Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1920-09-22
The Gift
Supreme
BY
George Allan England
Author of
Darkness and Dawn"
1.-The Alibi." etc.

atmosphere had been cleared of all
| hcWelcome visitors, quiet had once
more descended. Mugs, growing
| tAicats OF vengeance on any who
| should return to trouble that peAce,
returned upstairs to help the doctor
keep vigil over the dope fiend. His
presence was required there lest
Dan. awaking, should grow violent
and outmatch the frail physician.
Bradford, exhausted as he was, new
erthe)ess went out into the kitchen
to make sure that preparations were
under way for a good, substantial
supper, against the coming of "his
boys" from work. Then he returned
to the deserted dining room, sat
down in n chair close by the door
that opened into Moon Court, and,
bowling his head on his arm along
the edge of the table. drew the long.
tremulous, sigh of a man close to the
brink of absolute exhaustion.
"Sylvia!" he whispered. "Sylvia."
A tapping of crutches. muffled by
i
the approach OF Joe.
! "G'wan, chase yerself to de hay."
the cripple pleaded. laying blue
veined hand on Bradford's bent
shoulder. "Y'r all In. Beat it up
stairs, now, or TIL call Mugs an
have. him make yer!"
"All right, Joe-all right, pretty
|
looking up. you're good kid, Joe:
only there are some things you don't
understand. Just let me rest a
couple OF minutes; then I'll go"
II gctcha," Joe replied. severely
But dem two minutes amt goin' to
be five, see? I gotta look after youse
4 pretty cloa6i ebelieve me! I'll be back
pretty quiekit to see dat youse amt
holdin' out on me, on dis sleep prop
osition!'
With an rair of impatient proprf-
etorship he hobbled away to the liv-
ing room, to fetch book he had left
there. On the living room table lay
a newspaper, wide open at the base
/ ball section. Joe's comprehending eye
| glanced over the varying fortunes OF
Red Sox, Giants. Cardinals and
/ Braves. Insensibly the absorbing In
tA'est of diamond warfare gripped
him and he 4dallied among the heroes
who came second only to Bradford
dallied. while storms Of fate were
brewing over the head he would have
gladly died to save from any harm.
/ Broken And spent, Bradford re-
manned there at the table in the din
ing room, his forehead pillowed on
his arm, A sense of horrible and
desolating failure, irretrievable loss
i. despair, bafflement, humiliation
crushed his soul to earth. The main
spring of his whole sequence of am
billions. plans and dreams had
snapped at last, and left the mech
anism motionless, inert and dead
From his temple Of hope the pillars
Fhad been shattered; his house of life
crashing down. had buried heart and
soul in the dusts of ruin.
Before the windows Of his mind
Etrooped a procession of images, all
4 questioning or hooking him-his
pufposeless, unmeaning life of care
Less and esthetic parasitism beforeNhe
had come to know Sylvia; his strange
meeting with her in a past that now
seemed epochal In its remoteness;
and a higher concept of existence
that had been quickened in him by
her ideals; his abandonment of al
the comfortable utilities of home
for her, sake, and his faring forth
empty OF purse and scrip, into hos
tile and unknown world. Came Wis
ions of his long travail, suffering and
4 anguish, all for her; the appalling
wickedness of the conspiracy that
had robbed him of her; the grief and
yearning of his search for, her. Game
memories OF how this little Haven
had been founded as memorial tc
her and had grown up about the
cherished, neyer-abandoned hopes OF
a blest sometime" which should
bring her back to him again. some
time. shared by both of them, Shout
der to shoulderin the work Of build
ing up q better world. And now
A groan ISSUED from Bradford's
lips, wrung from his heart by tortur-
that lay along the cheap, white table
For moment, powerful temptation
gripped and shook his soul within
him.
"Why?" thought he dazed an6
cropping "Since It's all over, now
why should go on, this way?"
OF a sudden, the reeking Stun
stewing all about him under the pitt
less summer heat, took him as II
were by the throat and choked the
breath In his lungs. Was this the
l environment were these the places
I where the lines of his life-the one
and only life he had to live-shoulG
pass? Why should he cling to the
Haven. now? The Haven; just one
clean spot in all these crooked, Shiny
swarming alleys; the Haven, redo.
lent Of carbolic and whitewash OF
soap and water, an island Of santa
ton in a sea of filthiness! He seemed
to behold, as in panorama of hid
eous, social crimes made concrete in
| their unity, the hild-choked cutters
and runways: the noisy, ribald. fly
blown, disease-breeding Italian shops
and restaurants of the slun; the
vicious, prowling, submerged life OF
the underworld all about him; the
physical and moral miasnla that, ris-
ing from these slippery, crookedly-
paved streets, courts and alleys,
poisoned every breath, whether OF
the body or of the soul
And why, in Gods name, why
should he be here? Here in this
stew of rottenness, when education
connections, opportunities all beck