The Republican., 1922-07-20
Copyrlght, "a. ny The wheeIer syndieate. Inc.

Copyright 1920, BY The Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.
you" sne cried with her hand |
finally on the knob and her hat fallen !
half back from her great bronze bell of
a head, you crazy devil, you! Why,
you don't even get drunk like man.
You only blubber Now, Steve Kineady,
stand and stare, you! Crazy devil.
you. Shut up or get out? Eth? Shut
up or get out! Well, then, crazy devil,
you watch! Watch"
annie, girl! Annie" and in the
face of the slammed door he fell for
ward, weeping weak tears into the
rocker seat.
Outside the rain came down like
pins, pecking and pricking. When An
ME Kineady. plunging through the un-
drained streets, reached the railroad
tracks. her skirts clung so that she
stopped for moment in the down.
pour to wiring at her hens and the flare
of her jacket.
The lights of the village burned
through the wall of rain like the
glazed eyes of the dying, but in Spar
tan the nights are long. and even as
she walked the tracks tie by tie, she
could see them blink out in the box
shaped houses, except in the GLACIERS,
whose wife lay low of typhoid-pneu-
mOnia, and in Abe Brodie's, made sim
pie, poor soul, by sunstrOke, and who
loved to count far into the night mag
mary ransoms of imaginary kings.
Across the tracks and in the hollow
an unaccustOmed lamp in Liddy Kin
eady's side window burned without
flicker. But Annie Kineady gathered
her strength and ran. A whistle rose
off the fatlands behind her. She ran
faster, her black skirts Tapping about
her and wisp of black veil flying
back. At the dim station, low and
squat as a hut, the telegrapher raised
up. regarding her from under his eye
shade
'H'llO, Annie"
"HllO, joe"
"St. Louise"
"Yes."
The Accommodation slid rustily into
the station She found a seat in the
seat, telescope across her knees and
eyes squeezed tight against nausea
and rising misery.
Across the aisle large party with
n heavy gold, chain spanning a convex
waiStcOat leaned to her with a queer
chirling noise underneath his breath,
his eyes, well-mbedded in flesh glow
ing across at her in quick appraisal.
Some kid" he said between moist
chirrups.
Washington avenue, just above JEFF
ferson. has seen better days. Its
brown-stone fronts, even in bellicose
times, when St Louis showed pam
talettes beneath her hoops and traded
slaves on the courthouse steps, had
not the sagging stoops or the copings
sunk. Instead, there were starchly
curtained windows and the copings Of
sandstones, even the granite pairs Of
door lions scrubbed well into the crew
Ices of the carved names and, too,
the carriage-step Whitley secured for
the comings and goings and doings
and dancings of the Papins and
Chouteaus, Garrisons and Chopins of
those debonair pioneer days.
Then because of the West-End
movement, and because people are
constantly prospering or falling back,
and the street car franchise cutting
through the seclusion, and a new gen.
GRAFTON turning from brown-stOne
to white-stone front age Washing
ton avenue just above Jefferson evac-
uated and slipped into decay. "TO Let"
began to stare from empty windows,
doors sagged out of plumb, and finally,
like ghouls to the corpse of yesterday,
the rOOming house invaded, the lOdger
for the night laying a furtive head
beneath the high, calcimined ceiling Of
prOuder days.
At 1886 Washington avenue, sinis-
ter looking with its front door sagging
in like a toothless mouth, its indoor
shutters closed and milk bottles and
cans of the add-hot-water-and-serve
foods of the lodger on the window
sills, Mrs. Lucy Beasley, to whom life
consisted of two frayed ends which
would not meet, conducted a Rooming
House-Light Housekeeping.
You to whom Light Housekeeping is
but d card stuck in a murky window,
look to 1t well that you never know
more. 1t Is the hearthstone and the
family board gone to smash, and in
their stead a tin can over the gas Jet.
Women sick with the heavlness of
Light Housekeeping sometimes forget
to turn off the gas. Men in such
rooms sit through the long hours Of
Out-Of-work workadays, Oftimes plan
ming no good. Children cry here, not
knowing why.
In her third-story-back, a slit Of a
room overlooking a segment Of alley
and the roofs of the King Kuallty shoe
factory, Annie Kineady, brushing out
her food of hair, heard one such cry