The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1935-11-29


Margaret Huston to marry him.
He'd been bemused by the sensu-
Gus Tilt of a silly verse something
about take the cash and let the
credit CO." Peter wasn't much of a fel-
low for poetry. Margaret herself drove
serious romance out of Peters thoughts
when she told him a fellow named
Omar Khayyam, a notorious Persian
sot, composed that line in the first
place.
"Omar Khayyam is a horse" Peter,
who read the sport pages, assured
Margaret
If he is a horse, he is a horse on
you," retorted Margaret, who was an
assistant librarian and therefore up
who wrote scandalous thing s."
What could a poet know of cash
and credit" Peter demanded, and in
n more minute his tender determin-
alton was a heap of conversational
wreckage
So now, on a damp and shivering
November morning, Peters native
timorousness again held sway. The
stumbling block to their marriage was
! married when it only meant pushing
himself more i~rretrievably into the eco
nomic mire? His job was safe enough,
but he hadn't had a raise in nine
years. Worse, he had taken two cuts
and a third was within the probabili-
ties. Far better that he and Margaret
should both hold onto their jobs. They
could go on being tacitly engaged and
he would be careful in the future to
avoid the pitfalls laid by bearded
authors who wrote tantalizingly of love
but had never weathered a depression
Peter climbed out of the subway
and buttoned his overcoat against the
biting gale that whipped up out OF the
lower bay. Slithering through crowds
of other white-collar men, all wear
ing worried, harried expressions and
collided with a pudgy fellow sweeping
off the sidewalk in front of a cigar
store. Peter uttered an annoyed "gee,
goodness, DAMN" and charged on into
the teeth of the wind, head down, like
a buffalo, after letting the fat chap
have an angry elbow in the ribs.
This was New York; a metropolitan
jungle of scratching, contentious hui
mans: Peter loathed this great, sprawl
ing city, alive in its towering glory and
majesty and pride, its giant power
and tigerish ferocity. Loathed it with
a devouring, corroding hate, because
he was a small town boy, forced to the
city because there was no job for him
at home. His heart did not go with
him when he set bravely out with his
commercial school diploma in his pock-
ct, and now, at 40, he still cherished
dimming memories of lush green
folksy sort of people. People who met
you halfway or a little more, friendly
folk whose eyes did not glitter with
the hard hostility that is born of in
cessant, unnatural struggle.
Through the mere act of stepping
into the jobbing headquarters of By
Products, Inc, Peter became another
man, his real self, cheerful, good-tem-
pered, even gay with the subdued gay
and office manager of a far-flung en-
terprise. Peter had mounted to that
eminence by virtue of ID plodding
years of faithful service. He was mold
ed to the groove that was his, a groove
as well o and comfortable as an
old hat. Here was the theater of his
small triumphs, victorious daily Crap
plings with countless columns Of fig
ures that moved upon him only to be
in the deadly calculating machines
over which he held absolute mastery
Peter was king in this minor realm
But the satisfaction he found in his
work was not the whole-souled, posi-
tive happiness that he craved and
visioned for himself when, at so, he
should cash in on his endowment pol
icy, marry Margaret, and retire to a
farm SO far from city noises that he
could hear a katydid's chirp a mile
away.
At noon, going out for luncheon, he
met Henry Melaney, the warehouse
foreman, coming in,
Sure BLOWN some weather up the
bay today, Peter" Henry remarked
No one ever thought of ~abbreviatine
Peter to Pete. Peters slender, spec
tacled dignity somehow forbade it.
It'll be another hard winter just
like last year, maybe worse. Snow and
sleet and ice. Broken arms and colds
mo town that's got Goofy Gomez
and Carl Hubbell both can be a he'll
of a town." Henry Melaney retortec
solemnly.
Peter turned into a restaurant a
block from his office. Once this place
had been a fragrant ~violator of the
prohibition law and Peter had shun-
ned it. Repeal restored it's respecta-
bility and the appetite of its customers
for cocktails and liquor made it pos
sible for abstinents to eat there cheap
~ AN WILL. n "oo NCAA 4A6 VIVA
his coffee, the waiter asked:
WAS you here for the drawing, Mr.
Dudley?"
THE drawing? What drawing?"
For the turkey. Number 800 cops it,
What are you talking about?'
"Nick's rattle. You see that big tur-
key in the window? Him. You got a
ticket. Nick give all the regular GUS
toners a ticket with lunch yesterday
remember?"
$50 he did. I didn't pay any atten-
ton. Who won the turkey?"
Dunno. The winner hasn't showed
up. Maybe you Win."
"Me?"
well, you might as well look and
see did you win."
Peter drew out his wallet an6
brought out a yellow slip of paper.
What number did you say won?'
he asked, after examining the ticket
Eight hundred and sixty"