Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 1940)
p—————n I How Good Boys Act the Week Before Christmas 1 .1 •HOKvMeOCC.. . r Nation’s Christmas Bill Set at $62 per Family; Toys Cost $183,000,000 You’re paying a part of this bill: Santa’s middle men predict a $183,000,000 national toy bill this year, which would be about the same as was spent last year to spread cheer among the youngsters. The array around American Christmas trees this season, includ ing toys, will cost each family an average of $62.50, according to re liable surveys. There’s another side to it. Be tween 250,000 and 300,000 persons are being added to the nation’s pay rolls during the holiday rush, and the turnover should raise total 1940 sales for the year to at least last year’s volume of nearly $40, 000,000,000. Camel Distributes Gifts To Children in Syria Christmas gifts are presented by a camel in Syria. The youngest camel which accompanied the Wise Men is called the Camel of Jesus. It performs the task each year of distributing presents. Dark Christmas The sun does not rise above the horizon for a week in Iceland dur ing Christmas season. CHAPTER XV—Continued —16— "Don't bother," I said, “to ring for the maid to show me the door. I can And it. I ask you—not now but later when you’ve less to dis turb you—to think seriously whether I’ve ever violated your confidence. I knew about Grove and his key. I saved him once from the jam he is in now. I knew of his liaison with lone. See how much of that you can find in the Press, or any other newspaper—up to now.” Allegra gave a little laugh of dis belief. She tossed Duke’s squeal on the desk between us and went from the room. I bowed jerkily to Miss Agatha and headed for the door. Her voice checked me. “Up to now,” she repeated. “Do I understand that is a threat?” I had stood plenty. Her stern eyes could not beat mine down. “And do I understand,” I an swered, “that your question is a prelude to bribery?” “Are you,” she inquired, "doing your best to be insulting?” “I am,” I told her, “and I didn’t begin it.” She chuckled. The hearty sound never seemed more bizarre. It wrecked melodrama and spoiled my pose. I stared. Miss Agatha grinned. “Put down your hat and coat,” she bade me. “I want to talk to you. Don’t stand there gawping. Do as I say. Allegra is troubled with ideals. She’ll outgrow them in time. Suppose you tell me, as po litely as you can manage, just how you happen to be on the Press.” She smoked one of my cigarettes while I confessed my arrangement with Cochrane, and the difficulties of being pulled two ways by con flicting loyalties. Once or twice, while I spoke, she nodded and when I had ended, gave that preposterous grin of hers. “You make me feel better,” she told me. “I didn’t want to believe I’d twice been mistaken in my esti mates of character in so short a time.” I found myself defending Grove. “You’ll learn when this thing is unscrambled that he’s been just a young idiot, nothing more. No one can make me believe that—” “No one can make me, either,” she broke in, quietly. “He’s a good boy. He’s lacking in common sense, that's all. Well, it’s a family fail ing.” “Miss Agatha,” I blurted, smit ten by the calm she preserved above the anguish that must be tearing at her, “you’re a game guy!” Her face relaxed a trifle. “David,” she said, “when wom en reach my age, they cry easily, or not at all. I have no gift for tears. Grove is in trouble and I have to help him. I always used to pull him out of scrapes. That’s my job again.” She looked at me and the wrinkles about her eyes deepened. “If you had a spark of chivalry,” she mocked, “you’d offer to help me.” “And if,” I answered, “you had any intuition whatever, you would know that anything I’ve got is yours.” "I do know it,” she admitted with another chuckle, and then grew sud denly grave. “Will you help me,” she asked, “to save my nephew from the trou ble into which a scoundrel and a stupid police force have plunged him and out of which a pompous lawyer apparently can’t get him? I am an old woman, David, and a cripple. I can’t put a murder and a suicide where they belong, by my self.” "All you have to do,” I prom ised, “is point out the murderer.” “Do you think so?” she asked tartly. "I’ve found him already.” I looked hard at her. "It’s Lyon Ferriter,” said Agatha Paget. ‘Tve known that all along.” CHAPTER XVI Miss Agatha’s quiet words were more shocking than screams. They spoke so simply and readily the be lief that I had blundered toward, and recoiled from and reached at again that I could only stare at her. I blurted: “How do you know?” She was like a damaged and an cient lamp in which the flame still burned clearly. She told me: "From his hands. I was sure the evening when Captain Shannon first questioned him. Don’t you remem ber?” “Very well,” I answered, “but—” “His hands,” she went on, “himg at his sides. Usually, he uses them a lot. He was watching himself. He was acting the part of an en tirely innocent person in whose flat a man had been found murdered. He was overacting it. He had some thing to hide and he was hiding it, very carefully. Too carefully to fool me.” “Then why—?” I began, but she cut me off. “David,” she said. ‘T’ve been nev er so certain of my own virtues that I cared to hunt down the iniquity of others. Mr. Ferriter may have had very good reasons for killing his visitor, but—” She bit on nothing with a little jerk of her head and I thought of Lachesis, the withered Fate who cuts the cord. She rummaged in her handbag for something and, di vining her need. I offered a cigarette and lit it for her. Smoke and some thing more dire had narrowed her eyes as she went on: "Lyon Ferriter was clever-in his alibi. Since the part that anyone can check was fact, it has to be presumed the rest was too. No one can prove he was in that flat when the man was stabbed. What?” I had started to speak. Now I said, “Excuse me.” and held my words. "And until,” Miss Agatha went on, “that is proved and it is found how he got out afterward, Lyon Fer riter thinks he is safe. He is proud of his cleverness. That is danger ous—for him.” "Well?” I asked as she paused. She did not seem to hear me. She pursued, her eyes still narrow, her voice daunting in its calm: “All of which has been none of an old woman’s business—up to now. Lyon Ferriter called on me this morning. He said he wanted to help Grove. What he wanted was to ad mire his own cleverness. If he had come to me fairly, David; if he had said, ‘Your nephew and my sister have been having an affair. How can we get them out of trouble most easily?' he would have had me as an ally.” She rubbed the cigarette out on the ash tray with slow violence. I “Do I understand that is a threat?” gave her another. Her voice had an odd ring as she went on: “But he didn’t. He had no idea why Grove was in his flat! He said that he had given the boy a key because Grove was in and out of the apartment a good deal. Implic itly he served notice on me that that was what he had told, or will tell, the police. He’ll protect his sister and leave Grove to be scapegoat for the death of Everett and the earlier murder, if possible. My nephew’s plight is a godsend to hiir “And to lone?" I asked, doubt fully. “And to lone," Miss Agatha an swered and her jaw grew hard. “She hasn’t spoken, has she? She has not come forward with the truth to help her lover. Hers is the perfect fear that casteth out love. I wish I knew what it is.” Her self-possession got me by the throat. I blurted: “How foul people are!” Miss Agatha cocked an eye at me. “So you’re finding that out?” she asked. She sat silent a moment and I thought of the weathered figurehead, immune to storm. “Miss Agatha,” I said, “what do you want me to do?” She answered indirectly in a level voice: “All my life, thanks to my legs, I’ve been audience to the sorry dramas mortals play. I don't like the way this particular one prom ises to end I don’t like the thought of Grove still in jail—though I un derstand he is only being 'held for questioning’ according to Senator Groesbeck.” “Has he—your nephew—given any explanation?” The affectionate smile that accom panied her reply was pitiful. Grove, it appeared, had said nothing to the police and little enough to his law yer. He had been typing a letter at the desk in the workroom and had seen a light in the apartment, across the air shaft He had gone to the Ferriter flat and had found Everett about to throw himself from the window. He had tried to hold him, but the man had screamed and torn free. That was all. He would say no more. He would not even ex plain the note the police had found in his pocket. “And they say," Miss Agatha end ed, "that chivalry is dead. Grove, the young sophisticate, posing as Sidney Carton would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. He won’t see that. He won’t help himself. Very well, I shall have to save him by putting Lyon Ferriter in his place.” The certainty in her voice stirred mine to awe as I asked: “How?” Miss Agatha looked at me hard for an instant and the wrinkles about her eyes deepened. i "David,” she said. "I haven’t the least idea," and she gave her deep chuckle. I sat on the desk’s edge and told her everything I knew. It was a relief to talk to someone without holding back. We smoked together at first and then, as I passed from the scuffle in the basement to the duel with Lyon and the rifling of my room, the cigarette burned down un heeded in her fingers. She asked at last: "And why have you had all this attention?” "Miss Agatha,” I told her with a grin, “I haven’t the least idea.” She chuckled again. "At any rate,” she said, “we start even as allies.” "Wait,” I bade, and told her of the foreign voice I had heard at Mino’s. She looked at me hard when I had finished. "Are you sure?” she asked. I shrugged. "Right now, I’m not very sure of anything. Yet I don’t think I’m be ginning to hear voices. And it may be important, but it isn’t evidence, unless we can persuade Lyon to drop back into it again for the bene fit of the police.” "No,” she said thoughtfully. "You're right. It’s a signpost, noth ing more. There is a flaw in Lyon, somewhere. Everybody has one. If we could only find it and work on it—” "You said he was proud,” I re minded her. "And clever,” she added. "And also lucky, at poor Grove’s expense. Think a minute.” She gathered her fragile body to gether and looked hard at the hands clasped in her narrow lap as though they held a seer’s crystal ball. “Think,” she went on, "of his luck. Everett knew Lyon had killed Blackbeard. And Everett was fright ened. Anyone could see that. He was not of the breed of heroes. You were to be killed by accident while Everett rifled your room. The Fer riters thought you had something that was key to the murder.” “And Everett failed,” I offered as she paused, “and that, plus fear, destroyed him. So he wrote a fare well note to his family, who were waiting for him to show up at Mi no’s, and killed himself out of sheer terror.” The surprise in her face heart ened me. “Yes,” Miss Agatha said slowly, “that is quite possible and Grove found the note and since its implica tions seemed to threaten the well being of his precious beloved, pock eted it — he would — and thereby damned himself.” There was excitement and odd re lief in thrusting facts into the pig eonholes of theory where, at least, they would lie without falling out in confusion. Faint pink had come to Miss Agatha’s cheek-bones and her eyes sparkled. I asked: "Has your nephew told to whom he wrote the letter at this desk last night?” “He has not,” Miss Agatha an swered. “I never have known si lence less golden than his.” "Because,” I went on, “I think he is telling the truth,” and then 1 confided my own experience at that desk when, looking up, I had seen a light across the area and Grove pull ing down a shade in the Ferriter flat. Miss Agatha, when I had ended, reached out a hand and, amazingly, patted my knee. “I think, David,” she said quiet ly, “a very wrong-headed pair o 1 women owe you more than an apolo gy for what they thought of you this morning.” “Forget it,” I told her. She shook her head. “No,” she said. "Just postpone it. Mightn’t it be well if we were to write down, separately, all we know and suspect of this—bewilder ment? Thereafter, comparing our lists, we might find some hint of what else we should do?” “It might,” I granted, humoring her. "There’s another typewriter about," Miss Agatha thought aloud. "I believe it’s in the basement Storeroom. I’m sure it was put there when it came back from the repair man’s. Allegra!” I do not think she saw the move ment I made to check her call. I had small desire to face the scorn ful girl again. It hurt too much and, at the same time, angered me. But in an instant there she stood in the doorway, looking at her aunt and plainly not recognizing my exist ence. Sight of her smoldering niece made Miss Agatha revise her pur pose. “My dear,” she said briskly, “I have already apologized to David for what we both thought when his friend’s letter came this morning.” She paused. Allegra’s face did not stir nor did her eyes move. I fum bled for some word to end this or deal and found nothing. “Why should I apologize?” the girl asked. “So that I can read about it in tomorrow’s Press?” If she could hurt me so, I might be able to reach her. I said, as eas ily as I could: “News must be either interesting or important.” I was sorry then, for she looked at me, caught her breath and fled. (TO HE CONTINUED) WHO’S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON (Consolidated Features—WNU Service.) NEW YORK. — Also bulky and muscular, but less belligerent than John L. Lewis, his predecessor in office as president of C. I. O., is Philip Mur Murray of CIO ray. He is of i Silver-Tongued; Scottish de Checks Hard Fist scent and therefore giv en to fewer words than 1 Ir. Lewis, and has been a powerful offstage figure in the sensational rise of the C. I. O. in the last four years. Conservative labor opinion sees in his selection an augury for improved labor relations under the urgency of our defense effort. He has been a negotiator and labor pacifier for three Presidents. President Wilson made him a member of his War Labor board. In 1921, President Harding used him to sidetrack a civil war in the West Virginia coal fields, with 10,000 miners in revolt. President Roosevelt asked his co operation in the successful adjust ment of the threatened steel strike of March and April, 1937. He has been a hard-hitting foe of the left wingers, both in the old craft union ism and “vertical’’ unionism days. A month ago, he wrote to Eugene G. Grace, president of the Bethlehem Steel corporation, proposing a con ference, “for the establishment of orderly industrial relations.” In his native Lanarkshire, Scotland, he was a breaker boy in the mines. He arrived in America with his family when he was 16 and went down in the pit for the Keystone Coal and Coke company in Westmoreland county, Pa. He started a small civil war when he punched the weighmastcr in the nose. That, he has said many times, was one of his greatest mistakes. Thereafter he kept his temper. Rut the nose-punching started his career as a labor leader. The miners made him president of their newly organized local of the United Mine Workers of America, at the age of 18. He educated himself by a corre spondence course and now he is a master of flawless grammar and diction. Restraining his powerful fist has not always been easy and he en joys vicarious milling as an eager boxing fan. He ia silver-haired, slow-spoken, with a bit of the old Scottish burr on his tongue, and de liberate in speech and action. In behalf of his organization, he has pledged labor’s full co-operation in defense He is married and has a 21 year-old son. GUTZON BORGLUM, 73-year-old sculptor, recently made the ra dio presentation of awards in na tional poster contest of the William Allen White Gutzon Borglum, Committee to Sculptor, a Man Defend Amer Of Varied Talents ica h? Aidin* the Allies. Apparently taking this personally, Adolf Hitler orders the destruction of Mr. Borglum’s statue of Woodrow Wilson in Posen, Poland. The Nazis call it an "artistic eyesore, with the legs too short, the body too long and the head too large.” They wouldn’t talk that way to his face. The big, knobby, Danish American citizen once mixed with "Ruby Bob" Fitzsimmons, without getting hurt. He is not only a sculp tor, but an amateur boxer—still good for his age—a politician and engineer, a writer and a painter. lie likes a lot of elbow room In whatever he does and has been having the time of his life with his Black Hills sculptures of the Presidents. Standing up. his mountain-side Abraham Lin coln would be 465 feet tall. He’s never so happy as when he has a steam shovel for a chisel and a carload of dynamite for a mal let. He has a hair-trigger tem per, riding any big political cy clone that may happen to kick up. His first attempt at gargan tuan mountain carving, for the Confederate memorial at Stone Mountain, Ga., broke up in a row, in which models and plans were destroyed. With a number of other distin guished artists he has been active in the poster contest and has helped stir public excitement over the com petition. Born in Idaho, he was edu cated in Fremont and Omaha, Neb., and studied art in San Francisco and Paris. IN THE war-planning, which daily takes on more and more of an emergency aspect, whippy little gray-moustached Gen. George V. Strong is the diplomat of the army. His recent mission to Great Britain is said to have yielded much basic information on which the army and navy are working out hemisphere defense. He is chief of the war plans division of the war depart ment’s general staff. General Strong is one of the few high-ranking army officers who started their careers fighting Indians. Christmas Canblcs Christmas tree candles date back to the very earliest times in the Christian era. The Yule candle, of goodly size, lighted early Nativity celebrations. The lighting of can dles is indeed a universl religious and national custom. Candle light ing featured the Norse mid-winter festival of the turning of the sun. The Jewish Feast of Chanuckah or Lights is also celebrated similarly at the same season. Cfjntftntas $ifts Romans exchanged gifts during gay celebrations. But giving of pres ents of course goes back much ear lier. The Romans, however, gave It clearer identity as a part of their festival program. Christmas boxes and cards of today have a link to the ancient Roman festivities. In France, gifts are distributed to chil dren New Year's eve instead of Christmas. In England. Germany, Italy, agd most everywhere else, the custom is like io the United States. Santa comes a-visiting at Christmas. Christmas breaths In ancient times the Teutons re garded holly as a symbol of good luck. The custom was widespread of hanging evergreens in the inte rior of dwellings. Later the legend was widely circulated that all grow ing things blossomed and bore fruit the night of the Nativity. Holly came also to symbolize the crown of thorns worn by Christ. The Puri tans, however, regarded holly and mistletoe decorations as pagan in nature, and they therefore were out lawed. Cfmstmag !®>tocbing« St. Nicholas rides Woden's horse on Christmas eve in Holland. There the children put up their wooden shoes in the chimney corners as a stop signal for the merry fellow. Children of France followed the cus tom by placing their shoes for Bon homme Noel by the hearth. In Eng land and the United States, boys and girls improved on the idea by hang ing up stockings. These can hold more gifts. Christmas fttunns — — The Puritans predicted the disap pearance of Christmas carols and did what they could to discourage the custom of singing them. But it has grown more and more a part of the Christmas tradition which began in early Christian days in Rome. The French Noel, dating to the Elev enth century, and the German Weih nachtslieder, have the same origin. National Christmas Tree Scene of Annual Service The United States has a national Christmas tree! It is not a spruce, fir or hemlock, but a giant Sequoia which stands more than 267 feet high. The tree is located in Gen eral Grant National park, 64 miles east of Fresno, Calif. Devotional and patriotic services held beneath the tree each year since it was selected in 1925 are broadcast over a nationwide network. Potliolders You Can Make at Little Cost /"2ET busy on these string cro cheted potholders — they’re just the thing for bazaars, show ers or a hostess gift. • • • Pattern 2845 contains charts and direc tions for making potholders: illustration of them and stitches: materials needed. Send order to: Sewing Circle Needlecraft Dept. 82 Eighth Ave. New York Enclose 15 cents in coins for Pat tern No... Name . Address .... Gift Suggestion One way to sure popularity with pipe and “makin’s” smokers is to say “Merry Christmas” with the big one-pound Christmas gift pack ages of Prince Albert smoking to bacco. See them at your dealers— in gay holiday wrapping including gift card—and every big one-pound tin chuck-full of prime, rich-tast ing P. A.—the cool-burning tobac co. Your tobacco store has Prince Albert in the pound gift tins—pre sents all ready to bring Holiday cheer to many a man’s Christmas mom.—Adv. pppppi fppi CREMATION [foresTlawn cemetery • OMAHA • CREMATION of the most modern type Write to ua for booklet Money in Trust Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.—Holmes. How To Relieve Bronchitis Creomulsion relieves promptly be cause it goes right to the seat of the trouble to help loosen and expel germ laden phlegm, and aid nature to soothe and heal raw, tender, In flamed bronchial mucous mem branes. Tell your druggist to sell you a bottle of Creomulsion with the un derstanding you must like the way It quickly allays the cough or you are to have your money back. CREOMULSION for Coughs, Chest Colds, Bronchitis Motion Is Life Motion is the life of all things.—. Duchess of Newcastle. OUTSTANDINe BLADE VALUE 10 for 10 Cents cumn co.. st. lows, aa WNU—U 50—40 Light Heart A light heart lives long.—Shake speare. Today's popularity of Doan's Pills, many years world wide surely must ■ ■*]|feB*Bt>e accepted as evidence at ■ km* J ■ I H of satisfactory use. And ^EfluU^V opinion supports that of the able physicians who test the valne of Doan’s under exacting laboratory conditions. These physicians, too, approve every word of advertising you read, the objective of which is only to recommend Doan's Pills as a good diuretic treatment for disorder of the kidney function and for relief of the pain and worry it causes. If more people were aware of how the kidneys must constantly remove waste that cannot stay in the blood without in jury to health, there would be- better un derstanding of why the whole body suffers when, kidneys lag, and diuretic medica> tion would be more often employed. Burning, scanty or too frequent urina tion sometimes warn of disturbed kidney function. You may suffer nagging back ache, persistent headache, attacks of diz ziness, getting up nights, swelling, puffi ness under the eyes—feel weak, nervous, all played out. Use Doan's Pills. It is better to re^y on a medicine that has won world-wide ac claim than on something less favorably known. Ask your neighborI
