Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-04-14

wv ITH his improvement in his physical
wv condition there came, toward the end
W of the summer, more rapid subsi-
dence of the flood of the long past. He had
slept one night in the fields, wl-ore the uncut
alfalfa was belled with purple flowers and
yellow buttercups rose and nodded above him.
With the first touch of dawn on the noun
tains he awakened to a clarity of mind like
that Of the morning. He felt almost eXal
tatiOn. He stood up and threw out his arms.
1t was all his again, never to lose; the old
house, and David and Lucy; the little labora-
tory; the church on Sunday mornings; Mike
whistling in the stable. A wave of love
warmed him, great surging tenderness. He
would go back to them. They were his and
he was theirs. 1t was at first only a great
emotion; tingling joyousness, vast relief;
as of one who sees, from far distance, the
flights in the windows of home
The glow died away and he began to suf
fer intensely. They all lost to him,
along with the life they had represented. And
already he began to look back his period
of forgetfulness with regret. AT least then
he had not known what he had lost.
Up to that time he had drfted, unable to
set course in the fog, but now he could see
the way, and it led him back to Norada. He
would not communicate with David He
would go out of the lives at the old house
he had gone in under a lie. When he sur
rendered it would be as Judson Clark, with
his lips shut tight on the years since his
escape. Let them think, if they would, that
the curtain had not lifted, and that he had
picked up life again where he had laid it.
down. The police would get nothing fros4
him to incriminate David. 8
But he had moment, too, when surrender
seemed to him, not strength, but weakness;
where it's sheer supineness, its easy solution to
his problem, revolted him. Then he clench-
ed his fist and looked at it, and longed for the
right to fight his way out.
When smoke began to issue from the cook
house chimney he stirred, rose and went back.
He ate no breakfast, and the men, seeing his
squared jaw and set face, let him alone. He
worked with the strength of three men that
day, but that night, when the foreman Of
fered him job as PAGER, with double wages,
he refused it,
"Give it to somebody else, joe" he said.
I'm quitting"
1.-THE hell you are! When?"
"I'd like to check out tonight"
His going was without comment. they mad
never fully accepted him, and comings and
goings without notice in the camp were COM
mon He rolled up his bedding, his change
of undergarments inside it, and took the rocd
that night.
For days. he haunted the West Madison
street employment agencies. But the agen-
cies and sidewalks were filled with men who
wandered aimlessly by with the objectless
shuttle Of the unemployed. Beds had gone
up in the lodging houses to thirty-fve cents
a night, and the food in the cheap restau-
rants was almost UNBEATABLE. There came
day when the free morning coffee at Bible
rescue home, and it's soup and potatoes ana
carrots at night, was all he ate. For the hrst
time his courage began to fail him. He went
to the lakeside that night and stood looking
at the water; ME meant to fight that impulse
of cowardice at the source
Up to that time he had given no thought
whatever to his estate, beyond the fact that
he had been undoubtedly adjudged legally
dead and his property divided But that
day as he turned away from the lake front,
he began to wonder about it. After all, since
he meant to surrender himself before long,
why not telegraph collect to the old office OF
the estate in New York and have them wire
him money? But even granting that they
were still in existence he knew with what
lengthy caution, following stunned surprise,
they would go about investigating the mes
sage. And there were leaks in the telegraph.
He would have a pack of newspaper hounds
at his heels within few hours. The police,
too. No, it wouldn't do.
The next day he got a job as a taxicab
driver, and that night and every night there
after, he went back to West Madison street,
and picked up one or more of the derelicts
there and bought them food He developed
quite system about it. He waited until he
saw a step outside an eating house
look in and then pass on. But one night he
got rather shock. For the young fellow
he accosted looked ut him first with suspi-