A Year From Now

Mary Jones' Key to Happiness By Beulah Storrs Lewis

The hands upon the clock of time were spinning around hourly to that season of the year looked forward to by each boy and girl as the season of joy. — The Prompter—Father Time was about to usher upon the stage, dressed with holly and good cheer, the child's Prince Charming, St. Nicholas. In the child world the bells were ringing merrily; the fairies were dancing upon the white blanket of diamonds covering the earth; the doors of the great world of make-believe were thrown wide open, disclosing their wonders and distributing their gifts to the eager hoard of babyland. That one child should be denied this gift of the gods seemed impossible, or abstract, to the mind of Mary Jones, whom fate had endowed with all of the comforts of wealth and every gift money could buy. Sixteen years ago the angel of birth had brought her to this large, imposing house, set high upon the bank of the river, with its front of gray stone and its massive pillars supporting a veranda which looked as if it might be trying to make every other veranda in the neighborhood bow its homage to its collosal grandeur. That was not the true spirit of the veranda any more than was the black velvet dress, trimmed with old Venetian lace — and caught at the throat by a diamond pin the prototype of the spirit and heart of Mary Jones. This huge veranda had become a loving friend to Mary Jones. Here she came to cry out her loneliness, with her burning brow against the cool stone of the large pillars, or sitting, head in hands, upon the huge steps which led down into — her land of wonder the street where people ran in never-ending streams on their way to what or to where? She had ventured out once alone, but her great fear of the street and its strange people, never glancing to right or left, had only accentuated her loneliness and she had fled back to the company of the veranda to continue her ponderings of the great street and what it all meant. Though this season of the year kept her from her visits to the steps, she would spend lonely hours gazing from her

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window upon the great street below, secretly longing to join the people in their journey toward the land of action, of which she was merely a spectator. On the morrow was Christmas day. Still no joy of receiving flushed her face with happiness, for what gift could please her or cause her heart to leap with rapture? She — possessed everything yes, everything. It seemed to her that today the people of the endless stream beckoned to her to come away with them and learn the answer to the great riddle of life. Her heart responded to their kindly beckoning, and, making sure she was not watched, she stepped out upon the veranda, stopped for a second to whisper her determination to the friendly pillars, then hur- — ried down the many steps to her street of wonder and was lost among the crowds. To her it seemed they carried her on for many days, and at last they pushed her aside into a very narrow, dirty, illsmelling street, lined upon every side with houses. Or could they be houses? At any rate, part of the endless stream broke away from the others and made their way through the openings of these structures. Impelled by a desire to know why they entered those shabby, dirty openings, she stepped back of a girl, whom she judged to be about her own age, and followed her through — one of these doors, up a broken-down stairway which caused — her to hold her breath for fear it might fall then down a long, narrow, dark hallway until they reached another of those openings hung with a remnant of carpet. She drew back! Dared she follow? Then, taking her fear by the throat, she strangled it, and with a shaking hand drew aside the carpet and entered. In all the ages to come, Mary Jones will carry the picture which greeted her entrance into that room. Words would fail her did she try to draw for you that picture and the impressions it left upon her memory. And so she will merely tell you the story, introducing the guests who graced its shabby, cold aperture, and show what they possessed which all her wealth had failed to bring with its metallic sound. The harsh, cold sound of the metal had frightened this silent guest of that strange household away, leaving her, Mary Jones the — — possessor of all alone with her playmate, "Gold," who worked frantically to amuse and please her, trying in his hard, cold way to fill the longing vacancy which he knew to be part of her and which would some day break away from his tinseled court of sham, jump the laws of convention, and find the real court of life, and in it play her part. Not the part of the glittering