Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1920-02-12

Dack the money as 10St as they pay
me-sO. good bye and God bless you
GeOrgie"
He passed through the gates, waved
his hat cheerlly from the other side
Of the iron screen, and was lost from
sight In the hurrylng crowd. And as
he disappeared, an unexpected pOign-
ant loneliness fell upon his nephew so
heavily and so suddenly that he had
no energy to recOiI from the shock. l:
seemed to him that the last fragment
of his familiar world had disappeared
leaving him all alone forever.
He walked homeward slowly through
what appeared to be the strange
city, and. as matter of fact, the city
was strange to him. He had seen lit.
tie Of it during his years in college,
and then had followed the long alb
sence and his tragic return. Since that
he had been scarcely outdoors at ali"
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-
navlan eyes-all with a 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-mlst through which
they hurried, under the heavy sky that
hung close upon the new skyscraperS,
aud nearly all seemed harried by
something impending though here and
there woman with bundles would be
angling to 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 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 the
shabby, stone-faced house behind the
fence he had gone to chlldren'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 III the hall The double front
doors, of meaninglessly carved walnut,
once so giossily 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-
sons office. He had not come to this
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, inconsiderately flattens out to
nothingness, the least likely to retain
profile is that ideal which depends
upon inheritlng money. George Am
bersOn, in spite Of his record OF fall
ures in business, had spoken shrewdly
when he realized at last that money,
like life, was '1ike quicksilver In
nest of cracks" And his nephew had
the awakening experience OF seeing
the great ANDERSON estate vanishing
into such a nest-in a twinkling; 1t
seemed, now that 1t was indeed so ut
terly vanished.
On this last homeward walk OF his,
when George reached the entrance to
Anhnrson addition-that Is. when he