The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-09-18

waist and murmured in your ear his
secret about the veal saute with mush-
rooms or the spaghetti Caruso du jour.
Sabra Cravat. congresswoman from
Oklahoma, lunching in the Louis XIV
room with the members Of the Wom-
ems State Republican committee,
would say, looking up at him with
those intelligent dark eyes. ''I'll leave
it to you, Nick. Only quickly. We
haven't much time" Niccolo Mazza-
RIM would say yes. he understood. No
one had much time in Usage, Okla.
Twenty-Five years earlier anybody
who was anybody in Oklahoma had
dilated on his or her eastern connec-
TONS Iowa. If necessary, was East.
They had been little ashamed of
the Run. Dragged about the splen-
doris of the homes from which they
had come.
Now it was considered the height of
chic to be able to say that your par
ents had come through In a covered
wagon. Grandparents were still rather
rare in Oklahoma. AS for the Run
of SIT was Osage's Mayflower. At
the huge dinner given in Sabra Cravat's
honor when she was elected congress
woman, and from which they tried to
exclude Sol Levy over Sabra's vigor-
GUS (and triumphant) protest, the
chairman of the committee on arrange
ments explained 1t all to Sol, patron
izingly.
''You see, we're inviting only people
who came to Oklahoma in the Run"
well, sure" said the former ped
dler, genially. That's all right.
walked"
The Levy Mercantile company's
building now occupied an entire square
block and was fifteen stories high. In
the huge plate-glass windows on Paw
huska avenue postured ladies waxen
and coquettish, as on Fifth avenue.
The daughter Of Mrs. Pat Leary
(nee Crook Nose) always caused quite
a fiutter when she came In, for accus-
toned though Usage was to money
and the spending Of 1t, the Learys'
lavishness was something spectacular.
Handmade silk underwear the sheer
est of cobweb French stockings, model
hats, dresses-well. In the matter of
gowns it was no coed trying to in
fiuence Maude Leary or her mother.
They frankly wanted beads, spangles.
and paillettes on foundation Of crude
color. The saleswomen were polite
and ,acquiescent. but they cooked an
eyebrow at one another. Squaw stuff.
Now that little Cravat girl-Felice
Cravat, Cimarron Cravat's daughter
was different. She insisted on plain.
smart tailored things. Young though
she was, she was Oklahoma state
woman tennis champion. She always
said she looked a freak in fluffy
things-like boy dressed up in girls
clothes. She had long. lean, muscular
arms and surprising breadth of
shoulder. was slim flanked and prac-
tically stomachless. She had curl
GUS trick of holding her head down
and looking up at you under her
lashes and when she did that you for
got her boyishness, for her lashes
were like fern fronds, and her eyes,
in her dark face, an astounding ocean
gray. She was good sport, too. She
didn't seem to mind the fact that her
mother, when she accompanied her.
wore the blanket and was hatless, just
like any poor Kaw, instead of being
one of the richest of the Osages. She
was rather handsome for squaw, in
a big, insolent, slow-moving way.
Felice Cravat, every one agreed. was
a chip of the old block, and by that
they did not mean her father They
were thinking of Yancey Cravat-old
Cimarron, her grandfather, who was
now something of legend in Usage
and throughout Oklahoma. Young
Gin and his Usage wife had had
second child-a boy-and they had
called him Yancey, after the old boy.
Young Yancey was bewilderingly
handsome mixture of a dozen types
and forbears-Indian. Spanish, French,
Southern. Southwest. With that long
narrow face, the dolichocephalic head,
people said he loked like the king of
Spain-without that dreadful Haps-
burg jaw Others said he was the
image of his grandmother, Sabra
Cravat. Still others contended that
he was his Indian mother over again
insolence and all. A third would come
along and say, You're crazy. He's
old Yancey, born again. l guess you
don't remember him. There, look,
that's what / mean! The way he
closes his eyes as if he were sleepy,
and then when he does look at you
straight you feel as if you'd been
struck by lightning. They say he's so
smart that the Osages believe he's one
of their old gods come back to EARTH"
Mrs. Tracy Wyatt (she who had
been Donna Cravat) had tried to
adopt one of her brothers children,
being herself childless, but Gin and
his wife Ruby Big Elk had never con-
scented to this. She was case, that
Donna Cravat, Oklahoma was agreed
about that. She could get away with
things that any other woman would
- e.. oIl a