The Way of the Strong. Cullum Ridgwell
stages of organization, as he watched the increasing daily returns of his precious paper, he sat back in his creaking office chair and blessed the day he married the wife, whose sister had just won a similar competition somewhere at the other side of the continent.
At the closing of the entries it was found there were just two thousand competitors. Success for the scheme was assured, and quarts of ink told the gaping multitude that this was so.
Then came the day of the competition. It was to be held in the Town Hall. So well was the interest and excitement worked up that, all unpremeditated, half the smaller business houses were closed for the day; a fact duly commented upon in the later issues of the paper.
The competition lasted all day, and it was late at night when the last weary, palpitating competitors finally reached homes, which were still in a state of anxious turmoil.
There was no news of the winners that night. There was none the next morning. Nor the next. The editor knew his business and talked columns in his own praise, and in praise of the manner in which the women of San Sabatano had responded to his invitation.
A week passed, and then a special edition brought the long-awaited announcement which dashed the hopes of one thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight bursting feminine hearts. It was a simple sheet, with a simple heading. No splashes of colored ink. It gave the list of the twelve winners of the competition in dignified type, and invited them to meet at the editor's office at noon next day, to compete for the coveted special prize.
Among the names of the winners was that of Monica Hanson.
The following day Monica attended the final competition. She did her utmost, spurred on by the driving necessity which had just been thrust upon her brave young shoulders. Now she was sitting in the San Sabatano Horticultural Gardens waiting for the evening issue of the paper which was to tell her, in cold, hard type, the news which was either to crush her eager young soul in despair, or uplift her to realms of ecstatic hope and delight.
Oh, the teeming thought of those straining moments. It flew through her brain with lightning-like velocity, spasmodic, broken. One moment she had visions of pleasures hitherto denied her in a solitary career, eked out on a wholly inadequate pittance doled out to her monthly by her dead mother's solicitors in far-off New York. At another she was obsessed by the haunting conviction that such good fortune was impossible. Yet she felt she had done well in the examination, and, anyway, she would certainly take that five hundred dollars she had already won in preference to the European tour. It would mean so much to her, especially now—now that this fresh call on her resources had been made.
After long disquieting moments she finally sprang up from her seat. Her nerves were getting the better of her. She thought she heard the raucous call of the newsboy. She listened; her pretty brows drawn together in plaintive doubt. Yes, no—her heart was thumping under the white lawn shirtwaist she was wearing, in spite of the fact that it was still winter. But winter in San Sabatano was as pleasant as many another town's summer. In all the history of that beautiful southern Californian town the thermometer had never been known to register freezing point.
She made a pretty picture standing there amid a setting of fantastic tropical vegetation. The cacti, great and small, with their wonder-hued blooms and strange vegetation, were a fitting background to the girl's golden beauty. She was quite southern in her coloring, that wonderful tone of rich gold underlying a fair almost transparent skin. Her waving, fair hair shone with a rich, ruddy burnish, crowning a face of perfect oval, lit with eyes of the deepest blue, which shone with pronounced intelligence and strength.
No, her nerves had not played tricks with her. It was the newsboy. She could see him now, just beyond the park gates. He was selling his papers all too fast. So, with tumultuous feeling's, and a heart hammering violently against her young bosom, she darted off to catch him.
She reached the gates and slackened her pace to a decorous walk. The boy had just handed an elderly man his paper, and was searching for the odd cents of change waited for. Having paid his customer off he looked admiringly up into Monica's pale face.
His shrewd eyes grinned impishly, and he winked abundantly, so that the whole of one side of his face became painfully distorted.
"Say, ain't you Miss Hanson, Miss?" he inquired, with the effrontery of his kind.
Monica's heart beat harder. But she replied with an icy calmness.
"Yes. That's my name. But——"
The boy's eyes sparkled.
"Then I guess the paper is sho' worth 'two bits' to you," he cried, thrusting the folded sheet at her. Then his feelings and covetousness getting the better of him, he added, "Gee, five hundred dollars, an' two hundred a month! Say, how do it feel gettin' all that piled suddenly on to yer, Miss?"
In a flash Monica's dignity had vanished.
"What—what do you mean?" she cried, almost hysterically. "I——" Her fingers trembled so violently that she tore the paper nearly to ribbons struggling to open it in the breeze.
The boy grinned.
"Gar'n. You ain't smart any. Guess you best hand me that 'quarter' an' I'll show you wher' to look."
He was as good as his word, and handed her another paper folded at the right spot, nor, to his credit, did he wait for the money in advance.
"You won it sho'," he said, and waited while in a daze Monica read the wonderful news—
"'We have much pleasure in announcing that the winner of our Special Prize of a position on our staff at $200 per month is Miss Monica Hanson, whose wonderful speed, etc., etc.'"
Monica waited for no more. Snatching at her satchel she opened it and drew out a single one-dollar bill, and pushed it into the willing hand of the expectant boy.
"Keep the change," he heard her say, as she almost flew down the sidewalk of the tree-shaded main street.
The boy looked after her. Then he looked at his dollar bill.
"Wal, guess she ain't got all the luck goin'," he murmured philosophically, as he pocketed the well-worn note.
Monica hurried on at a pace, though nearly a run, far too slow to suit her mood. Never, never in her life had she felt as she felt now. Never, never. It almost seemed as if the whole world were before her with loving, outstretched arms and smiling face, waiting to yield her all that her young heart most desired. In a vision every face that passed her by in her rush home seemed to be wearing a happy smile. Even the trees overhead rustled whispered messages of delight and hope to her in the evening breeze. This was certainly the one moment of moments in her brief seventeen years of life.
She had hoped, she had dared to hope; but never in her wildest thoughts had she really expected to win this wonderful good fortune. Two hundred dollars a month for a year! Five hundred dollars capital to work upon! And all this added to the pittance which thus far she had lived on while she studied stenography. It was too, too wonderful.
She thought of all she could do with it; and at once there grew on her joyous horizon the first threatening cloud. There was her sister, the dearly loved, erring, actress sister who had come back to her out of those terrible wilds in the far north of Canada.
Thank God this good fortune had come in time to help her. Poor, poor Elsie, or Audrey, as she called herself on the stage. What terrible troubles had been hers. Deserted by the man she loved, left alone with an Indian, and another unfortunate white man, to make her way back to civilization. The thought of her sister's sufferings smote her tender young heart even in the midst of her own rejoicings. She had always disliked and feared Indians hitherto, but now, since she had listened to her sister's pitiful story of her husband's leaving her, and of the wonderful loyalty and generosity of the Indian, Si—— what was his name? Ah, yes, Si-wash—somehow she warmed towards them. It seemed wonderful to think of an Indian having such generosity as to give poor Elsie the money to get to San Sabatano from Juneau out of the payment he had received in advance from the journey from Sixty-mile Creek. Why, it must have taken nearly all he had.