The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-02-05
CHAPTER HI

From the window of her room in the Green Hills Inn, Joan watched the eastern sky brighten of warm orange as the sun rose slowly above , the hills. The streets were quiet now. Every last nerry-maker had found his way home; the last echo of shrill horns and cowbells had Subsided
 Downstairs, the Inn was utterly still. Later on, weary porterS would view the havoc wrought by the festivities and attempt to tidy the lounges before early guests appeared for breakfast. But there was time fer that. The steeple clock had not yet chimed six thirty. Joan would hear it pres ently, as she had heard every quarter-hour chime since four thirty, when Bob had kissed her and wished her happy dreams at the door of her room.
 Happy dreams! How easy it was for Bob to suggest that. He did not know how terrible dreams might be. Llte to him was all Sun- shine and love and faith in the goodness Of tomorrow. For him there was no ugly yesterday which still conjured in a tired mind nightmares of misery and despair and fear, casting their menacing shadows oyer every hope for the future, and filling each tomorrow with uncertainty and terror.
 Watching the sun climb slowly oyer the horizon, Joan remem- bsred another sunrise, ten long years before or was it rather, ten long hideous eternities? Weeks and months and years of dreary yesterdays, which even today stretched out their memories a thousand years into the future.
 She had been only l3 then, but today the picture was as clear in her mind as if it were still hap pening, as indeed it had truly hap pened a thousand times since that first morning.
 Once more she was back there, standing in the window of another hotel, holding tightly to her mothers icy hand. watching with terror as that same sun slowly rose to sight The sun that day had been q flaming ball of fire, creeping Up over the hills to rob their lives of all that had made the previous years bright and gay and worthwhile.
 It had been in California. The inn from which they watched was close to the forbidding walls of San Quentin prison. And the sun rise for which they waited in such helpless terror had proclaimed the hour when Thomas Barrett would be hanged by the neck un- til dead
 Thomas Barrett - the kindest dearest father a little girl hao ever had-out they mad put rope around his neck and hanged him until he WAS dead.
 Joan and her mother had felt the same rope about thelr own necks, choking out their very souls. cutting them off from that other life they loved better than their own. Not only that morn ing, but during all the long years after, they would awaken Ill the middle of the night, terrified by dream of that rope around theH necks, choking out life.
 In San Francisco, the courts had Rarrptf n20 killed a man He had killed man who had been his friend, and stolen that mans money.
 Joan knew, and her mother knew, that Thomas Barrett had never in all his life harmed a h7- ing thing. They remembered day when he had risked his life to save little puppy from a speed ing automobile they remem- bered a Christmas when he had braved a parachute jump to earn an extra $50 t. buy them presents
 they rememebered the charity that would never let him pass a beggar on the streets
 But such things are irrelevant when stacked against the all-im- portant matter of fingerprints on gun of not being able to prove, by witnesses, where one was at such-and- such time of being in need of money at time when another man had great deal
 Ten years ago, it had been. But Joan Barrett was still "the mu- derer's child"
 Until two years ago, when she came to New York alone, the curse had followed them. Joan did not dare to hope that she could ever escape it. There had been SO many disappointments !.
 From San Francisco, they had fled, her mother ahd she, to Se- attle. There was little money her fathers insurance-enough to cover bare necessities. In Seattle, her mother found work, and Joan continued high school. Except for memories, they were happy. Two years went by.
 One day. a classmate invited her to a party. A Sweet Sixteen party.
 "You must go, dear" her mother encouraged. You have so little pleasure for a young girl I'll make you new dress-blue taf- feta. How would like that
 Joan loved it. Never before had she been so proud of her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes, accent ing the blue of the dress, were sparkling and clear. Even her golden hair, which often flew about in obstinate fashion, fell in- to graceful. ladv-like ringlets for