Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1929-01-14
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don't know. Larry said ne just loved
old-fGshioned breakfasts, but ] sup
poss now that you're so swell, with
a cook and all, you wouldn't stoop
to mush!"
Byrd's gaiety during the rest Of
the meal Mas forced. -or her mother
had deprived her Of her feeling or
w~eil-being. temporary though II was,
BY just that allusion to Larry.
While she waited for her father
to get the car out. she went into
the dining room with a sinking heart
and sat down.
She wondered IL she had chosen
the lesser Of two evils by coming to
Jacksonville. Parents let their daugh-
tiers 90 with regret, she philosophiE-
ed. but received them back, she no.
ticed, with more regret. She knew
she was far %unhappier in Jackson
will. than she had been in Cleve-
land. even separated then from
Larry.
She realized now that her mar
riage had meant personal freedom
and a release from a town that she
had outgrown when she left high
school. Old friends and families
that had been part Of her back
ground meant nothing 10 her except
her past. The girls and boys she
had known in school rad settled
down 10 repeat the dull experiences
Of their parents. They had little
shops. little stores. little businesses
OF their own and their minds ran
along the same little grooves.
Unconsciously her ideas had
changed and she couldn't point them
back to Jacksonville md it, unpro-
gressive atmosphere.
And the greatest shock Of ell was
that there was no place for her IN
her fathers house. A shelter-that
was all. To slip back into a single
existence, 10 take her former place
in her old environment, was inpos-
sible.
The pallid lives or those around
her got on her nerves She wanted
to reform the whole town, to wake
them UP. 10 stir them and tell them
they were missing the elixir of life.
There was no justification for the
narrow. soul-grinding economy that
her mother and most Of the other
women In the town practiced, and II
was only the outworn shell OF the
precepts that had come down to
them from their puritan ancestors:
It wasn't only missing Larry; ~
was missing marriage; missing the
gaiety and intimacy; the creak on
the stairs when Larry came home
late, the very worry and tangie OF
things: everything that she had once
adhered she would have exchanged
right then and there for all the peaca
and horsehair or this little town.
She had been telling herself ~
times q dsy that she had done the
only thing possible in her position,
insulted continually as she had been
by Larry's conduct toward her, his
lack Of responsibility. his friends,
his poker games. his investment
and finally that last straw, India.
And fifty times a day the refrain
grew thinner and flstter.
And Larry began TO take on new
and more attractive qualities, COM
pared with the men she was meet
ing al the bank and in the n~eighbor-
hood. She had seen men In the lit
tie restaurant where she lunched
look over the menu calculatinzly and
calculatingly eschew fifty-cent
lunch for a forty cent one. Larry's
very spend-thrift qualities seemed
enhanced now In her ewes. At any
rate he had the red c~orpuscles 81
q mar who was living and not the
aenemic blood Of these stolid, I'M
imaginative, dried-up beings.
A flcetinE picture of Larry. gay
and lively, wearing that air Of sue
cess, full Of the elan OF life. with
that flavcr Of expensive cigars
hanging about his clothes and the
air Of having just come from places
where exciting things we're happen
inr. danced in her head.
Suddenly she knew she couldn't
live much longer with the horse
hair furniture and ~axed flowers
under glass and she knew she could
never bring I'D her baby under the
critical and dominating eye Of her
mother.
That morning she talked 10 her
father frankly about her marriage
and separation In fact. she told
him the entire stery. Everything
but the news Of the bsby.
"This firm that larry was with
4 the time Of your marriage said
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