White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1930-08-15
CHAPTER Confined


They live everywhere" He sent his
long, white hand, fine as woman's,
in a gesture that indicated all that
vast sweep OF the city apart from
their own environment. "They have
been around you. child, all of your
life, only, OF course you never saw
them, you never would-you never
will. They built the houses you live
tn-they paved the streets. They spun
the cloth you wear, the food you eat
is handled by them in a hundred
ways-all this passes through their
hands, yet you have never knowingly
seen them!" He stared, struck with
this stupendous thought.
Linda looked puzzled and family
distressed. She felt as If she had
been caught mocking at something
which after all was not amusing or
ridiculous. She was more thoughtful
than girls of her age usually are. and
there was novelty In this viewpoint
that caught her attention. But be-
fore she could reply the procession,
same, had claimed her wonder again
The music came fainter and fainter
from it's distance The best and show
lest of the bands had gone by, and
the tail of the comet was escorted by
the leftovers of drums and flies.
There was not splendid automobile
to be seen-and no bowling. The tall
silk hats had become extinct. PATROL
men appeared on corners. They
ehouldered the crowd, and women and
old men began to garner their fiocks
of startled awry children. Before
long it was impossible to tell where
the marchers and the crowd were di-
vided. for the street was a maelstrom
of pushing, worrying bodies. striving
against one another for the right of
way to nowhere. Authority lost pa.
thence.
Behind the brown awnings, safe
and sound from all this furry. in Cous-
In Amy's fine house on the avenue.
Jim Haverhill talked to his daughter
and used the sight they had just wit
ne sed to point his lesson and send
1t home.
''Look down In the street and you
will see life. could not show you
filter picture if we walked through all
the galleries of the earth. Those poor
fools-grubs called them! Would
the crowd come out to watch them
march? Who cared or watched. after
the band and the cars and the uni
forms went by? It's their one day
of the year when we-Our kind-are
out of the city and they can play at
calling it their own. Yet even then
they've got to resort to fine feathers
to make their. own little show worth
while. Poor, grubs Smart butter.
flies! Let 'em dig and sweat and
struggle until doomsday and they'll
never be half as important to the
world as a red coat with a dancing
stick. That's life. Linda"
at doesn't seem fair" she re.
marked.
"Fair" he sneered, "of course, IT
isn't fair. Nothing is fair. And it is
humanity itself that encourages
breds-nnfairness AS long as men
have eyes, they will he caught with
color. AS long as they have ears
they would rather hear music than
groans. It's the parade that counts
Linda. my love- And they've learned
1.-THE people who want TO get things
done You can put yourself over with
brass band and how when you
might crawl on your knees TO the
edge of the Red sea and never be
heard from"
Linda. who. at sixteen. owned sables
that were much too fine to be worn
until she was twenty-five. had already
brushed close enough to the swamp OF
poverty TO know its chill breath They
lived in Cousin Amy's house that sum
mer; slept in grand mahogany beds !:
but they used the servants sheets, and
there was only a grouchy caretaker
In the basement living rooms Otter
she carried secret packages from the
corner grocery hits of food thai did
not require experienced cooking. She
did moi like this There was some
thing fearsome and frightening about
it-much too near the grews"lne pro.
cession that walked After that day
she listened attentiveiy to all hef fa
ther had to say He tried To crowd
all the dubious wisdom ct his past
into the few days that remained. and
she reached for II avidly.
Amy RastOn returned to America
three weeks after Haverhill's death
She was yer! much annoyed Not. al
course. because the poor creature was
dead-she admitted that no one M
control of the life forces and she knew
that the end had to come to every one