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MISS CRANE'S CHANCE:
(Continued from last week.)
ISS CRANE stayed at home for a
week, and thought finance, until
her mind felt like the wheel in a
squirrel cage, turning in aimless
and endless evolutions through the
days. The failure of her railroad
dividends, and the loss nearly at
the same time, of a large block of
mining stock, totalled only about
LU
twenty-four hundred dollars annually. But
nevertheless it meant the difference between a
comfortable income, and none at all. Her only
recourse was of course to do the thing she had
planned, on the night after Powhattan Gray’s
funeral, sell her home and abide by the conse
quences. But that was the very thing that she
did not want to do. The idea of being a de
tached female, with no roof to her head, liv
ing in a rented room, in some one else’s home,
did not appeal to her at all. And besides the
experiment of trying to live on fifteen or
twenty dollars a month, did not seem to her to
be one of the things possible to a woman of her
training, and antecedents. Moreover, and this
was the bitter heart of her argument with her
self, it was psychologically wrong for her any
way, to be overwhelmed by financial ruin.
Had she not heard all her life that the merci
ful were held in everlasting remembrance, that
God would never forsake the righteous? What
did all the preachers, and the teachers mean,
by promising that if you put yourself in your
brother’s place, and held on to him, until his
time of darkness was past, that when your
day of trial came, you would be provided
for, if God had to put the angels on half ra
tions, to save you from starvation! Well, there
were different kinds of starvation, and while
physical starvation was deplorable, an awful
fact indeed! Still there were other kinds,
which the philanthropists never went mad
about, but which might be equally hard to bear
for people of some kinds of temperament and
training. Mental starvation, having to live just
with the thoughts of the long dead, with no
intellectual companionship, and sympathy, to
give the necessary charm and variety to life.
Social starvation, to be ostracized by your cir
cle, not with intentional cruelty, but because
your poverty was too pronounced to allow you
any margins on which to return the courtesies
demanded by friendship. To be left out of
things, to be eliminated from everything in the
town, of organic importance, except the mis
sionary society, was really to die, socially. And
the worst of it was, that really nobody would
care —-it would be nobody’s business.
Miss Crane got up suddenly and began to
walk up and down her sitting room floor, with
a nervous step, which denoted that an emo
tional storm of no ordinary character, had
been evolved by her speculative meditations.
She came to a halt at last, and stood by a win
dow which showed the straight line of an ever
green hedge in the side yard, and a long nar
row bed of roses beside it, wliose time of blos
soming was not yet. Only one rose tree of an
early variety in the centre of the bed held a
solitary rose.
“That half developed shattered ghost of a
yellow rose,” Miss Crane said •with an hyster
ical catch in her throat, “is emblematic. Think
of being a forlorn wretch of a failure, when
you were meant to be a rose, fragrant and love
ly, until the end of your days. Think of it,
eliminated from life, on what I think makes it
worth while, having the power to be yourself,
and help others along the way—why I do not
know wfiat to do -with my gigantic problem.
Can I be of service to humanity without money?
Am I big enough, attractive and good enough
to fill the gulf that yawns at my feet? Oh,
I hate to be whipped!” She went on after a
moment, with a thrill of bitter anguish in her
voice, “and sent to bed. I mean the grave of
The Golden Age for October 31, 1912.
course, with a broken heart.”
And then Miss Crane sighed, and turned
resolutely away from the window, “I must not
allow myself to get tragic,” she said in the
silence, as she sat down by a table which held
an open meshed work basket. She took a half
finished child’s apron from its depths.
“For if I do,” she continued with a half hu
morous smile, “I shall become uninteresting
even to myself.”
But tragic or not, the facts remained the
same, and Miss Crane did not have to be told,
that a home without an income could not ex
ist long. If Powhattan Grey had lived as he
•was, president of the local bank, the outlook
for her, might have at least have been miti
gated for awhile. She could then have made
a bank note, of sufficient largeness to permit
her to wait on the developments of time; the
Micawber like possibility of something turning
up at the right psychological moment. “Only
I am not going to surrender,” Miss Crane af
firmed to her own soul. “God is not dead, al
though it may seem like for the moment, z that
he has forgotten me.”
She saw Mrs. Gordon More, crossing the
side yard, and resolved as she bit her basting
thread in two, that she would not tell her
about the dilemma into which fate had precipi
tated her. Mrs. More had on a purple flow
ered kimona, which had long since seen its best
days, and it was tied down at the waist, with
an old piece of black ribbon. Her hair was
wound up on the top of her head, and secured
by an immense ornamental hat pin. She walk
ed into her neighbor’s sitting room without the
ceremony of knocking—being in unconvention
al costume, seemed to have had effect.
“Good morning,” she saluted in a gay voice.
“I hope I know how to make myself at home,”
she added as she appropriated a rocking chair,
on the other side of the table. “I am glad that
you do,” her friend returned with a cordial
glance.
“Thanks!” But really I came over this
morning,” she drawled in a musical tone, “to
bring you an original idea, that most marvel
lous, and rarest of all things under the sun.”
And then Mrs. More laughed until the flash
of her white teeth, made Miss Crane think of
the universal newspaper grin, which is now
so popular among the world’s celebrities,
who pose so often for the American public.
“Well, what is it?” her friend inquired, in a
voice of amused interest, as she folded her
long hands resignedly over the crumpled child’s
apron in her lap. “I did not know that there
was anything original left us, except original
sin.”
“Os which we all have a share, more than
is at all enjoyable, sometimes,” Mrs. More re
turned with a flash in her fine eyes. “But lis
ten to my original idea, Miss Caroline, for,
really, I do not think it sinful at all, but rather
the reverse. lam going to have an entertain
ment over at my house. But it is not to be for
the people of my own set. It may be the ef
fect of Powhattan Grey’s funeral, I do not
know, but I do know that I stayed awake half
the night afterwards thinking. The majority
of people do not expend the glory and power
of their personalities in the right way. Mr.
Grey was an ambitious man, and liked to
achieve things—but with a few notable excep
tions, the principal thing he did, was simply
to make money. His life did not express his
personality, on the higher side, except in spots.
Well, I am going to do some of the things
which appeal to me now, before I am trans
lated and it is too late. lam tired of the
world’s code, to tell the truth,” she went on.
with simple directness, and shining eyes, “and
I have made up my mind not to run my home
any longer by it. In other words, Miss Caro
line, I want to have a musicale, not for my
friends, but for all the unfortunates in the
By ODESSA STRICKLAND PAYNE
town, who need to be cheered up on the way.
1 will have the best talent the city affords—of
course, I’ll have to pay for it, dearly, perhaps
—but, at least, I’ll get out of it the mental
satisfaction of knowing that I have contrib
uted to the happiness of others, for an hour or
two, at least. You know all the people on the
shadow side of the life-line, Miss Caroline,”
she pleaded, “and I’ll be mighty much obliged
to you, if you would make out the list of names
for me.”
Miss Crane noted the intentional stumble in
her charming visitor’s grammar, but her heart
responded warmly to her young neighbor’s ap
peal, for she had frequently thought her slav
ishly servile, to the things which were Caes
ar’s.
“I’ll do it very gladly,” she replied in a cor
dial tone, a blur of tears in her eyes, and more
over I 11 help you with the luncheon, too, if
you need me.”
“Thank you! I want the menu to be mate
rial enough to furnish a satisfactory basis for
the music. Oh! We will do our best Miss
Caroline, to make the sad people forget their
woes for awhile. “And we will succeed, too.
And thus be enabled, perhaps, to forget our
own.”,” Miss Crane commented slowly.
“Our own?” her friend inquired with a lift
of her eye-brows. “I do not confess to having
any, and you must be equally fortunate, for
you are always cheerful.”
“Am I?” Miss Crane queried in a thought
ful tone. “Intellectually 1 agree with Robert
Louis Stevenson, who asserts that happiness is
as much of a duty, as honesty. And when 1
cannot feel it, there is nothing left me, but to
assume the mask of cheerfulness, for the sake
of others. I can do this generally with sincer
ity, because I really do not wish to depress
anybody. Though, of course, I myself am
sometimes overwhelmed, and then I fail utter
ly, because the light has apparently failed me.”
Airs. Alore did not seem to hear the reply, for
she was gazing fixedly at the coarse blue and
white striped child’s apron in Aliss Crane’s lap.
“Well,” her friend asked bluntly, with a
smile. How do you like Julee Alary Ann’s
apron. ’ ’
“Amazingly,” she answered. “I have been
seeing things through it. In some respects
it is like the magic carpet, and transports me
far beyond the present time, and place. Look!
she exclaimed, and suddenly held up one long
white hand on which a number of diamonds
blazed, and shimmered. “Why shouldn’t I con
vert these perfectly useless baubles into money?
They cost SB,OOO, and I could possibly get
$6,000. What’s to hinder me from having a
halo worth while? Why shouldn’t I take a
part of Alary Brand’s big burden? How much
is the world better off, and who is benefited
because I wear a few costly gems. She is a
poor over-burdened saleslady, in an obscure
store; situated on the outskirts of the city.
Lou and I know the facts in regard to her, as
as well as a number of other people, who help
her occasionally. But all the same the bat
tle keeps on going against her and her chil
dren. One child might not have submerged
her, but four are too many, as she has already
discovered in her two years of widowhood.
Now, pray tell me, why I should not buy a halo
with my diamonds that would not come off,
but rather radiate through the years, as well as
anybody else?”
“I haven’t got any children, and to save an
other woman’s with my executive ability would
bo as easy as falling off a log.”
“Then why not do it?” Miss Caroline asked,
with a thrill in her voice. Surely the oppor
tunity is grand enough to appeal to you?”
“Oh, yes it appeals all right. And frankly,
if I knew Gordon would buy me some more
(Continued on Page 15.)
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