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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (June 30, 1924)
JO ELLEN I By ALEXANDER BLACK. Copyrlrht, „„ ^ , _ (Continued From Saturday.> Bho looked at the wrist on which his hand had closed so masterfully. It was an outrageous thing to do. Brutal. An amazing tingle had gone through her when he did It. Down to her toes. Presently, somewhere, she hoped he would get a drink of water. Even a crook . . . Bulls. That was a new word to Jo Ellen. There was comethlng vivid about It with a vigorous, angry, and pursuing sound. Probably a crook was like a redness. Bulls. She felt as If a flash of thrilling reality had slanted Into the dull foreground. It was the sort of occurrence you could describe with a certainty of attention. . . . But she must not describe It. She supposed she was pledged to sav nothing. This began to seem difficult, as an undertaking in Itself. If you promised a crook. ... Or course she didn’t really promise him. Not def initely. Moreover, It was, in a way, a breaking of the bargain for him to go away. She said she would come hack and she done so. His part of It had broken chean off. Beyond all that, there was the ques tion of Emma Traub. What was Emma Traub thinking? This came to appear very important. There would have to be an accounting between them. In an empty hause with a man. Emma had seemed to get that quickly—in stantly, as If it were enough to know at one time. What would her mind do with It? Jo Ellen must find out, prom ise or no promise. Emma belonged to the situation. There was no way of leaving her out of it now. She decided to find Emma Traub, which turned out to be an easy mat ter. The woman stood at the bend of the house path, her hands at her sides, her face fixed peeringly. Jo Ellen coming quickly, leaping here and there, might have been but a fragment In a spectacle that held her rapt and stony. The gray stupidity of her face did not change as Jo Ellen drew near. “What was It?” , Emma brought this forth huskily as If her throat trembled. “In the house . . . ?” "A man asked me,” and Emma grasped Jo Ellen by the shoulder, "a man asked me—my God! how did I know anything? Asked me if I’d seen a guy with a gray suit, russet shoes and a Panama hat—that way—If I had seen him anywhere around. 'I haven’t seen anybody,' I said ‘Any body ot all.* But I had seen him, d’y’understand? I had seen him. You know. I was just coming from there —when I looked In. I didn't see any Panama hat. But It was the one! Had I seen him, he says. ‘No,’ I says, ‘I haven't. Nobody.' What could I do? Suppose I'd said ... I was down off the road when I saw you go in the — New York —Day by Day V .. — _I By o. o. McIntyre. New York. June 30.—A page from the diary of a modern Samuel Fepys: Up and to breakfast with Grant Clarke, the song writer, and Joe Well ing, the prize fighter, and much gay talk, and so to the rehearsal of the Green Room club’s revel, W. A. Brady fine In a Shakesperean role. Going through the town. I chanced to see a dog 111 of a poison, and a kind-hearted fellow driving a delivery wagon helped me with It to a vet erinary and after two hours it re sponded to treatment, and save for a stiffness in ths limbs was as well as ever, for which the Lord be thanked. Home, where I found my wife In a gale of laughter over a manuscript Irvin Cobb had sent her, and I greatly cast down I could not so amuse the world and fell to my scrivening with no zest soever. In the evening to a dinner to J. Y. McPeake, the Dondon editor, and Bob Davis in rare forensic form, and Paul Whiteman, the bandman, did a trav esty as merry as ever I saw. And McPeake told some rare tayles of Barrie and Wells. So home and to bed. Somewhere in the genealogical line It fear some of my ancestors were given to prankish excursions In arson. As far back as I remember in my home town I never missed a fire. The only fellow who ever beat me w'as Harry Maddy, head nozzleman. New Yorkers pay ns much attention to a sirenlng fire wagon speeding through the streets as they might to a buzzing fly. When they see this chronicler breathlessly hurrying along in its wake their lips curl in amused and tolerant smiles. There Is no pitch of excitement so high as that at a fire. I have seen more comedy at a fire than in a musical revue. And I have seen drama almost as breath-taking as that super dramatic moment when Flrpo whanged Dempsey through the ropes. After all I wonder what is the most exciting moment in* most of our lives. Ofttlmes it is not attended with an ticipation. It comes unexpectedly and placidly out of the nowhere. It seems to me the greatest whirl I ever received was In a western city at a theater when Raymond Hitchcock said to W. C. Fields: “I wonder who paid Odd McIntyre's way In here to night." Then there waa another time when I opened a letter from a magazine and found a check for $1,000. My happl nega waa ahort lived. A clerical mla tftka had returned my manuacrlpt to another and gent hla check to me. There are about 200 atage dreaaera In New York. Their Job la to valet atara In dreaalng room, attend to the wardrobe and parking. Moat of them have heen\on the atnge, but were ahunted to ohacurity by lack of am bition or ability. They revrae the dictum that no man la a hero to hla valet. For the atage dreaaer la In variably an ardent admirer of hla em ployer. He perhapa aeea In him aome thlng he might have been. Incidental ly one ataga valet’a name la Eee High, The four moat prolific wrltera of myatery ahockera are Edgar Wallace, K. Phllllpa Oppenhelm, Arthur Born era Roche and J. B. Fletcher. Mr. Roche la the only Amerlrnn In the quartet. Hla method la complicated. He beglna a novel with a altuatlon end he never known how It la going to end. He haa a way of gratifying hlmaelf which la no doubt the reaaon he la continually myatlfylng hla render. My wife, breaking In over my ahoulder, Inquiree with aomethlng a trifle tinged with aarcaam: "Why don't you mention youraelf In your article today?" ___ _ (C'viirrlght. 1IJ4.) kitchen way. You alone. Queer. I got to thinking about It. What do you suppose she's up to? I said. I was only going to bang on the window if I could see you Inside. I saw the young feller. You had me guessing. You and him in there. The two of you. Then the man meets me. 1 didn't like the looks of him. A dick, I says to myself-” "What's a dick?” asked Jo Ellen. Emma Traub, who had been swing Ing one of her arms foolishly, as If beating time to her torrent, stiffened again. “Do you mean a bull?” asked Jo Ellen. She wanted to hear how it would sound. “A bull?—I didn’t mean a bull. 1 mean a dick—a station man. or may be headquarters—a detective—stand ing there and asking me. I didn't know what he'd seen—which way 1 came. Y’d think the way he looked he thought I had his man. Could I tell him, "He's down there in that house with Jo Ellen Rewer?' Could I? Then off ho starts again. I kept out of sight. I couldn’t be sure which way he iwent at last. All I knew was that he'd go straight as he could to the place he thought I came from. And then—” “I suppose he caught him,” said Jo Ellen blankly. “Do you care? What was It?” "He said he didn't do the thing they were after him for." . . . The story had to came then Emma gulped every word, nodding meanwhile In acknowledgment of each added fact, putting all together, this part and that, as under some momentous im perative. “Look here!” whispered Emma at the end, with a new clutch at the girl, “Look here! We haven’t seen any thing. Not a thing. Get that? Not a thing. You didn’t see him. I didn't see him." "You mean that it's a secret?" “A secret. IJo you want them to have us up? Witnesses or comething? Accomplices? Or being watched? They always watch a crook’s woman. Suppose—” This last consideration subdued Jo Ellen. The conspirators agreed to be silent. IX If being silent alone had occurred to Jo Ellen as awkward, being silent with a partner quickly appeared to be more than twice as trying. There were a lot of little secrets every girl had. A big secret, a sort of real thing secret, was Inordinately dif ferent. This one had a brazen cast, a color of crime . . . with bulls and dicks In It. Jo Ellen went over some of Emma Traub's expressions—about having us up, accomplices, witnesses. Most of all she was stirred by that hint about the watching of a crook’s wo man. A crook's woman. For a few min ute she almost had been something , like that. Finding a way to get him a drink of water. Raiding an ice hox ' for him. His woman would have been concerned in doing such things for him; in helping to think out plans for escape. Would a crook’s woman always be lieve In him? Would a crook's woman call him, a crook? This query had a profound bearing upon all the pro cesses of Jo Ellen's mind, and these processes went on so loudly for a few hours, and started up again with such a tumult, that she began to wonder whether the disturb ance was due to the original hap pening or to the bottling of It. She be came sure that If the noise could be spilled It would be less awful. Yet there was a glamour about the secret, especially as a secret with dimen sions, that was cannected by vaguely ugly strings of circumstance with the total of the warld. Sharing it with Emma Traub rather siKjlIed a certain impressiveness the secret might otherwise have had. As sheer caution, It couldn't have the beauty that went with a strictly in dividual sacrifice, and Jo Ellen tinted cautions. There was another side. If Emma hadn’t met her ogre and his challenge, and hadn't been thus re strlned from babbling about the scene In the house, there could ' have been no secret, unless Jo Ellen were able to Rhut her up. On the other hand if the detective . . . There was no tracing the tangle of It. Uncle Ben would have enjoyed It uproariously. And she could imagine, too, the bitter twisting of his mouth: how Uncle Ren and her mother w-ould have stiff words about whether he Bhould be off Investigating, and prop erly strangling somebody. Facing her mother gave a peculiar heat and noisiness to the secret. A guilty flush kept pushing Its way into her face. It did not matter that her mother would have done as she did in the case of the fugitive. This only made the hiding of the circumstance harder to go on with, harder to Just! fy, a little more foolish. Yet the hid ing certainly had a thrill that com municated itself to the new dress, to supper, to drying the dishes, to try ing to read a detective story In one of the magazines, to getting ready for the party at Tice's. X The Tices lived on one of the houseboats moored at the head of the creek, the harbor of the last of the Indians to leave Manhattan, at this northernmost tongue of the island that was once all of New Tork. A little beyond the famous tulip tree (with its painted label) you came to the barriers excluding outsiders from the brink of the creek. These barriers were grotesquely mended. Wood, wire, sheet tin overlapped at impulsive angles. Signs said. "Private, Keep Out. The stroller who didn't belong was forced to look down from the Inner path upon the quaint clutter of moorings, landings, gang planks, and houseboats. Starting at the sheds where they built launches, the huddle of skiffs and floating homes stretched In a curve to the be ginnings of the Point. In the 30 miles or more of Manhattan water front this, is in its way, one of the oddest spots. The tide rises and falls with out sign. To the west is the little forest of the Point; to the north the slopes of the mainland behind the shuttle of the trains as they enter of leave the long reach of the Hudson: to thr east the Jump-across of Broad way and the windings of the Harlem, to the south the wooded Clove, slop ing darkly from the rocky places. This clutter was a much out of the current of things as the old turn In the creek. t,lke flotsam In a swale, the Jumhle of raw or painted wood, stovepipes, ropes, awmlngs, drying clothes, strange singleoar craft, anchor chains, flower boxes, had a haphazard detachment. You might have said that the place symbolized the leftover and forgotten aloofness of Inwood Hill Itself. There was the smell of an old wetness. And, as thoughout the Hill, there was always the chance of living surprise. In a day of windless heat the scene might resemble so much abandoned wreck age- the litter of a past. Then a sud denly reared head, the clatter of a kitchen pan, or the sound of a saw could make the scene faintly alive. | On a Saturday ofternoon or Sund there was, Indeed, a sperlal *tlr. Mo boats wrinkled thla listless bypath the river. There might be cano< Visitor* shuffled over the jrangplaa and Interplaying bridges. In the ml die of the week the sun could aeon the region Into quiet. Life wlthdret under its shell. Tonight tier* wr the band. (To Bo Continued Tomorrow.) The Days of Real Sport SVJNSHINE .wJt 50 *5? | MORE To GNTCR SPARK* •« J The T BONG STAKE S « E\»EM (J ’ FtVIE DOU.AHSI lHE NEBBS ON THE ROPES. Directed for The Omaha Bee by Sol He* THOUGHT SURE UEO\ TOO *NOW V\EN UKC ) B>E HERE THIS MORNING vhn MAKE NUSER.T \ — a'6 A WONDER ME DlON'T TELEGRAPH IF HE COULDN'T CON\C - WELL l GUESS I LL hove to Put tou on THE STAND AND J VSPAR FOR TVt^C ) A£T3 O wJat 11 vouR NAMF •» SM I 0*0 AMD \TTOOK p.4.S,c«c tRSS&T&fr*' - 5*gns®«sr<*»«« AND REMEMBER ^\STATCTOTHE«lU«VJUST Q. W THE TIME TOO TOOK OVER THE -THAT this is (A SSwSrfw or Th° estate COULD it HAVE BEEN SOLD court or justice estate for the amount or the mortgage? AND NOT AWAIT *-I BEUNG THE ONLT LWlNG _ A- IF IT COULD I'D NEVER WAVE SwantAo coEuldT^t^k.tk|was q.whenToidtouFirstMEARor TS&SwS. SESgggggtSffio K%^^SK0N#twsw I NOW WOLD CLEAR TITLE WEEK OR SO AGO - TWiTMERr M5pPT6M,t M&*fi ESTATE AND DIO A- NEVER WEARD 6r HIM TOUTAKE IT UP"1 AND WORE t NEVER WEAR K * TRONT HIM fLGAuw • & m /Vm all in i wouldn'tN/^es - and it the^N spend another day like i witness oontshow THIS TOR THE GARDEN OF j uP TOMORROW YOU'LL EDEN, AND IF l DIDN'T GO ON AGWN — ( ANSWER IVORS’FOOL / I'LL WIN THIS CASE j QUESTIONS ! YOU’D / ,f it TAKES EYERY J Think I WAS BEING ' BREATH YOU WAVE f \TftlED TOR insanity; tts| yoUR BOOS' i Barney Google and Spark Plug BARNEY TURNS GOLD-DIGGER. Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Billy DeBack J_ 0,0 (Copyright 1924) . _ BRINGING UP FATHER U. B. Patent Office PAGE of^olors in^the'sunday^ee Drawn for The Omaha Bee by McManus _ ._ _ r , * Copyright 19tf) IM GETTING ^>ICK AND TIRco Of bEElN6 YOU LOAFING _J yOUVf GOT TO GO INTO ) bOME PKJtjINE-bnj- y|-' AW! NA«IE WHV HOT TRT THE / ‘ WAN TO HE CLOAK AND MJlT TO CiO INTO BUOINEOO HR TaiNNEN POOINEOO- HERt^LOCXlN FOR A PARTNER j ( i \ JERRY ON THE JOB LOSSES ARE PILING UP. Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Hob*n ______ t reayrtekt E'jtes'rwus \s view Co^crtic Vi? OuGw'T To SnE A Ba>\Ouet To GuWTHAT (Nv^TTDTUS AMNUS GGkJ • GANGED TLs OeoEiTS’ i^yto losses an MotTOL'ED 'EVi I Q lM1 V *— *■ / It? mi A 'iftioc'Tb Gypj 1 fro. OJT op / VwS CailQOAO • AuO ivuN UTT15. v?.-jea,'iu«rj' By Briggs * — . .1. ..»■■- ■ ... ■■■ I '■ - ■ _ __ ABIE THE AGENT Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Hershfield Ho Know* From Exporlonc*. F~" - ““ -— ■■ 1 - —, . . , r~ - — / = MO, MO, \ f ^OU QcTT TO <*c To i SlQMOkt). Ejccekvwnmbcy ' RATHPR.MOT / ME, ABE'.’. J 'v $°!! ^ / WHN OOKT Tou ; vpS e l bANi'V^' t>Ou)Ni ■» VOL RE S.OT • ^ 1 *°KT 1 QCMKit, TO ST*^t> uA'K'r T° PAU. • V ^St> t^ATCH'VHE \v^SLEFP,• , Shoio?> y -^ N i