The Golden age. [volume], February 18, 1909, Page 6, Image 6

About The Golden age. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1920

Image provided by: Digital Library of Georgia, a project of GALILEO located at the University of Georgia Libraries

                
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"THE LI7IIT OT THE LINE"
By Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne
SHIRLEY BRYAN, stenographer for a great j
Iron Corporation, is the first actor on the scene.]
The story begins with a suburban train pulling
out from under the marble corridors of a grand
Terminal Station.
Barry Moore, Miss Bryan's employer, plays
the role of “The Man of Iron.” He is trying to ’
build a collossal fortune.
Gregory Ford, a Harvard athlete, a Princeton
theologuo, a multi-millionaire, is deeply interested
in the question, propounded by the Book of Job, “If :
a man die, shall he live again?” because a specialist i
has told him, his days are numbered.
Henry Brown, editor of the Water Oaks Ga I
T
HE White Steamer bored swiftly
through the gloom of a pine forest, lit
dimly by the moon. The glare of the
acetylene lamps gave a cathedral effect
to the scene, as when the white beams
of the mid-day sun pierce the chaliced
glory of altar and chancel and nave.
Whispering pines, made immortal by the
poet Hayne, gathered in sombre battal-
ions to watch the progress of the fairy-like toy of
man. Singing its deathless spirit-song to the my
riad stars, the night wind swept through the dark
green serried ranks.
Ford’s voice came, with dramatic force, out of the
gloom and darkness.
“ ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence
it cometh, nor whither it goeth; so is every one that
is born of the Spirit.’ ”
“I believe that,” commented Henry Brown. “The
wind is God’s everlasting sermon to man.”
Then, weirdly, through the cathedral aisles of the
forest came the cry of the owl, a. foreboding call,
whose staccato notes the devotees of superstition
have always interpreted as a premonition of tragedy.
A large black hawk, with heavy, outspread wings,
floundered suddenly across the road, directly in
front of the car, barely escaping the death it seemed
to covet.
Manson crushed a soldier’s oath between his lips.
Ford amused, laid a masterful hand on his shoul
der.
“It is your trick at the wheel, Manson. Keep in
the middle of the road.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That was the Raven,” mused Henry Brown.
“Undoubtedly,” Ford answered slowly.
Then Brown’s voice came, with a slight tremor
“ ‘By the heaven that bends above us —-by that God
we both adore —
Tell this soul -with sorrow laden, if, within the
distant Aiden
U shall clasp ia sainted maiden whom the angels
name Lenore —’ ”
Ford took up the quotation deftly.
“ ‘Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels
name Lenore?
Quoth the Raven, Nevermore!' ”
Henry Brown laid his hand on Ford’s knee
lightly.
“Poe was a happy man, if he had only realized it.
He had his Virginia Clemm, his Lenore, on earth.
Even though the season of love was short, in that
kingdom by the sea.”
“And in your kingdom by the sea, Henry Brown,
you have had?”
“The cry of the bittern, the blood upon the
moon, and the sound of the waves as they kneel in
prayer upon the beach. Then, mon ami, the wreck
of a billion hopes to make my soul immortal.”
Gregory felt a mist swim before his eyes.
“Who am I riding with?” he complained.
“Homer, Milton or Shakespeare? ‘The wreck of a
billion hopes to make your soul immortal?’ Don’t
say anything more like that, Brown, You will
erack my Gotham cranium,”
The Golden Age for February 11, 1909
SYNOPSIS
zetto, is a discovery of Ford's. He is a lover of
poetry, psychology, economy. He is an environ
ment-fighter of the best type.
Gregory Ford and his mother rent, one-half of
the old colonial Bryan heme, and wealth and pov
erty are only across the hall from each other. Mrs.
Ford ?s a woman, “who has never had a thrill.”
(Mrs. Bryan is a breeze of sunshine for Shirley’s
sake, and she begins to draw young Ford’s confi
dence.
Then there is Little Nell, the child of wisdom.
And, on the horizon looms a girl, a cousin of the
Fords, Ethel, by name, who will play a dramatic
part as the story progresses.
“Thou, too, Brutus!”
“No,” replied Ford, “it is Gregory, this shot.
Please stop your deep sea diving, will you? Can’t
you say something real common?”
“I don’t believe Miss Bryan was hurt,” answered
Brown, deliberately.
“You don’t? What has she to do with my lost
Lenore?”
“Candidly, I can’t tell. But did vou have a lost
Lenore ? ”
“Yes, indeed! Several of ’em. The first one I
kissed through a crack in the fence. She was six.
I was also six. We enjoyed it.”
“No doubt,” dryly.
“In spite of that first experience,” continued
Ford. “I kept on with the game. All of my Lenores
loved me. Most of them confessed it. in impulsive
moments. ’ ’
“Some time 1 believe that you really loved a
woman of flesh and blood,” reasoned Henry Brown.
“Sometimes, I think that she was an angel.”
“She was,” said Ford, keenly enjoying the situa
tion.
“Meantime, old fellow, I wish that you would be
good enough to smoke. It might abduct the tragedy
out of the air, and make us less abnormal.”
“Possibly,” the editor returned, “if I had not
left my pipe at home.”
But Gregory Ford leaned forward, suddenly, with
out further comment. For, from the barren hill,
whose apex they had reached, the red glare of an
immense fire could be seen whose leaping flames
revealed the surrounding landscape with startling
vividness.
The bridge was intact, with its undergirding of
iron net work, its crown of gleaming steel rails.
Below this was the wide, dark river.
Twenty yards beyond the first span of the rail
road bridge were the dismantled coaches of the
Suburban, also the ill-fated engine, from which is
sued a cloud of steam.
“The wreck!” Brown exclaimed, clutching the
arm of his friend involuntarily, in the thrill of his
excitement.
Ford gave himself a mental brace; then as the
road began to dip down between the high embank
ments toward the broad river he commanded his
chauffeur.
“Slowly, Manson, and carefully!”
The White Steamer struck the planks of the
wagon road bridge, with a soft thud, and not <a word
was sponken as the motor climbed the hill on the
opposite side of the river.
A relief train was just starting for the city, laden
with doctors, red-cross nurses, and the unfortunate
sufferers, when Manson brought his Steamer to a
full stop within fifty feet of the scene of the Su
burban’s disaster. Ford and the editor sprang out
simultaneously. They watched the tragic panorama
of sorrow, as it rolled by, with fascinated eyes.
They beheld still forms covered, and bandaged heads
and arms, and countenances not a few glazed with
the sorrow of sudden and irreparable bereavement.
As the relief train disappeared, into the ghastly
light from the cloud-veiled moon, Ford turned to his
companion.
“How fortunate—that the wreck occurred —this
side of the river. At least, the horror of drowning
was eliminated.”
“Yes,” Brown replied, with a profound sigh.
“However, I do not suppose that the city papers
will dignifv it as ‘a magnificent smash-up,’ do
you?” ‘ ~
“No. But think, man, how many hearts will be
saddened and how many homes darkened on account
of it. A thing does not have to be multiplied by the
hundred to be heart-rending, to be cenotaphed on
the soul!”
“No, certainly not, Ford. That carload which
passed a moment singe is enough, more than enough,
for a man with a heart. But we must find Miss
Bryan if we can, or learn something of her fate.”
They approached a group of men whose personal
appearance, though disheveled, indicated commer
cial travelers; among whom were others in blue
overalls who, with shovel and pick, stood ready to
begin the work of repairing the line.
Os course, not a shred of information could be
gathered from the simple repetition of Miss Bryan’s
name —euphonious as it was —and, consequently,
Henry Brown, who had constituted himself spokes
man, proceeded to give a carefully worded descrip
tion of the young lady for whom they were search
ing.
Ford, pale and distinguished, stood back of the
motley group and, while he did not speak, nothing
escaped his attention. He seemed curiously alert.
H’s blue eyes swept down the line, back and for
ward. an eager inquisitiveness in his glance, which
took in every object within range of his vision. At
intervals he tapped his yellow, octagonal pencil
against his teeth.
“Look under the pine tree. Brown,” suggested
Ford, without turning his head.
Just outside the circle of fluctuating fire light
was a girl seated on a log, beneath a slender pine.
A man with his coat off stood in front of her, ges
ticulating, with dramatic emphasis as he talked.
Brown turned awiay from the group he had been
cleverly questioning.
“Where? The pine? What luck! Dr. Bloxam,
our village Escalpius. ”
“Who is his companion?”
“Miss Brvan —Miss Shirley Bryan, as I am
alive!”
“Very good,” said Ford. He replaced his pencil.
Then he hurled his body straight into the air.
“Short races are won at the jump, Brown,” he
said, with a laugh, ten feet away. In a breath, he
had reached her.
What he saw was a pale girl, in a blue serge
skirt, whose white shirt waist had a crimson streak
across the sleeve. Her red-brown hair swept, in un
sheathed splendor, to the ground behind her.
“I congratulate you, Miss Bryan.” Ford was cor
dial, “on your escape. I hope that I find you en
tirely uninjured.”
'Shirley smiled wanly. Dr. Bloxam interposed:
“She is all right, sir, except the self-evident fact
that she is very tired and a trifle overwrought by the
unusual experiences that she has had tonight. She
has been nobly assisting the red-cross nurses with
their first-aid to the injured. Your name, sir? 1
wish those of the survivors.”
“Mr. Ford, Dr. Bloxam. He is not a survivor.”
Ford bowed, a trifle haughtily.
“I haven’t helped much,” Shirley confessed,
modestly. “Except,” brushing a cluster of pine
needles from her blue skirt with a white, nervous
hand, “except—serve as assistant to our village doc
tor, who happened, fortunately, to be aboard the
ill-fated Suburban.”
Dr. Bloxam bowed. He was a tall, gray-haired
man with brilliant black eyes, overshadowed by a
dome-like, benevolent brow.
“Have your way, Miss Shirley, have your way!
But that will not prevent Dr. Blucher Bloxam, M.
D., from telling Mrs. Bryan—when I see her—that
sh a has a heroine for a daughter.”
He saluted, in the chivalrous Southern way, and
turned from them. Ford lifted his hat easily,