The Washington times., 1931-02-13
CHAPTER 1

Quarantine, where a great
ocean liner had just come to
anchor. The water was SPAR
king blue and the sky was a
great sarch of azure. Fussy lit
tie tues plodded along, a sea
breeze swept bright color into
Mary LOUIS round cheeks, an
airplane droned overhead, i'm
portantly.
Mary LOU"
Mary Lou tugged her giddy
little beret over one eye and
turned to behold her young
cousin and charge, Billy San
derson, leaping up and down
on his siX-year-old legs, pin.
ioned to earth only by the
string of the red paper kite he
held in his fat hand.
''What is it, Billy?"
"'Jever go up in an airplane,
Mary Lou? What makes air
planes stay up? Kin I go up
in an airplane. Mary Lou?" in
quired Billy, all on breath.
"No," said Mary Lou, regret
fully; mo, Billy, I've never
been up in an airplane. They
stay up because" Here Mary
Lou, floundering in the sea Of
her own scanty knowledge, end.
ed firmly, because the en-
gine :"
The Big Boat
"Autos have engines
they stay down." remarked
Billy, helpfully.
Look" cried Mary Lou, "at
the big boat"
While Billy looked and his
20-year-old cousin sighed with
relief the airplane vanished into
the horizon and Billy began
formulating other questions,
relative to boats, in his busy
mind.
Mary Lou sat down on a
green and white bench where
the drive curved to wide
lookout, topped by flagpole
circled VI 18th red autumn flow
erS.
"stayIright here, Billy San
derson, she commanded, an
eye on the cars sweep
ing up and down the road.
While Billy clambered over
the seats and fell into the
flower bed, clutching his kite.
Mary Lou looked over the water
and dreamed.
A Charming Girl
She was always dreaming.
She was round and delectable,
pretty and vital. She had red
gold hair and eyes as blue as
the water flowing past the sea
wall. She had a pert nose and
a sweet, gallant, red mouth and
the most charming hands and
feet in the world. Also she was
slender where Slenderness is de-
manded and curved where
curves are necessary for beauty.
Small as a watch-charm, lively
as q cricket, fresh as a budding
rose and dreaming as a May
night. this was Mary Lou
Thurston. sitting on a green
bench on Brooklyn's Shore
Road-once known as Million
aires Row-looking at a static
ocean liner and wishing herself
in Persia or Peru, AfghaniStan,
India, England
Not that Mary Lou was un-
happy. She was too healthy for
unhappinesS, too sweet for dis
content. But she was as vitality
restless as a puppy tugging at
his leash. And she was a
dreamer born, a weaver of en-
chanting fairy tales and le-
gends, with the innocent ego
tism of youth. She read herself
into the pages of every book,
she saw herself as the heroine
of every play she went to, she
was always imagining herself in
the most amazing, the most
enchanting situations.
Architectural HOdge-POdge
The side streets, off Shore
Road, are a hodge-podge Of
architectural periods" Civil
war, and General Grant, Tweed
Ring and strictly "moderniStic."
Rows of red brick houses, each
the twin of it's neighbor, run
along only to be brought up
short by a great SpraWling. bay
windowed frame house, built for
space and comfort, sitting back
in its own flower garden with
perhaps a little vegetable patch
added. Now and then, among
more pretentious pseudo-Span-
ish dwellings of cement and
stucco and almost-wrought-iron
balconies, one sees a small
frame dwelling of an earlier day,
white painted, green shuttered,
demure and lovely.
In such a house Mary Lou
ThurSton lived with her young
aunt and uncle, Clara and How
ard Sanderson, and their eX-
tremely lively youngster, Billy
Mary Lou Thurston was that
fast vanishing American, the
"hone" girl. Once she had had
the most charming and delight
full parents imaginable, young
and careless, happy hearted and
improvident. Her father had
been a painter-not a very good
painter, but a very happy one.
On a tiny income he and his
beautiful young wife and Mary
lou had tra""'sI almost all over
the hey had come
= lad been an