The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1932-08-04
Out There
X 4%.
Il Romance Lost,
But Won
By FANNIE HURST
&C by Mcclure Newspaper syndicate.)
(WNU Servlcel

y mothers of nelghborhood sons.
Not that he was in any sense the
'.model boy" despised by youth. He
played baseball with his street and
school team, took part In normal, II
not outstanding fashion, In the usual
activities of the fellows Of his sta
ton, and did nothing to jeopardize
his position among the boys by being
other than just one Of them.
On the other hand, 1t was tempera-
mental with Joe to enjoy the house
hold chores from which the average
boy SHE'D. He took to responsibility
az naturally as duck takes to water,
so that when his father died, leaving
him saddled, at fifteen, with the re-
spOnsibility Of an ailing mother and
two younger sisters, the tasks that
fell suddenly and heavily to Joe were
by no means as appalling as they
might have been to another type Of
youth.
Before he was eighteen, Joe had not
only managed to buy up newspaper
route Of his own, but was already ven
turing in the small enterprise Of
Statf0ner and tobacconist shop and
practically carrying on the household
alone.
It is doubtful If Joe gave any too
much thought to the predicament Of
being caught so young In the wise Of
responsibility. He ran his business
and he practically ran the little house
hold, with neither time, nor thought,
for the pressure under which he lived.
The activities of the women folk of
his little menage interested him. Oft
en- he did the marketing on his way
home from work, built in shelves or
did carpentry work Of various sorts
after hours, was interested in his sis
ter's problems of clothes and beaux,
tended his mother in her illnesses and
withal was a normal healthy young
fellow Of whom, as the neighbors said,
any mother might well be proud.
And Joes mother was. She wor-
SHIPPED the ground upon which he
walked, adored his goodness and was
never tired Of relating to whomsoever
would listen the virtues of this son.
His sisters too were aware that Joe
: was brother to cherish. He was not
like the other girls brothers, rude, I'M
couth, uninterested.
All we'll and good during the early
years Of Joe's Juveniles, but on he
marched into his thirties and still the
onndffinno nnaUoi1na ~
youth submerged by family. Both the
girls, meanwhile, had married, but not
what Is known In the worldly sense
Of the word as successfully. Beulah's
husband seemed to have no facility at
holding down position for more than
q few months at a time and then, aft
ef long periods of idleness, would pick
up another at which he was fairly
sure to have no better success.
Teena had married young man In
the apartment house where they lived,
who held lucrative position, at the
time, as craftsman, but who had de-
veloped, since marriage, weak lungs
which imperiled his future. These
conditions, what with the sisters and
their husbands living at home, and
the mothers health still precarious,
kept Joe close to his treadmill.
Then, too, within three years of
these marriages, there were babies in
the household. At the end Of the first
six years, four tots were making
greedy, adoring demands on their
Uncle Joe. With what sporadic aid
hfg sisters could give him by dress
making and work In the home, and
the all too occasional contributions Of
his brothers-in-law, Joe was practical
y supporting ten people the greater
part of the time.
At forty, time of life when a man
has right to feel that his roots have
gone down into the home and family
he has created for himself, Joe was
precisely where he had been at twen-
~, except that his business had grown
and with it, his home responsibilities.
His mother, blessing him, died mean
while, but there were half grown
nieces and nephews now. Teenas
husband was about to die Of an ad-
Yanced case of tuberculosis, and Beu.
0iah's problem Of her husbands repeat
ed unemployment remained precisely
what it had been since the day she
married to say nothing Of a growing
fncOmpatIbility between them which
made each day precarious.
And at forty, for the first time in
the years, Joe began to feel restless,
secretly to feel the pangs Of frustra-
tfon, denial, and lack of adventure
which characterized his life His
Bieees and nephews growing up about
him, seemed to awaken within him
sense Of defeat. These children, with
their lives ahead of them, must be
spared the sterile kind of years that,
without his realizing it, had descend
ed upon him. Life was something
vide, alluring and compensating-ou
fherel Out there, away from the
wheel Of routine upon which he had
been turning since the day he was
born
f:0m the awakening of that real
int on on, life became to Joe largely
1ltter of 'out there" Out there
Wo:!ds to be seen, gay gIamOrous peo-
PIE to be met, ships upon which to
san