The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-05-31
In Prize Novelette, Contest Frank . Story.
 of Love Itself
CHAPTER I

N W AA&N A w SNAA S~A~~
 \ Is a love-story, but is not about a girl and a man and the conflict between them until they finally give up and try to pull together. which most love stories are. This is about love itself, and that makes it an unusual story.
 What is love? You'd think anybody would know, with all the talk there is about it. They don't. I think I have an idea, and that is why I tell this story.
 It begins with Joe Murray, a young man, a very young man just starting to work and spending his firss earned money on the girls. I guess that was the main reason why Joe went to work as soon az he could, that and the simple fact that every young man in JOe's walk of life does the same.
 Joe was born on Simpson street on the south side of the city in . fourth-floor railroad tenement flat that gave shelter to the elder Mur- rays and seven children for many years. AS a little fellow Joe played with the little girls on the other landings; as boy he tormented the Waspish young girls on the block; as a young buck after his voice changed and he began to shave he investigated the possi- bilities in the next block and the one beyond. So when he became a young man, rather handsome with his 19 yetrs a 1.-the. smooth dancer and a smart, glib talker, with all of the self-confidence that comes from bringing down a pay envelope almost equal to the old mans - it was logical enough that Joe should blow town and try h.s luck around the country wherever there were plenty of jobs and money and people and girls.
 This may sound as If Joe were a mere brainless game chaser, out for what he could get and no re- gard for where or how. That isn't true. Joe had brains, and he wasn't mean or underhanded. It is true that he was out for what he could get. so to speak, but he was not the kind to think twice about what he gave in return, and he gave a good deal, all he had at the time, you might say. He was never cunning or insinuating, and he could forget a lot. If girl chose to be insulted by his ad- vances, which had in them all the nerve and gay good humor in the world why then she knew where she stood, at least, and mo- body was putting anything over on her! Joe never cared. There'd oe another along in 8 moment, and she would choose not to be lnSulted, laughing with him at his audacity instead, and she and Joe would play together and have themselves 8 swell time and no harm done. And meantime the first one would sit at home think ing bitterness about Joe and all the young men insulting girls, and she'd have herself a perfectly ter rible time, lonesome as the very devil, and nobody to care damn about it but herself.
 WHY do the young people all w over the land leave their homes and go to other towns, preferably where there are the most people |. good girls, for instance: ambl- tious girls, home girls, factory girls, college girls and society girls? They all go for the same reason, approx imately, as Joe. They want to meet new men, lots of men, to play with them and learn them and learn from them. They're made the same, all boys and girls. fundamentally only they aren't always equally equipped with good looks and brains and a sense of humor and the ability to take life as 1t comes. Which seems unfair, yet somehow 1t works out in the end, with most everybody mated up for good With someone no better or worse off. The main thing behind 1t all IS not to be alone. To be alone is to be queer and out of life and the run ming, and the young people know that better than anybody.
 Joe was not very long alone If he could help 1t, any time. any where.
 The Murrays at home heard from Joe all over the nation, usu- ally from some town where the smokestacks were thick and jobs plentiful. Not until he reached snarksbwg did he settle. He ex-