The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1932-05-06
Dream w altz
g
By Fannie Hurst
(@ by Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.)
(WNU Service)


X one, he composed dream
" waltz. 1t was published
caught on, and for cOnsid
cradle while the entire land was dane
ing to it and humming.
incidentally, it made quite pile of
money for Leonard. enabling him to
plan trip to Greece there to satisfy
some sort of congenital hunger in his
middle west soul. to say nothing of
the fact that, for at least a six-month,
he was quite a celebrity. His home
town honOred him; even New York
to take ship, and for one brief Sec
ond in his scheme of things. the gods
took notice of lean gangling fellow
with shock of blond hair, who hailed
from town called Granite City, and
through whose commonplace looking
Uranium had waited the haunting mel
ody of dream.
Everywhere he went for those few
months. the melody went with him,
following him like wisp of lovely
smoke. In restaurants. when he en-
tered. the orchestra played him his
dream waltz; on dance floors, youth
with drugged looking eyes, moved
rhythmically to it. Even on street
corners, barrel organs sent his dream
waltz tumbling into the street din.
They were short. excited melodius
months, dominated by the subtle aura
of success.
1t was in New York. while waiting
to take the ship for the Aegean is
lands, that he met slip of girl from
Brooklyn endowed with the absurdly
homogeneous and beautiful name of
Hesper. She was fiat-voiced, satin
skinned, colloquial. quick-minded, city
minded. city-turned little piece. one of
hordes who milled through the daily
scene, but to Leonard. from the mo-
ment he clapped eyes on her seated
on high stool beside him at an ice
cream counter. nymph who must
have slipped out of the surf of the
ocean surrounding Manhattan.
Their courtship was quick, citified
and ended in marriage. The trip TO
the Aegean. of course, was shelved,
first because Hesper preferred to pur-
chase furniture with the money and
secondly. because any spot she chose
to be, became the Aegean isles to
Leonard.
They were married on a Monday,
had fitted up pert little filing cabi-
net of fiat by the following Monday,
and in another week were neatly adj
justed into a well-oiled routine of the
butcher. the baker. the refrigerator de-
froster: the dumb waiter, the subway,
the vermin exterminator.
Nor was the transition of hopes and
plans difficult for Leonard. Hesper
was more delectable, if possible. in
marriage than she had been in court
ship. Built like a doll. her quick pink
tongue, her darling adOrably hayward
eye, her flashing little temper. her ir-
resistable remorse were as elusive, as
maddening, as appetizing to him, as
had been the elusive strains of his
waltz before he captured them all.
For a twelve month they lived these
two children, captured into the cave
of their Manhattan fiat. the deliciously
irresponsible. uninhibited lives of play
boy and playgirl.
Then the funds gave out, the vogue
of the dream waltz began to go the
way of all vogues, and life began to
become the serious business it can
manage to be upon occasion.
What subsequently happened, came
much more gradually than it seems in
the telling. The first dimming of the
luster of the vivaciousness that was
Hesper's did not come until those first
strangely solemn days when it became
necessary for the little household.
builded on the dream waltz. to sit
solemnly down and take note of its
budget. And then, almost before they
could catch their breath over the mar
row margin of their resources. Hes
per's twin girls were born and ten
months thereafter. a boy. and ten
months after that, another.
Thereupon. this story takes its all
too usual course. The gradual conflict
of wear and tear. worry and financial
strain upon beauty. youth and hope.
For almost a year. battling with the
haunting desires for melody that still
lay tormented in the hinterlands of his
mind, Leonard, borrowing, devising,
scheming to meet his budget, strove
to recapture some of the quality that
had poured into the dream waltz.
At the end of fourteen months, he
was clerking in haberdashery. At
the end of five years. be was clerking
in haberdashery.
With finality that struck terror to
his soul, his house had settled, his
Hesper had settled, his routine had
settled.
A bitter, slatternly, violently ma
ternal Hesper ruled his household now.
1t mattered not that when she met
him, Hesper. at ten dollars a week.
had been salesgirl in the basement Of