Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-07-10

" little home town Of my youth,
"A was the sudden fortune made
4 4 by Jefferson Thorpe, the bar
Der, out of the money that he
put in the Northern Star mine. l
recall the dreams he had of what he
would do with the money, If he ever
got it, and how all Of :, sudden the
crowd came running to his shop to
tell him that he had cleaned
up" $40, 900.
Excitement? 1t was all over town
in a minute. They ran off a news
extra at the Mariposa Newspacket,
and in less than no time there wasn't
standing room in the barber shop, and
over in Smiths Hotel they had three
extra barkeeps working on the lager
beer pumps.
They were selling mining shares on
the Main street in Mariposa that
afternoon and people were just clutch.
ing for them. Then at night there
was big oyster supper in Smiths
Cafe. with speeches, and the Mariposa
Band outside.
But I think what Jeff liked best of
it all was the sort Of public recogni-
ton that it meant He'd stand there
in the shop, hardly bothcring to shave,
and explain to the men in the arm
chairs how he held her-the stock of
the Northern Star-and they showed
her, and he chung to her, and what
he'd said to himself-a perfect Had
while he was clinging to her.
The whole thing was in the city
papers a few days after with a photo
graph of jeff, taken specially at Ed
Moore's studio upstairs over Net
ley's). 1t showed Jeff with look of
piercing intelligence in his face that
would easily account for $4,000.
I say that the recognition meant a
lot to jeff for its own sake. But no
doubt the fortune meant quite a bit
to him on account of Myra.
Did 1 mention Myra, Jeff's daugh-
ter? Perhaps not. That's the trouble
with the people in Mariposa; they're
all so separate and so different-not
a bit like the people in the cities
that unless you hear about them
separately and one by one you can't
for a moment understand what they're
like.
Myra had golden hair and a Greek
face and would come bursting through
the barber shop in a hat at least six
inches wider than what they wore in
Paris. AS you saw her swinging up
the street to the Telephone Exchange,
where she worked, in a suit that was
straight out of woman's magazine,
and the latest brown boots, there
was style written all over her-the
kind of thing that MaripoSa recognized
and did homage to-.
Myra treated lovers like dogs and
would slap them across the face to
show her utter independence. And
there was Miss Cleghorn, also Of the
telephone exchange, who was sallow,
and who bought Accent ancient
history to improve herself: and yet, If
she'd hit any man in Mariposa, he'd
have had her arrested for assault.
Myra was a girl with any amount
of talent. You should have heard her
recite 1.-The Raven" at the Methodist
social! Simply genius! And when she
acted Portia in the trial scene of the
Merchant of Venice" at the high
school concert, everybody in Mariposa
admitted that you couldn't have told
it from the original.
So, of course, as soon as jeff made
the fortune, Myra had her resignation
in next morning and everybody knew
that she was to go to dramatic
school for three months in the Fall
and become leading actress.
But, as I said, the public recogni-
ton counted a lot for JEFF. The mo.
ment you begin to get that sort of
thing, it comes in quickly enough.
Brains. you know. are recognized right
away. That was why, Of course, with
in a week from this jeff received the
first big packet of stuff from the Gu
ban Land Development Co, with
colored pictures of Cuba, and fields of
bananas. and haciendas and insur-
rectos with machetes and Heaven
knows what. ....
They heard. of him. somehow-it
wasn't for modest man like Jeffer-
son to say how. After all, the capital
lists of the world are just one and the
same crowd. If you're in it, you're
in it, that's all! jeff realized why it is
that, of course, men like Rockefeller
and Morgan all know one another.
Anyway. they were fair and straight.
this Cuban crowd that wrote to Jeff.
They asked him to come right in and
be one Of themselves. Just as well
! write him to be a director now as wait