Cheyenne record., September 27, 1917, Image 6

About Cheyenne record. (Cheyenne Wells, Cheyenne County, Colo.) 1913-19??

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The Real Adventure
COMES THE GREAT EVENT IN ROSE ALDRICH’S LIFE, THE PROSPECT OF A BABY, AND
SHE REAUZES THAT WOMAN’S FINEST PROFESSION IS MOTHERHOOD-BUT
PLANS GO SADLY AWRY
BYNOPSIB—Rose Stanton marries Rodney Aldrich, a rich young lawyer, after a brief courtship, and in
stantly Is taken up by Chicago's exclusive social set and made a part of the gay whirl of the rich folk. It Is
all new to the girl, and for the first few months she la charmed with the life. And then she comes to feel that
she Is living a useless existence, that she Is a social butterfly, a mere ornament In her husband’s home. Rose
longs to do something useful and to have the opportunity to employ her mind and utilise her talent and edu
cation. Rodney feels much the same way himself. He thinks he ought to potter around In society Just to
please his wife, when In reality he’d rather be giving his nights to study or social service of some sort. They
try to reach an understanding, following the visit of two New York friends, who have worked out satisfactorily
this same problem.
CHAPTER Xl—Continued.
Bat she went steadily on. “You
were always so dear about It. Bat
tonight—oh, Rodney ... 1" Her
allly, ragged voice choked there and
stopped, and the tears brimmed np
and spilled down her cheeks. But
she kept her lace steadfastly turned
to his.
“That’s what I said about being
married and not sowing wild oats, 1
suppose,” he said glumly. “It was a
Joke. Do you suppose I’d have said It
if I meant it?”
“It waan't only that,” she managed
to go on. “It was the way they looked
at the house; the way you apologized
(or my dress; the way you looked
when you tried to get out of answer
ing Barry Lake's questions about
what you were doing. Oh, how 1
despised myself! And how I knew
vou and they must be despising me I”
“The one thing I felt about you all
the evening,” he said, with the pa
tience that marks the last stage of
exasperation, “was pride. I was rath
er crazily proud of you."
"As my lover you were proud of
me,” she said. “But the other man—
the man that's more truly you—was
ashamed, as I was ashamed. Oh, it
doesn't matter! Being ashamed won’t
accomplish anything. But what we'll
do is going to accomplish something.”
“What do you mean to do?” he
asked.
“I want you to tell me first,” she
said, “how much money we have, and
how much we’ve been spending.”
“I don't know,” he said stubbornly.
"I don’t know exactly."
“You've got enough, haven’t you,
of your own ... I mean, there’s
enough that comes In every year, to
live on, If you didn't earn a cent by
practicing law? Well, what I want
to do. Is to live on that. I want to
live, however and wherever we have
t<^—to live on that —out In the suburbs
"That's Why I Wanted to Decide
Things Tonight."
somewhere, or In a flat, so that you
will be free; and I can work—be some
sort of help."
“Yon can wash the dishes and scrub
the floors," he supplemented, "and I
can carry my lunch to the office with
me in a little tin box." He looked at
his watch. "And now that the thing’s
reduced to an absurdity, let’s go to
bed. It's getting along toward two
o’clock."
"You don’t have to get to the office
till nine tomorrow morning," said
Rose. "And I want to talk it out
now. And I don’t think I said any
thing that was absurd."
"I shouldn’t have called it absurd,"
he admitted after a rather long si
lence. "But It’s exaggerated and un
necessary. Next October, when the
lease on this bouse runs out. we can
manage, perhaps, to change the scale
a little. There you are ! Now do stop
worrying about it and let's go tO*%ed."
But she sat there Just as she was,
starts* at tha dying fire, her glands
By Henry Kitchell Webster
Copyright Bobbs-MerriH Co.
lying slack in her lap, all as if she
hadn't heard. The long silence irked
him. He polled ont his watch, looked
at it, and began winding it. He mend*
ed the fire so that it would be safe
for the night; bolted a window. Ev
ery minute or two he stole a look at
her, but she was always just the
same. Except for the faint rise and
fall of her bosom, she might have
been a picture, not a woman.
At last he said again, “Come along,
Rose dear.”
“It’ll be too late in October,” she
said. “That’s why I wanted to de
cide things tonight. Because we must
begin right away.” Then she looked
up into his face. “It will be too late in
October,” she repeated, “unless we be
gin now.”
The deep, tense seriousness of her
voice and her look arrested his full
attention..
“Why?” he asked. And then, “Rose,
what do you mean?”
“We’re going to have a baby in
October,” she said.
CHAPTER XII.
The Door That Was to Open.
What a silly little idiot she’d been
not to have seen the thing for her
self 1 She’d been, all the while, beat
ing her heAd against blind walls when
there was a door there waiting to
open of itself when the time *came.
Motherhood! There’d be a doctor
and a nurse at first, of course, but
presently they’d go away and she’d
be left with a baby. Her own baby!
She could care for him with her own
hands, feed him—her joy reached an
ecstasy at this—from her own breast.
That life which Rodney led apart
from her, the life into which she had
tried with such ludicrous unsuccess
to effect an entrance, was nothing to
this new life which was to open before
her in a few short months now. Mean
while, she not only must wait—
she could well afford to.
That was why she could listen with
that untroubled smile of hers to the
terrible things that Rodney and
James Randolph and Barry Lake and
Jane got into the way of hurling
across her dinner table, and to the
more mildly expressed but equally
alkaline cynicisms of Jimmy Wallace.
Jimmy was dramatic critic on one
of the evening papers as well as a bit
of a playwright. He was a slim, cool,
smiling, highly sophisticated young
man, who renounced all privileges as
an interpreter of life in favor of re
maining an unbiased observer of It.
He never bothered to speculate about
what you ought to do—he waited to
see what you did.
Well, in the light of the miraculous
transformation that lay before her.
Rose could listen undaunted to the
tough philosophizings her husband and
Barry Lake delighted In as well as to
the mordant merciless realities with
which Doctor Randolph and Jimmy
Wallace confirmed them. She wasn't
indifferent to it aIL
“Jim’s pretty weird when he gets
going,” Eleanor Randolph said to Fred
erica, on the next day after they had
been dining at the Aldriches’, “but that
Barry Lake has a sort of surgical way
of discussing just anything, and his
wife’s as bad.
“We never got off women all the
evening. Barry Lake had their his
tory down from the early Egyptians,
and Jim got off a string of patholog
ical freaks. And then Rodney came
out strong for economic independence,
only with his own queer angle on it,
of course. He thought it would be a
fine thing, but it wouldn’t happen un
til the men insisted on it. When a
girl wasn't regarded as marriageable
unless she had been trained to a trade
or a profession, then things would be
gin to happen. I think he meant it,
too.
“Well, and all the while there sat
Rose, taking it all In with those big
eyes of hers, smiling to herself now
and then; saying things, too, some
times, that were pretty good, though
nobody but Jimmy seemed to under
stand, always, just what she meant
They've talked before, those two. But
she was no more embarrassed than
as if we'd been talking embroidery
stitches.”
So far as externals went her life,
that springy was immensely simplified.
The* social demands upon her, which
had tetri' io insistent all winter,
stopped almost automatically. The
TUB CHBYKNNB RECORD.
exception was the Junior League show
in Easter week, for which she put in
quite a lot of work. She was to have
danced in It.
This is an annual entertainment
by which Chicago sets great store. All
the smartest and best-looking of the
younger set take part in it, in cos
tumes that would do credit to a chorus
dresser, and as much of Chicago as
is willing and able to pay five dollars
a seat for the privilege is welcome
to come and look. Delirious weeks
are spent in rehearsal, under a first
class professional director; audience
and performers have an equally good
time, and Charity, as residuary lega
tee, profits by thousands.
Bose dropped in at a rehearsal one
day at the end of a solid two hours
of committee work, found it unexpect
edly amusing, and made a point, there
after, of attending when she could.
Her interest was heightened, if not
wholly actuated, by some things Jim
my Wallace had been telling her late
ly about how such things were done
on the real stage.
He had written a musical comedy
once, lived through the production of
it, and had spent a hard-earned two
weeks' vacation trouplng with it on
the road, so he could speak with au
thority. It was a wonderful Odyssey
when you could get him to tell It,
and as Bose made a good audience,
she got the whole thing at her dinner
table.
The thing got a sociological twist
eventually, of course, when Jane want
ed to know if It were true that the
chorus girls received Inadequate pay.
Jimmy demolished this with more
wrath than he often showed. He didn't
know any other Bort of job that paid
a totally untrained girl as well. It
took a really accomplished stenogra
pher, for Instance, to earn as much a
week as was paid the average chorus
girl. Tha trouble was that the Indis
pensable assets In the business were
not character and intelligence and am
bition, but just personal charms.
"But a girl who's serious about It,
who doesn't have to be told the same
thing more than once, and catches on,
sometimes, without being told at all,
why, she can always have a job and
she can be as Independent as any
body. She can get twenty-five dollars
a week or even as high as thirty.”
The latter part of this conversation
was what she was to remember after
ward, but the thing that Impressed
Bose at the time, and that held her
for hours looking on at the League
show rehearsals, was what Jimmy had
told her about the technical side of
the work of production, the labors of
the director, and so on.
As the weeks and months wore away,
and as the season of violent alter
nations between summer and winter,
which the Chicagoan calls spring,
gave place to summer Itself, Rose
was driven to Intrench htrself more
and more deeply behind this great
expectation. It was like a dam bold
ing back waters that otherwise would
have rushed down upon her and swept
her away.
And then came Harriet, Bodney's
other sister, and the pressure behind
the dam rose higher.
Bose had tried, rather unsuccess
fully. to realize that there was actu
ally In existence another woman who
occupied, by blood anyway, the same
position toward Rodney and herself
that Frederica did. She felt almost
like a real sister toward Frederica.
But without quite putting the notion
Into words, she had always felt it
was just as well that Harriet was an
Italian contessa, four thousand miles
oway. Rodney and Frederica spoke
of her affectionately, to be sure, but
their references made a picture of a
rather formidably correct, seriously
aristocratic sort of person.
She'd discovered, along in the win
ter sometime, that Harriet’s affairs
were going rather badly. It was along
in Uay that the cable came to Frede
rica announcing that Harriet was com
ing back for a long visit. "That’s all
she said," Rodney explained to Rose.
"But I suppose It means the finish.
She said she didn't want any fuss
made, but she hinted she'd like to have
Freddy meet her In New York, and
Freddy's going. Poor old Harriett We
must try to cheer her up.”
She didn't seem much in need of
cheering up. Rose thought, when they
first met. All that showed on the con
tessa's highly polished surface was a
iakkiWfiiMi'-’ttA s #atk humorously over
oM~Hmes wlfh her old friends. In
cluding her brother and sister, and a
sort of dismayed acquiescence In the
smoky seriousness, the Inadequate
civilization, of the city of her birth.
lV Toward Bose herself, the contessa
was, one might say, studiously affec
tionate. She avoided being either dis
agreeable or patronizing. Rose could
see. Indeed, how She avoided it
About this time the question, where
Rose and Rodney were going to live 1
after their lease on the McCrea house
ended, had, begun to press for an an
swer. October first was when the
lSase expired, and It wasn’t far from
the date at which they expected the
baby. They spent some lovely after
noons during the days of the emerg
ing spring, cruising about looking at
possible places.
This was the situation when Har
riet took a hand In It. It was a situa
tion made to order for Harriet to
take a hand In. She’d sized it up at
a glance, made up her mind In three
minutes what was the sensible thing
for them to do, written a note to
Florence MeCrea in Paris, and then
bided her opportunity to put her Idea
Into effect. To her Rose was simply a
well-meaning, somewhat inadequately
She Stared, Bewildered.
civilized young person, the beneficiary,
through her marriage with Rodney, of
a piece of unmerited good fortune.
When she got Florence McCrea's
answer to her letter, she took the
first occasion to get Rodney off by
himself and talk a little common
sense into him.
"What about where to live, Rod
ney?” she asked. 'Made up your
mind about It yet? It is time someone
with a little common sense straight
ened you out about this.”
Harriet couldn’t be sure from the
length of time he took seeing that
his pipe was properly lighted, wheth
er he altogether liked this method of
approach or not.
“Common sense always was a sort
of specialty of yours, sis,” he said at
last, “and straightening out. You
were always pretty good at It.” Then
out of a cloud of his own smoke,
“Fire away.”
"Well, In the first place,” she said,
"if you had your house today you’d be
lucky If the paint was dry and the
thing was fit to move Into by the first
of September.”
“But we've got to get out of here,
anyway. In October. And that means
we’ve got to have some sort of place
to get Into. It Is an awkward time,
I’ll admit.”
“Mo, you haven't," she said. “You
can stay right here another six
months. If you like. Fve heard from
Florence. When I found how things
stood here, I wrote and asked her If
she'd lease for six months more If
she got the chance, and she wrote back
and simply grabbed at it.”
Rodney smoked half way through
his pipe before he made any comment
on this suggestion. “This house isn’t
just what we want,” he said. “In the
first place. It’s expensive.”
Harriet shrugged her shoulders,
picked up one of Florence’s poetry
books and eyed the heavily tooled bind
ing with a satirical smile before she
replied.
‘Td an Idea there was that In It,”
she said at last. "Freddy said some
thing. . . Rose had been talking
to her.” Then, after another little
silence and with a sudden access of
vehemence: “You don’t want to go
and do a regular fool thing,. Roddy.
You're getting on perfectly splendid
ly. But If you pull up and go to live In
a barn somewhere and stop sdelng any
body—people that count, I mean—”
Rodney grunted. “You’re beyond
your depth, sis,” he said. “Come back
where you don't have to swim. The
expense Isn't a capital consideration,
m admit that. Now go on from
there.”
"That’s like old times,” she ob
served with a not 111-humored grim
ace. “I wonder If you talk to Rose
like that. Oh, I know the house Is
rather solemn and absurd. It's Flor
ence herself all over, that's the size
of It But what does that matter tor
six months more?”
He pocketed his pipe and got up
out of his chair.
“There's something In it,” he ad
mitted. TU think It over.”
“Better, cable Florence aa soon aa
yon can,” she adviced.
Rose protested when the plan for
living six months more In Florence'
McCrea’s house was broached to her.
She made the best, fight she could.
But Harriet’s .arguments,.' re-stated
now by Rodney with full .conviction,
were too much for her. When she
broke down and cried, as she couldn’t
help doing, Rodney southed and com
forted her, assured her that this no
tion of hers about the expensiveness'
of It all, was Just a notion, which
she must struggle against as best
she could. She'd see things In a truer
proportion afterward.
•»•• , • • *
Very fine and small and weak, Rose
Stanton, lying In a bed with people
about her, let her eyes fall heavily
shut lest they should want her to speak
or think. . . . Then, for a long time,
nothing. Then presently, a hand, a
firm, powerful hand, that picked up
her heavy, limp wrist and two sensi
tive finger-tips that rested lightly on
the upper surface of It. After that,
an even, measured voice—a voice of
authority, whose words no doubt made
sense, only Rose was too tired to thlpk
what the sense was:
“That’s a splendid pulse. She’s do
ing the best thing she can, sleeping
like that.”
And then another voice, utterly un
like Rodney's and yet unmistakably
his—a ragged voice that tried to talk
In a whisper but couldn’t manage It
—broke queerly.
“That’s all right" It said. “But Til
find It easier to believe when—”
She must see him —must know
what It meant that he should talk
like that. With a strong physical ef
fort, she opened her eyes and tried
to speak his name. She couldn't; but
someone must have been watching and
have seen, because a woman's voice
said quickly and quietly “Hr. Aldrich.”
And the next moment, vast and tow
ering and very blurred In outline, but,
like his voice, unmistakably, was
Rodney—her own big, strong Rodney.
She tried to hold her arms up to him,
but of course she couldn't.
And then he shortened suddenly.
He had knelt down beside her bed,
that was It. And she felt upon her
palm the pressure of his lips, and his
unshaven cheek, and on her wrist a
warm wetness that must be —tears.
And then she knew. The urgency
of a sudden terror gave her her voice,
“Roddy,” she said, “there was go
ing to be a—baby. Isn’t there 1”
Something queerly like a laugh
broke his voice when he answered.
“Oh, you darling 1 Yes. It's all right.
That Isn’t'why Tm crying. It’s Just
because I’m so happy.”
“But the baby!” she persisted.
“Why Isn’t It here?”
Rodney turned and spoke to some
one else. “She wants to see,” he
said. “May she?”
And then a woman's voice (why,
It was the nurse, of course! Miss
Harris, who had come last night) said
In an Indulgent, soothing tone: “Why,
surely she may. Walt Just a minute.”
But the watt seemed hours. Why
didn’t they bring the baby—her baby?
There! Miss Harris was coming at
last, with a queer, bulky, shapeless
bundle. Rodney stepped In between
and cut off the view, but only to slide
an arm under mattress and pillow
and raise her a little so that she could
see.
And then, under her eyes, dark red
and hairy against the whiteness of the
pillow, were two small heads—two
small, shapeless masses leading away
from them, twitching, squirming. She
stared, bewildered.
“There were twins. Rose,” she heard
Rodney explaining triumphantly, but
still with something that wasn’t quite
a laugh, “a boy and a girl. They're
perfectly splendid. One weighs seven
pounds and the other six.”
Her eyes widened and she looked
up Into his face so that the pitiful
bewilderment In hers was revealed to
him.
"But the baby,” she said. Her wide
eyes filled with tears and her voice
broke weakly. “I wanted a baby.”
“You've got a baby.” he Insisted,
and now laughed outright. “There are
two of them. Don’t you understand,
dear?"
Her eyes drooped shut, but the
tears came welling out along her
lashes. “Please take them away,” she
begged. And then, with a little sob,
she whispered: “I wanted a baby,
not those."
Rodney started to speak, but some
sort of admonitory signal from the
nurse silenced him.
The nurse went away with her bun
dle, and Rodney stayed stroking
Rose’s limp hand.
In the dark, ever so much later,
she awoke, stirred a little restlessly,
and the nurse, from her cot, came
quickly and stood beside her bed. She
had something In her hands for Rose
to drink and Rose drank It dutifully.
“Is there anything else?” the nurse
asked.
“I Just want to know,” Rose said;
“have I been dreaming, or Is It true?
Is there a baby, or are there twins?"
“Twins, to be sure," said the nurse
cheerfully. “The loveliest, liveliest
little pair you ever saw.”
“Thank you,” said Rose. “I Just
wanted to know.”
She shut her eyes and pretended
to go to sleep. But she didn't. It was
true then. Her miracle. It seemed
somehow, had gone ludicrously awry.
Knowing that they have plenty
of money to raise twins properly,
why should Rose resent the fact
that she has been presented with
two babies Instead of oneT
*- 1 i== lil^'
gb W OOMTUIPMD
i the use of that building you are IJ
, planning—there it nothing to be ■
gained by waiting. There if no is
prospect of prices going down I
for some time after the war is I
over. Go ahead and let your I
contracts. 1
When it comes to the roof you |
Ican make a real saving, and get .
a better roof by specifying I
Certainteed
Roofing
CERTAIN-TEED Roll Roof-
I ing is not cheaper because the |
[ quality is lower, but because it
is a less expensive roofing to
manufacture. It is better, not
only because it is cheaper, but
also because it is light weight,
weather-tight, dean, sanitary,
fire-retardent and costs practical-
Ily nothing to maintain. a
CERTAIN-TEED Roll Roof- I
ing is guaranteed for 5, 10 or
15 years, according to thickness
(1, 2 or 3 ply).
Csrfaia-teerf SUte-Swrfaeed
Asphalt Shingles
I ar« supplanting wood sad elato shingles ■
for residences. They cost less, are I
just as good looking, wear better, won't I
fall off, buckle or split. They are fire
retardent and do not have to be
painted or stained.
Cerfafn-temf Paints and Varnish aa
IA nib The name CER-
M UH TAIN-TEED on a
can of paint or ear
nish is the tame guar- I
antes of quality and |
tion it it on a roll
of roofing or a IBmEobsssl
bundle of shingles. IbVQKmkIW
Made for all uses
and in all colors.
Certain-tccd
I Product* Corporation ■
Mew York. Chicago, Philadelphia. St. LaakT I
■outoo. Ckfdaad. Ptaabarvh. Dccrofc. Bafalo* ■
B tss Flsadsco. Mllvaakse. Clsdaaatf. Nsv a
I orissss. Los Asrcka. Utaaespolls. Ksasss I
I Cits Besots. I—ll.——S. IS.M. aichmooS. I
I OnoS RspUs Nsshrtlle. Sslt Lets CUT. Dos I
I Moines. Hooaoo. Dslsds LoaSoa. SrSwr. Hsssss I
Advertising the Enemy.
“The editor of the Plalndealer haa a
good deal more enthusiasm than Judg
ment,” commented Farmer Horn beak.
In the midst of his perusal of the vil
lage newspaper. “Here he’s got a long
editorial fiercely attacking the kaiser,
when If he'd just let the scamp severe
ly alone people wopld soon forget all
about him."—Kansas City Star.
Ten smiles for a nickel. Always boy Bed
Cross Bar Bine; have beautiful, clear
white clothes. Adv.
Her Choice.
Hazel was at a loss to make a choice
between two young sprouts In her gar
den of love. She desired a hardy plant,
one that would thrive In any soil and
under any conditions. No shadow must
prevent the sprout selected from grow
ing.
Every day could not have Its full
allotment, of sunshine. Which would
she choose? Either was pleasing to
the eye. Then came a day when the
wind blew hard — a draft from one end
of the country to the other.
One of the sprouts withered from the
biting blast. The other thrived and
grew as though It had been bleeaed
with continual sunshine. Now Hanoi
Is happy. Her choice has been made.—
Indianapolis News.
All Figurative.
“My dear," said a young married
man, "I have changed my mind about
going out riding tonight.”
‘May I be permitted to Inquire the
reason why?” responded his sarcastic
wife.
“Yon may.”
“Well, what is the reason?”
“My darling, In the first place, lt*n
rather expensive, and. In the second
place, I don't want to go.”
“I don't care a fig.”
“In that case, I presume yon have a
date.”
Her Idea.
He— How would yon like to Uve la
a cottage by the sea?
She — By the sea, yes. But why a
cottage?
This world Is willing to tolerata a
lazy man who has money.
I Ita helping to, save I
I white bread by eating I
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