Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

¥ OUNG midway between her birthday and Christ- mas. “ What d vou say, Elizabeth?” SAVS I: for of coursé Elizabeth was still sitting on my porch. ‘““T said shame upon you, Mr. Tom Hill,”. she says. “Shame on me?” says I. you shaming me for?” “ Didn’t I tell you to watch this young —young—this young—”’ “Lady,” says I. “Lady?” Lizzie’ busts out. perfect hussy!”’ “Don’t screech like that,” I eautioned her. “ Anybody. goin’ by would think I was chokin’ you. I repeat, Lizzie, what are you shaming me for?” ‘“{ wish you wouldn’t call me Lizzie,” she says. ‘““We both seem to be namin’ names in black and white,” says I, pretty stern. “The way you refer to your daughter-in- law is vicious, as I look at it. What are you shaming me for?” - “TI told you to watch that woman. You wouldn’t. Now. she has deserted my boy: He will never be able to hold up his head again. He will have to go away and leave me all alone.” “ He’s been kind of leaving you alone,” I says. ‘“ Or you have been leaving him alone.” “Would I associate with. that—that— ‘Hardly! She came between me and my son. If.you had watched her, as I ordered you to do, you would have discovered some- thing that would have enabled him to cast her off. Then the world would have known that he was merely putting her. aside as he should have done in the first place, instead of listening to her importunities. She was merely after his money. “Any one could see that.” “ What are ‘ Hussv— wealth overboard,” says I. “ That don’t seem logical to me.” ‘‘ She will sue him, stupid,” Lizzie says. ‘¢ She will try to make him pay her alimony. Don’t you see her game?” ‘“‘'Where has she fled to?” I asked. ‘““ To the beach,” Lizzie answered. “* She left a note for Jimmie to the effect that the “ And now she has cast him and his REBELS. 671 heat had tired her out and she had accept- ed an invitation to visit with the Adamses at their cottage at the beach. You know how lax the Adamses are. That old man will be away half the night, pulling a seine up and down the shore, and his wife will be asleep. That will leave this woman who was the wife of my son free’to do as she pleases.” “Them Adamses is easy going, nice old people,” says I. ‘“ But I expect they won’t make any too good watchdogs. What do you kind of suspicion Sadie will do down there at the beach?” Lizzie made a kind of a sound in her throat. I give her a sidewise peek and seen that she was sitting up straight in her chair, her hands folded in her lap. Her thin lips was tight shut. They would never tell what kind of a crime it was that their owner was looking for Sadie to commit. ‘What I wish to know now,” says Lizzie pretty soon, ‘is whether you are going to help me or not.” ~ . T wasn’t paying so much attention to her. I was thinking of Sadie. Pretty Se? -had a-wearied of a husband who spent his wak- ing hours in a grocery store and who gave her a washing machine on her birthday. I didn’t know but what she was justified. But I could find a word or two of excuse for Jimmie. Jimmie had been brought up under his mother’s wing: Except for the four years he was away at college she had hedged him in. I did hear that while he was at college he distinguished himself as a football player, but I ain’t never seen a real football game and [ didn’t know whether that meant anything or not. Be- sides, Jimmie had dropped down from being a. millionaire’s son to a man with a few thousand in the bank, a roof over his head, and a job in "Lije’s grocery store. That is considerable of a drop, though there is a good sized army of nice lads in this country that would think they was on Kasy Street if they started out married life with just the little bit Jimmie had. I reck- on Jimmie, however, was worried consider- able for fear the wolf would get by them hardwood doors in his bungalow. That would explain his long hours and the wash- ing machine matter, though I ain’t so sure COIN DOOKS CO@ im