Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1939-09-08

Darrow's eyes needed distance and
space to rest them. She didn't know
why she kept them on that child
Probably because she had once had a
child of this ones apparent age, and
because dark, hot room on the fourth
floor of an old New York house was
not nice place for a baby on a hot
June day.
The woman came to the child's side,
sat down and evidently began to feed
it something-cereal or bread and
milk, judging by the spoon and bowl
The child did not seem hungry or
even interested. 1t turned to face the
woman, and received its nourishment
almost as mechanically as a slot ma
chine takes in pennies. There was
now a good view of the woman, sit
ting with her profile outlined against
the window, as unsmiling as the child
and as remote.
Suddenly Mrs. Darrow's interest
quickened. There was something famil-
lar about that woman-very familiar
indeed. She moved her chair closer to
the window and stared hard Sudden
ly she Sprang to her feet and hurried
to one of the studio closets. She took
from a drawer the pair of binoculars
and which the old lady had used in
the last years of her life to watch
the river craft from the studios east
window.
Mrs. barrow had not used the binoc-
ulars since her mothers death, but
she felt a powerful impulse to use
them now. She hurried back to her
north window, dropped into her chair
again. and focused the lenses on that
top window in the opposite house.
For an instant the excellence of the
glasses diverted her mind from the
discovery she had almost made. They
were good glasses! No wonder her
mother had valued them. They almost
brought the pair at that opposite win
dow into. her studio. The two faces
were as clear as if they had been sit
ting before her.
She stared. gaSped and then relaxed.
Did she know that woman? Rather! 1t
was Anna and no other. Anna Wallis,
the best maid she had ever employed,
the maid who had been with her five
years and who had left her six years
years ago to be married and live in
New Jersey. Here was Anna, back in
sitting, with that poor pallid baby,
in hot tenement room. For that was
about what the room must be like.
Anna, who had seemed genuinely
devoted to her during those years of
service, had never come to see her
after her marriage, had never even
written her. Mrs. barrow had Won
been a ready letter writer. Both she
and Anna had taken it for granted
at the time of the girls marriage that
they would keep in touch. but Anna
had dropped into New Jersey like a
pebble into the sea. leaving as little
trace of her whereabouts.
Mrs: barrow felt quite excited. That
hot little room! That pale, peaked
was rafting around in her big cool
studio. There was roof garden on
her building, with a fountain and gold
fish that would faScinate a baby-not
to speak of the cool river breezes 60
ing to waste up there -.
She sprang to her feet, dropped the
binoculars on a table, and hurried to
Z! window: She threw up her green
opened the window itself, and leaned
out, urgently waving her handkerchief
to the pair in the opposite window.
At first the woman did not see her
But now the child had turned back to
the windowpane and seemed looking at
woman's eyes followed the 'child's. The
next instant they met Mrs. Darrow's,
and two seconds after that the shade
OF the opposite window was lowered
to the sill with a jerk The house
confronted Grace barrow with the un-
responsiveness of family tomb.
Mrs. barrow frowned in disappoint-
ment. What had happened was quite
clear. Anna, OF course, had no knowl-
edge that her former mistress was liv-
ing in the big studio building. They
had lived in the East Sixties in Annals
day. Anna had no binoculars to aid
her vision. She had seen a strange
cSaf At ant sna S wayng
it was for someone else or had re-
sented the intrusion.
If Anna alone had been concerned
in the episode, Mrs. barrow would
have laughed, shrugged her shoulders,
and forgotten the matter. But there
n wss a haf Da0 Ans o het mnd
full of babies these days, with all the
k1dnaplngs going on
Mrs. barrow rose, took her hat from
rack in the corner, put it on and
hurried out of her studio and into the
elevator of her building. With a grim
ace she told herself she was deter
would be delighted to see her if five
years of seeming admiration and af-
lection had meant anything.
But in reality 1t was the child Grace
DarroW, was thinking Of. She must
make that child more comfortable. It
was only half past o'clock. There was
even time to take Anna and the child
on cool boat excursion to Coney
Island If they cared to go. Grace OAR
row had an impelling desire to change
the present situation Of that child.
She crossed the street to the door
Of No. 16 and resolutely rang the bell.
Nothing happened. She rang again and
still again. Still there was no response.
She tried the handle Of the big front
door. It might open into vestibule
bells.
But the door was locked. She rang
again. She could hear the bell echoing
through the seemingly empty house
She stepped back from the door and
SS To- 1p x 4 aand a. Ts -. ;s , TsIisn n