New-York tribune., 1921-03-13
gift that is loosely termede
personality developed early

personality developed early
in Minnie Mason. Her red
chestnut hair curled incorrigibly; her
somewhat plump, but always re-
markably active, little body ex-
pressed in every agile movement the
swift succession of adventurous i'm
pulses that were, doubtless, her life.
Her nose turned up, and during that
period was bridged with freckles
the mouth was full and wide, opened,
usually, in grin that framed re-
markably good teeth; the eyes were
blue, wide apart, with lashes longer
than common. Her laugh was infec-
tious but slightly alarming to the
sedate ears of Sunbury.
A picture rises of Minnie during
those last years of her Sunbury
period (while her father still had the
hoteD running like a deer down the
middle Of Simpson Street after a
''hitch," hair merrily flying, high
school books floating after her on a
IS trap.
The time came, beginning in about
her sixteenth year, when she wa.
quietly known to be pairing off in
cessantly with this young fellow and
that-bicycling Chat was the period)
in something near boomers, buggy
riding, running into Chicago of an
afternoon and returning on one or
another of the later trains. She
dropped out of high school after
Harry Salters and the younger Will
liams boy came to blows over her
by punctilious arrangement, with
seconds and referee, at midnight on
the Athletic Field. Minnie never
knew Of he combat until afterward
but the blame fell heavily upon her;
blame which she fully earned within
a year by running away with bur-
lesque troupe that played a week in
an obscure North Side theater
which, it transpired, she had with
other adventurous spirits secretly
haunted.
Minnie must have been a casua
dare-up Of some outland strain ir
the Mason stock William P, the
father, though too good-naturedly
easy to get on in any sort of busi
ness competition, ran the old hote
comfortably enough. He had served
a term in the state legislature, wa.
later secretary of the county or
ganization, and exhibited never
failing willingness in church mat
ters and other local good works
The mother was a Macleod, of Bo
rea, up the shore; pioneer plainsma1
stock right through, her father {
farmer, her grandfather a circuit
riding preacher. Mrs. Mason wa.
tall (taller than the rotund William
r, in fact), spare, and of ;
melancholy turn. But she wa.
kindly enough, in her rather silen
way, and probably was never giver
to nagging that difficult elder
daughter. In fact, many felt thai
she had held much too loose a reir
over the child; and, too, it wa
generally felt that the hotel, de
spite its unassailable respectable
ity, couldn't have been the righ
sort of home for the girl.
With the younger daughter, Lily
it was different, of course. Sh
was thin and gloomy like he
mother; intensely church person
studious, a shadow in the village
lacking wholly the flamingly con
-;ce""sas quality of her sister. Sh
finished high school in frail
white-clad triumph, as class vale
dictorian, and went demurely int
the university, in pursuit of wha
was then termed a classical educa
tion.
;XM. p. managed TO keep the ole
hotel going nearly two years
after the new Beach House was
built, but it was losing struggle
Mortgage was heaped upon mort
gage. The little capital at length
had to 90 for living expenses. After
givina ,up the hotel he rented q