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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 11, 1925)
"THE GOLDEN BED” By W ALLACE IRWI!\. Produced as a Paramount Picture by Cecile B. DcMille From a Screen Adaptation by Jeanie Macpherson. (Copyrlsht. 1124) V.__J (Continued from Yesterday.) A cold rain was blowing up from the IUver on one of the monotonous evenings when he stole home fron: supper at a cafeteria—he had giver up eating with Jo's family. TJp in his room he lit the gas, took off his Hhoes and unfolded the Evening Deni oerat's pink sporting edition—its gos sip of scores and records held hi? attention without causing him to think. With a sort of vacant sigh ip braced his pipe between his teeth ■ nd his feet against the bed. . . K it-tat-tat! The door panel shook with persistent little blows which he i entlfted as Myrtle's. Since he had 11 ned the key against just such an iin ietuous assault, he sat perfectly sti'l nnd drawled, "Well?" "Speaks in the store!” he thought ho said, but it was not until her loose heels had rafted their way down the stairs that he had pieced the sounds together and decided that she had been trying to say: "Miss Teake's in the store.” He took his time about putting on his shoes, brushing his hair and find ing the least soiled collar in his bureau drawer. He even thought of stopping to shave, but abandoned so elaborate a plan. He couldn’t leave Margaret long in the company of Jo and Myrtle. He found her standing alone by the door, quite neglected by his rela tives, who were wasting many mo tions over a hot chocolate for a new customer. Margaret's back was turned at first; then he saw her troubled face. "Admnh. I've got something to tell you," she began just as though they met and talked every day, as they used to. "1 know title's been great trouble, Admah. But”at a time like this you’ve got to forget a lot of things. Only—" "Is it about Flora Lee?” he asked thickly. She nodded. "Yes. She’s very ill. I don't think she'll—" Her chin trem bled, but she cleared her throat and went on, “and if you want to see her—” "Where is she?” was his first nat ural question. "At our old house—on Innes Street.” "On Inness Street?” "Somebody rang me up this after noon ,4nd said she was there. I've called in Charlie Furniss, and he's doing all he can. But she scarcely knows anybody. She seems to think—" “Come on." he growled and fol lowed her through the rain to hei sprightly little car. The rale had taken possession of the town, sweeping pedestrians front the streets, disputing the approach of every wheeled thing that splashed New York —Day by Day __' O. O. M1NTYRE. New York, Feb. 10.—On* of the most impressive phases of New York's poverty is it's buoyancy, pov erty as a rule sink* to voiceless de spair. but here it seem* to have as (oundlng color and noise. It shrieks and is blatant. London’s East End is comparable to New York’s East Side. But In London the streets are empty and the homes are depressingly cheerless. The people you see seem shabby and icklv. And they slink along in a lenten, dispirited manner. The East Side is always ringing with shouts and laughter. Children romp with as gay abandon as may be found anywhere. Hurdy gurdies me jangling. The keepers of tiny -bops seem well fed and opulent. There Is a community spirit of friendliness. The most solemn note of all Is the Jew with the long whiskers, trousers nagging about his feet, small de(by (lapped over his ears and hands clasped tightly across his back. He walks along looking only at the ground and dreams. The reason of course, is that In London they have little hope of rls Ing above the dreariness. In America they are filled with hope. They have seen thousands go from pushearts to ownerships of big stores uptown. From tenement homes to Riverside Drive apartments. There Is more to amuse on the East Side than any other haven of squalor In the world. There are mov ing picture shows to every block. Cheap dance halls. Public swimming pools and playgrounds. Coffee houses and cafes with good music. There are public libraries and free schools of all kinds. Sweat shops are , disappearing and no worker feels he Is harnessed ,to some job. There Is always another Job waiting for. him Just around the corner. Most of Manhattan's panhandlers live In the streets shooting off of Park Row—such as Mulberry, Roos evelt. Pearl and Duane. In the even ing many of them gather on the benches of City Hall park. There Is no profession so mysterious as "mooching.” These men are In many Instance* well educated and quite harmless. The professional moorher 1* rarely one who will rob or stoop to other crimes. He Just drifts along picking up enough to buy him skimpy meal* and a cot In one of the flop houses.There Is a venerable "Crust Thrower"—who pounces upon a planted crust of bread with ravage hunger to excite sympathy—who has been a beggar for 40 years. He Is now 70. He hss read the best In literature, knows much about srt and Jias never taken a drink. "Work,” he says, ”1* only for fools.” A newspaper has been trying to find out who Is the most popular of New York headwalters. All have a certain following, but I do not be lieve they ere really popular. Most of their gestures ar* Incited by the hope of reward. The strangest thing about a head waiter Is the manner In which the public stands In awe of him. They purr to his bows and compliments Tf he turns them away, they go back again, and will more than likely tip him on the return visit. That Is why The New York headwalter often tells patrons there are no tables left when »* a matter oi' fact there are. Up along the Hudson 1* a glow •ring mountainside known as Htorm King. It Is black, gaunt and forbid ding. When tlie wind sweep* shout It there’ I* a roaring ■Creech. It Is •ne of the most picturesquely named •pots around New York. (Copyright, ml.) { through the shallow ponds which ran from curb to curb. Rain came down in thin, metallic tatters like torn sheets of lead, and through it all the electric signs bobbed, twinkled and twisted away like little cockney fools defying God. For Margaret Peake it was hard driving, but she found time to turn once or twice and look at the man beside her. He had come away with out Ills overcoat, and the attitude of his big body showed that he fell the cold; yet lie had allowed the lap robe to slip away and made no at tempt to regain it. In the semi-dark ness she caught a glimpse of his rugged profile, fixed in contemplation; a spiritist might have summoned that face nut of the abysm of death, mold ed it from the shadows. Once she called his name, “Admah!'' as if to bring him back, but it was not unti! they had reached Inness Street that she heard his voice sounding out of the obscurity. "What's she doing there—in the old house?" "I don't know, Admah." she an swered, and was not at all sure that he had heard her. if only she could have reached out to him then. But every soul is a hermit. It must tight its devils in its solitfiry cell. Poor Admah! IB had created so many. I,ike every other infatuated man who has brought large talents to the shrine of a false God, he would go on to the end, fighting for his misplaced faith. What can I do to help him? thought .Margaret Peake, uttering a prayer she had said for him a thousand times. What indeed? Who can bring sight to him whose eyes are gone'.’ She turned her car at the familiar horse block. The storm had paused for an instant, and the old house, whose every nail she had known, stood before her in a sooty, sulphur ous light; a chain of mud puddles linked across a lawn upon which her family had prided itself for four gen erations. Although no stone had been misplaced the house had a scarred look; Inner corruption often disfigures the countenance. The windows, with light oozing through drawn shades, leered dissolutely. A king dethroned and drinking with cabmen might look like that. She put her hand on Admah's arm and guided him up the walk. From one of the tall pillars the sign “Rooms to Let" swung crookedly by a string. The electric hell had lost its button, but a touch on the exposed entrails set off a gutteral alarm inside the house. Margaret dreaded the opening of the door, not so much for herself as for Admah. She had had her shock that afternoon. But poor Admah must endure this. Another stone upon a mount of troubles that had crushed the spirit out of him. The latch clicked, the hinges turned and in the doorway stood a woman whom she had not seen before. Under a remarkable mound of false yellow hair she showed cheeks that were soft and bulging like an over-ripe pear and so thick with powder that they threatened a pale duststorra nt every quick turn of the head. "Oh, Miss Peake,” she called out a sort of ecstasy at the name of Peake, "Won’t you come in, and bring your gelman friend? I'm so sorry I wasn’t in this afternoon when you called." A glance into the drawing room showed Margaret a set of wild gilt furniture, a red carpet, a mechanical piano player, a number of glassy en gravings on the walls, which were beginning gto peel. She looked the other way. "I never had the pleasha of meet in’ you befo'. Miss Peake,” went on the landlady with a series of smirks and simpers. "But I knew your grandfather well. Oh, intimate. Ue was a fine gelman. Yes, indeed, I knew him well." The woman might have been lying hut Margaret felt that she was not. She had known Judge Peake; Judgj Peake’s granddaughter, with an in voluntary shrinking away from 1h> door that had once been his, realized how she had known IjJm. "Has there been any rhange?" asked Margaret, turning her eyes toward the first landing. "Doc Furniss went 'bout ten min utes ago. He give her a shot of dope and I reckon she'll rest easy. Minnie's settin’ up with her. She'a a good nigger and—" “How did my sister get here?” No body had been able to tell Margaret In the afternoon's confusion. "I reckon I know," simpered the landlady, "because 1 let >r in, late last night. Y' see I'd been havin' trouble with my husband. He's n racin' man—" as if that explained something—"and I Jest opened the door a crack, kcpplng the chain on The flrst thing I heard was a bad cough and there she stood. I ast 'er , what ahe wanted, and she Jest stares at me and aaya, 'Let me in!' You could of knocked me down with a featlier when I seen who it was Some quare birds blow in here omt in a while. Miss Peake—not that this ain't a respectable boardin' house— hut never hefo’ have 1 saw a real lady like that, at that time o’ night, askin' vrr he let in. “I thought at first she'd made a mistake. But she ought to know the house, oughtn’t she? Course T let 'er in. I ast what she wanted, for she was wet to the skin, and she didn’t so much as gimmie the time o' day. Walks up the stairs, proud ns a duchess, and went straight into the best front room you know, that round one—and when I looks in she had went to be<J. “It was all right quare. T had Min nie take off er clothes and put on one o’ mv nighties. Put 1 don’t reck on the Duchess—excuse me. 1 mean Mrs. Holt—k no wed a thing that was goin’ on. Tot." She clicked sympa thetically. “I’ve saw ’em took that way hefo’. A Imd cold after a big party in a low dress. It’s lung fever. She w'»s hot as fire when I touched her. off ’er head. “They shore do some quare things when they’re that wav. But it did give me a start, her flouncin’ up to that bedroom jest like it belonged to her. Maybe—'* "Hush!" commanded Margaret. The door of the Oval Chamber was open a crack, and through the aperture she could hear the heavy breathing of dis tempered lungs. Somewhere in the background Ad mah Holtz hovered, a bent and clum sy shadow; th«re was an alertness in him, too, as if be were crouching for a spring. For Admah Margaret Peake was not there. Even In the face of his closing tragedy she felt this and ex perienced a pang to know that she counted for so little that she could be an uneon side red witness like the walls and the windows of the decaying room. From a stark wall fixture, which. «he remembered, had been concealed under one of Flora Fee s Venetian sconces, an unshaded bulk cast its frank light on tlie bare ugliness of the Oval Chamber. Reside an infa mous brass bed crouched Admah Holtz, groping tenderly for one of the paper-thin hands which rested on a mussy cotton quilt. On her pillow Flora Fee struggled desperately for breath. Her face was waxen, frame** in the lovely hair which clustered about her head, gilding the drab pi 1 lowca.se. Slit* had lost her beauty, that was true. . . . Rut Margaret wondered. Did Admah, who had never seen her as she was, still think her beautiful? Probably, for there wii. adoration in bis eve?, and his voice was very gentle as he "ailed her name, time after time. Her head was moveless, but her lips had curved to a mysterious smile. Then there was a long, agonizing si lence. Huddled beside the rickets bed that seemed an offense to her loved nnd pamperd body, Admah mumbled incoherent things. "When will the doctor he hack?’ whispered Margaret to the colored girl Minnie when she came slopping by. "He says pretty soon.” replied Min nie. giggling softly with embarrass ment. Then Margaret returned to her cor ner and waited. What a room! Van diil hands had defaced it so that nothing hut its shape remained to show where loveliness had been. The walls were stripped of their brocade and recovered with a gaudy r'se patterned paper. already streaked and soiled. A square of carpet, too dusty to reveal Its original design, ran cata cornerod under the brass bed. A sheet-iron gits stove, smelling vl lainously, had thrust its pipe th ough a zinc-covered hold where Flora Lee's le.ir little mantelpiece with Jts bluish pilasters and flowerv panels had once supported fragile ornaments of spun glass. Spun glass! . . . Margaret gazed at the little panting creature on the bed and wondered if she would ever rouse and speak to Adinah. She had called for him that afternoon. Margaret wondered why, and wished that she could have saved him this agony. Why was the doctor gone so long? Or was it long? Then she felt an aching in her throat, as if a great arch had arisen there. She was go ing to cry Was it for her sister with whom she had romped up and down there halls? Her sister, who. by some animal Instinct, had returned I to die in the only earthly spot she had ever Joved? Or was it foi Admah Holtz, whom she longed to lift up and strengthen? Out of her reverie she hegrd him calling again. “Flo’ Lee! It s me. honey. Don’t you know me, honey?” The dying woman heard. I’nex pectedly she opened her eyes, wide and dilated. She turned her head and gave him a smile so soft that it seemed to color her cheeks and re store her heautv. “Oh,” she drawled sleepily, as it she had just been awakened in th» morning. “I'm mighty glad—so glad. I >arlin’ Darlin’—” “I'm here, my sweet,” he whispered, caressing her little hands. “And—and I sort of thought you'd left me—” Her faint giggle was brok en bv a tit of coughing. “I * didn’t quit you, Flo Lee. You know 1 wouldn’t do that." be told her brokenly. She laughed again, faintei this time. “You wouldn't — f wouldn’t let you I'm crazy 'bout you. You do lnv* me—don’t you?—you wild, bad boy?” "Honey, you know I do!” lie had reached «>ut as if to tear her frail body from the invisible monster j “You've come hack to me. haven't vou, Flo Lee" \Yp didn’t mean what we said. You don't hate me, hat • my hands—” Hut she had stiffened and fallen back on the pillow, her mouth open, her lungs laboring horribly. Mar gnret sprang to hei side and restored the covers that had fallen from her wasted limbs; but after that Flora Lee had no word* for Admah or for any one. She died at one o'clock next morn ing. I)t. Furnisa, who had brought a trained nurse, had ordered the watchers downstairs to wait in .* travesty of the Peake drawing room. They had shut out the chattering landlady; her dubious hoarders tip toed by, decently quiet for the occasion Admah sat still, hifc face restful with a decision, is if some great plies tlon had just been answered for him. He stirred occasionally, moving Ids lips. But no words came. Once h° took out his pipe, gazed Into its empty bowf, rummaged his pockets for to hacco. Margaret bribed Minnie to go around the coiner to a drug store; and when a package of cheap hurley was brought in it was Margaret who filled his pipe and held a mat* h tha* he might smoke. He puffed awav oblivious of her. "Will you < nine now? ’ asked tlo nurse appearing finally at the folding doors. They followed upstairs, but Margaret hesitated outside the Oval Fhambef which b id grown so still that Admah s every footfall gave an echo ns he went inside Not a s*> n»d Standing in the ghost I*- **sridor Mar garet strained her ears and felt that Admah had entered a tomb to pra before dead ashes. Minutes passed, and at last he came out, the look of exalt ttion still upon him. Vet tears were streaming down his cheeks. "She didn't say another word." he — — mm whispered. “But she's let me know. Vou heard her. She didn’t want me to quit her—wanted me to love her. She couldn't h i ve talked that way—' “Xut unless she loved you,’’ repll£*^*^ Margaret. And with that precious lie she saved dim. For in Flora Lee's delirious words her sister had read quite a different, meaning from that which had cheered poor Admah's heart. It wn.s not to him that those endear ments hail been spoken, but to the worthless man who had played with her and g*»ne his way, her stolen jewels in his pocket. “And I sort of thought she forgave rne, didn’t you, Margaret?" he asked brokenly. •Fur what, my dear? For what?’* he lied, rid w ithered his poor, mis guide d bead to her breast. Or:t yid* \ he Kim* pavilion crouched the young David, dozing and waking .is h*- Iean**l upon his harp, nntient with the knowledge of a song that v. is t*» blow rich dreams back nti. a Minn' mind. Inside the heavy t*-nt folds i ark form loomed, a ‘-inflow blacker than the blackness, eyes sm«* ldering dully below the great male .* * uphill e in his turban. Thus Saul, ( gluing f<*r the spirit that ha(* swooned «n*! all hut gone. (To ll«* f on11niii'il Tomorrow.) “It's a sin and a shame”— Said Old Doctor Black; ‘ When \ jr hair once g*»et It. never comas hack." There’* at Least One in Every Office ~T \ _ _ _ _ i — : To PAY . WA3 f- JUST Th(Mi^ it HARRy ) PUAYirxic, GOLF wi th OERRy I . • „ ( 66 JUMPS - • You ujfRf / A WKFK A6C I WAS LY.^6 MAU m6 That TeRR'Ke / AROUrJD Twe BCACM IIM MY ' f*u 2 Z ARD (J P M F r r BaTHInJG. -SUIT Tr.Y»kJ6 7q ■ — -i KEEP COOL- -- You W?RI? HAUIA/Cj A B>L1 Z 2 AR.t5^i L_OP HERB i By Briggs it ums Penrecrcv ) UjouDem-uL ’ Th\e clear l etuc «Sky• • The Gi?ajtlb \ ERECZC 05MIAJC, »|VJ TRoina ! The OCEAaJ - WA A! 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