THE LOVE AFFAIR OF HAPPY CAL AND ELVIREY SMETTERS

THE LOVE AFFAIR OF HAPPY CAL AND ELVIREY SMETTERS

By Earl Howell Reed

Mrs Elvirey Smetters

“HAPPY CAL” had been a member of the widely scattered colony of derelicts along the wild coast for many years; in fact, he was its beginning, for when he came through the sand-hills and gathered the driftwood to build his humble dwelling, there were no human neighbors.

The circling gulls, the crows, and the big blue herons that stalked along the wave-washed beach looked curiously at the intruder into their solitudes. The blue-jays scolded boisterously, and many pairs of concealed eyes peered at him slyly from tangled masses of tree roots that lay denuded upon the slopes of the wind-swept dunes.

Nature’s slow and orderly processes of generation and decay were now to be disturbed by a new element, for man, who changes, destroys, and makes ugly the fair world he looks upon, had entered these sanctuaries. The furred and feathered things instinctively resented the advent of the despoiler. They heard strange noises as rusty nails were pounded, and odd pieces of gray, smooth wood were fashioned into the queer-looking structure that obtruded itself among the undulations of the sand.

Happy Cal was human wreckage. He had been thrown upon this desolate shore by the cruel forces of a social system which he was unable to combat. They had cast him aside and he had sought isolation. As he expressed it, “there was too much goin’ on.”

Cal’s stories of his early life, and his final escape from a heartless world, incited derisive comment from his friend Sipes.

On still, cool days the smoke ascended softly from Cal’s shanty, and my sketching was often neglected for an hour or two with its interesting occupant.

He sometimes prowled around through the country back of the dunes at night, and the necessaries for his rude housekeeping were collected gradually. His age was difficult to guess; perhaps he looked older than he was. His lustreless eyes, weather-beaten face, grizzled unkempt beard, and rough hands, carried the story of a struggle on the raw edges of life.

While he said that he had “been up ag’inst it,” he seemed now comparatively contented. His interests were few, but they filled his days, and, as he expressed it, he “didn’t need nothin’ to think about nights.” Sipes claimed, however, that “Cal done all ’s thinkin’ at night, if ’e done any, fer ’e don’t never do none in the daytime.”

Sipes and Cal met occasionally. With the exception of a few serious misunderstandings, which were always eventually patched up, they got along very well with each other. Sipes’s attitude, while generally friendly, was not very charitable. He was disposed to comment caustically upon the many flaws he found in Cal, who, he believed, was destined for a hot hereafter. It is only fair to Cal to say that Sipes did not know of anybody in the dune country who would not have a hot hereafter, except his friend “Catfish John,” and his old shipmate, Bill Saunders, who lived with him, and with whom, in early life, he had sailed many stormy seas. He transacted his fish business with John, and was very fond of him. He once remarked that, “Old John don’t never wash, an’ ’e smells pretty fishy, but you bet ’e treats me all right, an’ wot’s the difference? I c’n always stay to wind’ard if I want to.”

Mrs. Elvirey Smetters lived over in the back country, on the road that led from the sleepy village to the marshy strip, and through it over into the dunes, where it was finally lost in the sand. It was a township line road and was seldom used for traffic. Travellers on it usually walked. The house, which had once been painted white, with green blinds, was rather shabby. Two tall evergreens stood in the front yard. In the carefully kept flower-beds along the fence the geraniums, cockscombs, marigolds, and verbenas bloomed gorgeously. They were constantly refreshed from the wooden pump near the back door. A smooth path led from the front gate, flanked with a luxurious growth of myrtle.

I pulled the brown bell handle one morning with a view of buying one of the young ducks which were waddling and quacking about the yard. I was going over to visit my old friend Sipes and intended it as a present for his Sunday dinner.

Mrs. Smetters, whom I had often met, opened the door. She wiped her face with her apron, and was profuse with her apologies for the appearance of everything. She explained at length the various causes that had brought about the disorderly conditions, which I must know would be different if so and so, and so and so, and so and so.

She was tall, muscular, of many angles, red-headed, and freckled. The pupils of the piercing eyes behind the brass-rimmed spectacles had a reddish tinge, and her square, protruding chin suggested anything but domestic docility. It was such a chin that took Napoleon over the Alps, and Cæsar into Gaul.

She had buried three husbands. They were resting, as Sipes said, “fer the fust time in their lives,” in the church-yard beyond the village, where flowers from the little garden were often laid upon the mounds.

A village gossip had said that Mrs. Smetters would sometimes return to the mounds, after she had left them, and transfer a bunch of geraniums from one to another, and once, she had cleaned off two of them and piled all of the offerings over the one near the tree. Sometimes the others would have all of the geraniums. The gossips could see these things, but they could not look into the secret chambers of Elvirey Smetters’s heart.

On the walls of such chambers are recorded something that is never told. Thoughtful deeds, tender looks of sympathy and understanding, and years devoted, leave their traces there. With a thread of gossamer, memory leads us gently to them, and out into the world again, where we carry flowers to silent places. The strongest sometimes become the weakest, but who knows if such weakness is not the strength of the mighty?

Time had softened the sorrows of Elvirey Smetters. Little wrinkles were beginning to tell the story of her passing years, for she was nearly sixty, and a sense of life’s futility was creeping over her. She felt the need of new environment and new sensations.

“Now before you begin talkin’ about any duck you want to buy,” said Mrs. Smetters, after the object of the visit was explained, “I want to know if you’ve seen anythin’ o’ Cal. I ain’t seen ’im fer a month, an’ if you run across ’im, I want you to tell ’im I’m sick, an’ ’e better come an’ see how I am. I’ll make you a present o’ that duck if you’ll just walk in on ’im an’ tell ’im sump’n that don’t look like it come from me, that’ll make ’im come over ’ere. You needn’t let on that I want to see ’im, but you fix it somehow so’s ’e’ll come.”

I solemnly promised to do this, but insisted upon settling for the duck, which was soon dressed and wrapped in an old copy of The Weekly Clarion, which was published at the county seat.

“Now you be careful an’ not let ’im know I said a word about ’im,” was her parting injunction at the gate, “but you git ’im ’ere, an’ don’t say nothin’ to Sipes either!”

She was assured that great care would be exercised.

During the walk through the dunes I mused upon the wiles of Mrs. Smetters’s sex, and reflected upon the futility of any attempt to escape them, when they are practiced by an adept upon an average man. It is a world-old story—as old as the Garden of Eden. The lure of the feminine rules the earth, and it is a part of the scheme of things that it should be so. The female of all breathing creatures controls the wooing—from the lady-bug to Elvirey Smetters. However masculine vanity may seek to disguise it, the wooer is as clay in the hands of the potter. The meditations of some of the world’s greatest men have been devoted to the complexities of female human nature, and during these meditations they have often married.

Along toward noon the duck was turned over to Sipes in front of his shanty. He was greatly pleased. It varied the monotony of small gifts of tobacco and cigars which usually reciprocated his many hospitalities.

“Elvirey’s got a lot o’ them birds,” he remarked, “an’ I was goin’ over some night to persuade one of ’em to come to my shanty. If she wasn’t a woman, they’d all been gone long ago. I hear ’em spatterin’ in the ditch ev’ry time I go by, an’ I often think, s’posen them lily-white ducks b’longed to some o’ them fellers that set ’round the village store, wot would I do?”

I inquired if he had seen anything of Cal lately.

“Cal’s snoopin’ ’round ’is coop right now. You c’n see ’im with the spotter,” said the old man, as he brought out his rickety old brass spy-glass. Through it I could just make out a figure moving about on the sand near the distant shanty.

I left the old mariner, intending to come out of the dunes near Cal’s place sometime during the afternoon, being really anxious to accommodate Mrs. Smetters.

In the course of time I reached Cal’s shanty and found him sharpening a knife near the door. We shook hands and, after discussing various matters of mutual interest, I mentioned the call on Mrs. Smetters for the purpose of buying a duck for Sipes.

“W’y didn’t you git me a duck too if you was git’n one fer him?” he asked rather peevishly. He was placated with a cigar and the explanation that I had not expected to see him on this trip. He betrayed no curiosity at the mention of Mrs. Smetters. I tried again, and told him that I had had a long talk with her and she did not look as though she was very well; she appeared sad, and seemed ill. At this he began to show interest.

“Wot d’ye s’pose is the matter with ’er? W’y don’t she eat some catnip if she’s sick?”

I replied that probably she found it rather lonely since her last husband died.

“Say, d’ye know wot I think I’ll do? I’ll go over there tomorrer an’ take ’er some fresh fish, an’ mebbe she’ll gimme a duck. I ain’t seen ’er fer a long time.”

Having approved of his suggestion, and realizing that the mission had been accomplished, I departed after we had talked of other things for a while. Visits to Cal were always enjoyable, although his reminiscences were to be accepted with a grain of salt. His logic, morals, and language were bad, but his narratives had the charm of originality, and he never failed to be entertaining. Naturally, I was curious as to the outcome of the projected call on Mrs. Smetters, but not being concerned in further developments, I dismissed it from my mind. Interest was quickly revived on meeting Sipes a month later.

“Say, wot d’ye think’s happened?” exclaimed the old man. “Elvirey’s snared Cal good an’ plenty. That ol’ cuss has been up to see ’er a dozen times in the last two weeks. Bill an’ me’s been watchin’ ’em with the spotter from up yonder in them trees on top o’ that big dune where we c’n see ’er house. Say, you’d laugh yerself sick. Gener’ly ’e sneaks ’round an’ goes along the edge o’ the marsh over back o’ here, so’s ’e won’t ’ave to go by our place. Last night ’e come by with a collar on. His whiskers was combed an’ so was ’is hair. He was all lit up an’ reminded Bill an’ me o’ that hiker we found walkin’ on the beach once’t that we piloted off a couple o’ miles to show ’im where we told ’im ’e could cetch some mock-turtles. Bill’s up there with the spotter watchin’ now. We call that place the masthead.”

Far away I could see the glint of the spy-glass, and could dimly make out the figure of the lone sentinel in his eyry upon the height. He was ensconced in a mass of gnarled and tangled roots which the wind-blown sand had left bare on the distant hilltop.

“We got a little place among them roots,” said the old man, “that jest fits the spotter w’en it’s trained on Elvirey’s place, an’ all ye have to do is jest set down an’ look. Bill takes the fust watch w’en we can’t see nothin’ ’round Cal’s shanty, an’ I go aloft in the afternoon. We seen ’im twice yisterd’y. Him an’ Elvirey was out in the yard waterin’ the flowers. I s’pose she wants to keep ’em growin’ nice so’s she c’n lay ’em over Cal like she does the others.

“If there’s sump’n doin’ at Elvirey’s, Bill’ll hang a rag on that big dead limb ye see stickin’ out, an’ it’s there now!” The fluttering signal of “sump’n doin’” was faintly visible.

“That rag’s jest to show he’s seen Cal over there, an’ if ’e thinks I oughta come up, ’e’ll put out another in a minute. That ’ud mean that they was set’n out in the yard, er goin’ off som’er’s together, mebbe to the village.” We kept our eyes on the summit for some time, but the second signal did not appear.

A week later I found Cal at the home of the old shipmates. He looked rather crestfallen. An air of embarrassment and restraint seemed to pervade the place. I feared that I had intruded, and was going away, when Sipes insisted that I remain and go out on the lake with him. He thought that a recent storm might have damaged his gill-nets and wanted to look them over. After Cal’s departure we shoved the row-boat into the water. On the way out to the nets the old man told me the thrilling tale of the love of Happy Cal and Elvirey Smetters.

“This Elvirey’s a queer ol’ girl,” he began. “Them husbands she’s been git’n a c’lection of over in the cemetery was a bum lot. Before she begun git’n married ’er name was Prokop. Fust she married a feller named Swisher, an’ she was livin’ with ’im w’en I fust come in the hills. He was no good, an’ I never liked ’is name. It sounded kind o’ fishy an’ whistley to me. After a while Swisher commenced git’n thin an’ all yellow, an’ one day ’e skipped. She lit out after ’im an’ brought ’im back from over to the county seat. He died about a month later of sump’n the doctor said ’ad busted up ’is liver. He left ’er that little place, where she lives.

“The next feller’s name was Smythe, an’ ’e was a funny lookin’ gink. He was runnin’ a little circus wot went ’round the country in the summer. He used to wear high brown boots with ’is trowsies stuck in ’em, an’ a velvet vest, with a watch chain that weighed about a pound. He had a wide gray hat, an’ a red neck-tie with a hunk o’ glass on it, an’ a long moustache that looked like a feather duster. He looked fierce, but Elvirey fell fer ’im w’en she seen ’im out in front of ’is tent on a box doin’ a lot o’ funny tricks with cards fer the crowd. The circus busted up an’ ’e moved over to Elvirey’s place. The circus posters said ’is name was Blondini, but ’is real name was Smith. He wrote it Smythe, so’s to make folks think ’e had money an’ was a society bug. He died o’ sump’n, I don’t know wot it was, an’ then poor ol’ Smetters come along. He was a fat feller. He painted the house, an’ fussed ’round on the place fer a year, an’ then ’ad fits. His conniptions would come on most any time, an’ Elvirey let ol’ Doc Looney in on to ’im one night, an’ the next mornin’ ’e was dead. The Doc ’ad given ’im some horse medicine, an’ it finished ’im.

“Them three are all layin’ side by side, wait’n fer Cal, fer ’e told us this mornin’ that ’im an’ Elvirey’s goin’ to git married.

“Bill an’ me seen ’em from the masthead yisterd’y, walkin’ down the road. They set down on the grass, an’ we sneaked over an’ got behind some bushes, an’ we heard ’im callin’ ’er ‘kitten’ an’ she was callin’ ’im a duck. Bill says, ‘Look at them columbines!’ an’ we busted out laughin’. Then they both roasted us fer listenin’. Cal was dead sore, but ’e didn’t say very much. Elvirey pretty near killed Bill with a big stick, an’ knocked ’im into the bushes. He got up an’ lit out, an’ so did I, fer after Bill was down she started fer me. I didn’t need no clubbin’ an’ scooted. She chased me a ways, but I got home all right. I wonder w’y them that gits love-sick always calls each other animals an’ birds?”

During Sipes’s narrative I felt a pang of regret that I had not spent the day at “the masthead,” for evidently it would have been worth while.

“Cal come over today an’ we had a long talk,” continued the old man. “He said ’e hoped they wasn’t no hard feelin’s, ’cause ’e hadn’t started nothin’ an’ it was us fellers’ fault that Elvirey got to goin’. Bill ’ad a bump on ’is head as big as an aig, but we all shook hands an’ agreed to call it off. An’ now comes this damn wedd’n they’re goin’ to have. Cal says they’re goin’ to be married by Holy Zeke, an’ wot d’ye think? they want to have the wedd’n in our shanty, ’cause Elvirey says she won’t let Bill an’ me come to her house, an’ Cal won’t be married ’less ’e c’n ’ave ’is friends with ’im. His shanty ain’t big enough fer the bunch, an’ ours is halfway between, so they’ve fixed on that, an’ we’re in fer it.

“I don’t know wot Cal’s goin’ to do about ’is last name that ’e’s got to be married with. He says ’e’s been livin’ alone so long ’e’s fergot wot it is, an’ we got to pick out a new one fer ’im. I told ’im ’e better call it Mud, but ’e didn’t cetch on to no joke. Wouldn’t that make a fine soundin’ lot o’ names fer Elvirey’s lot in the church-yard? Swisher, Smythe, Smetters, an’ Mud! Ev’rybody’d stop to look at ’em.

“Cal’s gone to tell John, an’ Saturd’y night him an’ Holy Zeke’ll come down, an’ Cal’s kitten’s going to fetch a cake. Cal said you was invited, an’ if you got any business to close up ’fore you come, you’d better ’tend to it, fer mebbe hell’ll be to pay ’fore it’s over. I’ll bet Elvirey won’t stand fer me an’ Bill w’en she sees wot we’re goin’ to do to the shanty fer the wedd’n.”

After inspecting the nets we returned, and I promised to be on hand Saturday evening. Sipes requested me to come early, “so as to think o’ sump’n us fellers might fergit.”

I looked forward to Saturday with eager anticipation, and arrived at the shanty just before dusk. Evidently the old shipmates had been very busy. They were in high spirits.

A couple of old fish-nets were stretched from each side of the door, in parallel lines, to a point about fifty feet away on the sand. Boards, obtained from among the driftwood on the beach, had been laid along between them. “Bill’s a big help about them things,” said the old man. “He says it’s ’is habit w’en ’e gits married to have sump’n like that stretched out fer the bride to walk between so’s nobody’ll try to steal ’er at the last minute.”

The roof of the shanty was thickly covered with dead leaves, held in place by more nets which were laid over them and weighted with stones. “We could ’a’ got green ones,” said Sipes, “but them old leaves looks more fit like. They wasn’t neither of ’em born yisterd’y.

The rusty stove-pipe, which served as a chimney, had been carefully wrapped in white cloth, at least it had once been white, and a long strip of bright red material had been tied to it, which fluttered in the breeze. Sipes said that this was the danger signal. A large bunch of bulrushes and cat-tails was stuffed into the top of the stove-pipe.

The sign on the shanty—$IPE$ & $AUNDER$—FRE$H FI$Hhad been covered with a strip of rotten canvas, on which was painted,Many Happy ReTURNS

The conspirators had gathered a lot of thistle blossoms, with plenty of the leaves, with which they had festooned the interior. An old beer-keg, mounted on a box, which stood at one end of the single room, was to serve as the altar. On it were two lemons, with which time had not dealt very gently. Their significance was not explained.

All over the shanty, where the decorations did not interfere, were groups of four vertical chalk-lines. “Them marks is Elvirey’s score,” explained the old man.

A nail keg, with one end knocked out, hung endwise above the altar, and in the opening a large ripe tomato was suspended from the inside by a string. On the keg was painted a large figüre 4. “That there’s the marriage bell,” said Sipes.

A lantern on a hook in the ceiling, and a dozen candle stubs were to furnish illumination. The music was also provided for. There was a covered box near the wall, with gimlet holes all over it, that evidently contained something alive.

“That’s full o’ hummin’ locusts that me an’ Bill caught,” said Sipes, “an’ when Zeke says it’s all over, I’ll hammer on the box an’ them little singers’ll git busy. We tried ’em this mornin’ an’ it works fine.”

The stove was stuffed with stray pieces of old leather and rubber boots, mixed with oiled rags. “W’en we light that fire, with the chimbly stopped up with them cat-tails, it’ll show that the party’s over,” chuckled the old man.

The arrangements seemed quite complete, and I had no suggestions to offer. The wedding party was to assemble around a drift-wood fire on the sand, some distance away, and proceed to the shanty at eight o’clock. A huge pile of material for the bonfire had been gathered.

The flames soon crackled merrily and lit up the beach. The red light touched the crests of the little waves that lapped the shore, and bathed the side of the sandy bluff with a mellow glow. It illuminated the shanty which, with its grotesque decorations, relieved against the dark green of the ravine beyond, resembled a stage setting for a comic opera.

The wedding guests soon began to arrive. “Catfish John,” with a large package under his arm, accompanied by Holy Zeke, were the first comers, after the fire was lighted. They had walked a long distance, and sat down wearily on the sand, after the conventional greetings. John’s package probably contained some smoked fish which he intended as a present for the bride. Sipes sniffed at it with evident approval.

In a few minutes Mrs. Smetters arrived with her friend Mrs. McCafferty, who carried the cake in a basket. Mrs. McCafferty lived in the sleepy village, several miles away. She was to act as bridesmaid, and was to “give the bride away,” which Sipes declared she would “do anyhow afterwards if she didn’t do it now.” She was a buxom Irish widow, with a fighting record, and a mind of her own. She had brought Mrs. Smetters to the wedding with her buggy and gray horse, which had been left where the sloping road ended in the beach sand. It was her custom to attend all of Elvirey’s weddings in the same capacity. She was her bosom friend and confidante.

Mrs. Smetters was attired in a new white muslin dress, with a bountiful corsage bouquet of white peonies. She was bareheaded, and lilies of the valley accented the bricky red of her hair. As at all weddings, “the bride was very beautiful.”

We rose and greeted the ladies cordially. Mrs. Smetters looked inquiringly around for Cal, but he had not yet arrived. She then seated herself on the shawl which Mrs. McCafferty carefully spread out on the sand. No reference was made to the stormy scene of the interrupted wooing of a few days before. Bill was still nursing his sore head, but made no unpleasant allusions.

The hour had arrived, but the party was still incomplete. Happy Cal was conspicuously absent.

“Mebbe he’s doin’ a lot o’ fixin’ up an’ can’t find ’is perfumery, er mebbe he’s fergot about the wedd’n,” observed Sipes.

An angry glance from Mrs. Smetters was the only response to this sally.

The ladies looked curiously at the shanty, and Sipes had much difficulty in keeping them away from it. He announced that “they wasn’t goin’ to be no rubberin’ ’round the place ’till the wedd’n.” They started several times, but were persuaded to wait until Cal came.

An hour slipped by, and the delinquent did not appear.

“Lo, the bridegroom cometh not,” said Holy Zeke, solemnly.

Clouds of feminine wrath were gathering on the other side of the fire.

“We’re goin’ over to see them fixin’s,” announced Mrs. Smetters, with determination. “This is wot I git fer wearin’ my heart on my sleeve!”

I walked along the beach in the hope that I might meet Cal. Sipes went to the shanty and lit the lantern and the candles. The two females led the rest of the party along between the nets. After they entered it took them but a few seconds to fully comprehend the tout ensemble, and then came the event of the evening.

Mrs. McCafferty started to swoon, but suddenly revived when Mrs. Smetters hurled a stove-lid at Sipes, followed by the keg from the altar. The male members of the party beat a rapid retreat through the door into the welcome shadows. Sipes ran in my direction. We stood about a hundred yards away in the darkness, and surveyed the scene.

With the fury of a woman scorned, Elvirey was smashing up the place. With the able help of her bosom friend, every movable breakable thing was being destroyed and thrown out. The window was demolished early in the proceedings, and through the broken sash went wrecked cooking utensils, blankets, guns, cards, bottles, boxes, pieces of the table, and other things, too numerous to mention. Amid loud blows of an axe, the side of the shanty began to give way.

Suddenly we heard piercing shrieks, and the two maddened women fled wildly from the shanty in the direction of the buggy.

“I’ll bet they’ve busted open them insects!” exclaimed Sipes.

We waited a while, and looked for the other members of the party. We called repeatedly, but no answer came out of the gloom. They had been swallowed in the blackness of the night.

We then went to inspect the wreck. All of the old shipmates’ efforts to make the wedding a success had been “love’s labor lost.” The decorations were mingled with fragments of the stove and the splintered bunks. There seemed to be nothing in the place that was breakable that had not been attended to. The “hummin’ locusts” were innocently crawling about the floor and walls.

“We might as well c’lect this music an’ put it out,” said Sipes, ruefully, as he began picking up the locusts. “We wouldn’t ’a’ had no shanty left if it hadn’t been fer them. I guess I must ’a’ started sump’n. After this I’m goin to let ev’ry feller run ’is own business, an’ me an’ Bill’ll flock by ourselves. Look wot I git fer tryin’ to please ev’rybody all the time! Somebody’s always butt’n in an’ spoilin’ ev’rythin’ I try to do. I got hit with too damn many things out o’ the air tonight to be happy. Wot d’ye ’spose become o’ Cal? He’d ’a’ got a lemon if ’e’d ’a’ married that ol’ swivel-eyed sliver-cat. I’m goin’ up in the ravine to sleep, an’ mebbe Bill’ll show up in the mornin’. Say, wot do you think o’ matrimony, anyway? Gosh! but this is rough work. Bill an’ me was in a hurricane once’t out’n the Pacific—the ship’s rudder got busted off an’ we was spun along on the equator fer a thousand miles, but that wasn’t nothin’ ’side o’ this.”

The old man stood disconsolate among his ruins. There was gloom on his face as I bade him good-night, and there was a pressure in his hand grasp, as of one who did not want to be left alone. From a distance down the shore I could see the flickering light of the expiring bonfire, playing upon the scene of the recent drama, as fate toys with the destinies of human lives.

Cal’s failure to appear at his wedding was never accounted for. The following week we found his shanty deserted. Its simple furnishings and Cal’s boat were gone.

“That ol’ skeesicks ’as got more sense than I ever thought, an’ ’e’s skipped. He’ll be number four in that cemetery lot all right if ’e ever shows up,” declared Sipes as we parted. “She rough-housed me when I didn’t do nothin’, an’ I wouldn’t like to see Cal’s finish if she ever gits to ’im. The feller that ought to marry Hellfirey Smetters is Holy Zeke.”

Perhaps from somewhere out in the darkness, Cal may have studied the group around the fire on the sand. Its light may have reflected the quiet gleam of tigerish ferocity that creeps into the eyes of a woman who is made to wait. He may have been appalled by the prospect of the loss of his much-loved freedom, and recoiled from further contact with a social system which had discarded him, or he may have seen his “kitten” in a new light that dissipated illusion.

Anyway, as Sipes declared, “Elvirey’s duck” had “lit out.”

During a visit to Mrs. Smetters late in the fall, she gloomily remarked, “Now if you will tell me wot’s the use o’ livin’, I’d be very grateful!”