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eleanorI ILIITSTRA' rj v Livn Bp: (Copyright by ELEi HL PREFACE Which Explains Things. WKf Father calls me Mary. Mother calls me Marie. Everybody else calls me Mary Marie. The rest of my name Is * ' Anderson. Tm thirteen years old, and I'm a cross-current and a contradiction. That i lfl, Sarah says I'm that (Sarah Is my ^ old nurse.) She says she read It once ?that the children of unllkes were al ways a cross-current and a contraaicj tion. And my father and mother are unLIkes, and Tm the children. That HP .' is, Tm the child. Fm all there is. And now Fm going to be a bigger crossH|V current and contradiction than ever, for Tm going to live half the time with ; K_2her and the other half with Father. Mother will go to Boston to live, and Father will stay here?a divorce, you know. ' Tm terribly excited over it None of the other girts have got a divorce In their families, and I always did like to be different Besides, it ought to be awfully interesting, more so than just living along, common, with your father O and mother in the same house all the time?especially if it's been anything like my house with my father and mother in it! That's why Tve decided to make a book of it?that is, it really Will be a hnrtt nnlv T ahull have tO Call it a BsR diary, on account of Father, you kno\y. BH Won't it be funny when I don't have to I Js do things on account of Father? And I wont, of course, the six months I'm' Wtm living with Mother in Boston. But, oh, my!?the six months I'm living here with him?whew! But, then, I % v * can stand it I may,even like itsome. Anyhow, it'll be different. And that's something. HB|n. Well, about making this into a book. As I started to say, he wouldn't let me. I know he wouldn't He says 8HH novels are a silly waste of time, if not HBSf absolutely wicked. But, a diary?oh, HT he loves diaries. He keeps one himmH self, and he told me it would be an ex9 cellent and instructive discipline^, for me to do it too?set down the weather and what I did every day. The weather and what I did every day, indeed! Lovely reading that j would mate, wouianr irr i^e tuis; i "The sun shines this morning. I * got up, ate my breakfast, went to school, came home, ate .r my dinner, played one hour over to Carrie Heywood's, practiced 06 the piano one hour, studied another hour. Talked i with Mother upstairs in her room about the sunset and the snow on the trees. Ate my supper. Was talked to by Father down in the library about improving myself and taking care not to I be light-minded and frivolous. (He | meant like Mother,1 only he didn't say I It right out loud. You don't have to I say some things right out in plain I words, you know.) Then I went to bed." 1 Just as if I was going to write my novel like that! Not much I am. But T I shall call It a diary. Oh, yes. I shall f call it a diary?till I take it to be ; ft*. printed. Then I shall give' it its true f t name?a novel. And I'm going to tell; *. ' the printer that I've left it to him to make the spelling right, and put in all those tiresome little bommas and 1 periods aflff question marks that everybody seems to make such a fuss about. If I write the story part, I can't be expected to be bothered with looking up how words are spelt, every five minutes, nor fussing over putting in a wl\ole lot of foolish little dots and dashes. As if anybody who was reading the t story cared for that part! The story's the thing. _ I love stories. I've written lots of them for the girls, too?litlle short ones, I mean; not a long one like this is going to be, of course. And it'll be so exciting to be living a story instead of reading it?only when you're living a story you can't peek over to the back to see how it's all coming out. T"shan't like that part. Still, it may be all the more exciting, after all, not to know what's coming, fc I like lpve stories the best. Father's | got?oh, lots of books in the library, I and I've read stacks of them, even I some of the stupid old histories and j I biographies. I had to read them when L there wasn't anything else to read, j B \ But there weren't many love stories, j iMVkfhar'? <rnt a few. thousrh?lovelv ! HERB ones?and some books of poetry, on | the little shelf in her room. But I j HHk read all those ages ago. j HSR That's why I'm so thrilled over this, ^^HR new one?tke one I'm living, I mean, j 9B0 For of course this will be a love story, j H There'll be my love story in two or | RRH three years, when I gr^w up, and B while I'm waiting there's Father's and HQ Mother's. ^B Nurse Sarah says that when you're ' HR . divorced you're free just like you were R^F before you were married, and that HR sometimes they marry again. That R^B made me think right away: what if HR Father or Mother, or both of them, mm BL^ * '-iy?Xi, MBB i RllfP I PORTER riONSFf TOSTONE. f \NOR H. PORTER) married again? And I should be there to see it, and the courting, and all I Wouldn't that be some love story? Well, I just guess! And only think how*all the girls would envy me?and they just living along their humdrum, everyday existence with fathers and mothers already married and living together, and nothing exciting to look forward to. For really, you know, when you come right down to it, ?there aren't many girls that, have got the chance I've got And so that's why I've decided to write it into a book. Oh, yes, I know And So Tljatfs Why I've Decided to Write It Into a Book. Tra young?only thirteen. But I feel really awfully old; and you know a woman is as old a% she feels. Besides, Nurse Sarah says I am old for my-age, and that it's no wonder, the kind of a life I've lived. * " And maybe that is so. For of course it has been different, living with a j father and mother that are getting : ready to be divorced, from what it would have been living witfi the loving, happy-ever-after kind. Nurse Sarah says it's a shame and a pity, and that | it's the children that always suffer. But I'm not suffering?not a mite. I'm just enjoying it. It's so exciting. Of course if I was going to lo3e either one, it would be different But Tm not, for I am Jo live with Mother six months, then with Father. So I still have them both. And, really/ when you come right down to it, I'd rather take them separate that way. Why, separate they're just perfectly all right, like that?that?whatdo-you-call-it powder? ? sedlitzer, or something like that. Anyhow, it's that. white powder that you mix in two glasses, and that looks just like water till you put them together. And then, oh; my! such a fuss and fizz and splut- . ter! Well, it's that way with Father and Mother. It'll be lots easier to take them separate, I know. For now I can De Mary six monins, pen aiane six months, and not try to be theta both all at once, with maybe only five minutes between them. And I think I shall love both Father and Mother better separate, too. Of course I love Mother, and I know I'd just adore Father if he'd let me?he's so tall and fine and splendid, when he's out among folks. All the girls are simply crazy over him. And I am, too. Only, at home?well, it's hard to be Mary always. And you see, he named me Mary? But I mustn't tell that here. That's part of the story, and this is only the Preface. I'm going to begin it to-morrow?the real story?Chapter One. But, there?I mustn't call it a " 1.??? A. i *?i "cnapier uui iuuu. uituries uuu i have chapters, and this is a diary. I mustn't forget that it's a diary. But I can write it down as a chapter, for it's going to be a novel, after it's got done being a diary. _ CHAPTER I I Am Born The sun was slowly setting in the west, casting golden beams of light into the somber old room. . That's the wav it oueht to beein. I k#ow, and I'd like to do It, but I can't I'm beginning with my being born, of course, and Nurse Sarah says the sun wasn't shining at all. It was night and the stars were out. She remembers particularly about the stars, for Father was in the observatory, and couldn't be disturbed. (We never disturb Father when he's^there, you know.) And so he didnt even know he had a * daughter until the next morning when he came out to breakfast And he was late to that, for he stopped to write down something he had found out about one of the consternations in the night. He's always finding out something about those old stars Just when we want him to pay attention to something else. And, oh, I forgot to saythat I know it is "constellation," and not "consternation." But I used to call them that when I was a little girl, and Mother said it was a good name for them, anvwav. for they were a con Bternatlon to her all right. Oh, she Bald right off afterward that she didn't meaii that, and that I must forget she Baid it Mother's always saying that about things she says. Well, as I was saying, Father didn't know until after breakfast that he had a little daughter. (We never tell him disturbing, exciting things Just before meals.) And then Nurse told him. I asked what he said, and Nurse laughed and gave her funny little shrug to her shoulders. "Yes, what did he say, Indeed?" she retorted. "He frowned, looked kind of dazed, then muttered: 'Well, well, upon my soul! Yes, to be sure!'" HTVion Via noma' in fn 5M mP I don't know, of course, what he thought of me, but I guess he didn't think much of me, from what Nurse said. Of course J was very, very small, and I never yet saw a little bit of s baby that was pretty, or looked as If It was much account So maybe you couldn't really blame him. Nurse said he looked at me, muttered. "Well, well, upon my soul!H again, and seemed really quite Interested till they started to put me in his arms. Then he threw up both hands, backed off, and cried, "Oh, no, no, no I" He turned to Mother and hoped she was feeling pretty well, then he got out of the foom just as quick as he could. And Nurse said that was the end of It, so far as paying any more attention to me was concerned for jquite a while. He' was much more interested In his new star than he jvas In his new daughter. We were both /born the same night, yon see, and that star was lots more consequence than I was. But, then, that's Father all over. And that's one of the things, I think, that bothers Mother. I heard her say once to Father that she didn't see why, when there were so many, many-stars, a paltry one or two more need to be made such a fuss about. And I don't, either. But Father Just groaned, and shook his head, and threw up his hands, and looked so tired. And that's all he said That's all he says lots of times. But it's enough. It's enough to make you feel so small and mean and insignificant as if you were just a little green worm crawling on the ground. Did you ever feel like a green worm crawling on the ground? It's not a pleasant ? feeling at all. Weil, now, about the name. Of course they had to begin to talk about naming me pretty soon; and Nursesaid thev did talk a lot But they couldn't settle It. Nurse said that that was about the first thing that showed how teetotally utterly they were going to disagree about things. Mother wanted to call me Viola, after her mother, and Father wanted to call me Abigail Jane after his" mother; and they wouldn't either one give in to the other. Mother was sick and nervous, and cried a lot those days, and she used tJ sob out that if they tnought tney were going, 10 name her darling little baby that awful Abigail Jane, they were very much mistaken; that she would never give her consent to it?never. Then Father would say in his cold, stern, way: "Very well, then, you needn't. But neither shall I give my consent to my daughter's being named that absurd Viola. The child is a human being? not a fiddle in an orchestra!" And that's the way it went, Nurse said, until everybody was just about crazy. Then somebody suggested "Mary.", And Father said, very well, they might call me Mary; and Mother said certainly, she would consent to Mflrv onlv she should Dronounce it Marie. And-so it was settled. Father called me Mary, and Mother called me Marie. And right away everybody else began to call me Mary Marie. And that's the way it's been ever since. Of course, when you stop to think of it, it's sort of queer and funny, though naturally I didn't think of it, growing up with it as I did, and always having it, until suddenly one day it occurred to me that none of the other girls had two names, ope for their father and, one for their mother to call them by. I began to jjotice other things then, too. Their fathers and mothers didn't live in rooms at opposite ends of the house, Their fathers and mothers seemed to like each other, and to talk^together, and to have little Jokes andUaughs together, and twinkle with their eyes. That is, most of them did. And if one wanted 'to go to walk, a? <-> nort-rr Ai" tri nl a XT cnm o ooma KJL lv a va wvr wauv quluv) the other didn't always look tired and bored, and say, "Oh, very well, 11 you like." And then both not do it, whatever It was That^s, I never saw the other girls' fathers and mothers do that way; and I've seen quite a lot of them, too, for I've been at the other girls' houses a lot for a long time. You see I don't stay at home much, only when I have to. We 'don't have a round talkie with a red cloth aqd a lamp on it, and ctilldren 'round it playing games and doing thlngs,v and fathers and mothers reading and mending. And it's lots Jollier where they do have'them. Nurse says my father and mother o*/ght never to have been married. Tlat's what I 'teard her tell our f?i .dget one day. So the first chelnce I got 1 asked her why, and what she meant. . "Oh, la! Did you hear that?" she demanded, with the quick look over her shoulder that she always gives when she's talking about Father and Mother. "Well, little pitchers do have big ears, sure enough!" "Little pitchers," indeed! As If I b-nnnr n-hoY thomaonf ! T'm nn Uluill "UUt bUUt Ul ^ U<U U * A UA **V I child to be kept In the dark concerning things I ought to know. And I told her so, sweetly and pleasantly, but with firmness and dignity. I made her tell me what she meant, and I made her tell me a lot of other things about them, too. You see, I'd just decided to write the book, so I wanted to know everything she could tell me. I didn't tell her about the book, of course. I know too much to tell sefcets to Nurse Sarah! But 1 showed my excitement and interest plainly; and when she saw how glad I was to hear everything she could tell, she j . j i, J raiKea a iui, auu reaiiy seemeu iu euJoy it, too. You see, she was here when Mother first came as a bride, so she knows everything. She was Father's nurse when he was a little boy; then she stayed to take care of Father's mother, Grandma Anderson, who was an invalid for a great many years and who didn't die till just after I was born. Then sh < took care of me. So she's always been in the family ever since she was a young girl. She's awfully old now?'most sixty. First I found out how they happened to marry?Father and Mother, I'm talking about now?only Nusse says she can't see yet how they did happdn to marry, just the same, they're so teetotally different. But this is the story. Father went to Boston to attend a big meeting or astronomers rrom ail over ttfe world, and they had banquets and receptions where beautiful ladles went In their pretty evening dresses, and my mother was one of them. (Her father was one of the astronomers, Nurse said.) The meetings lasted four days, and Nurse said she guessed mf father saw a lot of my mother during that time. Anyhow, he was invited to their home, and he stgyed another four days after the meetings were over. The next thing they knew here at- the house, Grandma Anderson had a telegram that he was going to be married to Miss Madge Desmond, and would they please send him some things he wanted, and he was going on a wedding trip and would bring his bride home in about a month. It was just as sudden as that. And surprising!?Nurse says a thunderclap out of a clear blue sisy couian t uave astonished them more. Father was almost thirty years old at that time, and he'd never cared a thing for girls nor paid them the least little bit of attei* tion * So they supposed, of course, that he was a hopeless old bachelor and wouldn't ever marry. He was bound up in his stars, even then, and was already beginning to be famous, because of a comet he'd discovered. He was a professor in our college here, where his father had been president. His father had just died a few months before, and Nurse said maybe that was one reason why Father got caught in 4?:~lllrA fKof /Thnao [lie mairiiijuuiai uci no.c men. v are her words, not mine. The idea of calling my mother a net! But nurse - never did appreciate Mother). But Father just worshiped his father, and they f were always together ?Grandma being sick so much; and so when he died my father was nearly beside himself, and that's one reason they were so anxious he should go to that meeting in Boston. They* thought it might take his mind off himself, Nurse said.. But they never thought of its putting his mind on a wife! So far as his doing it right up quick like that was concerned, Nurse said that wasn't so surprising. For all the way up, if Father wanted anything he insisted "on having it, and having it A Little Slim Eighteen-Year-Old Girl ta/lxL -V/ - J I . U -ir Wlin TCIItrw, vsui 1/ nail. right away .then. He never wanted to watt a minute he found a girl he wanted, he wanted her right away then, without waiting a minute. He'd never happened to notice a girl he wanted before, you ape. But he'd found one now ail right; and Nurse said there was nothing to do but to make the best of it and get ready for her. There wasn't anybody to go to the wedding. Grandma Anderson was Itck, 90 of course she couldn't go, ahU v > ( '. Grandpa was dead, so of course he couldn't go, and there weren't any brothers or sisters, only Aunt Jane in St. Paul, and she was so mad she wouldn't come on. So there was no chance of seeing the bride till Father brought her home. Nurse said they wondered and wondered what kind of a woman it could be that had captured him. (I told her I wished she wouldn't speak of my mother as if she was some kind of a iiuiuer uui aiuer game; uui sue uuuy chuckled and said that's about what It amounted to In some cases.) The very ideal The whole town was excited over the affair, and Nurse Sarah heard a lot of their talk. Some thought she was an astronomer like him. Some thought she was very rich, and maybe famous. Everybody declared she must know a lot, anyway, and be wonderfully wise and Intellectual; and they said she was probably tall and wore glasses, and would be" thirty years old, at least. But nobody guessed anywhere near what she really was. Nurse Sarah said slyi should never forget toe night sue came, ana now she looked, and how utterly flabbergasted everybody was to see her? little slim eighteen-year-old girl with yellow, curly hair and the merrieit laughing eyes they had ever seen. (Don't I know? Don't I Just love Mother's eyes when they sparkle and twinkle when we're off together gome* times In the woods?) And Nurse said Mother was so excited the day she came, and went laughing and dancing all over the house, exclaiming ovqf everything. (I can't Imagine that so well. Mother moves so quietly now, everywhere, and Is so tired, 'most all the time.) But she wasn't tired then, Nurse says?not a mite. "But how did Father act?" I demanded. "Wasn't he displeased and scandalized and shocked, and every- r< thing r\ l' Nurse shrugged her shoulders and ? i ? J i?_ ? i-t.~ ? ru.i?eu iter eyeurvws?tue way sue uues when she feels particularly superior. Then she said: "Do? What does any old fool? beggin' your pardon an' no offense meant. Miss Mary Marie?but what does any man do what's got bejuggl^d with a pretty face, an' his senses completely took away from him by a chit , of a girl? Well, that's what he did. He acted as If he was bewitched. He followed her around the house like a dog?when' he wasn't leadin' her to something new; an' he never took his eyes off her face except to look at us, as much as to say: 'Now ain't she the adorable creature?'" "My father did that?' I gasped. , And, really, you know, I Just couldn't believe my ears. And you wouldn't, either, if you knew Father. "Why, ' I never saw him act like that!" "No, I guess you didn't," laughed 1 Nurse Sarah with a shrug. "And j neither did anybody else?for long." "But how long did It last?" I asked, j "Oh, a month, or maybe six weeks," shrugged Nurse Sarah. "Then it came September and college began, and your father had to go back to his teaching. Things began to change then." "Right then, so you could see them?" X wanted to know. Nurse Sarah shrugged her shoulders again. "Oh, la! child, what a little question-box you are, an' no mistake," she sighed. But she didn't look mad?not like the way she does when I ask why she can take her teeth out and most of her hair oif and I can't; and things like that. (As if I didn't know! What does she take me for?a child?) She didn't even' look displeased?Nurse Sarah loves to talk. (As if I didn't know that, too!) She just threw that, quick look of hers over her shoulder and settled back contentedly in her chair. I knew then I should get the j whole story. And I did.' And I'm going to tell it here in her own words, i just as well as I can remember itbad grammar and all. So please remember that I am not making all those mistakes. It's Nurse Sarah. I guess, though, that I'd better put . it into a new chapter. This one is yards long already. How do they tell 1 ? J ^ ?nf/vwn C T'm WLieil lO Utfgl-U ouu cuu uia{/moi x uu thinking it's going Xo be some job, writing this book?diary, I mean. But I shall love it, I know. And this is a real story?not like those made-up things I've alwaya written for the girls at school. (To be continued next week.) CHEERFUL WORDS For Many a Bamberg Household* To have the pains and aches of a bad back removed?to be entirely free from annoying, dangerous urinary disorders, is enough to majte any kidney sufferer grateful. The following advice of one who has suffered will prove helpful to hundreds of Bamberg readers. James A. Mitchell, P. F. D. mail carrier, Calhoun St., Bamberg, says: "I always have a good word for Doan's Kidney Pills, because tin.. cured me of disordered kidneys and the cure has remained permanent. Doan's are a fine medicine." 60c, at all dealers. Foster-Milburn Co.. Mfrs.. Buffalo, N. Y. NOTICE OF APPLICATION* FOR FINAL DISCHARGE. Notice is hereby given that the undersigned Administrator of the estate of Mrs. Elise B. Walker, deceased, will on Thursday, April 6th, 1922,file his final return and accounting in the Probate Court of Bamberg county, and at said time make application to said court for his Letters Dismissory and Final Discharge as - ? J n f Administrator or sum C9MIO. . G. FRANK BAMBERG, 4-6-n Administrator. Bamberg, S. C., March 10th, 1922. 9 NOTICE OF DISCHARGE. Notice is hereby given to all persons interested that the undersigned Administrators of the estate of Thomas Black, deceased, will on the 14bh day of April, 1922, file with the Judge of Probate, for Bamberg County, their final accounting and reutrn as such Adminstrators, and will on said day ask for letters Dismissory as such Administrators. MRS. S. H. BLACK, J. B. BLACK, JR.,* Administrators of the estate of Thomas Black, deceased. 4-13 - ~ ? - - ? A To Stop a Cough Quick take HAYES' HEALING HONEY, a cough medicine which stops the cough by healing the inflamed and irritated tissues. A box of GROVE'S O-PEN-TRATE SALVE for Chest Colds, Head Colds and Group is enclosed with every bottle of HAYES' HEALING HONEY. The salve should be rubbed on the chest and throat of children suffering from a Cold or Ooap. The healing effect of Hayes' Healing Honey inside the throat combined with the healing effect of Grove's O-Peo-Trate Salve through the pores of the skin soon stops a cough. Both remedies are packed in one carton and the cost of the combined treatment is 35c. Just ask your druggist tor HAYES' HEALING HONEY. SUMMONS FOR RELIEF! " (Complaint Served.) STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, COUNTY OF BAMBERG. COURT OF COMMON PLEAS. S. W. Sandifer, Plaintiff, vs. ' R. E. Winstead, Defendant. To R. E. Winstead, defendant above. named: You are hereby summoned and required to answer the complaint in this action, of which a copy is herewith served upon you, and to serve | a copy of your answer to said com- I plaint on the subscriber at his office, 1 Bamberg, S. C., within twenty days | after the service hereof; exclusive or the .day of such service; and if you fail to answer the complaint within the time aforesaid, the plaintiff in this action will apply to the Court for the relief demanded in the complaint. W. E. FREE, Plaintiff's Attorney. March 10 th, 1922. * i To the defendant above named: . The original summons and complaint is now on file in the office of Clerk of Court for Bamberg county. W. E. FREE,' Plaintiff's Attorney. Attest: A. L. KIRKLAND, (Seal). \ Clerk of Court for Bamberg County, S. C.- ' 3-3 0-n. Habitual Constipation Cured in 14 to 21 Days "LAX-FOS WITH PEPSIN** is a special? Jn rn ? _ T / i prepared oymp i onic-r.a*auve im nayiru? Constipation. It relieves promptly but should be takea regularly for 14 to 21 days , to iaduee regular action. It Stimulates and Regulates. Very Pleasant to Take. 60* per bottle. NOTICE CONCERNING PLOWING * IN PUBLIC ROOADS. Pursuant to recommendation of the Bamberg County Grand Jury, the landowners of the county cultivating lands adjacent and adjoining public roads are hereby^ urgently requested , not to plow into or allow their hands to plow into the roads. 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