Newspaper Page Text
,.IH II- 1 ' L '"' ' """ITJ ' , " ""'""""' i IHi,rirm.l..,fmnn ..Bii -pm , , - , . j,-- , U , ' J II I ' f - L . - , f, . IT;. , . , .f I V bifida iiayi ielr Career of a irey Orphan, Who ' "H .-IPS' i Mo Becoming the Tool of an J Famous Beauty, Forced to Hobnob TWik N. frnttha and Help Fleece Them of t ' ' IP" i Ml EI tit i:f M Sri I M VJs. K U W J I 1 M U H H U f itf-F SI L9 Ml kj jCtei:?SW,.y rf. ..T-i .-X5r:V ! SAVijtVK-, I t vk a ?M i V j f V - w Methods mat kmmmmw i m s . w v f? e f ri a h ft & z ais a s si twh a m & & is a ts i . "R Ur ro Lfiidnigm Marriage p:aiiifmai list of addresses and telephone irumbers of people she knew in New York. Among thern I hoped to find one or more who would help me. Never will 1 forget the shock to my optimism an hour's browsing through the trunk gave me. I opened envelope after envelope nothing but bills, duns, snubs, Ben Tcsl's Little Son, Now Known zs Jack Faddleford, Who Was Stranded in Austria F oJlow ing the Arrest cf His Mother. as the name itself. For three years he had pursued Mrs. Faddleford with letters and in person from coast to coast. During our stay at the Plaza and the Ritz he called at least twice a week. To us children, Ben and me, he had always been kind. We had told him our troubles. He had sympathized with us. This obscure collector, with hi3 efforts to make Mrs. Paddleford pay up, was almost like "one of the family." My heart warmed when I thought of him now as it did not at the memory of any other faces. He, as no other, I told myself, would know the truth of my story. He would know I was never Mrs. Paddleford's accomplice, but always her victim. And, knowing that, he would help me though everybody else was suspicious. So it came about that I, Cynthia 4 5. t. Cynthia Teal as She Is To-day, and, at Left, the Wrecked Oil Steamer George E. Paddleford, Which Went on the Rocks About ths Time the Paddleford-Teal Romance Wcs Wrecked. - iiiIji, 5 V'JJ.V. r ' ' si' UsiHf t. W ;. is .T "i- . V'h." ' v . V,'?,s.VSJii s.'fva(..rfwV stf5S9li!4S(. : lViS;si: :.. H5iJ-;. f .vA-v; sS sO 4,, . ,,-;-vV:. .sfc'L A .. I a.v . - ; ... t: A.vsX : s:. s ssj--sis- : .'- . Vss. ................ 'K Mil I'Jilfefe'Sil; Ben's ---fflSSVJ ls? Teal, with a room at w 7S it s'.U ... " j,.jS,3--ir s- sfV. . -'-'-sj..l); ., . : y iV- .;.sv 'fcfVf.vf..: Foster-Brother, George Paddleford, Who Is Being Brought Up in Luxury in California. i.i (! ni Kv.y suits. I read figures until 1 was sick. r i f t o pile of paper popped bills and yet Was there any one whose trust she had i i. i ,i ''..vie a little list of names as I went along. '":') f Mopped. Each name on that list repre ; f ; ot some one from whom she had bor !, ' - v or angered with her use of their let 1 - ! - iciion, then some one who would know : her imprisonment abroad. ''Ui':,y of what I was doing overwhelmed I -::uiv; v'itlt fatal assurance, sitting there in P '-i' fiaud. that I was chasing a will-o'-the-' ! 'i 1 1: ought of good-will from any of these ' s about to burst into tears when my eye, wan ?sver th sheaf of naners. stopped at a name. It was signed to a tele gram addressed to Mrs. Paddleford at Los An geles, informing her that one of her New York creditors was will ing to settle for a cer tain amount. The name was that of a representative of a large collection agency. The owner of the name was as familiar to me u .y .s -. J 4. ia ' ' . ! . v ' ' 'i 1 v ':." . V Js.7 Jf? ; ' , v"sj 4 j. s; vsj 1 The Paddleford Resi dence at Los Angeles, Which ths Former Mrs. Ben Teal Attempted to Gain Pos session of Following the Institution cf Divorce Proceedings. a swagrrer hotel and the acquaintance of millionaires and blue- bookers, got my only "lift" when I was in trouble from a bill-collector who had dogged my foster mother's trail for years! Oh, I tried some of the others first. Those who would even speak to me on the telephone were so frosty that words stuck in my throat. Would they call? Really, they were so busy row! Then mightn't I come by to see them about something very important? They were "so sorry, but they didn't know when they could give me an appointment!" And that was that. It was the bill-collector who, when I got him 011 the wire next day, came promptly to the hotel, and walking up and down Park avenue with me, and listening to my woeful account cf Eu rope and my present desperate plight and my need for a job of some kind, no matter how humble it was this man who laid his hand on my shoulder and said : "Poor kid ! You've had a tough time. I'll speak to my wife to-night and see if we can't find room for you at home. You'll break yourself in a week where you're stopping now. And in the meantime I'll see what I can do about a. job. I think I know a place 1 can get you on as telephone operator." Telephone operator! Zipp went my dreams of Broadway stardom, of opera, of fame! To live at the most expensive hotel in New York and look for a job as telephone operator! It was incongruous; it was humiliating. Butit was a job. If he could get me that, or anything, I would take it, I told him. Back in my room at the hotel I had a reaction. What wages would a telephone operator get? Fifty dollars a week or a hundred? I didn't know, but I had a sickening intuition that it would be less than either of these sums. I was beginning to learn. One day alone in New York had disillusioned me more than ten years with Mrs. Paddleford. I shook my head. As a telephone operator I couldn't earn enough to support myself, let alone support little Ben and bring him home again. I decided to try Mrs. Paddleford's private tele phone directory again. The disheartening experi ence of the previous night repeated itself. But at last I struck a cordial answer. - The woman had been one of my foster- mother's closest friends. I had been taught to call her "auntie." And the warmth of her greeting wa3 fairly thrilling after so many rebuffs. .. Over the telephone I bub bled outran outline of my story. When she learned that Mar garet was in prison in Europe and I was practically stranded in New York, she told me she would call that afternoon. I will touch as briefly as I can on the sinister experience that followed. "Auntie" called,v she asked me questions, she learned I was accountable to no one, she invited me to come and stay with her, she ended with a hint that she had many rich friends she wanted me to meet. When she left, overjoyed that I wasn't going to be a telephone operator, but could live vith "auntie" until I found something better to do, I rushed out to walk exuberantly along Madison avenue. And there chance intervened to save me from well, I don't like to think what. I met my friend the bill collector. I told him my good news. For a moment he stared at me in amaze ment. Then he repeated sharply the name I had spoken "auntie's." "Don't you know," he demanded, "that that wo man is not a respectable woman an'd her place is one of the most notorious in New York?" Chill revelation horror swept over me. I saw it all her questions about my clothes and my age and my marriage. She wanted to establish that I was a responsible married woman. "Auntie," whom I had thought so kind, wanted me only for one un speakable purpose. Thirty minutes later, in my $8 room, I huddled on the bed, sobbing my heart out. The bill collector had told me telephone girls' jobs were scarce. I couldn't go to "auntie's;" that was unthinkable! For a moment there swirled before me only one solu tion suicide. Why not kill myself then and there and get it all over with ? I had neither pistol nor poison, but I was a guest in one of the tallest buildings in New York. In two minutes I could be on the roof. I saw myself trem bling on the brink of that steel-and-concrete preci pice, vith the city below me a maze of rooftops and twinkling lights. One step and I could plunge out of my miseiy into dark forgetfulness! I rose from my chair, giddy with a great temptation. At that moment the telephone rang. I answered it. dully to learn that Miss Blank was calling. I shall not give the name of this woman. I can only say that.ehe had been particularly kind to my foster mother before ve sailed for Europe. It wa3 she who gave us letters of introduction to. Lord Northcliffe, to the famous French woman surgeon, to other prom inent people. I knew 'she must havp heard of her violated trust, but I felt that, if T could onW tell her my story face to face she would help me. I had tel ephoned her the night before, but she was out. I had left a message that I would like to see her. I knew little about her save that she was young not many years older than myself and worked for a living, and was as quick to understand as she was loyal. I told the office to show her up at once. When I shook hands I noticed restraint in her manner, but when she had seated herself and lis tened for fifteen minutes to my confession of suffer ing and heartache, her steady gaze softened. I ended with my last and bitterest disillusion and a desperate admission that there seemed nothing left for me but to put myself out of the way. She leaned forward, fixing me with an earnest gaze. "Listen, my dear," she said. "I am eight 5rear3 older than you and I have learned a lot in those eight years. One thing is never to give up the ship. Let me tell you something. It wasn't so very long ago that I, too, was broke and jobless and, I thought, without a friend in the world. I, too, was living in, a swagger hotel then, though I didn't have the money to buy my next meal. I reached the same black, desperate decision you have reached. Only I went a step farther I actually tried to finish it. It almost finished me, but not quite. And then, when I was getting well and still as blue and bitter as ever, a man came to me'. He wasn't one of the fine friends I used to know who had turned me down to the last one of them when I most needed a little word of help. He was a total stranger. But he gave me a chance. Tnat was all. Just a chance to work and to make good. I took it and I made good. Why did he give it to me? That's beside the mark. Perhaps he was down and out once, and somebody gave him a chance He was paying his debt to Fate that way. I've never paid mine. But I'm going to pay it now. I'm going to give you your chance. Will you take it?" There is not much for me to add to this story, except that I am taking my chance the one a wo man I had no claim on earth upon was willing to give me, because she, too, knew what it meant to grope in darkness with none to flash a kindly light or say, "Here is the way." She has given me a home, enough money to send a small allowance regularly to little Ben, and the opportunity to develop my voice and "find myself." She has become my guardian; I am legally, as well as morally, bound no longer to Mrs. Margaret Teal Paddleford. For the first time in my life, I think, I am happy. . , It would be idle for me to write words of grati tude here to this woman. My money debt to her I shall pay. The greater debt I owe my chanee I cannot pay-in coin. But some day, perhaps, when I have made good, when I am successful, when I have faced life and bested it honestly and squarely, there may come to me a girl penniless, lonely, desperate, without, she thinks, a friend on earth. And will I give her a chance? I'll say I will! (The End) 1 v W : ,