--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Hart, James Sickles collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 25 number: 11 published: 1922-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'James Sickles Hart, "Don’t Ever Pretend", *Improvement Era* 25, no. 11 (September 1922): 1002–1004.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera25011unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera25011unse start_page: 1002 end_page: 1004 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1922-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera25011unse publication_year: 1922 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1922, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Don’t Ever Pretend Don't Ever Pretend By James Sickles Hart [A gentleman of the latter century once made the statement that took in the entire field of literary endeavor. It was this. "No matter who has written it, if it has any semblance of a plot, or a series of interlinked events following one another to a logical or semi-mythical conclusion, a story has a moral attached to it." I grant this, but I do argue that some stories are far too complicated for the average person to grasp. I call to mind a recent thesis entitled, "Einstein's Theory"; while it is undoubtedly a splendid specimen of advanced scientific data I wish to know how many outside the sixteen super-mathematicians of the world grasped the deeply hidden moral of that three-hundred page lecture on the idiosyncrasies of illuminative bodies. Not wishing the elusive reason for the following sermon to be disregarded, I have begun with the moral first, and am tell- ing the story afterward, in direct contradiction to the approved and uni- versally accepted laws of rhetoric. — Author's note] It was to a very popular cafe to which the boy escorted the girl. A uniformed attendant held wide the doors, and a bebuttoned lad received the young lady's cloak and the gentle- man's hat, cane and overcoat. The head waiter bowed them into a screened compartment, and tactfully withdrew. When the boy was sure that the man had indeed left them, he turned eagerly to the girl. "By George, that was good of you to let me — " he began enthusiastically. "Why, not at all," she answered quickly, not wishing him to say too much. Idly he traced designs on the table cloth, not knowing ex- actly what to say. Through lowered lashes she surveyed him carefully. Before her she saw a boy of perhaps twenty, the usual type of third year university students. He was good look- ing, though, she mused, smiling to herself, and his careless ex- penditure of money and immaculate, debonair manner of dress would seem to indicate that he was of a family of means. An- other criterion of his evident endless supply of money was the brilliant settings in his tie pin and ring. All this she took in and mentally tabulated in the short space of sixteen seconds. Such is the rapidity of the calculating and observing proclivities of the feminine mind. But the silence was awkward and weighed heavily upon the youth, so he burst out again. "Really, Miss LaMotte, you must think that I am — er — well, I don't know what you think of DON'T EVER PRETEND 1003 such presumption as mine. Think of it," he laughed softly, "only seeing you once before this, and now I have the pleasure of—" She raised her hand with a gracefully reproving motion and silenced him. She managed to blush very prettily at the remembrance of their wholly unconventional meeting, and smil- ingly answered him, "Yes, it is quite a coincidence, isn't it? But then, in my profession, I become accustomed to strange things. Did you see my last play? No? You should have seen it, the critics did me the honor to say that it was the best that they have seen this season." "I have not seen you, but every one knows Marie De LaMotte! Why your fame is — " but noticing her blush, he hesitated, then finished with a touch of pride, "And just to think, dining with the famous Miss LaMotte!" Just then the curtains parted, and a burly son of Erin, his broad chest covered by a square yard of starched linen, came in. "Yer orther, sor!" he asked politely. As the boy looked up, the frigid formality melted away from the waiter's face, and a broad grin spread across his flushed, ruddy visage. "Begora ! An' ef ut ain't Danny O'Brien, I'm a liar ! Well, well, how air ye? An' is yer pap still on th' sewer departmunt back hum? Sure, an' I ain't laid me two eyes on ya since ya was a biy, arunnin' irrands fer yer mither! But ye better give me yer orther Danny, er th' bos'll be comin' in an' awonthering why I ain't arushin'," he finished in a whisper, a friendly light beam- ing in his eyes. Danny's complexion changed from a deep crimson to a malarial yellow, then to a sickly, pasty white. Slowly the blood rushed back into his face, flooded from his collar to the roots of his hair. He looked at the traced hieroglyphics that he had drawn a few moments before, not daring to meet the wither- ing glance of scorn that he knew to be in the flashing eyes of the woman across from him. Slowly she arose, and with stinging sarcasm addressed Danny, "Oh, excuse me, Mr. O'Brien, I think that I have an- other engagement!" For the first time the waiter looked at Danny's partner, and when their eyes met, he laughed derisively. "Shoor, an' whin hez Becky Cohn got t' be sich a gran' loidy? Begorra, yer old dad must be makin' awrful good money wid thet pawn shop o' his! Say, Becky," he teased, in retaliation of her thrust at Danny, "What ja iver do wid yer pig tails?" Limply the girl sank back in her chair, staring open- mouthed at the huge wizard before her. 1004 IMPROVEMENT ERA Danny, too, was staring at him, but the astonished gaze turned slowly to a widening grin, and for the benefit of the girl opposite him, he let just a burr slip in his speech as he said, '"Awright, Mike, b-b-bring en th' b-b-best ya got!" With dancing eyes he surveyed the crestfallen girl, she, hap- pening to look up, caught his laughing expression, and cried at him tearfully, "Danny O'Brien, don't you dare laugh!" Danny sobered instantly. "I won't," he promised, but a casual observer would have noticed that his eyes twinkled, and his lips twitched suspiciously at the corners. Montpelier, Idaho The Song of the World A bard made rhyme on the king's highway, A migrant minstrel bold, And all who tarried might hear his lay — The pilgrim worn — the courtier gay, For he was glad and he sang all day, A wondrous song of old. The king swept by with his pageantry, Nor harkened ever a strain, No alms to a vagrant ministrelsy, While he of the realm's first majesty, Must hie him away on his embassy — Away from the blest refrain. A knight in his armoured panoply, Charged forth at the tocsin call, For his was a regal errantry, To fight for a liege and a dynasty — The song and the singer for such as he, Had chantment never at all. The martman's visage was old with care, As over the hill he climbed, With gold elusive and hard to spare, What mattered to him the day was fair, That out on the highway over there, The song of the world was rhymed? They passed him by through the gladsome day, As on they thronged and on, A hurrying, motly pageant they, The viceroy and the poppin-jay, And to all who came he sang his lay — 0 what was his wondrous song? They passed him by on the king's high-way, In the olden golden day, The king and his courtiers long are dust, The martman's gold is tawdry rust, But the song was Love and live it must, When the world shall pass away. Mesa, Ariz. Bertha A. Kleinman