The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1926-08-02

LII.
No word came from the honey.
mooners for more than a week.
Mary Roses heart ached for her
mother, who waited with pathetic
eagefness for a letter from Flossie.
A letter that never came
Every morning she would stand
out on the front steps, watching the
slow progressed the postman max
Ing his way UP the street. And her
feet would drag listlessly as she
came back Int the house.
well, I guess the baby's Just for
gotten us, Mary Rose" she would
say. ''she has Sam now, and she
doesn't need us any more. But
that's the way of the world-the
young things grow UP and run away,
and forget. I suppose you'll be leav-
Ing me, too, one of these days."
Mary Rose would shake her head.
mo, I'll never marry anybody" she
would say with firm decision. "You
know what Aunt Henry Blair says
that I look like an old maid al
ready"
And her mother would sigh and go
upstairs to her own room, where
she was making a new dress for
Flossie-a soft, ~gold-colored thing in
which Flossie would look like. a
blonde dryad
She had dragged an old trunk out
of the attic and In It she was pack
Ing all of Flossie's clothes-running
fresh pink bridey looking ribbons
through the Teddy bears" and
hightgowns, mending che thin chif-
fon stockings and putting new bands
on the tiny felt hats hat were the
only kind Flossie wore
II may as we'll fix up the few
clothes she has" she would sag
grimly to Mary Rose, because she's
not likely to have many new one II
she waits for Sam Jessup te buy
them for herl"
Then one morning when Mary
Rose got to the office she found a
letter lying on her desk. Across it
her name was scratched in pencil.
The handwriting was Flossie's-
round and Uniformed as a e-year-old
child's writing.
Darling Mary Rose" Il read.
you still have 500 of mine. Re-
member that I asked you to get it
for me last week. Please send II to
me right away, as I am in terrible
need Of money and cannot get Sam
to give me any, He sure Is the
~prld's worst tightwad, and the way
he\freezes on to money makes me
sick. If I had known he was like
this, he would have had to chloro-
form me to get me to marry him. be-
teve me, baby With love, Flossie,
"P, 8, Send the money special de-
livery, It Ia for a hat that I need
terribly, and I have paid down my
last dollar to hold It. B, M. j."
The letter had been mailed from
Ridalmont and Mary Rose groaned
aloud az she laid it down.
She knew that Flossie couldn't pos.
sibly be In terrible need" of a hat.
For her cute little felts were made
to weather sun and rain, and. nor
over, she had taken at least three
OF them along on her nuptial flight
with SAM
But hats were a passion win Flos-
sic. and she would cheerfully have
begged, borrowed, lied or stolen to
get one that she fancied. And this
time, from the ton of her letter, she
had evidently had a rousing row
with Sam to get one-but to no avail,
81 suppose he Just didn't have the
money, after he'd paid his hotel bill"
Mary Rose thought. as she folded
Flossie's $40 bill into an envelope.
''If he'd had It. he would have given
Il to hert'
For she knew something about
Sans blind worship Of Flossie, and
the extravagances It had led him
into In the past, He/had ever bought
his ramshackle secondhand a be-
cause Flossie hated street AIRS and
loudly advertised the fact.
IT simply will not go out with a
man unless he has a car" she had
told him long ago. t'There r too
many men with machines who are
dying to go around with mel'N And
SO Sam had bought the d~isgraceful
~Wheezer,
Mary Rose slipped a sheet of pa
per into her typewriter and began
to tap off a letter to her self.willed
young sister:
Dearest Flossie," she wrote. TN
sending the money for the hat, but
don't you think you're making a mis-
take by uuarreling about 1t with
Sam? I do. The way to make a
man give you things is not by raz-
ling him, surely"
She got that far and stopped, her
hands poised In the air above the
machine for a minute or two. Then
suddenly they dropped, pulled the
letter from the typewriter and de-
lberately tore It into little bits.
"vVho am I to advise Flossie what
to do?" she asked herself bitterly.
she knows more about men in a
minute than I'll ever know, If I live
to be a hundred years old. Why,
/ don't even know how to forget a
4 nan who's forgotten me as com.
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