Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1929-05-02


Paris. Vt, is a thrifty. ambitious fellow.
and studies law IN his spare time aeainst
the day when he will marry Eva Bede. who
is saving her salary as a school teacher TO
buy their home. one night Eya's father
asked Charley TO suard his orchard againSt
thieves and he accidently shoots Arson ray-
lor. Adam Bedes drauehtsman. who comes
on business matters. Taylor leaves a wife
and two daughters. Charley feels that he
is responsible for the livelihood OF the Tay-
lor family and breaks his ensasement to
Eve. To escape gassip. Charley marries the
widow. Eva, heartbroken, goes to Europe
for a trip. while Charley labors to keep
the Taylor family.
WHENEVER they met thereafter
w they merely nodded to one another
" But Eva never married. For TWEEN
~ years new conerS in Paris were as.
founded when informed hat the plod-
ding proprietor of the Whitney house
barber shop had had a romance witt
the spinSter who later became principa
of the Union Street school.
Year after year-Sprlng. summer. au-
tumn. winter-Charley Fisk cut hair or
queer heads and scraped hirSute lawr
from prodigious Adams apples. He
met the lapsed payments Oh the ex-
Taylor cottage and finally owned it
He met AnSon's back bills, settled fol
the funeral. put money in the bank
Not much. Still. 1t mounted up. And
he raised those three girls.
Sometimes they called in the shop
after school for movie money or on
errands for their mother. The waiting
drummers exclaimed to Charley: You
don't look old enough TO have girls that
sizel" And Charley always replied,
his face a wooden mask: Yeah, I be-
lieve in startin' early" Once when
Sarah had made a trip to the shop and
given him a tongue flashing for some
domestic dereliction, his hand shook SO
badly that he cut a small cash in Jo-
seph Folders throat.
Twenty years of that and old Char
ley Fisk-Drematurely old-frostbitten
of brows and given to mapping in the
rear of his premises, had a flock of
women on his hands that the town was
watching tensely. He saw the knitting
mills come in, the knife works burn,
and the piano factory go bankrupt. The
smart horses that once spanked up
Main street gave way TO mud plastered
flivvers that parked like wasps along
his front curbing. He found himself
shaving male collar advertisements
that only yesterday were infants in
arms. And the three Taylor girls,
women grown, whose food, clothes and
shelter he provided and whose bills he
paid somehow from the dimes and
quarters and dollars that came from
cramped hands and burning feet, had
only stereotyped responses for his criti-
cisms on their behavior: You amt our
father. II our father had lived he'd
let us done this. But you killed himi"
I pass over any detailed account Of
the development of those three blondes.
1t is all epitomized in an incident &C.
curing in New York City in the win
ter of 1922. Crowding Broadway in
front of the Times building to saunter
down Seventh avenue toward my hotel,
l suddenly discerned a be-spectacled,
mustached, flat footed little mar on
the corne of And street. Dead ringer
for old Charley Fisk" l muttered. Then
l halted abruptly. 1t was Charley
fisk
What are you doing down here?" /
cried.
II come down. he confided, ito see
Natalie an Marion" And he held to
me as though the crowds might swirl
me away.
Are they here in New York;"
you been away from Paris since be-
fore the war, amt you? Out in tn
orient, warn't it? Then YOU could have
missed KNOWN"
knowing what for PHYS sake?"
my two oldest girls. are down here
.playin' in a show. TIL Dolores Sis
ters' they call themselves. They've
made a big hit
Natalie and Marian are a couple of
actresses"
"A show teller come t. Paris on va
cation durin' tn a He sees Matte
an Mary cut up t a Red Cross enter
tainment. He made a team out Of EN-
and'-they're goin' over big"
Whats become of Babs?"
She's Workin' up in BarstoW, VT.
An seem as how Sarah's gon t. st.
Louis t. see her folks, l though I'd
sneak down here this week an watch
my girls act. It's t. a theater called
tn Carlton. Want t. come along?"
God knows I'm no prude. Yet the
hadn't been raised five minutes
an uncomfortable warmth was
stealing about my ears.
l heard old Charley swallow hard on
ny right.
Could that pair of sensuous female
bodies down there in the spotlight,
tulllillB lllcI UdChS W Il COIl-
audience while they changed
Arcadian girdles, be two of the wan
,aced, blue nosed, spindle legged little
waits because of whose plight the man
1t my side had deliberately smashed
romance of his life?
The piece Jazzed on and the curtain
iescended-to thunderous applause.
But old Charley Fisk did not add to
he tumult. He turned tired eyes to-
ward me-lack luster, burned out eyes.
DO we want to stay-and see tn
this mess?" he asked huskily.
III go any time you say"
Lets get out!"
We walked down 7th avenue together.
Turning into my hotel, we sat till after
midnight smoking in the lobby.
William" he demanded, have /
a dam fool?"
l knew what he meant-his twenty
year sacrifice.
ITS hard to say, Charley. Each of
Us has our code. If we do our duty
IS we see 1t, no matter how that duty
shapes up to the next man, the salts
faction should be some compensation.
Does Mrs. Fisk know what her daugh-
are doing?"
Yeah, she's been comm t. New York
or four times a year. Twas her
Wild enthusiasm bout tn show we've
seen might that finally brought me
down here t. watch it. I THOUGHT
firm her personal recommendation"
He stopped. I understood.
hndn hin, roNI l,1 I