The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1925-06-26
The Vanishing Men

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Hennepin was whimsical enough to
repeat 10 Brena, word for word. this
conversation.
They were sitting In the motorcar
looking out over the undulating Texas
prairie. In the hollows the red bud was
in bloom and the air of dusk was like
the light, velvety.
at never occurred to her that
might love you," he said.
Brena said nothing.
Don't you love me a little?" he
asked
II don't know. Jim-really. l don't
know. ! don't know what love is. I've
only read about 1t, and Ii Is just like
reading about some place you've never
been. / wouldn't know when had ar
rived there and stood on the very
spot"
"My Cd, you're like new flower.
opened up for the first time and wet
with dew!"
AS If he could not conceal haste, he
seized her hand and squeezed 1t until
she said, "Oh, Jim!'
swell, you're fond Of me?"
"Yes, am, Jim. I'm fond Of you"
Perhaps it's because you have no
one else to be fond Of" he suggested.
81 don't know she told him. Il
don't know yet"
He looked around at the yellow
horizon in the west and shivered.
"We aren't by ourselves" he ex-
claimed with irritation. mot here in
Dallas. We ought to take trip"
"A trip!" said Brena. How could
we take trip"
"You mean because Of money? Well,
I'm going to fix that" He smiled
craftily. 1--WE strangle hold on some
money, Brena. / suppose that when
turn up with some real money peo-
pie will say that l dipped into the till
or had rich uncle die. 1t will be such
a novelty TO have roll. But they'll
be wrong. I'll get it my own way. And
| it's coming"
"Oh, JIM"
Money or no money, I want you,"
he said. Some day I'll make you say
you love me-"
| Brena lay awake under a hot roof
wondering whether she loved Jim Hen
| nepin. There was no one to tell her
that she did not.
As the weeks went on she found
herself asking where the end would be
| of day after day of showing perfumed
wives Of Dallas business men en-
broidered linens at the Porto Rican
store, Of walking home, sometimes
with men staring at her, of trying to
find interest in the chocolate fudge
minds of girls who did not like to
have her around because she talked
like professor and wore the beauty
they wished was theirs. 1t was not
clear that Jim was not the one man
of all, the prince who stepped out Of
nothing and held out his hands to her
in some kind of miraculous tableau.
No one reminded her that she was only
seventeen she felt that she was as old
as the pyramids, for her reading had
made her appear as related to the past.
More than anything else some funda-
mental part of her declared that she
was as nothing, that whatever she
might do or become there could be no
disaster, no loss; that she was created
to be given away.
One day Jim came home at the noon
hour. He did not usually come then,
| and evidently he had not come to have
lunch there, for he stood outside the
door where his aunt's piggy eyes could
not see him, and beckoned to Brena
mysteriously.
When she had come out onto the
porch, he took her hand and led her
around the corner of the house. She
could always remember the heat Of the
blazing sun of noon which flattened Its
burning upon them as II 1t were some
great wrath.
/ "Look herei" said Jim. with a kind
of ferocity In his voice and eyes. "Tm