, 1923-01-28

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His mother and Mem would look at
esca other in the dismay thai comes
to %grown-ups when they see the ig-
norance of babyhood vanishing like
down from n peach. They were afraid
Of what life in their wicked little
world would do to their little idol.
Terry would weep with vexation at
an inattentive audience or at his In
ability to express what dubbed In
side his little kettle of a chest. He
would weep when anEered, but 1T
no other time. Pain, grief. disappoint-
ment, terror. loneliness would bring
no tears, no sobs.
Once the child caught cold-in all
that heat-and Mem sat by his bed.
side through several smothering
nights. while the back.broken mother
slept. Mem. all alone in her vigil.
found that Imagination was good
company. She constructed little
plays. She pretended hat Terry
was her own baby: and. like him, she
enriched a sordid existence with the
rich tapestries OF pretense. She had
been forced to be a play actress for
SO long that the ordeal had become
a pleasant habit, a necessity.
She exercised her acquired skill in
making up little dramas to while
away the tedium of the long nights
and to keep the wakeful chiid's mind
from his cough.
Among all tho rich nights of hui
man experience, from the perfect
night that Socrates praised, the
more han royalty luxurious night OF
dreamless sleep, to tho glittering
revelries of n Trimalchian banquet,
no nights are moro precious than
those somber hours a mother spends
at the bedside of a sick child.
It was during this long heartache
that Mem received the second let.
This was from Leva Lemaire. saying
that she had just seen in o.6 papcr n
paragraph describing Mrs. Wood.
ville's fail from the mountain and
her miraculous escape from death.
Leva expressed the utmost sympathy
and prayed that her beauty had not
been marred. She added;
But If 1t has. you can still find
something to do in the movies. Two
given w trying to be an actress and
taken a position in the laboratory
projection room. correcting the films.
It's cool and dark and interesting.
and far better than that miserable
oven. I think I can get you a place,
IL you'll come up. Los Angeles is
the ole town in the world that's
alive these days, and there's no ex-
cuse for a woman of your education
and charm wasting her sweetness
on the desert air. Do CONS! Nv sent
my three children out to their uncle's
ranch. You could live here with
me and my friends"
The thought OF working in the
dark and the cool was a hint of Par
adise to Mem but she would not leave
Terry DaclS while he was III.
! Early one evening she went TO the
drug store to fill a prescription. and
found a stranger there sprawled
across II showcase, talking.
His voice startled her, though 81
was so slow and lazy that the drug.
glst found It almost n soporific.
II been out on the old Picacho
mountain pros'-specktin'. I went over
1t once with an old pardner O. mine
name of-well. I always called him
( Woodhead. He went batty on me
count of a water hole not havin' no
water into it.
This was the man Bodlln she had
talked to in Yuma! She had told
him that her husband was alive and
h was going into the desert with
him.
He would recognize her the mo
ment he saw her. He would ask
about the husband he had SO frank
ly enviec. All her dupliclty would
be revealed. She would probably be
stoned out OF the village,
CHAPTER XIV.