Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 146: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

136 ‘““My God!” breathed Laban Hulbert; and as he was a simple, pious man, it is cer- tain that the ejaculation was a prayer rather than an oath. But nothing untoward hap- pened to Lou. After fifteen minutes’ rest, he weeded in the hot sunshine all the after- noon, now and then picking and eating a young onion, and turned up for supper as hungry as ever. The four athletes soon forgot poor Lou and his appetite, but they came to look for the pink apron and sunbonnet of Eunice as she moved about the distant yard aftér her work was done, lingering among the lofty hollyhocks, the flaming poppies and golden marigolds of her little garden. They were all only overgrown children themselves; and as the little girl was too far away for them to gain any idea of her fea- tures, each one painted a fanciful portrait of her in his secret soul. Sergius Stepoff sometimes sat apart from his fellows, crooning strange Cossack bal- lads, wild and haunting and breathing of great steppes swept by untamed riders brandishing guns with stocks inlaid with silver. Ichyaga never sang; but his half-closed, beady black eyes saw processions of little smiling geishas, as dainty as the figures on an old Nipponese fan. ’Arry sighed gustily and recalled a blowsy barmaid in a certain pub down Whitechapel way, whom he pro- posed to win directly he had hammered enough Yankee welterweights to fill his pockets with a dowry. K. O. Mooney was by far the most intelli- gent of the four. He had even enjoyed one year in college, from whose athletics he had been barred because of playing semi-pro baseball during the Summer _ vacation. Thereupon he had lost all interest in a de- gree and, because he was strong and clever with his hands, it was easier for him to fight than to work. Otherwise he had no special love for the game, nor much in com- mon with his uncouth associates. He too had his secret picture of Eunice; and it was the truest one of all, since he had managed to elude the others and stroll by the gate where her pretty, tanned face with its faintly freckled nose and blue eyes and chestnut hair looked out from over the ser- ried ranks of hollyhocks. She did not smile, and the rudiments of flirting were un- known to her; but when the stalwart, good- looking young fellow lifted his cap, she nod- Adventure ded in a friendly way. She shared her father’s contempt of his useless profession; but she somehow exempted him, and felt that he was more to be pitied than censured —as her favorite poem went—which would greatly have astonished K. O. could he have read the thought behind her serene blue eyes. III ai LOU never played games in the true sense of the word. Blind- man’s-buff and _ puss-in-the-corner had a technic he could no more have grasped than he could have sensed the intricacies of chess. His life was a dull yet perfectly sat- isfying round of eating, working, sleeping, eating again. Yet there were rare occasions when some dumb voice in his stricken mind urged him to a practise that approximated as near to play as he ever got. At these times he would sit down, leaving whatever job he might happen to be doing, and collect such small, loose pebbles, straws or sticks as were at hand. With them he would spend hours arranging them in meaningless patterns, not attempting anything intricate like a minia- ture fence or wall, but following the faint impulse which satisfied some dormant sport instinct. | At such times Hulbert. never interrupted him, feeling intuitively that these strange, solitary occupations gave a little pleasure to one to whom nature had denied almost everything. Coupled with this- indulgent attitude was the knowledge that Lou was very peevish if disturbed. In general the child-man arranged his sticks and pebbles in the yard or kitchen garden. No one except his father and Eunice knew of his curious, purposeless pastime; not many had met him face to face. The erratic desire came upon him one day when he had wandered after Eunice, who was picking high bush blueberries in the north pasture for the Fall canning. Lou himself could not be trusted to pick berries. He was willing enough; but he gathered green and rotten fruit alike, and always ended by setting down his pail and forgetting it. He wandered about this day stuffing his mouth with handfuls of berries and leaves crushed into a purple, sticky mass. Presently he found himself by the road, a quarter of a mile from the house, and out of sight of the girl. Hulbert saw COmicloo CN Vp) CO