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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (July 24, 1924)
JO ELLEN By ALEXANDER BLACK. cMW »m. (ConUaoed From YoaWrdajr.) Ho wu capable of going this long way around to prove something, to win something. Mere obstinacy would not have lasted so long. He must have cared as he said he cared; and this would be amazing. . . , She began to have a new sense of being enveloped. The hazards they had fussed about at home were absurdly less than this which belonged quite apart, which had nothing to go with rush hours, with districts or employ ments. She began to know that It was really not an outside hazard, but something Inside herself. . . . Tee. It was herself thut she was afraid of. Afraid. She had not known much about fears. There was always a way of chucking them. And they al ways came from outside, things you could laugh at or fight. When the school was afire, when she fell out of the tree, when Uncle Ben sat up In bed with the crazy look, when she .bumped, her head diving and won dered whether she must strangle be fore she could get her head to the top of the water—any number of Inci dents could confirm her confidence In escaping real fears. But this one started under her skin; not precisely like the feeling you would have at the very edge of a high place; more as If a stealing numbness began at a moment when you knew It would be necessary to leap away. Other feel ings boiled up. This was a sinking, though It made your heart go. . . . Perhaps It started with her always being willing—not really wishing, but knowing that she was secretly willing —to see him once more. Only once more. But when she had seen him once more the secret willingness was not stifled. It had something to do with knowing that he wouldn't be checked by any ordinary word, that even when absent for so long he was persisting. Above all, it was the dif ficulty of that feeling that couldn't be rubbed out. Whatever she did she would have to do with that feeling still there. The thing to do was to make the next meeting, wherever It might hap pen, really the last. By being openly insulting, terrifically so. It would be like insulting the feeling Inside of her. All the better. The meeting had better happen as soon ng possihle. Any evening when she left the office he might be wait ing somewhere. She looked fdr him in the crowds. Four days went by. She looked for him on Sunday when she had visited the Tices and was skirting the Hill. There was a letter from Zimmer, saying that Lamar was opportune. He was going to try him in a position vacated by a drafted man. There were letters from Marty, but n6 sign from Stan Lamar. Per haps. . . . Then, at the top of the stepa into the subway, he touched her arm. He was bronzed and smiling. It was as I! he also were going home. He made space for her in the jam at the train door and kept a space while they stood during the hot, clattering jour ney. There was a seat for her at Ninety-first street and presently one> for him beside her. He told her of his trip into the west: about the war horses; that he had made some money —not in any profiteering way; there was a lot 'of money to be made if you knew horses and how to handle pien—army men included. He had expected to be drafted, and when luck turned the other way it looked like a tip. He would wait. If the United States wanted him it could have him. Meanwhile, he had gone to work again in New York. This was where he belonged. "I won’t pretend anything,” he said. ‘‘I know where you are. It gave me an idea. My father has known that boss of yours since he was a boy. Don’t see each other much—not at all now, I guess—but they must have been pretty close once. Eberly's haj-d as nails, but they say he remembers. A cautious one. Had to see me be fore he would do anything. X-rayed me. There's a recommendation Passed by the censor isn’t in it. Passed by Eberly. You’ve been passed by Eberly!" It was all very adroit. Not a word about past meetings, nor a past let ter. Nothing to rebuff. Nothing to give occasion for saying that this was a last meeting, positively the last. When the train had mounted high at Dyckman street he got ofT with her. He was going back*. He shook hands, warmly, but with an avoidance of any lingering assumption. A few days later he came into the office to see Shaffer. The business had to do with scenery. The rela tionship with the Zimmer people was as she had suspected. Before leaving he came to her door for a moment, simply' for the length of a greeting. It could now be said ftiat they had met in business. It was a relief that he had become ir.entionable. That 'past which he had ignored she was privileged to brush aside. If it came to account ing for him she had a choice as to the length ot her history. There was, too, a kind of protection in not hav ing to stand alone ip quite the same way. The need to dismiss him did not seem so immediate. XI. Marty’s division was to ba near New York before going across. It might, he announced, be many weeks before they did sail, but he was sure Df a chance for a last visit. It would just be for a little time—maybe only twenty-four hours. He wanted to share a few of those precious hours with Jo Ellen. His coming fell on a Sunday, which he regarded as a miracle of good for tune. It had a certain dash, as by temporary detachment from Immense snd dramatic happenings. His laugh alternated with a look of darkening thoughtfulness. Uncle Ben noted how his eyes followed Jo Ellen. The crisp day In late September, with something silvery In the sun light, gave m nervous animation to everything connected with the meet ng. The special evening dinner brought a lot of talk from Uncle Ben Mrs. Bogert was in a Jocular mood, lo Ellen’s mother had least to say. From the first Jo Ellen knew that Marty,would want the high place for their parting. It seemed to her in r.ocent of him that he should suggest that stroll after dinner and find the Inevitable path with so transparent a casualness. Going there was, she thought, a fresh indication of his persistent sentimentalism. They had, in a few months, become so much elder than when they were there be lore, and the Juvenile traditions In vested It so tenaciously, that one night to have expected to find It shrunken. Yet It was curiously the same, with the same obliterating en circlement of trees, the same prime val quiet, the same crackling cushion of sun-baked leaves. When they were seated Jo Ellen knew that he would want her to kiss him. and she knew she would kiss him. He looked handsome, and a handsome soldier ought to be kissed when he was going away. No matter how you hated war, you knew he wasn't to blame, and that he meant to do his part well. Then Marty surprised her after all by forgetting the scenery and all ap proaches. He had thought It out ter rifically. "Jo Ellen," he said, taking very firm hold of her hands, "will you marry me when I come back from France?" "Marry you?" The gasp was not contemptuous, or Indignant, or even evasive. It was simply that for once Marty had sue reeded in taking her breath away. The very length of their acquaint ance gave the directness an acute novelty. In any vista of a future New York --Day by Day > — By O. O. M’INTYBE. New York, July 24.—A noveltlst calls Manhattan a monster of riven stone crouching upon the shore of the sea. There are many who believe that none who step upon the narrow strip of island escapes the terrible in quisition. Those who are inherently kind become cruel. Love becomes a pretense. Yet every evening on that famous lighted avenue of make-believe and highway of sham—Broadway—strolls a young woman with a strikingly beautiful face. At her side clinging lightly to her arm is a young man who walks with rather uncertain Steps. His eyes have the pathetic focus of the blind. Theirs is one of the tragic aftermaths of the war. She was a young petted darling of the footlights. He was an obscure checker in a cafe but they fell in love and were to be married. The war came along and in France he was blinded by an ex ploding shell and taken as a prison er The records reported him killed in action. She hoped against hope and finally gave him up as dead. Six months before the armistice she be came engaged to another man. He was young, rich and loved her. She left the stage and prepared for a great wedding and a honeymoon tour of the world. Two weeks before the event news trickled back that her war sweetheart was alive and on his way home. She decided her first duty w-as to him and gave up her marriage plans. It was not until she met him «t the pier that she knew he was blind but she never faltered. And two days later they were married in a little Jersey town. They live now In an obscure Bronx flat. He is mastering a trade. Nightly she is lured by the shining path that was once her world. He is at her side. They are happy. "Happier," she says, "than I ever thought it possible to be." Park Row li wrangling about who coined the term "sob-squad” as applied to women writers on news papers. It Is admitted the accouch ment took place dqrlng the Harry Thaw trial. The city editor of the old morning Sun declares It was A. E. Thomas. The city editor of the Morning Telegraph says It was Karl Decker. Frank Ward O'Malley of the Sun, who has retired to hla country place at Brlelle, N. J., to worry magazine editors, was one of the most con sistent coiners of newspaper phrases. Because his articles were un signed he did not get the credit that was his due. O'Malley wrote one story a day which appeared In the first column on the back page of the Sun. O'Malley, Incidentally, In my opin ion was the world’s best reporter. Sev eral times while employed on a New Tork newspaper I covered assign ments with him. He never asked questions and never took notes. He appeared to be uninterested In the particular story he was covering. But the next day he had all the facts the other reporters had and more be sides. He could pick a story out of the thin air and make It readable. Once a little East Side girl strayed five blocks from her tenement home In search of a flower. That was all there was to the story but O’Malley wrote a column and a half and New York next morning had a lump In Its throat. Another time he wrote two columns about an old Fifth ave nue cab horse that had been turned to pasturage after 18 years service. He had the gift of lifting the com monplace Into the realme of wonder, j ICovrrlsbt, 1924.) she had always fancied Marty as a sort of poetic friend, who, tf his friendship ever became ardent, would give liberal circuitous warning that could be coped with as occasion might demand. The blunt, ultimate chal lenge had an amazing splash to it. Marty was changing. "I know," h« was saying, “you may not think I'm worth it yet . . “Pleast don't tell me," said Jo El Ion. "you're going to bring home a halo." "I don’t mean anything like that," he went on. "It'll only be that I've done something—something—" PENRODS /''oC.NTLE.N'Efi. MR/N^ ' RIPRESENWWE / RCNROO ASKED me TO \ ^ ran c I CALL ON TOO AND Sl)&- ] ( c*u-s» i MVT -^ESE PAPERS FOR j onnebb V vouR approval y ANDSUDER V y -v vsj'-rw. -wt P ^/4_ , NKXSSMW ’ PAPERS FOR KKsS&ftSg A V4AV.F • | r A «MG IN I MILLION • I ( EVERY SWIG DOLLAR NOXAGE Corporation A $ /Yes. sir. ip yours Planning on a trip s ( op iNTbi ^ canaoa You u. Get .. went* or I HunTinG *• Sot <'*30 want' a horn Ukt \ This . T£> * Cau. * THs (nioos* - CJTHsRWtse I YOOLt MEYER SEE H'OE NOR. HAIR O ONE CIU TakeS TVE SET THE ALARM CLOCK II ro* nve. o'clock im THe . I ' MORHINC and rWANT too I TO CET OP ArsD t>£E THE *l‘ 1 I 1 * v/Ow: rrb nvc ^ O’CLOCK ALREAOY tY SEEMb A,*, \r » ; HAO AftOOY yen winoye?> t>Lceo: t--y-—-' * OM'lUt IpiGU.MR.SWMW. SimCH &ft vTV*A'T >A"fTA(X Of ‘losoe CN'WtSOGOtr* AlU'WlS 'FKjSSV OOES K Stew eunOMS Om us® \Nt- a»"t Gor mo vuees* Tfae, 3 'meeks-'tWmsS!? go mg "from Bap , 'TO \MCRSf am j MSS' \ bn^KEo St tm ^b«.J 1 ^ |W» TO How to Start the Day Wrong By Briggs / Gwc ME THE PAPER | Quick*. I.wamt \ to -ses. who wom The. I i\jc Got a Set with Jir*tv,y iCHMALT THAT BATTUniS AlS** NAi(5UC0 8SAT KNOCKOUT; l JOHNSON - . - P«*T TY £0£_T_ I WISH YOU WOUt-DN'T I LOOK OVER MV SHOULDERJ NMHiN IM READING • __J | 1—_ “I’m not ready to marry anybody." "Not thla minute. It's a long way off—months and months—we can't tell how long. And I want to carry *vlth me—that you will marry me. Can't you see what a difference It would make—to know that the one I've al ways been in love with—?” “You haven't always been In love with me. Marty. This la Just—“ Jo Ellen wanted time to think. Time wae the one thing she couldn't have. “Always," persisted Marty. "We scrapped a little once In a while. But I know. I know It now better than ever. I know that I need to go on. I'm surer about you than anything else In the world. If I had your promise I could report at nine o’clock and tell the old war to do what It likes. Jo Ellen, let me have It to think of that I own that wild heart of yours!” She wished he hadn't said "wild heart.” It was annoying that tn her breast there should be a thumping at the moment. Heart was all right, but the phrase sounded like some thing he had thought out. II she had a little time to think . . . (To lie Contlnn.d Tomorrow ) THE NEBBS MR. PRESIDENT. Directed ior The Omaha Bee by Sol Heat S" MR. RENROOTELLS ME THAT SOU /ARE FAMILIAR WcTM vms PROPOSITION- HE must e>E AVERS GOOD FRIEND CT SOURS - THE PROPOsmoN is wonderful * the quicker SOU S\Gn THEM THE QUICKER WE’LL GET STARTED - TO. complete this corporation \ SOU WILL V-AAVpro HAVE V. PRESIDENT, fSECRETARS \ AND WE'D UKE TO GET THE _fton \ THE OFFVCERS AS SOON* AS GOSffiaS A3iG EVERT Sw\G \pgjr?i5S«» > sS-U'® rwE piiem^/ g&gggss§K ' —-^ p«*wv«EL v**™4 * / v ST£Pk«A £i^G\Nt^/ Barney Google and Spark Plug “THE CALL OF THE WILD.” Drawn {or The Omaha Bee by Billy DeBeck iif Simple as A 8 C-, Sonsmin^—THe \i If fplRST DAV WR ARRN6 IM CANADA WE I J loao op ou« Gums ano go int«JT&» M , Ujooos - • * them 1 Blow "(His id . HORN A COUPLE OF^TiMES*^V-"*^|| a moose hears »t * hs /ro lak THINKS its his laov / To REAM Vo FRiEno calling And Rums l Blow oat ToUIABO OS • • TRSM I OP RO HM, l an® Pop nm-_ j-X XGoss^y 1 Cipyrijln. IW. by King Fettum Sy*<&*w. !m | L t BriUir nttiW twtrvtd _ BRINGING UP FATHER u. “S. o^lS!? oTSS’LEiy'JS Dr,w“ for Th. Ommh. BM by McM.au. II""■ , .|||lm,M,. . I ■■■—y—1.1 » ... ,....- ____ - > BY colly: IM SO SLEEPY - I CAN'T or ME EYES open: TH(*> (*> A P time t>OMRi5e:: fa »v fFcaTuwf Service. I*c Great Britain right! reaerved. JERRY ON THE JOB DELAYED INFORMATION Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Hoban - _(Copyright 1M4) I Pa«00M n't. IQ* V'GSW \ Surr AQZ. \ke G»vi<t to ) V Grt- aw vaages' 04 \ ( SaTUBOAV OR *._' ^7 ^»«t v»i 7 „ * < : ABIE THE AGENT Drawn for The Omaha Bee by Hershfield j S*fetr FlrM. \ I mao To Mirv\ OJJX>S BUT U'MAT I CARC - * I V£ GCT A OmCW 86T I JUST ulAMT To Ate. 1CHAT BOUM w * ' am ■ hcrs ~ ~ _ " "1 ~ fHOU) A&OUT\ / A Urns QAME \ I AY MT HOUSE | I ON SATURDAY ' i_ 'Ym FtPTY t>OUARS^ LOSCR.MR.KABlftBa UjIU. Vou YAKt A VCHEtK OR CAfcH 3 • © k ft ■ano so The Dat ”-"-v pRACTlOM-CY Hf'A Be«*M> KOIHED OFF HIS — * eeD au. 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