Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

MYRA’S MIRACLE. _ The rose-covered house, outhouses and barn were of an old-time architecture, quaintly simple and very charming to the eye, while Myra’s flower-beds were the admiration and joy of every automobilist that passed along the State road. Little wonder that the girl shut her mind to the idea of losing so much beauty and loveliness. For Purdy and his buyers it represented just so many fruit trees and so many acres of very excellent farmland, land that could be made to yield a comfortable profit when joined to the next farm—which was one of his plans—or might be found the covering of a very valuable underground treasure, for there were evidences of oil which might be worth the gamble of a prospector. Purdy played safe. He loaned money. He did not gamble, but the prospector would pay more for the farm if the deal went through. He wasn’t as conservative as Purdy. He handled other people’s money. After Purdy had gone Myra went to the side door and stood a long time looking off across the fields, trying not to believe in the facts as they appeared and insisting to herself, as she had to him, that they were not the truth. Her mother found her there and, still weak from the long illness, dropped down on the little settle as she asked, ‘‘ Can we keep the place?” ‘Not if Mr. Purdy can help it, mother.” “You mean he’s going to foreclose?” “So he says.” “Don’t evade things, -Myra.” ‘““T’m not evading, mother, just trying to see straight and not believe all the terrible things—”’ “ Not believe the evidence of your senses, you mean,” corrected Mrs. Duncan miser- ably. “Perhaps so; they aren’t always right.” “But in this case facts are facts. It don’t help matters to lie about them, even to yourself.” ‘Tm not lying, mother,” the girl said. “The facts are, we haven’t paid and we can’t pay, but I believe, if we just wom’? get scared, a way will be shown us.” “You've said that all along, Myra, and look where we are. But—” added Mrs. Duncan tearfully, “ I don’t know what more you could have done.’”’ She got up wearily. 959 “There’s only the factory—and one of their dirty cottages now. Oh, how can I bear to see you there, Myra?” And she clung to her little daughter, sobbing aloud. Myra hugged her close. Trouble and illness had made her mother more the child than she. Words of comfort came to her lips, but she didn’t speak them. How could she make her mother realize that all this looked to her like some bad dream, a dream that they could awake from and find them- selves without harm or loss. Her mother just wouldn’t understand. If, “SHoot that scene again,” Craig Mal- lory’s tone indicated that something was wrong. ‘What did we do, Craig?” asked young Radcliffe, the leading man. “You didn’t open the door at the back in rehearsal and you did open it in the take. Shoot it again, Kent.” ‘But there’s a backing of trees,” laughed long Bill Bend, who had just been given the worst of it in a rather trying scene. “True. And on location we may find a lake or a rose garden. Take it over.” ‘Why not cut in a close-up there?” sue- gested John Vail, the author, as the players took their places. Somebody pulled him quickly aside. It was Alice Brooke, pretty enough to be for- given anything, even if she had not been the leading woman, and she whispered, ‘‘ Never talk back to the director, Mr. Author. Craig Mallory is too nice to bawl you out as some of them would, but—a word to the wise.” “Make a note of that, Chippy.” said Mallory to his intent little assistant. “ We must get Radcliffe’s exit on location and he has his hat on. Now—” turning to the set again, “let’s get a close-up of your faces, boys, eye to eye, just before the clinch.” While the camera-man shifted his appar- atus to the new position Mallory glanced over his assistant’s shoulder at the script. “That cleans up this set, doesn’t it. We7ll jump right out to the location while they’re getting the sheriff’s office dressed for us.”’ ‘““The new man says he has a place that GOMIIGIOOKShEO