The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1934-10-26

1 re CONy SSSIONS OF u GLTL VINO
Picks the Perfect Step ." ="
mother And Tries to: Murry; :
off Her Dad.
This Is going to be so sad a story
that perhaps I'd better put in the sad
dest part Of it right now and let the
gentle reader get over 1t. This Is it.
Daddy and I are alone in the world.
We have been alone ever since my
darling mother died when I was five
years old. That was ten years ago.
Now that I am grown up. Daddy is
not as lonesome as he used to be when
I was only q child. He Is 81 years ola,
but he does not look old. He mas as
good a figure as any man Of his years
could possibly have, and there are mo-
ments, especially when he is laughing,
when he looks almost young.
Every one says he spoils me, and per-
haps that is why I was almost stupid
in just one thing about Daddy. I am
not often stupid, as any girl in my
you, but in this matter I'm afraid I al
most was.
My mind might have been obscured
yet If I hadn't heard two women talk
ing at the Country Club. It was a hot
night in September. Daddy was playing
contract in the clubhouse and I was
sitting out by myself on the verenda
in a dark orner I had to keep pretty
quiet, for if Daddy had remembered
that I was there he might have come
out between rubbers and taken me home.
He does that sometimes and then
sprints back to the club, for our house
isn't NOR than five hundred feet from
the clubhouse. I've heard Daddy say
so and he ought to know, for he's the
president Of the club and we spend a
good deal of time there.
It was nine o'clock and I was think
ing about what a great play Romeo
and Juliet was, because, of course, love
is the most important thing in life,
when two women came out IN the
porch and sat down just around the
orner from me. I kept very still. One
of them was Muriel Jackson's mother,
and she is always talking about her duty
to her dear friends child. You would
MT believe it, but she means me! She
butts into my affairs all the time, and
if Daddy and I didn't sit on her ever
and anon, she would be managing us
both. So I hardly breathed when I
heard her voice. She said, Chris is in
great form tonight. I have never heard
him more amusing than he was at
dinner"
Naturally, I sat up then, for "Chris"
is Daddy and I love to hear him
praised. His full name is Christopher
Drew, and perhaps I should have said
50 before. But the gentle reader must
remember that I am beginning to be
an author and that no author can
possibly mention everything in the very
first paragraph of a story. Even I can't,
though both Daddy and Miss Spencer,
my English teacher in high school,
have told me with their own lips at diff
ferent times that I come nearer to do
ing it than any author they know,
is an architect. But to get back to
Muriel Jackson's mother, and her
friend, Billy Hopkins mother.
knew both women by their voices, OF
course, as soon as they spoke, and
Billy's mother spoke right away, just
as Muriel's mother had.
He's always amusing" she said. "The
one thing he takes seriously is June,
Where is that youngster, by the way?
It's time for her to be in bed"
Some day I'm going to write a story
about a motherlesS girl who is being
brought up by all the women in he1
town. But I must not say anything
about that now, for Daddy says my
worst fault is a tendency to roam
around in the daisied field of my fic-
ton. Before I was so mature I used to
wonder how a nice boy like Billy could
have a mother like his. I am still sur
prised every time I think of it, but now
I don't think of it so much. I have
only to look around me to see what
perfectly terrible parents nice boys and
girls can have.
I suppose I shouldn't have listened,
but you can see my terrible situation.
| If I had let them know I was there, one
of them would have got busy and taken
me home. Then she would have come
back to the clubhouse and said in the
gurgly voice women use when they
speak to Daddy, "Chris, I've taken your
| chick home,' and Daddy would have
thanked her and made her think she
had done her good deed for the day
So I kept perfectly quiet. It wa easy,
| for Billy's mother was saying in a ten
der voice, what a tragedy it is that
| Chris doesn't marry again."
eyes," said Muriels mother, "but it's
easy enough to understand why he
doesn't. He's simply crazy over that
| child, and he's afraid she wouldn't be
happy with a stepmother. But he's in
the position that English author de-
IL 49, 11,,I last yaNvth r,tar
one of his characters in the story he
was reading was holding an empty cup
up to life"
Should I have crept away at that
point? Perhaps I should. But stop and
ask yourself if you would have crept
away if you had been in my pace. The
next words made me stop breathing.
June will never know how selfish
--- - a. --~- 49,