Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1921-01-20
Looking Like a
Million
By WILL T. AMES

wore produced exactly opposite i'm
pressions In the minds of Hugh Silsby
and Imogene Dart.
Imogene, though she had but a fleet
ing glimpse of Beth as the 'jit" from
Gilead Snorted through the village, ex-
ultantly reported to Amy Austin that
Beth Bedell is home, wearing about a
dollar and a quarters worth Of dress
and forty cents worth of hati'
Hugh, however, experienced a sud-
den sinking sensation around the heart
when he made an errand over to the
BedellS' that afternoon and found Beth
looking, as he told himself, 'like a mil
lion dollars"
Beth's face lighted as the tall young
farmer came through the gate, and if
Hugh had been less stunned by the
luxurious aspect of the homecomer he
might have noticed that the rose of
her cheeks grew deeper as she shook
hands with him.
What really absorbed Hugh's mind
to most melancholy effect was the con-
viction that it had all worked out with
Beth precisely as it always did in the
Gilead theater movies-Beth had be-
come a regular fashionable city girl,
quite unattainable for a plain fellow
like himself. Why, her clothes alone
must cost a lot more in a year than he
could clear on his place even with the
best of luck!
Dispirited, vaguely but keenly dis
Approximation he had been thinking
a deal, and with secret hopefulness,
about Beth ever since he heard she
was coming home-Hugh followed the
well-blazed trail Of ingenious youth in
such ca,e made and provided. He
sulked, and his sulks took the guise Of
stiff formality.
"Glad to see you home, Miss Bedell,"
he said solemnly.
miss Bedell!" laughed Beth. "Since
when? Don't be silly, Hugh. It's aw-
fully good to see you. Why don't you
tell me I'm looking Welt"
"You look mighty nifty, If that's
what you mean," replied Hugh with
elaborate ungraciousnesS; "but you
look like somebody else-somebody
that flies high. Guess you perch on a
different tree from old friends nova
days, don't you? Your father int"
To, n "a 3pr%npk Doth e+orad ,ro1ad
Then the rose in her cheeks died till
in either a tiny red spot remained.
Hes out at the barn." she said, and
without further word walked straight
into the house.
North Gilead was a very small place.
It boosted Of only one rich man, and
of him it boosted not greatly. Merton
Phelps at twenty-five was a shade
stingier than his father had been at
seventy-two, when after a lifetime of
miserliness he left a trunkful Of be-
loved mortgages and securities to his
only son.
Young Phelps dressed showily, If
with infinite regard for a bargain, for
he was vain. He cultivated the man.
ner of a village beau, for he had a
keen eye for feminine loneliness, but
no North Gilead girl could truthfully
maintain that Merton had yer spent
a nickel on her. Still there is a certain
glamour to a hundred and fifty thou
sand dollars, and girls were not want
ing to welcome his inexpensive and in
sinuating batteries.
On the afternoon of Beth's home
coming, within ar hour after Hugh's
brief visit, she met Phelps in the post
office. And when, spurred by the fas-
cination Of beauty exceptionally
groomed and fetchingly gowned, he
asked If he might "drop around and
set on the porch" with her that eve
ming, Beth granted him the privilege
with a c~ondescension quite new to his
experiences.
Two evenings after that North Gil
cad was shaken to its foundations by
the news, spread like wildfire, that
Merton Phelps had actually hired Ed
Godfrey's new roadster and taken Beth
Bedell to ride, leaving his own second
had fivver idle in the garage. And
when, next day, it TRANSFERRED that he
had taken her to Lake Chemung and
paid four dollars for something to cal
at the Chemung pavilion, the com
munity almost became speeches..
That was the beginning. For two
weeks Merton Phelps belied his repu
tation and his antecedents at a ruin
GUS rate. The d~ark-green roadster wal
at the BedellS door daily. And wheI
1t wasn't carrying Beth off on somt
frightfully costly excursion or other |
was chasing into Gilead after choco
lates and, finally, for a box of orchids
especially ordered from the Gileat
florist.
Meantime Hugh Silsby had suffere'
agonies Of remorse for his churlish be
havior toward Beth-and continued t
sulk the deeper. Not again did he Sc
Beth, save at a distance, except ono
when she waved at him from the gree
car and was gone like a flash wit
shat id monkey of a Phelps" grin
ming at her side.
1t was the morning after the orchids
Hugh was ~disconsolately going abou
hiq Hchorpsn IN hiS hiO harm who,