Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1931-12-03
GIN THREE PARTS-PART THREE)

CHICAGO Tribune Syndicate
Copyright 1881: Evelyn Murray Campbell
(IN THREE PARTS-PART THREE)
But it was different with Trudy
There was no background for her son
no ledge to hold his foot when il
slipped. Why should Trudy have tx
suffer again that gradual demoraliza.
ton endured with Clement Payne? Why
not have it over with n clean cut
slash of disillusion?
The boy was bad-no good. He wa
already causing his mother worry. Ellis
Harding knew the type. There were q
million like him scattered over the
length and breadth Of the land. Young
irresponsible, unwilling to earn theil
way to the top as other men had done
but wanting everything and willing te
put their fingers in the fire to get it
He knew. He saw them in court every
day. Young bandits, young cutthroats
old IN the ways OF crime.
In his passionate arraignment the
personality of the boy he had never
seen became fused with the image OF
his own son and try as he would he
could not separate them. He saw Rich
ard, staggering, insolent, demanding
five hundred dollars and 1t seemed to
be Trudy's son instead of his own. He
could see a dozen motives in Jimmy
that he would not face in Richard.
II Trudy's son were like that, wouldn't
it be more merciful-
His hands were clammy and he
wiped them on a fine linen handker-
chief and then his forehead was wet.
Plain as your hand the boy belonged to
that band OF young car thieves that
had preyed on the town for months.
That garage was a blind-that locked
door. The boys own mother sus-
pected him-she had said 1t over and
over in ways that couldn't be mis-
taken. She had left the whole matter
in his hands; he was to do what he
thought was right. He was like a tree
surgeon who had to lop off a rotten
limb.
Very slowly his hand crept eros the
table to the telephone.
Poor Trudy. Out OF all these years he
Wdo LAX Ol1ly AllO1lO DIG UCllCNCQ AL.
He took down the receiver to call a
number, but a voice spoke into his ear
and when he had done listening his
face was white and Mortified and the
receiver dropped from his numb hand.
Trudy ran most of the way home.
Something seemed to be catching at
her skirts, holding her back. She want
ed more than anything in the world
to find Jimmy, to put her hands on his
young; knobby shoulders and know that
he was safe. For when she walked
through the Harding doorway she had
passed from darkness into light. Per-
haps that cold astonished look of Dor
othy's had done it, perhaps 1t was only
the flatness of long planned accom-
plishment.
She had been SO sure that Ellis
Harding would lift the heavy burden
of her doubt, but instead she was in
active fear. She had performed a vast
d~isloyalty and it dashed her running
feet and she did not know how to
escape the reprisal of remorse.
Dark gray streets were prickly with
recurrent glows of springing lights. A
mist hung heavy but in the black
mouth of the alley there was a spot
of floating yellow above the crazy sign,
Payne, Auto Repairs" She found her
throat aching; it had never seemed so
pitiful before. A boy trying to be a
man! And what if he tried the wrong
way? Fierce, protecting strength flowed
into her body. She was his mother; he
was her son! How had she dreamed
that another could tell her what to do
for Jimmy? And now her breast ached,
longing to shelter him.
But in the garage were the bare
bones of what had been. Some one
had gone away and left the light burn
ing but little else had been left. Tools
were gone and the little forge and all
the greasy odds and ends that only
Jimmy knew about. The crazy blue car
was gone and the locked door stood
wide open revealing an empty room
where Clement Payne had played at
his silly, imaginative games with Gre
alton and 1t was as empty now as
Trudy's arms.
She went into the house calling JIM
my and knowing that he vas not
there. Nothing was there except the tx
pectant gloom of a house where no.
body lives in daytime. She lighted a
little old-fashioned brass lamp that
stood or the kitchen dresser and car
ried it into the front room and set 1t
on the mantel. His picture was illum-
ined at once as if the eyes and mouth
came alive and were about to smile and
the rays from the brass lamp warmed
the fair hair into cleaning life. Glenn
ent, looking at her from his frame,
waited for her to speak, but there was
nothing she could say except to admit
her great disloyalty.
20, Clement, you would never have
done that"
Clement would never have betrayed
her or their child to any living soul,
she knew.
But it was because I loved him SO
much" she sobbed, trying to exculpate
herself.
But that was not true. 1t was not
Jimmy she had loved but the image
created by her mind; a false image
fallen into tatters at the hint of dan
ger to the real Jimmy. But in her
abasement and in her elf-revelation
there was exquisite relief, for now that
frozen silence would never come be-
tween them again. She looked up and