The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1924-06-09
Edith Loved
Abd-El-Rahman
BY CLARA DELAFIELD

When he went to live at Mrs.
Meyers he looked so ordinary that
the widow had not the least Objec-
ton to letting him have Il room.
Ordinary-like ordinary people. But
physically he was superb speci-
men of Il man-broad in the chest,
with an eagle nose and dark, flash
Ing eyes. He was engaged, he told
the widow, in studying economics,
or something like that.
He went In on an early train
every day, and came back at night.
| He was some sort of Il foreigner,
| Mrs. Meyers knew, but he was a
very nice young man. Edith Meyers
thought so, too.
1t was not for two weeks that
1t was discovered that he was an
Afghan, sent over to study some
thing or other for the benefit of his
native country.
An Afghan! But nobody had ever
seen an Afghan before. Who were
the Afghans? Mrs. Meyers looked
it up in Everybody's Encyclopedia.
and was Mortified. Why, they were
the most treacherous, bloodthirsty
race Of Asiatics. They were al
ways cutting your throat and plum
dering you. An Afghan in her
house!
Mrs. Meyers went to give. him
notice. and he smiled in such a
charming way that she hadn't the
heart to do 1t. She muttered some
apology and withdrew in something
like despair.
That wasn't the worst by any
means. The next day Edith con.
fessed with tears that she was en-
gagged to marry Abd-el-Rahman.
The widow screamed with dis
may. Her daughter to marry an
Afghan? Why, he'd murder her
IN her sleep or take her back to
his own country and sell her as
slave!
Edith was calmly obdurate. She
loved Abd-el- Rahman, and she
didn't see why she couldn't marry
him If he wanted her.
There was. a terrible scandal in
the little community. Will Rogers
Edith's former beau, started for
the house with the object Of giving
Abd-el horsewhlpping, but met
him at the gate and changed his
mind. and gave him cigarette in
stead. A month later Edith and
Abd-el were quietly married by
justice Of the peace. They couldn't
marry in church because Abd-el was
heather or something.
Abd-el had furnished little
house not far away from Edith's
old home, and the young couple APP
peared to be supremacy happy. But
still the gossip logged them.
anyone except an Afghan
walled Mrs. Meyers. Sooner or
later that savage nature will break
out and he'll run through the streets
with a poisoned dagger. killing man,
woman and child. 1--WE read all
about it in the encyclopedia. One
day, you mark my words, Edith will
come to her senses, if she isn't muir
dered in her sleep first"
But the devotion of the young
couple to each other continued
marked. The only thing that trou-
bled Edith was her husbands eco
monte Investigations.
Why did they have to take him
into town so punctually every morn
ing? Suspicion gradually awakened.
TO cut 1t short, one morning Edith
followed her husband into the city
on the morning train.
But suppose we let Mrs. Meyers
tell the rest Of the story. Picture
her. retailing 1t to the family and
the neighbors in her parlor, with
waving of hands and spasmodic Sob
bling:
"And the poor child comes to
me bathed in tears. And what d
you think happened? Why, Edith
followed him, and he went to one
Of those hOrrid little streets BY the
B0wery, and it turns out he's got a
secondhand clothes shop there, and
when she came in he was standing
with a vest in one hand and a pair
Of trousers in the other, and he
turned white as sheet,
"He confessed to her there and
then that he never saw fghanistan
in his life. He's a Polish Hebrew,
who started out to be smart. and
he won her love under false pre-
lenses. Edith says she wouldn't |
have minded who or what he was.
not even the secondhand clothes
shop, If only he hadn't deceived her.
The poor girls been living In hopes
for months past of some day see-
ing him in terrible rage, and look
Ing murderous and heroic, and what
Is he? Just that. And all Of us SO |
proud of her being married to an |
Afghan" 4
20. 1924, Western Newspaper union.)