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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 1940)
CHAPTER XVI—Continued. —17— “You’re not,’’ Miss Agatha asked slowly, “a very generous young man, are you?” “I have too little,” I told her, still tingling, "to be generous. That, I suppose, is why I fight to keep it. I’m so far beneath the Pagets—” "Don’t talk nonsense,” she bade. I shrugged, deliberately provoking my hurt. "So much that is—uncomfortable to me, is nonsense to a Paget,” 1 answered. She grinned mockingly. "How proletarian! You care less about lifting yourself than pulling others down?” "Let’s drop it," I said and flipped my cigarette into the wastebasket with needless force. "Willingly,” she agreed and laid hold of the rim of her chair’s wheels. "Will you stay to lunch. David?” "No,” I said ungraciously, "I have an engagement. With Cochrane of the Press,” I added to rub it in. "I see,” said Miss Agatha calm ly. “When you come back this aft ernoon, we’ll get the typewriter from the basement. And before you go out, you might see that whatever is kindling in the wastebasket is ex tinguished. We’ve enough on our hands without adding arson.” I smelled scorching paper and bent over the basket. "Annie,” said Miss Agatha, mov ing toward the door, “should have emptied it, but when the police come in the door reason flies out—” "Wait a minute,” I begged. There was a single balled sheet of paper in the wastebasket and the tip of my castaway cigarette lay on it. I picked up the crumpled wad and an odd feeling, half inspiration, half theory, excited me. My fingers trembled as I undid the ball. It was a half-completed letter, broken off in mid-sentence. As I read it I could see Grove, blindly in love as twenty-odd can be, hammering out reproach and devotion to the woman who had not kept their tryst. I could see him look up, where the typing ended, and mark that a win dow in the Ferriter flat was bright, lone had returned. She had not failed him. He had torn the paper from the typewriter, cast it into the basket and rushed, headlong, into disaster. 1 handed the crumpled sheet to Miss Agatha without a word and she, too, read it through be fore she spoke. “Poor boy,” she said at last, and there was tenderness in her usually brisk voice. “Poor, passionate, fool ish Grove.” I had expected something more from her than this, though even to me the missive was more pitiful and less ridiculous than most letters of its sort. “But don’t you see,” I asked, “what this means?” She turned to ward me and replied with equal tartness. “See? Of course I see? This is what put my nephew’s fingerprints on those typewriter keys. This is the letter he said he had been writ ing. That note the police found on him was written by Everett bent on suicide, earlier. This merely proves that Grove has told the truth. It seems more of a surprise to you, David, than it does to me.” She read it over again with a crooked little smile and folded it with gentle hands. I suggested: “Shan’t we turn it over to Shan non. It proves—” “Shannon?” she repeated with odd Indecision. “I don’t know. It seems to me a rather sacred thing. You see, no one ever wrote such a letter to me. Let me think it over, Da vid. We’ll talk of it later.” She rolled herself away without another word. I looked at the clock. It was almost time for my appoint ment with Cochrane. CHAPTER XVII The food before us cooled while 1 talked and Cochrane listened. Like the Ancient Mariner’s stooge, Jerry had to take it and like it. 1 had come to the beanery to Tell All. My mind had been partly laundered by my confession to Miss Agatha. I wanted to complete the cleansing by holding back nothing from Jer ry. There was too much darkness for me to increase it by further reti cence. It was bitter, under his mild and trustful regard, to lay bare things I might have told long ago, but I went through with it. I saw his eyebrows go up, and up, as I told of Grove’s earlier visit to the Fer riter apartment, of the voice 1 had heard in Mino’s and. finally, of Duke’s letter. Then I leaned back, feeling empty but easier and Coch rane looked from me to the salt shaker he fingered. “Duke,’’ he said, still watching it, “was sore, of course, over the skin ning we’ve handed him. He doesn’t know how much worse it might have been, if—” He stuck. I said, “If I hadn’t held out on you. Go ahead and tell me what I am. I won’t argue it.” He looked at me again and gave his beaming smile. “A guy who’s That Way is never quite normal. I might have done worse myself. You have large ideas, Lochinvar.” “Listen,” I told him. “I've got one idea. That is to get that noble and highbred sap out of this jam awd then fade out of the picture.” *'I get you.” He grinned. "With a sad renunciatory gesture that will live forever in her memory.” I checked what 1 started to say. "Go ahead,” 1 answered. "Rub it in. I rate it.” He still played with the shaker. He asked at last: “So the old lady didn’t have Win terbottom show you the door?” “No. All I have to do is help her get her nephew out of the coop and substitute the murderer.” “W’hich should kee£ you busy," Jerry said, “at least until day after tomorrow. Would you like any help?” I did not understand him. "I mean," he went on, “is this just a personal or a professional conference? Do I forget all you’ve told me, or do we work it out to gether?” His generosity threw me off bal ance. “If you still want me to play ball witn you,” I began, "after—” "I don’t quite see how I’m to fin ish it off solo.” He seemed relieved and went on more briskly. “Since we’re still accomplices, I’ve got something to show you.” He pulled from his pocket a creased and glazed placard, bear ing the picture of four men in tights and spangles, posed beneath a good deal of dangling cordage. Below the half-tone was the legend “The Four 1 picked up the crumpled wad. Flying Ferriters.” Cochrane gave it to me and said: ‘‘Handle it gently. I got it from Henkel, old-time vaudeville agent, and I’ve got to return it. Recog nize anyone?” I did and started to speak. I looked more closely and at last faced Jerry’s expectant grin. ‘‘Either of the two middle ones.” I said at last, ‘‘could have been Lyon Ferriter, ten years ago.” ‘‘Excellent, Watson,” Cochrane crooned. ‘‘My own idea. The one on the left, Henkel tells me, was Lyon Ferriter. His neighbor was his cousin, Andrew Horstman. The other Ferriters were named Levine and Pappas. They were semi-head liners in the old two-a-day era.” ‘‘Proving what?” I asked him, folding the placard carefully and returning it. “Not a thing in the world.” Jerry answered, “except that your friend used to be the daring young man on the flying trapeze. Henkel has the memory of an elephant but even he doesn't know what happened next. He does say that Lyon and his cousin were very intelligent, for acrobats. When the movies ruined Art, and the Four Flying Ferriters flew apart, Henkel thinks that Horst man went into acting and played in stock for a while and that Lyon went to Alaska.” “Part of which,” I told him, “checks. “It does more than that,” Coch rane drawled with the sleepy air that was his mask for excitement. “It practically proves that the Horstman who joined the Ferriters, Lyon and lone, in their honky-tonk, or whatever, in Alaska was their cousin. And he, if you recall, went out looking for gold with them. They found it and lost Horstman. He never came back.” “Well?” I asked, at last, for he seemed to have run down, yet I knew the pause was for dramatic effect. “Neither,” Cochrane crooned, “did Lyon and lone.” He beamed. I said, "All right; spring it.” “They never came back to their cozy little shack,” Jerry went on. “That’s pure Robert Service, eh? lone and her brother showed up the ' following spring in Fairbanks, which is a considerable hike from Tanana Crossing, where their place stood. “They claimed that Horstman got lost in a blizzard and he wasn’t there to say he didn’t. They had samples with them that started a stampede. Lyon went in with it and sold his claim. When he came back, he and sister went down-river, took steamer for the states and van ished. They left so fast, they forgot to do anything about the dump at Tanana Crossing. This was sold last year for taxes. And. thanks to the assiduous Fairbanks correspondent of the Press, there you are.” “Where?” 1 asked. Cochrane chuckled. “It all adds up,” he admitted, "to whatever you choose to make it It's background on the guy you and the old gal have elected murderer, any way.” I said, "It's also a problem in relationship. Everett used to be a Horstman. Then he wasn’t brother | to Lyon and lone. He may have j been—” I bogged down. “Brother or something to the Horstman the blizzard is alleged to have abolished.” Cochrane finished for me. “It’ll take a genealogist to figure it out, eh? And the authority on the subject broke his neck last night. That’s too bad. We need him.” “No,” 1 told him, "what we really need is Lyon’s weakness. That’s what Miss Agatha Paget wants." I went over my recent talk with her. Cochrane ate and then forgot his food to sit listening, apparently half asleep. “You know,” he said when I end ed, “that’s a pretty unusual crone. I'd like to meet her.” “Why not?" I asked. He had been too generous for me to hold back now. The question shook him out of his drowsiness. “Do you mean it?” “I’ll phone and see,” I said, ris ing. “But you’ll have to keep her out of the papers." “Oke,” Jerry beamed. "It’ll be enough of a thrill just to get inside the Morello." At the telephone, I told Miss Aga tha I was bringing Cochrane up to see her. If I had asked permission, I think she might have forbidden it, but I followed up with persuasion and reassurance until she consented and promised at my suggestion to clear our way through the hostile lobby. She was in the workroom when we entered. She seemed re lieved that Jerry had neither horns nor tail and welcomed him serenely. I had grown accustomed to the spirit that dwelt intact in that crip pled body, but Cochrane was a lit tle dazed. The tea-wagon, glass and bottle laden, stood beside the old lady’s wheel chair. “One of the few perquisites of age,” Miss Agatha told us briskly, “is liquor. I hope you drink, Mr. Cochrane?” "Only,” he said solemnly, "in my social moments.” Miss Agatha’s face changed and she glanced at me. She picked her words: "I had understood that this was a social call.” "It is,” Jerry told her, and she chuckled as she reached for the glasses. We talked and sipped our high balls. I watched Cochrane’s reti cence melt, and saw the old lady’s stiff face relax. Presently, with his doubt completely gone, Jerry was telling her in a low intimate voice all he had learned from Henkel and the Press’ Fairbanks correspondent, of Lyon’s past. Miss Agatha heard him through, with slowly narrowing eyes. She surveyed the placard Cochrane showed her and looked at it so long that Jerry repeated: "Ferriter is the second man from the left.” This seemed to rouse her. “Yes,” she said with forced brisk ness. “yes, I see,” and threw off whatever odd abstraction had held her. "He and his neighbor look much alike. So he’s the one who went with his beloved sister to the Arctic. I don't think I’m over-inhos pitable in wishing they’d stayed there.” “Is she,” Cochrane asked sudden ly, “his ‘beloved sister’?” Miss Agatha looked at him hard before she spoke. “I’ve seen no birth certificates,” she replied tartly, “but there Cer tainly is a family resemblance. And he is utterly devoted to her. If he were less so, my nephew mightn't be in jail at the moment.” “Because,” Cochrane went on, “I gather from our Fairbanks man—I wish I'd brought along that dispatch —that they quarreled a good deal while they were living at Tanana Crossing.” “Pooh,” said Miss Agatha, "broth ers and sisters always quarrel. She was good-looking, in a region of few women, and he probably was jeal ous. “Our correspondent’s idea.” Jerry answered, "is just the opposite. He wires that Lyon objected because she wasn’t attentive enough to cus tomers. After Horstman arrived, there was a blow-up. He and Lyon had a fight. That was just before the three of them went prospecting.” “And Horstman didn’t come back,” Miss Agatha thought aloud, and was silent for an instant. “Well,” she added, pulling herself together, "Lyon and lone probably murdered him. There’s nothing to compare with a murder as a solvent or maker of trouble.” Yet when Cochrane had gone, that part of his narrative seemed to irri tate her. She spoke of it while An nie rolled away the tea-wagon. - “You've seen for yourself,” she appealed to me, as though she need ed endorsement, “there never was a more devoted brother than Lyon.” I nodded as the bell rang. (TO UK COM I\l KOI O ttb thr Attgrl rame lit unto Itrr. attit Baih. Hail, thou that art t;igMtl fattorrb. the Curb iB with 1 her: blraarb art tljou among momrtu . —Ctthr 1 La Befana, Penitent Old Woman, Brings Christmas Gifts in Italy Santa Claus doesn’t visit children In Italy. It isn't because they are all naughty, but because there is no Santa Claus—in Italy. No one runs down to a well deco rated tree on Christmas morning to look for presents. Brightly colored La Befana still carries her pres ents for the Christ Child. flowers decorate the room instead of Christmas trees, and presents are not exchanged until January 6. On that night, an old, old lady, La Befana, walks from house to house and leaves a present beside each little child she visits. Exactly 1,940 years ago, accord ing to the Italian legend. La Befana was very busy sweeping her kitchen when several men dressed like kings stopped in front of her cottage. They asked her where Bethlehem was, but she had never heard of it. The men told her about a baby which had been born in Bethlehem, and mentioned a star which had been guiding them. The old lady wished she could accompany them when they left her in seirch of the infant Jesus. But La Befana stayed home. It was getting too dark out, and be sides, the baby could wait until tomorrow. Later that night she no ticed the sky quivering with light. The clouds seemed to take the form of angels. All thought of sleep left her. Rising, she carefully wrapped two gifts for the Holy Baby, then ran out into the night in the direc tion the kings had gone. Fast as she hurried, she had not reached Bethlehem when the star disappeared and dawn filled the sky. She frantically asked the way to Bethlehem, but no one could tell her. And so La Befana has constantly traveled since that day, searching for the Christ Child. On the Epiph any, 12 days after Christmas, she goes from house to house, looking into the faces of babies. With each she leaves a gift, hoping that at last she will give her presents to the right child. Christmas Card Was Invented By a Man With Many Friends 4 . **• .a ' ' 4 M*"*' Jl, «*• Office .....» <*#'« ftfsl This is be lieved to be the first Christmas card. It was made in Lon don In 1846. /'"'HRISTMAS cards are almost as much a part of Christmas as Santa Claus himself, yet they have been in use less than a century. According to most records, the first Christmas card was designed in 1846 by Mr. J. C. Horsley, a prominent member of the Royal academy of London. It was pro duced at the request of Sir Henry Cole, a man with many friends. Sir Cole wondered how he could express his personal Christmas greeting to a thousand friends spread throughout England. After dismissing the thought of visiting each personally, or giving presents, he decided to send them each a card by mail. One thousand hand colored cards were prepared with a picture show ing a jolly family seated at a huge dinner table. Each member of the family was looking into a brimming glass which he held in his hand. When these cards were distribut- j ed, they raised a furor among tem perance proponents throughout the country. The disturbance focused nation-wide attention on the new greeting card. It was not until several years lat er, however, that the first litho graphed Christmas card made its appearance. Originality was almost J completely lacking. The greeting was invariably “A Merry Christ mas” or "A Jolly Christmas.” De signs seldom had anything to do with the season, but contained pic tures of birds, flowers, animals or children. America soon adopted the British custom, and the Christmas card was born. Put Proper Postage On Christmas Mail Unsealed Christmas cards will carry for one and one-half cents postage. These cards may bear a simple inscription, which must not be in the nature of personal corre spondence. Examples: “Sincerely | youis,” “With Best Wishes,” “Mer rv Christmas." Be sure the weight o ' O o of the card and cover does not ex ceed two ounces. Letters may not be enclosed with Christmas packages. Such enclo sure would make the package first class. In fourth class or parcel post packages, written greetings such as “Merry Christmas,” with identify ing names, may be enclosed. Books may bear simple non-personal dedi catory inscriptions. They are carried at a special rate of one and one-half cents per pound. X-Ray an Aid j In Treating Sinus Trouble By DR. JAMES W. BARTON ONE day you may read of the great success cer- ; tain specialists have had in I the treatment of chronic sinus ailments by use -- ■ of X-rays and of TODAY'S how the clear- ur||it 11 ing up of the iltALIn sinus infection I COLUMN has resulted in greatly improved hearing of the patient. The specialist in this case has treated a num ber of cases and had cured or helped the majority of them. Perhaps the next day you read of another specialist using X-ray treat ment in the same I)r. Barton number of cases without any success whatever. Now there would appear to be some thing wrong when one specialist gets good results from a method of treatment and another gets no satisfactory results whatever. Dr. E. Trible Gate wood, Richmond, in Archives of Otolaryngology (ear and throat) reports the study of 22 cases of chronic sinus Infection (sinusitis) before and after treatment by X-ray. Four patients of the group showed complete relief of symptoms and eight were improved as far as their symptoms were concerned. Ten patients were not helped at all. Why were some of these cases cured, some improved and others not helped at all? Ventilation of Sinus Needed. It depends upon the condition of the lining or mucous membrane of the sinus. When this has become very thick or hardened, the X-ray (in the dosage given anyway) was unable to penetrate or restore it to normal. If this lining can be re stored to normal, the sinus can be properly ventilated. A well-ventilat ed sinus gives no trouble, as the air destroys harmful organisms and, if lining is not swollen and thickened, the sinus can drain properly into the nose and throat. Another point about the success or nonsuccess of X-ray treatment of sinus infection is that X-ray spe cialists are not agreed as to the “dose” of X-rays that should be given or how often. Sufferers with chronic sinus dis ease who have tried without suc cess all the usual methods of treat ment—sprays of adrenalin up the nose, washing out with salt and wa ter, injections of ovary extracts— can finally try X-ray treatment. • • • How to Relax And Go to Sleep A PHYSICIAN is often asked by adult patients as to the length of time they should sleep, and his answer in most cases is that eight hours is about right. Two cases often cited are Thomas Edison, who slept about four hours at night, and Woodrow Wilson, who required nine or ten. Most people forget that Edison was hard of hearing, and so when he slept he was not disturbed by noises low or loud, strange or familiar. It is being able to keep body and mind relaxed that prevents us from becoming tired too soon. A com pletely relaxed body and mind is getting 80 per cent as much rest as if it were asleep; that is, from the standpoint of heart rate, breath ing, temperature and blood pres sure. When the physician wants the pa tient to relax completely so that an examination of the abdomen can be made he asks him to hold his mouth open and breathe slowly through the mouth. This relaxes the body and, to a considerable ex tent, the mind also. Relaxation is the exact opposite of tenseness. To relax requires no effort. It means to “let loose,” to stop doing. In learning to relax a person learns to recognize tense ness wherever it occurs in the body. By letting each part of the body go limp or loose—legs, arms, trunk one after the other or all together, tenseness of body disappears and with it often tenseness or alertness of mind. Sometimes when there is no noise, no light, no draft, no heat or cold keeping you awake, try lying on ei ther side with arms and legs bent and your mouth loose and open. You may snore, but you should get off to sleep. QUESTION BOX Q.—Would prostate gland trouble have any unfavorable congenital ef fect on a child? Is it possible to cure prostate gland trouble? A.—If prostate trouble is simply an enlargement of the gland this could not affect a baby born to you. If infection is present treatment by a specialist is usually necessary. Sometimes it is necessary to remove prostate gland. Don't hesitate to speak to your family physician about it. O Fun When In OMAHA, stop) Food At the GYPSY Tea Shop. Your Fortune FREE. Licensed Readers, Second Floor Cnrtney Bid*. 17th and Douglas Street Live Stock Commission BYERS BROS & CO. A Real Live Stock Com. Firm At the Omaha Market Saleswomen Wanted Holiday Gift Boxes—Herbs, spices, con diments; sell stores, consumers; good commission. Box 32, Martin City, Mo. BEAUTY SCHOOL Enroll Now. Nebraska’* Oldest School. Individual instruction, graduates placed in good paying positions. Write Kathryn Wil son, manager, for FREE BOOKLET. Cali fornia Beauty School, Omaha, Nebr. Laughter is a most healthful ex ertion; it is one of the greatest helps to digestion with which I am acquainted; and the custom prev alent among our forefathers, of exciting it at table by jesters and buffoons, was founded on true medical principles.—Dr. Hufeland. The Smoke of SlowerBurning Camels gives you— EXTRA MILDNESS EXTRA COOLNESS EXTRA FLAVOR AND LESS NICOTINE than the average of the 4 other of the largest-selling cigarettes tested—less than any of them — according to independent scientific tests of the smoke itself.