The Giddings Star (Giddings, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 23, Ed. 1 Friday, September 4, 1942 Page: 3 of 8
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THE GIDDINGS STAR
©
THE STORY so FAR: Clay Morgan
has decided to play a lone hand against
Ben Herendeen, a rancher bent on run-
alas the cattle country his own way. The
two men have been enemies for years,
having first fought over Clay's wife,
Lila, who died hating him and believing
ahe should have married Herendeen.
Morgan is a solitary figure, devoted to
his nine-year-old daughter, Janet. Al-
though two women, Catherine Grant
and Ann McGarrah, are in love with
him, they know he cannot forget Lila.
Of hla former friends, only Hack Breath-
itt has not gone over to Herendeen's
side. Seen camping with Pete Borders,
a rustler, he is a fugitive from Heren-
deen’s men. Gurd Grant, Catherine’s
brother, hesitated about joining Heren-
deen, but became Morgan's sworn ene-
my when he disenvered that Catherine
had been to his ranch. When he learns
that Herendeen has sent a party out to
find Hack and kill him, Clay starts out
to find him first. He goes to Freeport,
to Kern Case’s store, where he thinks
he will find Hack. Herendeen arrives,
and there is a free-for-all fight. In the
midst of the fight, Hack appears. Her-
endeen and his men are driven off, but
not before they have set fire to the town.
As Clay, Hack and Kern Case watch,
the whole town, including Case's store,
burns to the ground.
Now continue with the story.
CHAPTER XII
It was beyond midnight when Clay
reached home. Harry Jump, night-
hawking around the yard, followed
him into the kitchen and watched
him strip down to the waist and
wash. Morgan's cheeks showed the
battering of Herendeen’s fists.
Morgan went up to his bed and
lay there, his brain pulsing within its
skullcap and strong pain traveling
through his left arm from a bro-
ken finger. It made him remember
the older fight. Both of them had
been younger men, soon recovering
from the misery of that beating.
This one would stick, it would be
buried physically in them as long
as they lived, and the sting of it
would never leave their minds.
At two in the morning, his broken
hand on fire, he dressed and went
downstairs; he lighted a lamp in the
kitchen and shaved himself for want
of something better to do—watching
the bruised patches on his face slow-
ly change color. He stoked up the
stove and put on the coffeepot; and
sat on the porch in the moon-shot
heart of night. Wind drifted across
the flats, cold and sweet. Harry
Jump appeared from the shadows,
saying in his sleepy, irritable voice,
"one Are coin to stay up
Morgan got up from the chair, un-
able to take the punishment of his
hand by sitting still. He went in
and drank his coffee, black and hot,
and returned to the yard, pacing out
through the long-thrown shadows of
the poplars. The weathered juniper
poles of the corral showed whitely
in the moonlight; across the valley
the outline of silence; even the night
creatures at last grew still. And so
he watched this land, his land, slow-
ly turn through the night from glow-
ing shapelessness to the first hard
■hadows of false morning. A streak
showed over the eastern hills and the
horses began to stir in the corral.
At four he heard the cook cross the
kitchen, asthmatically coughing; at
five, drawn and wire-nerved, Morgan
ate breakfast with the crew.
He said to Jump, "I’ll be in town
for a couple hours. Stick close to
the house until I get back."
Afterwards, all his muscles sore
and strained and ragged, he climbed
the stairs to Janet's room and stood
a moment by her bed. She lay in
a curled bundle, both hands drawn
near her face. Her lips were soft,
almost on the edge of a smile, as
though her dreams were pleasant;
and this way, unconscious of him,
she showed Morgan a childish
sweetness that held him there, long-
wondering and strongly moved. It
was that little-girl look, full of faith
and belief, which struck him so
hard. It, would not, he realized, be
with her much longer. He left the
room reluctantly, got his horse and
lined out for War Pass, reaching
town beyond sunup and going direct-
ly to Charley Padden's house.
Charley was the only doctor in
the country, a man turned rough and
blunt by the kind of practice he
had, somewhat profane and appar-
ently calloused to pain in others.
When he saw the broken finger and
the bruises on Morgan's face, he
said: "The other customer came in
before daylight. I took four stitches
in his lip. This is going to make
you squirm, Clay. Want a drink of
whisky first?"
"No,” said Clay, “go ahead and
don’t talk so damned much.”
Rounding the bend of the trail, a
few minutes later, he saw Catherine
Grant dismounted in the trail, wait-
ing.
When Morgan dismounted before
her her eyes showed him something
that warmed him through and
through: it was a swift personal in-
terest, a little saddened by what
she saw, as though his injuries hurt
her heart. “Bones McGeen came by
the ranch late last night and told us
what happened." She watched him
quite closely, one strong line of
worry across her forehead. "I was
afraid you were badly hurt. I hope
you paid him back. I hope you
smashed the lights out of him!”
He managed a grin. “He'll take
no beauty prizes for a spell."
They had this power to be pleased
with each other, to cover up serious-
sen with a light, touch-and-go hu-
DDLEaRIDE
By Ernest Haycox mitt, -
“Herendeen has sent over the mountain for the Ryder boys.”
He said: “I’m glad I crossed your
trail. What are you doing?”
“I was coming your way. I want-
ed to see how you were.”
“Did you tell Gurd you were com-
ing?"
“No.”
“What’s the matter with him?"
She lowered her head and drew
patterns on the soft forest soil with
her finger-point. Her hair glowed
darkly in the morning’s light, it
deepened the color of her cheeks.
“I don’t know," she said in a re-
served voice. She wouldn’t look at
him during these moments. “It is
Herendeen's influence, I suppose."
She lifted the soft earth in her
hand and let it slide between her
fingers. Her face was sweetly so-
ber. Her long and fresh-colored lips
expressively changed shape when
she looked at him. "No explana-
tions, no apologies. That is the way
you’ve always been.”
“What else can anybody do?”
“Nothing, I guess. Only it makes
it hard for people to understand you
sometimes. To know what is in
your head.”
“You never had any trouble figur-
ing me out,” he reflected.
"Ah, but I have a special gift that
way. I know you through and
through.” They were silently laugh-
ing at each other, influenced by an
undercurrent which always buoyed
them up when together. She turned,
lying back on the ground, her body
hill-shaped against the folds of her
riding habit.
She pillowed her head with her
hands and watched the bright blue
patch of sky showing through the
pine-tops, speaking in a distant,
dreaming voice: “Nothing ever
changes, Clay. The earth, the wind
or the sun. Or the things I want,
or you want.”
He remembered what Ann Mc-
Garrah had so swiftly asked him:
What had he wanted? Now, not
knowing what it was, he asked Cath-
erine: “What do I want?”
She said in a faraway tone: “I
wish I knew.”
“What do you want?”
She turned her head, so close to
him now that he saw the gray flakes
of color in her eyes. The dance of
laughter was in them, and an in-
expressible gravity was in them,
both humors blended. It was the
way she hid herself from him when
she chose. “Never ask a woman’s
age, never ask what she wants ”
He said indolently: “I wish I had
a steak, with onions. Maybe Ger-
man fried potatoes and a piece of
apple pie. Now that’s what I want."
She said: “Do you remember the
night we rode to Freeport in the
rain and ate Kern Case's flapjacks
and coffee, and played rummy un-
til he got scandalized at our conduct
and sent us away? It was awfully
dark in the Potholes that night,
Clay."
“What ever happened to that
brown dress?"
She said in a wondering tone,
“You still remember it?” Then she
added quite gently: “Somewhere in
the attic, Clay. It is up there with
all the other things I outgrew and
put away to forget—and never quite
forgot. Would you want to go back
to those times, Clay?”
“No,” he said, "I guess not.”
She said: "There's something
else I came up here to tell you.
Herendeen has sent over the
mountain for the Ryder boys.
They're gunmen, Clay."
He said, “Time to go," and held
out his hand. His fingers were warm
and strong, they had a pressure as
she pulled herself half-upright and
for a moment, her shoulder softly
touching his chest, she watched the
dust dancing in a shaft of slanting
sunlight, her eyes half-closed. “No,”
she murmured, "I guess I wouldn't
either”
"What?"
“Go back to old times. We'd do
the same things, and make the same
mistakes. Nothing changes."
She turned her head to him, her
lips pressed in soft humor. But the
expression on Morgan's face sent
the smile away and for this short
heady interval of time they were
remembering the same things,
hard-touched by them, dangerously
stirred by them. That old closeness
came back, that old reckless, sweet
wildness came back and shook
them; and for a moment he was
shocked alive by the things her
nearness did to him. The past
rushed up and he saw her as he
had once seen her—a girl holding
him away with a gay insolence even
as her eyes pulled him on. He saw
now the faint freckles at the base
of her nose and the curve of her
eyebrows and the close texture of
her skin, gently browned by the sun
—and the reflection of himself in her
pupils.
She rose and stepped away from
him and did 'Something then that
told him of her thoughts; she lifted
her chin, her face tightening against
a flare of excitement, and pulled her
hands behind her back as she had
done in those old days when she
was afraid of what was to come.
“My boy,” she said, breathlessness
in her throat, "it is time to go.”
“Back home?”
She shook her head. "I’m riding
with you. There's something on
Long Seven I want to find out. You
don’t mind, Clay?”
He had his awkward moment in
mounting with his bad hand. They
traveled single-file up the trail to
Mogul’s plateau, and afterward rode
abreast across the dun-yellow sur-
face of the high meadows, beneath
a half warm sun. High on the
tawny ribs of the Mogul ridge cattle
grazed; a puff of dust rose from
the bounding flight of an antelope.
Catherine said: “It is a beautiful
world, Clay.”
Turning the foot of the Mogul
Mountains, they came upon the
Long Seven yard. Janet was wait-
ing in the doorway, her hands prim-
ly folded in front of her dress. Harry
Jump and Cap Vermilye were near
the corral talking to the nester from
Salt Meadow, Fox Willing.
These three moved toward Mor-
gan but he ignored them for this mo-
ment, caught by this scene of Cath-
erine facing his daughter. Catherine
walked forward, tall and pleasant
in the sunlight, not smiling but near
to a smile. Janet’s small hands re-
mained locked across her dress. Her
face held its precise gravity, its un-
moved reserve; her eyes were quite
cool yet Morgan, who knew his
daughter thoroughly — the shaded
meaning in her various degrees of
silence and politeness—recognized
an odd restraint in his daughter at
the moment. It was a mirrored re-
sentment, the cause of which he un-
derstood at once. Somewhere along
the last year or two his daughter
had absorbed the viewpoint of Ann
McGarrah. Somehow Ann McGar-
rah had mysteriously instilled in
Janet her own dislike of Catherine.
These were the ways by which wom-
en sent their feelings intuitively
across space to other women. Jan-
et was Ann’s partisan and her small
clear face, so exactly neutral, could
not quite hide her jealousy. He
stood by, quietly angered at Ann
McGarrah for what she had done to
Janet, knowing he had no way of
changing Janet’s expression. She
was no longer a child to listen im-
plicitly to him. In her own mind,
in that shadowland between child-
hood and wisdom, were beliefs she
held by her own judgment.
Catherine was at the porch. She
said: "I haven’t seen you for a
very long while, Janet."
Janet's voice was slow and cool.
"Thank you. Would you like a cup
of coffee?”
“No,” said Catherine, and settled
on the steps of the porch. She looked
at her hands a moment, drawing a
deep breath; she was aober and re-
atrained. "No, but thanks. That's
a pretty dress. I had one once, al-
most the same color. I wore it to
a lot of dances”
"Were you my age then?" asked
Janet.
“I was older. But at your age I
used to dance by myself when no-
body was watching."
“I do, too," said Janet. “How
long did you have to wait before you
could go to dances?' She spoke it
and then, remembering her father’s
presence too late, threw him an em-
barrassed look.
Catherine noticed it. She said im-
mediately: "It will seem long, ss it
did to me, but it really will be so
short a time!"
Fox Willing moved around to face
Morgan. He said, "Mr. Morgan, I
rode over to tell you something .. ."
(TO BE CONTINUED)
PE GAVADLA
odd Lie. A/CE a Testes
Y OU brought out an important
point in connection with Carl
Hubbell," writes Old Timer, “that
I don't think you stressed enough.
This was about Hubbell after 20
years of pitching, 15 years as a big
leaguer, still trying to learn some,
thing new or something better.
“I always knew that Carl Hubbell
was one of the smartest pitchers
' - _____in baseball. This
proves that he is
even smarter than
I thought he was.
For the great ma-
jority, especially
those who are above
the average in skill,
think they know
most of it. They
_ are no longer inter-
WRdal ested in learning
1 “ something new and
Carl Hubbell something better.
“This is a great
human weakness. Too many think
they know enough when no one
knows much. Especially in these
days no one knows nearly enough.
"What a fine thing it would be to
have many more people adopting
Carl Hubbell’s method of still trying
to learn after so many years at
the top.”
The Meager Minority
This happens to be 100 per cent
true. We’ll take the argument back
to sport.
Those who happen to lack cer-
tain qualifications in the way of skill
or knack, get discouraged too eas-
ily and give up.
They either lack the determina-
tion to keep trying or they fail to
understand how much they might
learn from others that would carry
them out of the rut.
Many of those who happen to be
rigged out with speed or skill or
the winning knack take it for grant-
ed they are approaching the super-
man class and so need no further
instruction or improvement.
There never was a human being
who knew it all, or anything even
approaching the ultimate.
You’ll find that Cobb and Tilden
were still experimenting, studying,
working on new angles after more
than twenty years of championship
competition.
We could also name a number of
others who stopped learning quickly
and showed no particular improve-
ment in later years.
They had nothing to learn from
coaches or trainers.
Old timers were jokes. They all
ready had the answers.
Sarazen Speaks
“One of the big thrills I’ve gotten
out of golf,” Gene Sarazen says, “is
this—I’ve learned something every
year I’ve played.
“I’ve found out that things 1
thought were important 20 years ago
are not so important after all. I’ve
found other things I payed little at-
tention to meant a lot.
"Hagen was always a great guy in
this respect. He was always trying
to learn something
that might improve
his game. After he
had been Open
champion, I saw
him one day taking
a lesson, or at least
friendly advice,
from Harry Vardon
on how to play a
certain type of shot.
Walter never
thought he knew it
all, or any big part
of it.
Walter Hagen
“I’ve tried to learn something that
would help my play for the last ten
or fifteen years. I thought as a kid
I knew most of it.
"It was only when I began to find
out how little I really knew that 1
started winning again after a lapse.
You get a lot of foolish and useless
advice. But here and there you
can pick up something that will help
a lot." -
Walter Camp and Pudge
Years ago Walter Camp told me
an interesting experience he had
had with Pudge Heffelfinger, a foot-
ball star who lasted over 30 years.
"Pudge was so good," Camp said,
"that I was afraid he would be an-
other know-it-all. In place of that
he kept coming to me for more ad
vice on guard play, i showed him
three new variations. Later on he
came back and told me he had
learned four new angles. One of
these was the possibility of the run-
ning guard. How many people know
that Pudge Heffelfinger had worked
out and developed the correct meth-
od of the running guard around 1889
or 1890?"
All I know is that as late as 1021
or 1922 Heffelfinger, then 53 years
old, kept telling Bo McMillin, then
22, to speed up his start and give
him a chance to lead that interfer-
ence. Ask Bo.
"The more you know, the easier
any game is," an old-time trainer
said recently. “You can save your-
self so much and last so much long-
er. You can often handle superior
physical power and even greater
natural akill by knowing more than
your rival does. But this can only
come from trying to learn every-
thing you can as you go along.
Terror Killer,
Motive Robbery,
Hanged in London
RAF Cadet Murdered Four
Women Within a Week,
Attacked Two Others.
LONDON.—Delivering wins to a
club in Piceadilly, to the almost
elmmerian gloom of the blackout,
one night last February, a London
errand boy heard a woman scream.
He flashed on an electric torch. In
the momentary beam of light he
saw a man dash from a doorway
and vanish.
That man was hanged at Wands-
worth prison the other morning, and
as he died a heavy mantle of dread
was lifted from the shoulders of the
women of the metropolis. He was
Gordon Frederick Cummins, 28-
year-old married air cadet, who in
a single week, within a two-mile
radius of Piccadilly Circus, had
slain and mutilated four women and
tried to kill two others.
‘ Recalls Jack the Ripper.
There had been nothing like the
widespread terror he created since
the name of Jack the Ripper was
given to an unknown man who mur-
dered and mutilated eight women in
the East End between Christmas
1887 and July 1889. Women were
afraid to venture out unescorted aft-
er dark.
Cummins' motive was robbery, In-
spired by vanity; he wanted more
money with which to impress his
friends. He had passed himself off
as "the Honorable Gordon Cum-
mins," pretending that he was the
Illegitimate son of a peer, and boast-
ed of his amatory conquests.
The four murders he committed
by strangling his victims. Three of
them had admitted him to their
apartments. The fourth was killed
in a raid shelter. He was attacking
a girl he bad accosted when her
screams caused the errand boy to
turn his flashlight on the doorway
where she had sought to elude her
annoyer.
Protests Innocence.
Police who also had been attract-
ed by her outcry picked up a serv-
ice respirator on the doorstep. It
bore Cummins' number, and by this
he was easily traced to North Lon-
don, where he was billeted with oth-
er cadets. He said he had lost it
and denied ever being near the
house where it was found.
But Scotland Yard men who had
been scouring all London in search
of the swift-acting killer pinned the
shelter crime upon him. Particles
of sand in the respirator were Identi-
fied by the scientists of the police
* college as having come from the
refuge. Fingerprints convicted him
of the other three murders.
It was the theory of the Yard that
he mutilated the women with the
idea of deluding the detectives into
the belief that a maniac was at
large and thus throwing them off the
trail.
In summing up the evidence. Jus-
tice Asquith, in the Old Bailey court,
characterized the crimes as "sa-
distic sexual murders of s ghoulish
type."
Cummins, gripping the front of
the dock, exclaimed: ‘‘I am abso-
lutely Innocent”
Country Doctor’s Will
Cancels All Bills Due
ETNA, OHIO.—The last wish of
Dr. Charles D. Watkins, 78, who
died recently after practicing medi- |
elne in this country hamlet for S3
years, was that all bills owed to
him by his many patients be can-
celled.
"Father was like that," said his
daughter, Mrs. Irma V. Rector, of
Columbus. "If he got the money,
it was all right And it was the same
if he didn’t get it"
The fee for rich and poor alike
was 50 cents, that is, providing they
could afford to pay at all Often
former patients would return after
many years and “pay an old ac-
count” to the doctor.
Want To Be a Nurse?
The U. 8. Government la pleading for young women to take
the course of nursing in order to meet the need of the Armed
Forces and civilian communities for graduate nurses.
Any young woman between 17 and 85 years of ago with a high
school diploma is eligible for admission to the School of Nursing.
Student Loan Fund available.
If you want to enter the September class
write at once
to
MRS. ROBERT JOLLY, R. N., Director of Nursing
Memorial Hospital
Houston, Texas
Girl’s Kindness
Wins Her Estate
Former Employer Remem-
bers Early Assistance.
LIMA. OHIO - Kindnesses shown
him by a former clerk during his
first days in Lima were remem-
bered by Charles Shannon, 68, local
confectioner and maker of nos-
trums, before he ended his life here
by taking poison.
Shannon had settled in Lima 20
years ago, stopping off here while
en route from Virginia, where he
bad taken his wife for burial, and
liking the city so well be decided
to stay here. He heard of a small
confectionery for sale, so he pur-
chased it, later branching out into
the making of "tar" syrups and
cure-all compounds.
One of his first clerks was Ruth
Primmer, who since had been mar-
ried and bad two children, to whom
Shannon became very attached.
Six weeks ago she received a let-
ter from Shannon asking ber to
bring the children to see him. When
a few days ago she received an-
other letter saying, In part, "...aft-
er many years I am going out of
business.” and inclosing the keys to
Shannon's small shop, she became
alarmed and informed police.
They visited the small shop and
there found Shannon's body on his
bed, an empty poison glass nearby.
Coroner Harry Lewis said death
was a suicide due to poisoning.
In a penciled note found in the
bedroom, Shannon willed all his
earthly goods, including his small
store, to the little clerk who many
years ago bad aided him in getting
his start here.
Swoon Saves Submarine
Crew on Floor of Sea
LONDON.—The British Press as-
sociation reported this strange inci-
dent:
A British submarine lay disabled
on the ocean floor. After two days
hope of raising her was abandoned.
The crew, on orders of the com-
manding officer, began singing
"Abide With Me."
The officer explained to the men
that they did not have long to live.
There was no hope of outside aid,
he said, because the surface search-
ers did not know the vessel's poel-
tion.
A sedative was distributed to the
men to quiet their nerves. One
sailor was affected more quickly
than the others and he swooned. He
fell heavily against a piece of equip-
ment and set in motion the sub-
marine's jammed surfacing mech-
anism.
The submarine went to the sur-
face and made port safely.
The Press association said it had
learned of the incident from a let-
ter written by one of the crewmen
to a relative.
Official sources declined com-
ment.
Mother Left Her Estate
To Dog, Daughter’s Gift
WAUPACA. WIS.—Two years ago
Mrs. Cecil Engebretson gave her
mother, Mrs. Nina Berlinger, a bull
terrier puppy named Lady Pooh.
Now Mrs. Engebretson, wife of
the superintendent of schools at
Rochester, Mich., is contesting her
mother's will. It left Mrs. Enge-
bretson nothing, but gave the entire
estate of more than $75,000 to Lady
Pooh.
It also stipulated that Mrs. Ber-
linger's former home, an imposing
residence in Detroit's exclusive
Gladstone avenue, be turned over
to the dog. Lady Pooh, under terms
of the will, would be cared for by
a servant, Tatiana Rhune.
WANTED
SALES AGENT for high grade
line of paints. Generous com-
missions. Write to SEAPORT
PAINT CO., 36 North Hamil-
ton. Houston, Texas.
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Preusser, Theodore A. The Giddings Star (Giddings, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 23, Ed. 1 Friday, September 4, 1942, newspaper, September 4, 1942; Giddings, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1633856/m1/3/?q=music: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Giddings Public Library and Cultural Center.