The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1932-05-06

a department store. The years, piling
up their woes and disappointment, also
piled up in the wife of Leonard, fes-
tering Authorizations of having sacri-
feed herself.
Strangely, there was no reputation
in Leonard. What Hesper said of him
in vituperative moods, was true He
had brought no fulfillment TO his mar
riage. His promise, his inspiration,
his melody of spirit, had petered out,
Hesper, who thought she had married
success, had married a clerk.
1t hurt Leonard to see her beauty
fade out beneath the lines of bitter
ness, and to know that the Juggling of
her heavy children was dragging her
figure into sway-back lines
Even the old struggle for compo-
sition was gone. With the enforced
sale of his piano, he had for a few
months locked himself up evenings TO
try and strum for melody on bat
tered guitar That woke the babies.
The slow corroding processes of frus-
tration began to eat into the heart of
Leonard.
At forty, gray and with stoop, he
was any morning the strap-hanger
caught in the obscene shambles of the
subway eight o'clock rush; he was any
fiat dweller, turning his pasty face
homeward at six o'clock, once more
wedged sardine in the evening sub
way rush; a qualified member of the
routinized world of the fiat, the shop,
the daily grind.
Sunday mornings he wheeled out his
babies, cleaned out his pipes. tinkered
with a homemade radio. buried his
face under sheets of the Sunday pa
pers to escape the perpetual wanglings
of Hesper, who wore dust caps and
her skirts pulled up around her hips
while she did homework.
Sunday afternoons, particularly as
his boys began to grow up, he walked
with them to the ZOOS of the public
parks or occasionally took them skiff
had grown thin, his arms had grown
more gangling, his eyes had grown TO
look like glass that had been breathed
on.
Yet withal, the man out of whom
had Powered the mystic sweetness of
the dream waltz. moved ahead in the
trance of his life. Husband of wife.
Father of children. Head of house
hold. Taxpayer on tiny scale. Sub
scriber to a morning newspaper. Tink-
erer with his radio. AbsOrber of the
ready-made propaganda of the politi-
cal and social world in which he lived.
Any man on Any street in Any town.
Middle man. Average man. Man in
the street.
His twins grew older and more de-
handing and more critical of the par
ent who had thus thrust them into
ways of mediocrity, when at school
there were children who came from
larger flats, and wore better frOcks.
His boys grew older, and in many re-
spects, terrifyingly wise in city ways.
His wife grew DINNER and more the
scold.
And yet, to all intents and purposes,
the little family in the usual little fiat.
in the usual mediocrity of its middle
class routine, was fulfilling its destiny.
Hesper. the mother, who had given
of her body and her vitality that there
might be life. Leonard, the provider,
who sought to instill within his family,
right doing and living. Yearings
growing into their maturity under the
family roof.
Straw-foot, hay-foot Routine. Medi-
ocrity. Standardization.
At fifty, Leonard. with the unfin-
ished melodies dormant within him.
was reconciled to all this. So. in her
way, was the querulous Hesper.
And then one night something hap
pened which changed the complexion
of life for Leonard to such an extent,
that he could never again feel drab
and hopeless and trapped by the ma
chinery of his life small. almost
infinitesimal thing happened, filling his
cup to overlooking; making the flu
ture something to care about; some
thing to dream about.
His eldest boy. slender, rather SEN
sitive-faced youngster brought him a
drawing he had made on a sheet of
paper. precocious, really extraor-
binary portrait of young girl. ex-
ecuted with vitality, imagination and
beauty.
Captured into that face on the pa
per, laid ir cunning gifted stroke. line
by line, was all the quality that
eighteen years before Leonard in an
other way had poured into the dream
waltz Life was not done!