Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1921-09-23
A Matter of Ranges
Ely WILL T. AMES


90 1921, by Mcclure Newspaper s. indicated
FOR eleven months of each veal
neroert Calhoun built bridges, dams,
peers and additions to his reputation as
al engineer. Each August he stead
lastly refused to do any work at all,
but reserved the month to the utter
relaxation of fishing for tautaug at a
very precise point ranged by the stee-
pie of Cave Harbor church and a GER
ain blasted oak across the cove one
way and the direction line of the Hal
liday family's private pier the other
way. The ranges established to a foot.
the location, away down at the bottom
of the cove, of the cluster of rocks
where all the tautaug of Sanderson
Day seemed to %foregather for lunch.
For the same eleven months of each
year Bernice Halliday, to the intense
disgust of her mother, devoted herself
to mourning the wrath of recalcitrant
employers of women and children and
to the leading of a strenuous and mill
tant life generally in her official caI,ac-
ity of state inspector of employment
conditions for women and children.
The whole of the eighth month she
swan, canoed, danced and had, on the
whole, probably the best all around
good time of any of the girls of the
rather exclusive Cave Harbor summer
colony.
OF course, of all things in the world
the most natural and BETTING would
be that these two doors of things, the
thirty-six-year-old engineer and the
acknowledgements sociologiSt, both
spending a months vacation at the
harbor every year, should be at least
interested acQuaintances. Herbert Cal
hOun, on his reputation alone, was a
man not to be ignored anywhere.
Bernice Halliday, whose name was
identified with half the factory well
the last three years, was a bit of a
celebrity as well as a most uncommon
ly fine-looking young mi
Yet Ms Rernice sat ON the end of
the Hallidays' pier in her bathing suit,
swinging her trim and besocked legs
over the water, and as Calhoun
brought his stubby skiff to an anchor
age a hundred feet off the end of the
pier, there was no sign of anything like
enthusiastic sympathy between them.
The least that might have been expect.
ed of the masculine neighbor would
ha n friandlxr uyavo nf tho hQnd And
the least that might have been looked
for from the feminine M would be a
CHEEKY "Going to try them again?" or
some equally amiable %inanity.
AS a matter of fact, Herbert Cal
houn merely acknowledged the exist.
enc of Miss Halliday by a stifdy per.
f~unctory bow, and Miss Halliday's re-
turn of that meager courtesy was so
very casual that an onlooker would
have been hard put to it to make
affidavit that she had reciprOcated at
all.
For thirty long minutes the man
in the boat fished assiduously. He
baited with a whole rock crab. he
took the crab off the hook, cut 1t In
two with a heavy jackknife and tried
one of the halves. He o. of the
half and put on a very much smaller
crab. He removed that and substt
tuted a fiddler. He baniShed the i'd
dler and baited with the luscious In
ner mechanism of a clam. He swOre,
earnestly and expertly. But he did
not get a bite.
For thirty long minutes Bernice Hal
liday continued to sit en- the end OF
the pier, swinging her legs. BY no
sign did she give evidence that she
even remembered the existence Of the
man in the boat. But she did.
Connected old prig!" Berpice was
saying to herself, the while she ap'
peared to be lost In lazy contempla'
tion of the distant catboat regatta
down the bay. "If he were just an
ordinary smarty, I'd tell him. But
he isn't: he's q most extraordinary
one. The idea of his trying to lecture
me-m ION the proper sphere or q
Eoman! And sulking when l let him
NOW that I considered my work just
rs important as Ills anu uNu 20
pose to give it up. ever, to be nothing
but Just some mans wife! And say
ing there were some things, like fac
tory management, and his old engineer
ing, that were actually as far outside
the feminine understanding as fishing
If you please-and, Of course, the
uoman hadn't been born who could give
her mind to cause and effect in the
catching Of fish! And now look al
him-sitting out there by the hour ev'
ery day-and he hasn't hooked a black
fish this season."
eff that girl comes and sits on ina
n,er tomorrow" inwardly foamed Cal
houn, land silently revels in my roo
ten luck, by thunder, I'm going to paca