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+ ------ we Een . Tha Fatal Hit RIND S---- | . BY A 8. GREENWOOD r B5e win, Beddington's bowl. Hig m's er and last tHcket, had been instructed to stone-wall. But the last ball of the last over of the match itched outside the leg:stump. The temptation was irresistible, He slashed at it. 2 It was the happy swipe of a rabbit of a batsman only dreams of. Up went a shout of applause, and up in a mighty are, soaring over the huge oak x > "That great hit of yours!" ed Daphne's mother, me all about it. in the hedge by London Road, sailed |don Road. the ball, to pass out of sight and fall nobody knew whither. Harry was smacked on the back, his hands were wrung, and the spectators applauded; but there was only one person in the meadow whose appre- ciation seemed to matter, * There she sat in a deck-chair by the score-board beside the tent, He glanced aside as he neared her. Daphne Glyn was clapping with the rést, staring at him, and smiling, Nervously he smiled, too. She always made him feel nervous, In the tent, hastily draining a tank- ard of ale, was Harry's uncle, Peter Knowles, He kept an hotel in Notting Hill, and occasionally spent a Satur- day afternoon at Beddington admiring his nephew's bowling : nd deriding his batting. Harry's huge hit had de- lighted him, So on the way to the station, arm- in-arm with Harry, he suddenly an- nounced that he had decided to stretch out a helping hand. "Fifty pounds, me boy," he said, to Harry's amazement. "Always meant to leave it to you, Rather you had it while I'm still above ground. I've me cheqae-book with me" It was past seven ¢'clock when an up train carried away Peter Knowles, minus his cheque for fifty pounds, Round to Mr. Palmer, the estate agent, went Harry. Mr. Palmer, found in his garden, heard Harry cut. Yes, Bryony shop and house were still on the market. Yes, if Harry put down fifty pounds, the building society would do the rest. Yes, he would certainly give Harry the keys. With the keys of that half-timbered, lime-washed little hous at the corner of Ci rch Road and High Street in his pocket, Harry hurried .o Mill Cottage, where Daphne Glyn lived with her mother. A lootpath by the stream skirts the garden, and there, hidden by the quick-hedge, Harry waited till scurrying, fluttering, tnd cackling an- nounced Daphne's arrival to feed the chickens. "Hallo! Harry exclaimed, saeming- ly astounded at their meeting. "Love- ly evening." It took him five minutes to screw up his courage to suggest a stroll Daphne was agreeable. In Church Alley, Harry switched the conversation abruptly to Tudor cottages. Later he remarked that he happened to have the keys of Byrony in his pocket. Had she ever seen the house?" She hadn't. She would like to. So Harry took her round the walled garden, stocked with rosemary, laven- der, and old-time favorites, and lean- ing appletrees; and finally, over the little house itself. "Isn't it jolly?" he said, as he open- ed the door of the old panelled par- lor, empty and echoing. It was a dream, Daphne said, eyes rapt, In one of Beddington's back streets Harry still kept the antiquarian shop which was all his father had left be- hind him. The few who knéw the Knowles' found their way again and again to the shop, but the great flood swirling through High Street swept by without dreaming of its exi ~fhere, stretched ovt on the front lawn, a few yards from the gate, a terrific bruise on his temple, lay a lit- tle boy, with the lost ball beside him. "My heavens!" exclaimed Harry, "No. Unconscious still, though. from the hospital." He had called twice before, Brooke said. The parents were newcomers to Beddington. Brooke had never met the father or mother before. In a frightful state they were. 'Only child. Seven, "Of course, it's not your fault. No- body could say that," Brooke added. "But it's ours, in a way--the club's, I suppose. Don't know how it stands legally." "We can't find 'em," Harry said. "Their expenses must be paid. That's cricket." "The club's in debt. already," said Brooke. "My dear Harry, they can't get blood out of a stone." "I--I'd better go round at once." They went together. They saw the weeping mother, and talked in low tones to the despairing father. A fracture of the skull was sus- pected. The tiny patient couldn't be moved. Shivering, though the summer night was sultry, Harry went home, was impossible. His fault? No. Common sense denied it. The boy's fault Of course not. Whose, then? Nobedy's. Danger had never been suspected, Never before had any bats- man lifted a ball over the oak. But the racket of the thing--the doctor's bill, the nurse's, the appalling fee a surgeon would charge were an operation decided: on--who was to pay? The club? Impossible. The parents? A struggling clerk and his wife! Who but the man who had made the fatal hit? Futile to reiterate that.it wasn't his fault, He shut his eyes and saw Daphne--Daphne here, there, every- where in Bryony. She faded. She had to fade. The whole day-dream faded. It would be only a day-dream--if he had to pay up. An immediate operation had been decided upon, he learnt, having called early at the bungalow next morning. < With the child's father; Harry walk ed up and down the little garden. Quiet, with the quietness of despair, the man was. "It wasn't your fault in the least," he said, shaking hands with Harry at the gate. "You musn't worry, old man." But worry had haunted his eyes and had crept into every sentence. Even in his grisly fear for the boy's life, he could not shut his eyes to the huge load of debt piling up with every passing hour. To Mill Cottage Harry went. With Daphne he sat beside the stream in the shadow of a huge yew, and there she heard him out. "And he doesn't demand anything?" she asked, ° "Nothing." "He doesn't threaten?" "No. He owns it's no fault of any- body's." "How splendid!" she breathed How things would be changed were Bryony his Harry pointed out. He told her how, if he had fifty pounds to plank down, all might be well. She listened with shining eyes. - "What a shame!" she said. "Such a huge opportunity! Couldnt raise the money somehow?" "I have!" he then said eagerly. "Bryony's mine. I'm going to be the happiest fellow in Beddington if you'll let me be." "Met" But she wasn't surprised. Probably Harry argued Inter on, she had known before he did. Then, as the sun sank, they planned and day-dreamed in every room the little house contained; and he pictured her in his mind in each his wife and pal, and kissed her in each because he couldn't resist the temptation. That night he sat in the moonlit you He glanced aslant at her, She wasn't looking at in in the light he had come to, see it in. That, perhaps, was na- tural. She hadn't hit that fatal ball Nothing lay on her conscience, stamp- ing, coloring every thinght. "But I musn't take advantage of that, Daphne," he muttered. "Why, no!" she said quickly, and her | hand stole out and her fingers Trent between him. "I know what you'r thinking. «+ It won you fifty pounds, that hit. And it's lost you it again-- or some of it." : "That's how you look at it? he said, staring at her, thrilling, in a strarge sense of elation, "There isn't any other way, is there?" she said. 8 They said good-bye to Bryony to- gether, wandering all over the little house; then, still together, solemn, they went to Mr. Palmer's house. garden at Mill Cottage, The estate agent, busy in his gar- MWHATT (| [EMore HB NowrLeTs see: IN THA 2 > \EFICULTS Li FIRST PLACE IT A" N= Wen NECESSI : tea ni hE Yi Si A ey A & Dr. Hopwood's with him, and a nurse] Sleep |. J to le among them, pale white wraith fn a fleld of bronz- es, Thereupon I resolved: to clothe myself aright, and from that day to this the resolution has been kept. -} 1 came again and again to L Street. Slowly the stark white gave way to Elizabeth Pilot, Ossining, New RADIO TELEPHONES INSTALLED ON BERENGARIA York, and chief wireless operator of Berengaria, inaugurating new wireless telephone service on board the BRAD. | hap den, heard them out. He was ready to cancel the verbal agreement. But it wasn't Harry's fault. Nobody would play cricket, or golf, or even tennis iH "Whose fault was it?" Harry asked. That stumped Mr. Palmer. He gave it up. They went that afternoon to the bungalow. A London surgeon's car stood at the gate. His real fee was a hundred guineas, Harry heard, as he walked in the back garden with the ashen father. But the specialist had been told, and was letting them down easily. The district nurse, too, cast only a nominal sum. But the other, the surgical nurse--- Some of the fifty pounds? Harry realized it meant it all and more-- much more, After argument and the ch for fifty p 5 x behind him, and rejoined Daphne. In the front garden 'they waited. "Splendid, they say! Doing fine!" was the bulletin they subsequently took away, Back to Mill Cottage and supper. Out on to the bank of the stream in the shadow of the yew. And there he told her that struggling on in Bed- dingeh meant struggling for ever. He saw that. He was wondering-- Sell | up. Little, if anything, would remain. Go to Canada--anywhere. Work--as only her lover, with Daphne waiting, could/work. Save and slave--and send for her at last. ® "Wait alone?" she said, and her tears dripped on his fingers. Yet it was best. She acknowledged that. "After all," said Harry, "if I hadn't slashed out and made that swipe, I'd never haye had the fifty pounds. With- out it I'd never have had the fifty pounds. Without it I'd never have dared ask you to marry me. Daphne, if it wasn't for the poor little lad, I'd have to be glad!" In silence they clung to each other. An agitated voice in her mother's garden made them draw back. 'The lawyer came tonight," they heard, and Harry recognized the voice of the boy's father. "It was only this afternoon she owned up. Miss Barton --only daughter of Barton--the boot- man--the millionaire. Lost her hed she says. Didn't dare stop. Blinding along, Why, she adinits she was do- ing forty-five!" "I don't understand one bit!" pro- tested Mrs, Glyn. "Yesterday," he went excitedly on. "The-accident. She-was-driving along London Road. My boy must have run out of the front garden for the ball. He picked it up, she says, then darted back across the road. You know what kids are. She braked and swerved, she say®. Thought she'd missed him. But the back of the car knocked him down. She looked back. He was up protest, he left went on." The man choked. "Money!" he™ ejaculated shrilly, "Lashings of it! -'Ready--longing to pour it out, they are!" . "It wasn't the: ball?" cried Mrs, and making for the house. And shel: Glyn. "You mean it hadn't anything to do with Harry?" On Harry's sank Daphne's lips. Against his her heart beat. "That's it!" the man agreed. "That's what brought me round, He's a brick, and here's his cheque for fifty pounds!" --"Answers." 4] ---- The Pebble There's nothing unimportant In this wondrous world of -ours, From its mountains and its rivers To its butterflies and flowers; So you need not he downhearted, And the gods of chance impeach. It you're very undistinguished-- Just a pebble on the Beach: You may long to be a' mountain, Or a clit or towering crag, Or a bright and radiant jewel, Quite the biggest in the bag; But the least and oft the lowliest / Great lessons have to teach, And the stormy waves are baffled By the pebbles on the beach. Perhaps life never meant you For a place of rank and power, For a mighty, moving century, be But only for an hour; ns But it gave you form and beauty, And a place a child can reach, When it made you just a pebble, One of many on the beach. --A., B. Cooper. Af . . Usefulness The duty which nq one can dis- claim, the test which no one may evade, and the prize which no one will despise are all inclined in the homely word of usefulness.--Bishop Thorold. ! ig Comfort Have we not too often forgotten the real meaning of the verb, "to com- fort?" It is "comforto"--to strength- en much. He who increases the pow- er to bear does even more than he who decreases the burden, ee eis A He: I love you awlully! an ever-d ning shades of brown. Slow- ly I learned the laws and dogmas of my cult. The high priest was a man named Richards. He wore a circular fashioned out of: paper and nothing else. He was a teacher of music and would spend long hours enlarging o nthe monopolies, cabals, and high crimes of the House of Ri- cordl. He spoke with circumstantial precision, but without bitterness -- for Who lying in the sun can be bit- ter? -- and about him sprawled a pro- fessor of England at Harvard, a pol- iceman from Dorchester, a banker, a night-worker in a powerhouse, a fam- ous criminal lawyer, an advertising man, a locomotive engineer, and a no- torious gunman. were always in process. Wa talked of law, science, government, women, out passion, with a detached philose- Dpyh Which held, I am convinced, an authentic wisdom. The sun nourish- ed that wisdom, 'that all-pervading tolerance. Beating down upon us, it ironed out the taut-impetuosities, the nervous, hasty judgments, the bile and the bitterness of men who walk the streets of modern cities in their clothes, : : Our rules were few, but strict. One never stood in a brother's sunlight. {One never yelled threw sand, or broke into conversation violently. It was mandatory to "take the water" af \least once, whatever the time of year. Practical jokes of all kinds efbluded one from the fellowship, As why should they not? An utter! yrelaxed body is in no psychological condition for practical jokes, All winter long we came when the days were bright. If thesky was clear the wind not too sharp, it was amasz- ing how warm one could keep in a sheltered corner. Our color 'ebbed a little, but never really left us. Red copper. gave way to pale mahogany. On Christmas day the hardiest of us had a swimming race, with shivering reporters in attendance, who served it up with all the regularity of the an- nual groundhoy story, We were the L Street Brownies, halt man, half wal- rus. : ned Nobody had ever heard of ultra- violet in those days.Few of us ar rived because of a doctor's orders -- though there were doctors among us. But by and large we knew, with pro- foundity which mocks science, that what we were doing was good for our bodies and good for our souls, I culd not explain it then, and I cannot explain it now.. I have women who have loved to bathe, to lie' on Summer sands, to feel the sun strik. ing into their marrows, but who have been utterly untouched by 'that deep er call which binds them eternally to Helios. In a way it Is like a drug; a sunless month, and the world goes askew. But contrary to the laws of drags th (fects are never pain. i No accrodian sunworshiver | silly enough to burn are a sense of well-being, nerves, of inner vitality, It takes time, patience, She (wearily): Yes, it is truly | awtul thing to be loved by. you, H brothe Interminable, drowsy conversations ful crime, sports history, races -- with] .® , Whenever 'And have I not met my before sclentitic sanction was ever t|heard of. We are an ba We have stripped in' the teet the mores and all the 'constables. We 7 have. kept on" dune and ledge, fficked not with hospital and clinic. Once I saw a million brothers, yea, and sisters, too. I witnessed the in- credible spectacle of fifty 'thousand brown bodies in one work-day noon on the Mowcow River -- some in bath- ing suits, some In trunks, perhaps the majority as God made them. What were systems of government in the face of this fact? These people were my people, and I cared not how de- plorable their civil institutions. A whole city throwing its clothes into the air! America, we shall un- dress and bronze you yet! Shall we? b The prescriptions .are gofig out the thousands from the highest med: ical authorities, but if it is the nat- ural sunlight you desire, in quantities greater than that provided by a bath. ing suit, try and secure it. It has taken 'me a dozen years of 'skilled Anvestigation to learn how to gecure my share, nor am 1 always sucess: I have been associated With reform movements in my He is with considerable astonishment that I find one actually gaining od ny Bound. Two years ago a man was arreste dat a Florida beach for ap- pearing in trunks. T 'hasty signal from a brother was all that kept me from shating his cell. 'This year, if you 'please, the municipality has pro- vided two solariums, male and fem- ale, where one may spend the day without a stitch, 5 Most of this sun-worship I believe profoundly good. dt odly a ter porary craze? Will America stip b; the million In. the next few years, only, to be back fn its shroud in ¥ decade? I neither know nor greatly care. If the republic wants to go native and can hold to it with any fidelity, it will probably do more than any othér eon- ceivable action to balance the inp | { bibitions and . pathological cripplings (induced by the machine age and the monstrous cities in which we live. It it but wants a new fad to, play with and presently to toss aside, I know where to find sheltered spots where come not.--The Nation, Portsmouth' Pride Visitors to Portsmouth seldom fail to look round the Victory, Nelson's famous flagship, During the last six years over 100- 000 has been spent on the work of preserving and restoring the Ship, and] the restoration is not yet quite com: plete. It was recently annoimee however, that the 7 had greed to mest the cost of the worl that still remains to be done, "The. Admiralty has also given 'the old Rigging House, which is near the Victory, and a modern building beside | it for a Victory Museum. i On board the Victory itself are many interesting relics, including th furniture which was in Nelson's cabin ke battle of Trafalgar. This is on loan, audit was recently announced that it had been sold to but this was at once £20,000. di Lo all tra ln i that God. fs] ite, and of comes the sun and the wind and men]. | oa tho} four-piece affairs that ought to Tast a couple of winters and two or three America, ; and forest. Broad steps lead down a terrace, with more roses runs a narrow --_ ich is plante a choice collection of Chinese Japanese peonies. 5 Below the lawn the ground was filled up with numerous loads of manure for a rhododendron shrub. bery, beyoud which a stone wall, with balustrade, was built so as to form: a definite boundary, The walks on either side of the lawn' being 'some | what steep, have steps of roush nat- 'ural stone set in cement which give a delightfully picturesque: effect. 3 In the southeastern corner a great cavity was turned into an enticing rockery, with walks and seats. Five huge fir trees were PHL m a long distance, and "although: people laughed at the attempt to transplant such big trees, they "heyertheless grew splendidly, Among other things a big sod with that Sweet procured from Sweden, but al , it was planted 'under pine three 'years, the-only thing planted that did 'not flour] A number of famops nur and a large botani- tlowering plants, ore "of charming collections being y variety. of Aurieulas 'In. the. most beautiful shades. To the east or the house is a' lawn. for' bleaching linen, surrounded 1 lavender hedge. In this part is also a bower of trimmed lime--no Danish garden is complete without it. 'There are no standard roses, partly Ge EA ae & FLA, house and the pergolas, among which Is that beautiful gardenia-like Frau. lein Octavia Hesse, ti » Jus sof growers, and with "a lovely. t dark green foliage. The One-Piece Suit For Men! In the- last analysis it fs the one- - piece suit that the men want, They are beginning to be a bit jealous of the women. A generation or two 2go, when women fought against dress reform for the traditions of several centuries, when women's. skirts were carpet sweepers and side- walk cleaners, mon bad the most of forts of jdress and women th mforts, ~ 'Apparently 'condi- tions have reversed themselves, * Nowadays women look over ths bargain counters, pick out a piece of light cloth with four holes in it, hand the clerk $1.98 and take home 4 com: fortable summer dress, And it looks well, tod. 'What does the man do? He pokes around a lot of woolen goods and finally decides on one of those ronder he It is a mn | ns. JAS 'are just beginning to That auch an nist 5 not ne acme of c fort, and it is er Eras peat, and some loads of old cow: ' . the cal Toon 'in Copenhagen supplied & variety of rare and oti hota 4 rn fficulty. But there Is a wealth of ; limbers up. the i scented 1 tittle herb, Linnzea poral Twa : : 3 3 § -