The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-06-21

ndIL uaQ WOIkeu W1tAl ttAC buN6Se book, worked at his accounts, when he brought things home from the shop to finish up, Iris found the little black book. Open- ing it desperately, she leated through it in feverish haste. Food, menus, buying, planning meals, using up leftoverS. Puddings, parties, savings, insurance, invest ments, planning your future. The book didn't miss trick.
 DO you need all you think you have to have now?" asked a chap ter. It gave Iris pause for thought. Did she?
 Soberly, she flung open the closet door. Seriously, she began taking down the clothes she had loved so well. Loved beyond everything else. She was another Thais, now, burn ing all on the altar of her devotion, only unlike Thais, she did not with hold her tiny flgurine of the god of love. Unlike Thais, she made no re- servations. Because this was vol- untary, but it was also harsh necessity. Because now she un- derstood what Bart said when he hated credit, hated budget buy- ing, and hated installment pay ments. Now she knew. It was be- cause of the awful shame, if you couldn't pay. The shame of know ing you had something you hadn't paid for, and couldn't pay for. Something you had no right to; that didn't belong to you. That was what lay back of every bud- get bought article. That great black shadowy doubt.
 Tn the morning, she asked El- len about secondhand clothes buyers. And at noon, she went to the dry cleaning and secondhand clothes establishment.
 wed have to see the garments, Madam the man told her bluntly Sure we buy. But the price de- bends on the goods. People who buy secondhand clothes don't care about classy duds."
 The amount she received was so much less than she had ex- pected, Iris was tempted not to let the clothes go. She did really need them. But - the bills drove her on. She sold them for what she could get, and took the money to pay on her budget accounts. She sold the chair and smok- ing stand, and the furnishings in the apartment. Then she rented a big room with a double bed and comfortable chairs, and a small bath in Mrs. Brady's Boarding House. She moved in that Sum- day. A week from her return from her honeymoon-vacation. She moved in, and left word at the hospital that she could be reached at Mrs. Brady's telephone.
 On Monday morning, she took the diamond back and received $20 since Bart had the ring al- most paid for. The $40 cleared up an account she had been unable to pay anything on after selling the greater part of her wardrobe.
 Through all the trouble and confusion of those days. Iris never missed her friends. Or noticed that they were curiously occupied, curiously busy, and too concerned with their own affairs to know what was happening to her, or what she was doing. And when it was all over, when the shop was closed, and FOR RENT sign on the door, when the apartment was disnlantled, and TO LET blazon- ing the street windows, when she was settled in her single room at Mrs. Brady's and getting ready to go to the hospital to see Bart, again, Iris remembered.
 Bitterness crept over her, as she realized how often Yolander and Ho, John and Marcia, and FL len and John as well as Don and his wife dropped in on them, called them for bridge, dancing, the movies, or dinner through each week. Bitterness filled her throat with a hard lump and tears burned along her eyelids. Then her head came up, and her chin set at a stubborn angle. All right. Let them. Bart was right.
 Coming into the hospital, that morning to see Bart, Iris was startled to see Ted Bingham wait- ing. And beside him, dark pretty girl. obviously his wife, Dotty.
 Hello, Mrs. Whitaker" Ted said eagerly, i've heard Bart was sick and we came over to see if there was anything we could do. You had moved from the address MT. Whitaker told us, and nobody seemed to know where you'd gone. So we came down here"
 Iris felt the damp streaks on her face, the tears she had been unable to shed all the long dreary hours of straightening out the mess that had been her old life. The life Bart had been unable to