The Wilmington morning star., 1947-04-28

TIL
forgotten the name of the man
who was to accompany her. But
1t didn't matter. Whatever his
name, he would doubtless make
Kay a much more suitable COM
panlon than he, Lex, had ever
done.
An episode ended, Lex thought.
And he felt a sense of anticipa-
ton, such as he had never exper
fenced before, rise in him.
Oakridge resembled Brundage
only insofar as all small towns
seem to resemble one another. A
central square, with a gray stone
courthouse. A street called Main.
Tall old trees shading the side
walks. A couple of movie theaters
and the usual number of stores
and other business enterprises. A
somewhat ramshackle railway
station and a bus depot.
But, as Sherry had hoped, you
could walk down any street a lit
tie way and reach the country.
You could climb a hill and look
out across the restful checker
board of fields of grain. see cattle
grazing and big, comfortable
eearmhouses with red barns clus-
tered behind.
It was like pressing your fingers
to the pulse of America to live in
a town like Oakridge. Sherry
loved it. She rented a pleasant
room with a Miss Spence, who
had a large porticoed house con-
venient to the Ledger office. She
walked to work each morning and
home again at night. She made
acquaintance who might some
day be friends.
OF course, it was too soon to ex-
pect happiness, or even some
small measure of forgetfulness. A
few weeks, such a short time.
Only it hadn't seemed short to
Sherry. Even though she worked
hard at her job with the Ledger,
even though she made friends
with the two young school teach
ers who were Miss Spence's other
boarders, there we're times each
day, each night, when a kind of
panic rose in her, an ache OF lone
illness for Lex which she could
scarcely bear.
But the panic would recede,
Sherry told herself. The ache of
loneliness would grow less. 1t
must! She would make it.
She thought she knew now how
Val had felt when the loss of Rick
had been so new so agonizing.
Val had been driven to a mad
pursuit Of pleasure, Of ~ceaseless
gay activity, which had finally
brought her dangerously close to
the brink of disaster. Sherry was
determined to develop a reserve
OF self-sufficiency, an inner
strength that would make her
capable of facing each new day
as it dawned, without dread.
Every day is just another way of
saying forever. And if she shut
her eyes to the fact that each
day without Lex was an empty
day, maybe time would fill their
emptiness with some substitute
happiness. And h e pain in her
heart would lessen.
The Oakridge Ledger was hous-
ed in the same red-brick building
On Main Street in which il had
been born some seventy-five
years earlier. Sometimes it SEEM
ed to Sherry that it must be even
older than that for such an ac-
emulation of files and parapher-
MALTA to have been stacked and
Wedged and haphazardly assem-
hled under it's roof.
But Sherry enjoyed her work g,
10 matter how cluttered the sur
rcundings. And from the start she
liked her new employer and they
got on well together. Alan Holmes
was a good-hearted man with a
droll, dry wit and a conviction
that the future frontier of Amer
lea lay in her farms. He and his
thin, energetic young wife, Laura,
were cordial and pleasant toward
Sherry. They invited her 10 their
house, introduced her to their
friends, tried to see to it that she
wasn't lonely.
Laura Holmes was the sort of
woman you felt on friendly terms
with when you'd known her an
hou1. Within a fortnight OF Sher-
rvs arrival, they were sufficiently
intimate for Laura to remark one
evening as they sat alone on the
Holmes big front porch, You're
rot very happy, are you, Sherry?
Is if because you don't like Oak
ridge?"
ooh, no." Sherry cried, sitting
there hearing t h e crickets chirp
and smelling the fragrance OF
Laura's honeysuckle. II love it
here. And it's grand working for
Alan. IL brought my unhappi =
ness with me. I'm trying very
hard to lose it, but it will take
a while"
She found herself then talking
on while Laura listened sympa :
~thetically. Sherry told her about
having had to break free from he-
old life, or lose her individuality.
She told her, haltingly, about Lex
and Kay.
Laura objected "But couldn't
you have fought her, Sherry, in
stead of running away? After all,
the mere fact that she saw him
first"
"But he loves her." Sherry OBJ
jected. eff there'd been any doubt
in his mind, l could have fought
for him. Butt was he and Kay
always. l was the outsider
It seemed to her that she had