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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 17, 1935)
THERE'S1^ ALWAYS f ANOTHER. YEAR MARTHA ftfe1 OSTENSO [w.N.U.SCB-VICE COPYRIGHT MARTHA OSTENSO | SYNOPSIS Aroa (“Silver") Grenoble, daugh ter of “Gentleman Jim,” formerly of the community, but known as a gambler, news of whose recent mur der in Chicago has reached the town, comes to Heron River to live with Sophronla Willard, Jim Grenoble's •ister, who is at the depot to meet her. Sophronia's household consists of her husband, and stepsons, Roder ick and Jason. The Willards own only half of the farm on which they live, the other half being Anna Grenoble’s. On Silver's arrival Duke Melbank, shiftless youth, makes himself obnoxious. Roderick is on the eve of marriage to Corinne Meader, daughter of a failed banker. Silver says she wants to live on the farm, and has no intention of sell ing her half, which the Willards had feared. She meets Roddy that night. Silver tells Sophronla ("Phronle," by request) something—but by no means all—of her relations with •Gerald Lucas, gambler friend of her father. Roddy marries Corinne, and brings his bride home. CHAPTER V—Continued —6— The man was Gerald Lucas. For an Instant, as Gerald climbed <Jowu from his car and stepped to ward her, Silver contemplated flight. Instead, when the impulse had passed, she thrust her hands into her pockets and looked coolly up at him. Gerald seized her hands. "Sil ver—what’s the matter with you?” he demanded. "Get in and we’ll take a drive and talk things over." “No,” Silver said firmly, "I don’t want to go driving—and I have nothing to talk over, Gerald.” He put his hand lightly on her arm and drew her toward the car. “Listen to me. Silver,” he urged. ^What’s got into you? I didn’t come out here to kidnap you, though I'd like to. You’ve grown ■even more luscious—if that’s possi ble. Sit in the car and let’s talk.” For a moment she hesitated, then with a shrug she got into the car. She surveyed him with detachment, and wondered what had happened to her since she had last seen him. He was as rakishly good-looking as ever, his eyes as full of confidence and meaningful laughter as ever. But it was as though she looked at him now through an obscuring film. Gerald looked critically down at her. “You should have known bet ter than to try running away from me, sweetheart. You didn’t even give me a chance to tell you how sorry I was—about your father.” “I’m trying to forget that,” Silver said briefly. “How did you find out where I had gone?” He pinched her chin lightly and smiled. “Little Gerald finds out just about everything he wants to know. Old Ben Hubbard Is a friend of mine. So I came out here and snooped before I looked you up. And lo and behold! I’ve got the very thing I’ve wanted for some time. A resort on Emerald bay, my love! You see, I had a few grand salted away—” “You had to get out of Chicago, didn’t you, Gerald?" Silver asked, and looked at him levelly. “Well, now, my dear,” he pro tested, “do we have to go into that? I’ll admit—things were getting •warmish. But this—or these—are the wide open spaces. And here I am with a peach of a lay-out up on that lake. It’s right on the highway so I can keep it open for the win ter trade. All I need now is a kiss from you, Silver.” She drew hack deliberately. “No.” He looked at her narrowly, then leaned toward her with a darkened face. “1 don’t quite follow you, Sil ver. I thought it was all fixed be tween us. I’ve been on the level with you, haven’t I? We’ve been every thing to eacfi other, haven’t we? Now, what’s it all about? I thought you ran away because of your fa ther’s death. I couldn’t believe it was because of me, Silver. Honest ly, I thought you expected me to follow you. Well—I think you ought to do some of the talking." She had been staring vacantly past him at the darkening west. Some of the old fire was stirring within her at the sound of his voice and the nearness of him. But it was, she told herself with the deep er part of her consciousness, only the quick and vanishing fire of a will-o-the-wisp. In some way she had changed. She was no longer swayed completely by Gerald Lucas. “Yes, I ought to talk, Gerald. I know that,” she snid. “But I don’t know how to tell you.” She brought her eyes even with his own. “It’s Just that—I’ve got over all the—” She hesitated. “Are you trying to tell me that you don’t love me any more?” he prompted. “Oh, Gerald!’’ she cried in desper ation. “Do you believe I ever loved you? Could you call that love —In that feverish atmosphere? You —you appealed to me In a certain way, that’s all. I know that now. Gerald. And 1 don’t want to go back to what I left behind me. 1 don’t want that kind of life—yours and—and Pad's.” He looked at her hard, and she saw an almost wistful disappoint ment enter his eyes. “Well—of course—that lets me out," he said slowly. “But you hap pen to be the only girl I’ve ever wanted to marry, Silver. And I’m thirty-two now.” He was thought ful for a moment. “Are you sure you won’t want to go hack after you have had a taste of this life? I can’t see Silver Grenoble living in a place like this. It’s all right for you to like ft—but the place has to like you, remember, or it’s going to raise h—1 with you. Did you ever see a prize pup trying to make up to a pack of mongrels? It’s a lot of fun—If you don’t hap pen to care for the prize pup.” “I’m taking that chance," she re torted. “Anyhow—I don’t consider myself a prize pup. I have a good deal to live down, Gerald.” He patted her interlocked fingers. “I’m sorry you feel that way about it, darling,” he said softly. “Guess I’m to blame." Silver’s free laugh rang out. “I should say you were not! If I do anything, It’s because I want to, whether It’s right or wrong!” Gerald gave a low whistle. “There speaks Jim Grenoble!” he said soberly. “But I’ll believe you. Silver. And I wish you luck. If It doesn't work out, I won’t be far away. At least not for awhile. Do you want me to drive you up to the house? I’ll promise not to set foot on one little bit of your sacred—” “Gerald” Silver interrupted sharp ly. She thought quickly for a mo ment. “All right—drive me up.” Quite abruptly and mysteriously, her relationship with Gerald Lucas had changed—had changed so that it seemed it had never existed. Less than a month ago, his very pres ence would have thrown her Into a panic of wild emotion. Was It her father’s death that had made her a different person, or was it this uncompromising landscape, in which Gerald and his kind seemed a little absurd? Both, perhaps. But there was something else, too— something which she could not pull up to the light and analyze. Gerald was turning the car in at the Willard gate. And there, be tween poplar trees that were defined vaguely against a moon that wns like a rising red world, stood Corinne in her white dress. Silver got out of the car. Gerald swung it about to leave Immediate ly, but Corinne came toward it and The Man Was Gerald Lucas. stood for a moment In the glare of the lights. Sliver looked at Corinne and then at Gerald. Suddenly, as she saw Gerald's eyes dwelling upon that white figure standing In the light, there came an instant's con viction, lucid and electrifying, that nothing would ever be the same again. "This Is Gerald Lucas," Silver said quickly, and hesituted. Gerald smiled and put forth a hand. "And what's the other half of It?" he asked. “I’m Corinne Willard,” Corinne re plied as she took Gerald’s hand. He gave her a little half-amused, searching look that Silver under stood only too well. “Corinne Willard?” Gerald re ► peated. “And where have you been all my life?" "Where nice girls always are,” Corlnne replied archly. "Living at home with mother." "Just a nice, old-fashioned girl," Gerald bantered amiably. "Well, come along out to Emerald bay some night when mother Isn’t around. Bring her out with you, Silver." Silver stepped to the side of the car. "Gerald," she said, "you’re golrife to be late for your appointment. And besides—” "Rlght-o, Silver!” Gerald put In immediately. “I was forgetting. See you both later." The car shot into the road and vanished beyond the thicket where the highway turned to the south. "Well—I must say—you have a way of dismissing people—" Corlnne observed. "I just happen to know Gerald," Silver said quietly. "So I have heard," Corlnne re marked. "He’s not at all what 1 imagined him. And lie is awfully good looking .isn’t he?" Silver was thoughtful for a mo ment. "Corlnne," she said at last, "1 don’t want Gerald around here at all." "Well, It’s no affair of mine, my dear," Corlnne said lazily, and be gan calling to her dog, who was exploring the underbrush on the hill. Something deep within Silver trembled. She saw Corlnne turn away and go toward the house. From among the shadows under the great oak came the sound of Jason playing a quaint old lullaby. The music, mingling with the unbroken churrlng of the frogs, seemed to come from far away, from a past of half-remembered, half-forgotten tilings. CHAPTER VI JUST before sundown. Silver rode out to bring the cattle in from the pasture. On the way home she paused beside a stripped field of barley where the men were at work A couple of them waved to her. Roddy waved to her nnd Silver, wav ing back, remembered irrelevantly that Corlnne had not been present at the midday meal. She had gone to luncheon at the Richters’, In their cottage on Twin Deer lake. Silver shook her bridle rein and was about to turn away when she heard a scream from the field. She swung around quickly and saw Rod dy Jump toward a tow-headed youth who was standing near him. The engine stopped Instantly and the men hurried to where Roddy wus leaning over the boy. Silver slipped down from her horse nnd in a moment had crept under the fence and was beside Roddy. The boy had stumbled and caught two fingers of one hand in a cog-wheel of the thresher. The fingers were two bloody tatters hanging from the hand. The boy was lying on the ground now, his face a deathlike pallor under the sunburn, his lips writhing back from his clenched teeth. Roddy looked up. “Has anyone a clean handkerchief?” Nobody responded. Sliver had knelt beside Roddy, who was keep ing a vise-like grip on the bleeding hand. “Use this, Roddy,” she said quick ly, and whipped off her clean white linen blouse. With her shoulders bared to the rosy light of the low sun, she tore the material Into strips nnd gave them to Roddy while he made a bandage nnd a tourniquet for the boy’s mangled hand. “All right, Jimmie I” Roddy said at last, and lifted the boy gently to his feet. “Start the truck, Jason. You’d better go down to Maynard nnd let Doc Woodward attend to It.” In a minute the truck had rattled away. It had all happened so quickly, it seemed to Silver that she had scarcely drawn a breath. Roddy was coming back to her from the wagon that stood off a short dis tance from the threshing machine. He was carrying his own grimy jacket. She permitted him to but ton it up to her breast, while she thrust her hands down Into the pockets in an effort to control their trembling. “That wasn’t very pleasant, was it?” he said with a grim smile. “But those things happen now and then.’’ When she did not reply, he laid his hand on her shoulder. “You were a brick, Silver—to do what you did. But you're pretty unstrung. Per haps you’d better ride home In the wagon with me. Rusty will find his way back alone.” In another moment, she knew, she would burst into nervous tears. Without looking at him she said hur riedly, “No, thanks, Roddy. I’m— all right.” She turned away abruptly and rushed back to the fence, crawded under it and called to the horse, who had wandered off a short distance. All the way home, beneath Sil ver’s shuddering memory of the ragged clots of the boy’s fingers, dwelt the thought of Roddy's dark face and his kindling changed eyes. While Roddy was washing in the tin basin on the bench outside the house—placed ihere for the use of the crew—l’hronie came out of the kitchen. “What’s this I hear about the Healy boy?” she asked. “What hap pened?” Roddy told her. “Well, I declare It Just seems something has to happen every year,” Fhronle said. “And he's such a nice boy, too. Well, hurry up and get washed. Supper is ready.” “Is Corinne home yet?” Roddy asked. “She’s upstairs changin' her clothes. Have you seen Silver any where? She went to fetch the cows, but 1 haven’t seen her since." Roddy told her then of the part Silver had played In getting the boy ready to go to Maynard with Jason. “Well—that girl beats me 1” Phro nle declared. "Rut then—she’s just like her mother. I remember—" “You’d better go In and look after things, ma," Roddy interrupt ed. Roddy hastened upstairs to put on clean clothing before he sat down “I Don’t Know at All," She Object ed. “I Should Think—" to supper. On the landing he met Corinne. She was dressed In a clinging green chiffon gown that came almost to her beautifully shod feet. “Hello, lovely!” he greeted her in a low voice. She laughed and rumpled his hair. “There’s a corn roast and a dance over at the lake tonight, dar ling,” she told him. “I thought I njight ns well dress now. Aren’t you going to kiss me?” ltoddy grinned, then drew her to him and kissed her throat “You’ve washed already?” she asked, surprised. “Don’t tell me you washed In that tin basin out side." “Certainly. Why not? I’ve done It for years." “You have a bathroom upstairs, hnven’t you?" "Listen, kid," he protested. “You don't know It, but the men are fun ny about such things. I don’t want them to feel—well, you know what I mean." “I don’t know at all," she objected. “I should think—" He swung her to him and held her close for a moment. "You’re much too pretty to talk to me in that tone,” he remonstrated. “Go on down—I’ll be with you In a Jiffy.” But as soon ns he had left her, his mood grew sober again. He could not forget young Jim Healy and his poor crushed hand. Then, cu riously, with no obscure lightening of his spirit, there came to him the vision of Sliver Grenoble, In her riding breeches, kneeling there on the field in the sunset, her shoul ders bare above the plain silk bod ice. Perhaps he had been all wrong about her. Perhaps she belonged here as essentially as he did him self. Roddy entered the dining room. Before he took his place at the ta ble, he glanced over at Corlnne, daintily presiding at Its head and smiling graciously upon her over ailed and plaid-shirted guests. I’hro nie and Paula stood, one on either side of the table, serving tbe men when necessary, or replenishing some dish or other from the kitch en. Silver had remnlned at the stone house, to make supper for old Roderick, who had not been feeling well for the past week. It was Corinne's first appearance at table with the threshing crew. Roddy winced. In spite of himself, as he saw her draw back quickly when a brawny arm reached across her bosom In a lunge toward the butter dish. Finally someone made a too graphic comment on the day’s accident, and Corlnne coven# her eyes. It was the last time she sat at the table with the men. An evening or two later, Roddy returned from visiting the Ilealy boy to find Corlnne imputlentlv awaiting him. Whats wrong/ he asked. “The Richters called up this aft ernoon and I promised we'd he over tonight. It’s their last party before they go back to town.” “Corrle," Roddy said In a voice that was slow with weariness, “I’ve been out to parties till I’m ready to drop I’m fed up with It. How do you expect a man to do his work and go out to some d—n fool party four or live times a week?" For a moment there was silence. Then Corinne said, "Rut I promised them we'd be there." “I can’t help it,” Roddy protested. “If you want to go, take the car and run over for an hour or so. I'm so doggone tired I could—” (TO BE CONTINUED) Hamburg Steak Is Good Choice Easiest Way to Cook It Is to Season Meat and Form Into Flat Cake. Hamburg steak is a good choice for the meat at a quick meal. The easiest aud quickest way to cook it is to season the meat and form it into one flat cake. I’lace this under the broiler or in a hot oven. When It has browned take U out end sprinkle with finely minced raw onion. If it is baked In the oven the onion may be put on top before cook ing and browned. Another way of seasoning Ham burg steak is to make it "white with salt, black with pepper, yellow with mustard" before cooking. I am sug gestlng rice instead of potatoes to serve with the meat. Rice can be cooked In about twen ty minutes. After It Is drained it may be stirred Into a frying pan containing about two tablespoonfuls of melted bp con fat and n quarter of a cup of minced green pepper. It should be stirred with a fork over the fire until heated through. Mew cabbage, shredded, will cook In boiling water In about ten min utes. He sure not to cover it while cooking. It Is good dressed with a little cream or top milk after it hns been drained. 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