The Coolidge examiner., 1932-05-06

was true. He had brought no full
fillment to his marriage. His prom
ise, his inspiration, his melody of
spirit, had petered out. Hesper,
who thought she had married sue
cess, had married a clerk.
1t hurt Leonard to see her beau
ty fade out beneath the lines Of
bitterness, 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 en-
forced sale of his piano, he had
for few months locked himself up
evenings to try and strum for mel
ody on a battered guitar. That
woke the babies. The slow corod-
ing processes of Illustration begar
to eat into the heart of Leonard.
AT forty. gray and with a stoop.
he was any morning the strap
hanger caught in the obscene
shambles of the subway eight
O'Clock rush; he was any flat
dweller, turning his pasty face
hOmeward at six o'clock, once more
a wedged sardine in the evening
subway rush; qualified member
Of the rOutinized world of the fiat
the shop, the daily grind.
Sunday mornings he wheeled ou
his babies, cleaned out his pipes,
tinkered with a homemade radio.
buried his face under sheets of the
Sunday papers to escape the per.
petual wanglings of Hesper, who
wore dust caps and her skirts
piled up around her hips while
she did hOusewOrk.
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 riding on the small
lakes His neck 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 tlOwered the mystic sweetness
of the dream waltz, moved ahead in
the trance Of his life. Husband
of a wife. Father of children.
Head of a household. Taxpayer on
a tiny scale. Subscriber to a morn
ing newspaper. Tinkerer with his
radio. Absorber of the ready-made
propaganda of the political and So
cial 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
demanding and more critical of the
parent 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 old
er. and in many respects, terrify-
ingly wise in city ways. His wife
grew DINNER and more the scold.
And yet, to all intents and pur-
poses, the little family in the usual
little fiat, in the usual mediocrity
of its middle class routine, was
fulfilling it's 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 fam
lily, right doing and living. Year
lings, growing into their maturity
under the family roof.
Straw-foot, hay-foot! Routine.
Mediocrity. Standardization.
At fifty, Leonard, with the unfin-
ished melodies dormant within him,
was reconciled to all this. So, in
her way, was the querulous Hes
per.
And then one night something
happened which changed the COM
plexion of life for Leonard to such
an extent that he could never
again feel drab and hopeless and
trapped by the machinery of his
life. A small, almost infinitesimal
thing happened, filling his cup to
overfowing; making the future
something to care about; something
to dream about.
His eldest boy, slender, rather
sensitive-faced youngster brought
him a drawing he had made on a
sheet of paper. A precocious, real
ly extraordinary portrait of a
young girl, executed with vitality,
Imagination and beauty.
Captured into that face on the
paper, laid in cunning gifted stroke,
line by line, was all the beauty that
eighteen years before Leonard in
another way had poured into the
dream waltz. Life was not done