown fol
frown; laughing impishly up at tai
policeman who knitted black brow:
over indulgent blue eyes; finging racy
retorts to the banter of a knot o.
men emerging from gin-mill; chill
ing with glance and word the ad
vances of those who should hava
known better; chatting hucksters wht
bawled in her ears the tawdry virtue.
of their wares; pausing now ant
again to exchange more kindly per
sifage with folk who held title to he
liking; cutting an impudent figure, a.
confident and unabashed as a col
turned loose in home pastures
Her sharp perceptions took in every
thing; not one considerable detail es
capped their remark. And she liked ii
she liked it all, she was curiously per
meated to her very marrow with de
light in sounds and sights and SMELL
familiar to her senses since time be
yond their earliest record.
The Street, never wide, was the mar
rover for it's double rank of pushcarts
: Between these an occasional automo
bile or horse-drawn vehicle went gin
gerly to spare the multitude O
urchins. half dressed and less thai
half washed, Of every age and almos
every nationality, that swarmed upo
, the asphaltum. Tenement houses
, their fire escapes converted into bal
, comics lavishly draped with candi
bedding and still more candid wome
drew confidential heads together O
high, leaving visible only a slende
ribbon of cobalt sky. In between th
air was sluggish, thick with unna
y uraI haze, and rank with many odors
an unholy alliance of garlic, fried fisl
= boiled cabbage and stale beer mali
: tanning debatable ascendency over th
native aroma of stratum of societ
= which holds soap less necessity sha
: luxury. And the night was tumultuor
with screams of children at crud
play, howls Of babies wallowing
neglect, bawling of street vendor
each striving to outyell his neare
. competitor, clatter of tfnny piano
blare and whine of jaded phon
graphs; all relieved against who'll
normal undertone Of incessant gossi
. and pickering.
= The girl hugged to herself the il
= of life; even more, it was enterpris
e adventure, the very stuff of Romano
- She went her way smiling, with
- conscious smile bred of knowled.
Nv that she was dressed in her best,
her very newest best at that, carmen
10 of cut and cost and quality such
10 the Street seldom saw.
h Nevertheless, her show of nonch
u lance cloaked circumspection; if b
Is looks were free and rowing, they we
st likewise keen and watchful. Thou!
ct the width of the Street was betwe
th them, she was well aware of ty
k. plain-clothes men who turned to sta