New Britain herald., 1927-01-22

things. I hate cheap, common things"
 With your salary. you don't have to have cheap, common things" Aunt Gertrude would come back at her. But you fritter away your money on such useless ! things"
 ! That was perfectly true. Robbie would hire a taxicab to bring her home from the Locust street school on days when it rained, because she wouldn't wear rubbers and carry an umbrella. She would spend a dollar on a fresh white gardenia that wilted in half an hour, when an imitation one at the same price would have lasted twenty times as long and looked almost as we'll
 But I love the real ones. They have such a heavenly smell,' was all the explanation she could make to Aunt Gertrude, who shook a desparing head over her.
 Aunt Gertrude never could un- derstand Robbie.
 You're just like your mothtr was" she would say. She never knew how 10 save a red cent and neither do you. And if there had been movies in her day she prob ably would have been crazy-mad to be a picture actress, too."
 But moving pictures were barely known in the days when Bobbic's mother had lived, twenty years ago and more.
 She had died when Robbie was a tiny baby, and there was only a faded photograph of her on the wall of her bedroom to show Bob bic how sweet and gay and pretty she had been.
 The picture showed her with the same riotous blonde curls that topped Boobies lovely little head, and with the same dark-lashed eyes and smiling lips.
 Sometimes Robbie felt that the woman in the picture would have understood her and her ambition better than anybody living did. To talk about going out to Hollywood before her father was like waving a red flag before an angry bull.
 But Robbie made up her mind that hot August afternoon that she would talk to him about going that very night at supper. Because, If she really were going 10 go to search for fame and fortune in the movies, she would have to ask him for the money to do it with. She couldn't as Aunt Gertrude had pointed out use buttons for money.
 'No, I'll have to ask Dad to let me have some money" she said to herself. as she left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the cool sec ond floor of the house.
 At six o'clock Mir. Ransom came home. He was a thin, small. sandy man of quiet disposition and occa- sional violent bursts of temper.
 He always came home at six o'clock. He was the soul of habit and promptness.
 He always left the house at eight in the morning to go down to the hardware store, where he had been head clerk for nearly thirty years.
 On Sundays. unless the weather was bad. he went to church in the morning, ate a heavy Sunday dln- ner. and then drove out into the country in his Ford car. That was his program of life, year after year.
 Looking at him, you couldn't be- lIeve that was the father or q creature so warm, so gay. so full of life and radiant color as Robbie. He was so colorless and dried-up looking, himself
 Well. today sure was scorcher' wasn't it?" he asked, as the three of them sat down to the evening meal "A cold supper tonight was an inspiration, Gertrude
 Aunt Gertrude beamed over the rims of her glasses. She loved to be praised for her good works.
 There was no doubt that she was a wonderful housekeeper. and she had toiled day in and day out for her brother and his motherless child, for q great many years with out reward.
 She kept the house in shining order. She did the ironing and mended the clothes. She made the garden. and kept the house bright with flowers. She was one of those excellent women who know how to make peoples bodies wonderfully comfortable and their souls mar velously uncomfortable.
 She was ragging and sarcastic, and busy body. besides
 She had spells" of nagging