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JOHN F PROMIN By EMERSC limine jithf MISSISSIPPI rwiuvu VI | a * mm m ? iLLUSTRATIONS by Ra COPYRIGHT 1912 BY EMERSON V * SYNOP3S* ) CHAPTER I?John Raws is * ?* *j Texas. Early In life hs shews signs ? masterfulness and laordln&te selfishness CHAPTER II?He marries Laura. Johnson. He is a clerk Tn a flt Louis railway Attce-Twben-his daughter Grace Is bonk ?sars~~ later ^he/hears Gracc's lovac. a .yveag engiQQor. juuneu ^uo4i?> ,, apeak of & scheme to utilise the lost curWWt of electricity. With his usual un?tnBruk>u*nes* he -appropriates the Idea )M his own and induces Halsey to perfect An experimental machine. He forms a ompany, with himself as president at a alary of HOO.OOO a year, and Halsey as operintendect of the works at a salary WJ5,?0?L i CHAPFEft itt?itawn takes chhHT# the .office in Chicago., Virginia Delaware, a beautiful, capable and ambitious young Toman, is assigned as his stenographer, he assists In picking the furniture tad wwrmon ror tne pnncety wausivu Itawn has erected. Mrs. Rawn feels oat ?r place In the new surroundings. 'CHAPTER IV?Halsey goes to New Tori with Rawn and Miss. Delaware to rplaln delays in perfecting the new motor to th? Impatient directors. He gets a jnessage that a deformed daughter has t>een bora to his wife, Grace Rawn. He returns to Chicago. CHAPTER V?Rawn bargains with Miss Delaware to wear his jewelry and appear ?b public with him, as * means to help Mm In a business way. CHAPTER VI?Rawn Is fortunate la oQeg no wealth and attains prominence. CHAPTER VTT?He frets because hi* Jrife does not rise with him In a sodaj way. He gives her a million dollars to hart him. \ TER IX?Grace moves to Graynail, and Halsey continue? to live j in the cottage near the works. CHAPTER X?Halsey's machine proves ft success, but he keeps the fact a secret. CHAPTE .* XI?Virginia Delaware becomes more and more indispensible to DsTxm TT<? taVps h?r to New York on a business trip. Idle talk prompts him to offer *ier marriage. CHAPTER XII?They are married. Through Virginia's tact and ability they CJce a place for themselves In the social CHAPTER. XTTT?Halsey threatens to get a divorce because his wife refuses to return to him. He'tells Rawn that he has broken up all the machines after proving ttovaccess of the Invention. Rawn, in a great rage, threatens to kill him. CHAPTER XIV?Halsey declares he will never build another machine fo? 3taWn and slaps his'face. Virginia Rawn oitercepts Halsey as he is leaving the notfsfe and, with arms about his neck, implores him to reconsider, because his decision will rrin them alL CHAPTER XV?Halsey tells Virginia that he has abandoned his invention because it would put a great power in the haiids of a few to the detriment of the many. CHAPTER XVI?At Pawn's instigatioe Virginia agrees to try to bring Halsey to terms, no matter what it 'costs. CHAPTER XVII?The directors plan to get the control of the company away from Rawn. CHAPTER Xvill?Rawn goes to New York to attempt to avert impending disaster. The wolves of finance are cloning In on him. Halsey closes the factory and " a takes up his residence ai vjraysiuiie uau, wbei* his wife and daughter are seriously 111. He admits to himself that he loves Virginia. CHAPTER XTX?Rawn Is ruined financially. Halsey and Virginia confess theh love for each other. She says that was the reason she could not carry out Rawn'i orders. The butler overhears and tell* % Hals^y's wife. CHAPTER XX?Grace Mils herself ano the child. The first Mrs. Rawn returns to be with her daughter. Virginia and Halsey tell Rawn of. their love for each other, and that they intend ?to get married as soon as Virginia can get a divorce. CHAPTER XXI?A crowd of disgruntled workmen call and accuse Halsey of * * l-Ul^ V.i. ! DetrciyillK tnfirr. rxe is owi crnvx wj cne of the mob. CHAPTER XXII. 1 i The Great John Rawn. Far off, deep in the underground reigions of the city, at the focus of the 1 .republic's vast industrialism, the (presses were reeling and clanging I Again, heavy with their story of disaster. The civilization of the da; went OIL. Somewhere out upon the mountain tops, somewhere in the forests, the (forces of nature gathered, marched od toward the sea. Somewhere dumbly, mutely, uncomplaining, the great rivei And its mate, the great power, inter tellar, not interjational?they two, as he but now vauntingly had dreamed, erstwhile silent partners of John ;Rawrn?did their,, work. . . . Foi whom? . . . For what? Answer ^that? my brothers. The answer is lyour own. As yci. and I shall speak <in that answer, so shall Sur children ^at well, sleep we!', in days yet to come, in this country which we still ?a11 a 11 fr. 1W Mrv ayiwo etui uur uwu, xiuw aii lu ii. ac uui o. It was far past midnight when John JRawn again came lown the stair, soibered and whitened by what he had seen In the death chamber. He tiptoed now back *o the library door, through which and beneath whose silken curtains stiH there pierced a Httle shaft of llgfc^ He opened the dOor, peered in. He saw Vfr^fnlr- Sitting there silent, hite, unagi ated, faor features cameo harp, her skin waxen, indeed marble i white, a woman as motionless, as silent, apparently as litue animate as the one be had left behind him in the death chamber beyond the stair. She termed her eyes, not her face, toward hiss, but did not speak. The edge of her gown was moist, stained. John Rawn looked in turn at the long figure upon the couch, motionSees, silent, Ms haztis IWded. 4*4 it spe?k. io to^ guddeaiy op LAWN (ENT CITIZEN ?m uni inu rn m. lvvui x BUBBLE; 54-40;ORJFIGHT y Walters CHOUGH preseed", suddenly afraid; "Be"" turneft oaee more away. Irresolution was in ids soul, uncertainty. Rawn was hardly sore ttet he still Mvfld. that he still was the .tame John Rawn he ore? bad known. It seemed Impossible that all theae things could have fallen upon him, who had not deserved them! He pitied himself with a vast pity, revolting at the many injustices of fortune now crowding upon him, a wholly blamelesr man. Why. rijH A W o "K rtf r\"rt ll O ol 1T1 }l I ^ nflTld a Ufl^ L/C1V/1 UC UUU uwu it* ? power such as few men could equal; had had. presently before hhn, power none other ever could hope to equal. That opportunity still existed. But how now could he avail himself of that opportunity, how cculd he go on to be the great John Rawn, if this figure on ttie couch could not rise, could not speak to him, could not perform the obvious duty of rendering needful assistance to him, John Rawn? The cruelty of it all rankled in the great and justice-loving soul of Mr. Rawn. Whv. he was penniless?he?John Rawn! He was not even sure about his wife, yonder. She had said things tohim he could not understand, could not believe. . . He left the room, and walked still farther down the hall, his head sagging, his lower lip pendulous, his face warped into a pucker of self-pity?so absorbed, that first he did not heed an approaching footfall. He paused almost in touch of some one who approached him in the half-lighted hall; some one w?o was coming down the stair and along the hall with steady tread. 'There stood before him now the same tall, gray-haired, unfashionably ? a* i dressetj woman whom so recently ne vaguely had noted at a distance in the hall above; some woman apparently busy with duties < onnected with the death chamber, as he had reflected when he saw her; some neighbor, he presumed, and certainly useful! It was kind of her to come at this- time. He could not, at the tine, recollect that he had seen her before. Yes, he would reward her?he would express his thanks. He looked up ait her now sharply, and gasped. * _ 1 J 4<I. U ?nl, 9<l "-Ltaura!" ne exciaimeu. is iu juu; "Why, yes, John," answered the tall, gaunt woman gently. "Didn't you see me, up there? I suppose you were too much troubled to notice me, John. Yes, I'm here. I thought maybe I ought to come. "But you see?this?" she held out to him the letter she had picked up from the hall table. "This didn't get to her?Grace?not in time. She aiea this morning, before noon, they tell me. She never knew her mother was coming to her when she was in trouble. She hadn't seen my letter to her, telling I was coming. I knew she was in trouble?and I saw all the stories in the papers. I thought I'd tell her I was coming to her?and you, John. She was nay girl, after all! I knew she was in trouble." "How did you know?" "Why, she wrote to me, of course. A girl always writes to Her motner when she's in trouble. She wrote to me right often. She wasn't?well, she wasn't happy, John, and she often told me that. Something wrong was going on between her and Charley, I don't know what" He stood looking at her, stupefied, as she went on, simply. "John, married folks oughtn't to be apart too much. They sort of get weaned from each other. Grace was too ambitious. She'd got, here, what she thought her husband couldn't get, ? flhp 'had to Wllttl B11C U WU1C W have. I might have told her better, but I wasn't here. Not that I'm re- . proving you, John, not at all. Besides, we have all got to go, some day. But I loved her. . . . And the baby." "So did I love her, and the baby," he began. Tears were in his eyes. "Laura, I have had nothing but trouble. And now you have come here?" "'Yes, I know; it must seem a little queer to you, John; so I'm going rignt away again, to-night?before morning, if there's any way I can get downtown." "Yes, yes!" "?Because, I know if I was seen around her, and people found out who I am, who I?was?there might be some sort of talk which would be hard for you, John. I reckon you have trouble enough without that. I didn't want to bother you. I came mostly because of Grace. But?John, I always did like to tell the truth, and I have to tell it now?I came a little, too, because of you!" "Of me? Why Laura!" "Yes, I did. I read the papers, of course, all the time. I have known i Knnt tou. although vou haven't heard , of me. You have moved up in the ( world, John, and as for me?well, T have just gone back to Kelly Row. where we used to live. Of course, I'm glad you have been lucky. But then, lately, the papers all began to say you were In trouble. I've read all kinds i of things about you. J heard that you were ruined?that ydu hadn't a $61 laxJeJft in*H '&fc world]" J "It's true," he growled; "as near as I know, it's true. There is no hope for me now. It's all up!" "But, John, you had so much money!" "Yes, but it's gone now. It doesn't take it long to go when it starts the | other way. The market makes a man. and it breaks him just as quick, and a lot quicker. It's done me, Laura. I'm ruined. I haven't a thing left in the world; not even my wife. Have you come here to twit me with it? What do I owe you, that I have to listen to you?*' 1 "Why, nothing, John, that's true; nothing at all, not in the least I have no right here at all, I know that I understand that, when I?when?I wpnt awav from here. But that wasnt why I came back to-night." "Then why did you come? You always had the faculty, Laura, of doing the wrong thing. You've been a curse to me ali my life!" ; "Some of that's true. John," she an'swer?d simply, "and a good deal isn't Mtiybe I said the wrong thing some ticiesf, or did tne wrong tning. i never had much training. I was meant for Kelly Row, I reckon?I'd never have fitted In here. We tried it! But I didn't come to glorify myself because you've lost this place, and everything you had. 1 just thought?" "Well, Laura, what was it you just thought? I can't stand here talking all the time. It isn't right, it isn't proper. I'm worn out!" "Of course it isn't, John. I'm going right away. But you see, when I came away I just thought this way?here am I, an old woman that don't need much money any more. And there's Grace; and maybe now Jonn nas need for money when everybody's turned against him.. And if he does need money, why?" "What do you mean, Laura?" gasped John Rawn. "What's that you said about money?" "How much would do you any good, John?" she asked, fumbling in her Vin 1 rrinrr Jionrl-hoff "I might as well "w ish for the moon as for a dollar," he said bitterly. "If 1 I had a million, or a half-million, tomorrow, I'd pull it all together, even yet" "A half million, John?" she said, taking out of her bag a little, wrinkled, flat port-monnaie such as women T ini\ J[JU "It's a? It's ? a? Million?Dollars!* sometimes use for carrying change in the marketing; but still continuing her fumbling at the portly bag. "Yes, if I had a half million I could put this company on its feet, even yet ?the secret's out that Halsey had? hut I'd get it somewhere. I. more than half believe those fellows have got it, somewhere else, somehow? that fellow Van's deep. You see they've been fighting me, Laura? made up a gang against me! I know who it was. If I had a half million I'd throw in with Van?he's got this secret somehow?he knows something about it. I'd throw in with, him, and we'd whip the others, even yet! I'd get it all back in my hands even yet, I tell you! ' "But my God! Why do I stand talking about such things? What's the use? I'm down and out! I'd just as well be dead!" "Well, John, what I always saia 01 you was, that you seemed to know how to get things around the way you wanted them. I said to myself, what a shame it was he should have no money, when he needed it I've got enough set aside to keep me, I reckon, for my few years. And here's what you gave me;?although, Grace?of course, John, I want enough used to put Grace and the baby away. The rest is yours." He stood looking at her dumbly, as at last she extricated from the bag a thick oundle of folded papers, green, brown, pale pink. "I got the bank to keep them for me," she said simply. "It is what you ?i? ?, T ? gave me?wuieu?hucji x jch, ? He still stood looking at her, chok- j ing. "Laura!" said he. "Has God come to my aid? This?I can't believe It! It's a million dollars! It's a million dollars!" His voice rose, breaking almost to a shriek. 'It's a? It's?a? million?dollars!" "Well, take it, John, it's yours; you're welcome to it I don't want it it'B Clone me BO gUUU. n a uuua uuuo of as any good., All I want is, that you should take care of Grace's fur neral, for that's only right, John. She was my girl, my baby! Take care of her. John, I have got to go back? home!" In the next ensuing moment or so, what swift changes now were wrought to the late despair of our friend and hero, Mr. Joliu uia&cer of the Interi ' In j J Tlifl Nou llllllliTl Capital St ^tfTwhe Bank sni Mm A ?' JTmb tig( vidual, is and places kets with < 1 1 roDDery, v money in at will? wz today and se< est multiplies ; I ; the destinies of a peopFe?the great John Rawn, philanthropist, kindly employer, wise friend of the less favored ones of earth; the beneficent, kindly, omnipotent John Rawn ? Why had he I despaired, why had he ever doubted, | why had he ever set himself even momentarily apart from that original des' tiny which always he had accorded to himseif? Was he not a leader?had he not been devised to be so in the plans of the immortal gods, ages ago? Was he not one of the few select ones i assigned to rule his fellow-inen ? John Rawn stood before the old, cmv woman, and scarcely heard her i ?- * last words. He sighed deeply. His J self-respect was coming back to him in waves, great, recurrent waves. At last a smile crossed his face. The imperious glance of the born ruler, of one better than his feilow-men, the look of the man set apart and licensed to rob and rule?returned once more to his eye. J-ll f >? T ? J "It's a million uuua.rs; iic viieu aloud, exultantly, once more. It's God has sent it to me! I'll take it as a sign. Watch me in the morning! I'll make them hunt their holes yet By God! I will!" "John, John, you mustn't swear, it isn't right! John!" "I beg your pardon?er?er?Laura," he rejoined, with fine condescension, every instant now becoming more himself. "In fact, I want to thank you?it's clever of you, I must say. It isn't every woman who'd have done mho* 17 rm ho VP Hon ft. I'm sure." "Why wouldn't they, John? It Isn't money a woman wants to make her happy. I've tried that Grace tri6d it It doesnt work. It takes something else besides money, I reckon. We're lucky when we find that,- any of us,. I reckon. If we don't, we've got to take just what God gives us. But money deesnt buy everything in the world. John, sometimes I think it buys about as little as anything you can think of!'' She gulped just a little in her thin throat "All the same/' said he firmly and j generously, by this time almost fully j the great John Rawn once mor*. It ! was very decent of you. Laun?' , ? - r.l I < "Well, never mind about : iouu. | lt_wati you wiio maue it. i -j-<: ?J' fberry Savini OCk ) That Always Has Th HUT* 11Yf 71 Copyright 1909, by C. E. Zimmerman Co.?No. 45 nk Account lei & to any busines convenient at i. Why load j currency and n rhen you can our bank and c 4 per cent on savin $1.00 starts an aco s how rapidly comp your money. / , understand "how you earned II* so fast. I'm glad if it will do you any good { And see, John," she added shyly, fumbling again in her hag, "I brought you - 4- TrtVin T'vo VkPPTI dO a Hint! yiescui,, uuuu. x iv - ? ? Ing these, you see. I make quite a lot out of it. I never used any of that money you gave me, at ail?I did these things?the way I did before, when we were getting o^r start to-renher, John, you know. I thought?maybe? you'd like a pair." She held out to him a pair of braces, embroidered carefully in s!":s. He took them in his hand. She also looked at them closely, in professional scrutiny, her steel bowed spectacles on nose. She pronounced them good. "But, John," she added curiously? "you know, while I was up there, doing what I could for Grace and the baby?it seemed to me like as if I heard dome funny sort of noise down here?something like a shot What was it?" "It was some of those confounded laboring people," said John Ra^vn, frowning. "Yes?they came here after Halsey." "Well," said John Rawn, "FaJ^sy? Charley Halsey?you remember him, I believe? Well, they shot him. ?"Good-night, Laura," he added suddenly, and held out his hand to her, generously, nobly. "I'm very sleepy. I've been up so long?and I've a lot to do to-morrow. After all, thjre's no use in our having hard feelings. Good-by." THE END. A Biting Beply. Mrs. Ives was only a bride, sti she had clearly formed ideas on Industrial questions. One morniug wh a species tff human being known as , "tramp" called at the door and r; for something to eat, she loo>.- ward the woodpile in the b? "Well," she told him, "I win you something to eat if yo.j ? " . that axe?" . "Oh, I shan't need that," the tramp J t'TLIrr I interrupted, in a reassuring wuc. .?*j , teeth are all right."?Harper's Mag?-) sine, k L tc rant yO VUfllll $50,000 ] Money" ! I i Bfl is j v^vSB^HK ) HINT! n nds pres s or indialltimes rpur pocm risk of put, yuur heck out J 2? " '' wmm?mrnm?mmmmmammmmmmm ' T>' ' / ij) gs deposits, ount. Do it ound interv ; T* ,' t?' 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