Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1927-04-29

IN TWO PARTS-PART ONE
1.-THE old homely saw that it never rains
but 1t pours seemed to the Corri-
sons never to have been applied to
any one with greater truth than to
themselves. At the end OF the eighth
year Of marriage they found themselves
totally devoid OF expectations n de-
pending entirely upon Corrison's salary
as cashier of the Oil and Grain CONNER
cial Bank for the future prospects as well
as for their present needs.
The OIL and Grain was not a large
bank, and the salary of its cashier was
not large. However. on six thousand a
year W people can live comfortably but
not extravagantly-even in the city of
New York. The Corrisons nae lived a
good deal beyond 1t, which perhaps was
pardonable in view of their expectations.
But the wrecking of what remained Of
the Wyndham fortune by Inez's father in
a Long Island development scheme, and
the marriage Of Uncle Corrison to a wom-
an thirty years his junior had put an end
to these expectations with sudden and
absolute hnality.
When the Corrisons woke up to this
act they found that they had fostered
in themselves the dangerous habit Of
spending Just q little more than they
q llCQs IN ild tnlS lidOlb lluIis W
their necks like the ~proverbial milestone
Volumes have been written about this
vice-mpch truth and much maudlin
sentimentalism. A moral treatise upon
1t is unnecessary. But the result was In
evitable. Domestic strife rarely fails to
follow financial disaster in a household
like the Corrisons'. Misery does not love
company, the wiseacres to the contrary.
II 1T did we would be a race of misogyn-
icfC pnfhnr II Invade a Jngtra m b1nvV,o
at least four-fifths upon your companion
in misery and not to see any more OF him
of her than Is strictly necessary.
The Corrisons had followed this course,
Only once a day did they see each other
at the dinner table. For something less
than one hour. then, did they endure
each others presence in silence. or In
discussing in we'll bred. perfectly o n
trolled tones some subject Upon which
they heartily disagreed.
How Corrison spent his spare time was
a matter OF conjecture, even to his closest
friends. To Corrison, the Other Woman
was always In the abstract. His mind
refused to accept as a reality certain
vague dreams which occurred to him.
With Inez, his wife, 1t was different. A
woman cannot content herself with love
in the abstract. Her craving for admira-
ton, or at least for a comfortable and
tangible manifestation that to some male
she is desirable beyond all other females
Of the earth, makes her the more mater
ialistic in matters OF the heart. Keats
n Shelley Notwithstanding. So Of course
there was another Man.
His name was Wilkie Barrett, and he
was a poet. A real poet, ! mean, with
the spluttering candle and the leaky gar
ret long since forgotten.
Because he was a real poet. Wilkie Bar
rett affected neither long hair nor flow
ing ties. He wore a plain business suit,
drove an inexpensive roadster OF a bour-
geois stock brand with a comfortable
seating capacity for two, and generally
conducted himself with decorum and
lack Of asininity.
He was tall, rather handsome, dark
eyed and grave. He wrote poetry with
the same efficient inspiration with which
he selected q dinner for two from the
tangled skein Of a grill menu He kept
regular hours. From 8 a. m. to Q p. m,
each day he labored or perspired with his
eminently responsive muse. After 2 p. m
he attended to business matters or. II
there vas no business that needed atten-
ton. called upon some less successful
brother artist and lunched with him In
some obscure restaurant.
Wilkie Barrett was not q Bohemian
His verse had a ring OF sincerity that can
only be attained by long association with
insincerities. He prided himself upon no
having a message to a long suffering
world, though In this he deceived him
self, like all good poets. He claimed that
he wrote poetry for the same reason that
other men sold rubber boots, refrigera-
tors and life insurance-to make a liv-
ing. But in reality, he loved his work sc
well that he had starved. cheerfully, fol
three years and found no hardship now
in claiming himself to his desk for five
hours a day. In fact, he got excellent
sport OFT of his daily tussle with his
muse
Inez Corrison and Wilkie Barrett had
known each other since childhood
Though socially far removed, they had
attended the same grammar school Later
the same class at high school. At this
period Inez had been the subject of an
avalanche Of fervid sonnets which term
mated with the apprenticing OF Wilkie
to q wholesale hardware firm on Fourth
Avenue by a practical though not un-
sympathetic widowed mother, who hello
that II Wilkie had the stuff In him he
would find time to practice his muse In
his spare moments between weighing out
ten penny nails. To this intensely prac-
teal view of the situation was due VIII
kie's success. A barrier had been raised
between himself and his ambition. He
Immediately proceeded to tear down the
barrier with one eye on the calendar date
Of Inez's return from college.
When she returned, however, he found
that the former recipient of his fervid
sonnets had graduated in snobbishness
as well as in dramatic art and expression
and the wall being only partly torn down
he proceeded to drown his ~disappoint-
ment in the cup OF despair. He wrote
reams Of poetry during the period imme-
diately following. Dainty sonnets, .sonor
Gus, despairing elegies, melancholy trio
let's. and hot burning lyrics.
Out of the resulting mass half a dozer
were accepted by various magazines fol
their startling originality rather than fol
their poetic value. Then the editor OF
one Of these magazines who had parted
with a twenty dollar bill for a poem en-.
titled 1.-THE Cry Of Despair told Wilkie
a few pertinent things about his habits
Of living and the rules of poetry, nearly
all Of which Wilkie had observed by sol
emily breaking, and Wilkie woke up anc
went to work in earnest.
About the time he began to eat regu.
larly Inez married Edward Corrison, the
promising young banker. Wilkie was
again galvanized into fervid action wher
he saw the heading announcing the com
ing wedding in bold type on the sans
LOOK YEARS Ess lounge