--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Bell, Ruth Moench collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 26 number: 7 published: 1923-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Ruth Moench Bell, "Hearts and Hollyhocks", *Improvement Era* 26, no. 7 (May 1923): 615–619.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2607unse 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: improvementera2607unse start_page: 615 end_page: 619 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1923-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2607unse publication_year: 1923 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 1923, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Hearts and Hollyhocks barts andffo/fyhochs l/J Story of Love, Struggle and Society} J{uthMoenchDell Chapter IX Sheriff Heron, remembering other days, made it easy as possible for John and Edna. He greeted them as he would have greeted two friends whom he had not seen for some time. He removed the hand-cuffs at once. On the way home, he gave them many a little period without his presence. His task seemed as unpleasant to him as it was to them. As they neared their home state, familiar faces met and recognized them. How they dreaded each station that brought them nearer home. It was a comfort now to Edna to know that her mother would not suffer the knowledge of their home- coming. Sheriff Heron had brought word of her death which had occurred soon after Edna had left for New York to be with John. The memory of the little girl, whose days were made mis- erable because children twitted her about her father being a jail-bird, came up often before John and Edna. They were glad no near relatives need suffer on account of them. Sheriff Heron had remembered John's fondness for poetry and even his favorite. He had brought along a copy of each of John's best-beloved poets, Whitman, Service, Browning. John got through many a tedious hour of the journey reading and memorizing poems. Edna could not settle her mind to read. She could only sit and gaze out of the car window and think and plan. In their home town the news that they had been found at last, made a sensation. It was considered of enough importance that the Daily Blade put out an extra. The day it came out, Judith had been motoring into the country, and returning, had stopped at a tea room for some refreshments before going home. She had not been within reach of the phone when word came for Sheriff Heron to go for his prisoners. She had just over- heard a conversation from one of the booths which had given her something to think about. She had heard her husband called a shark and unprincipled money grabber. At least she supposed her husband had been the one meant since the oc- cupants of the booth, coming out, had seen her and colored and otherwise given evidence of uneasiness. They had been central figures in the town for some time. 616 IMPROVEMENT ERA she and Phil, on account of his rapidly increasing wealth. The idea that some did not share in the homage the crowd gave them, was a disquieting thought to Judith. Even the newsboy's cry of "Extra! Extra!" failed to rouse her. "Oh, Judith, did you get one?" Kate Blakeston was at her table, impetuous and unceremonious as ever. As one sure of her welcome, she dropped into the chair opposite Judith and spread out her Extra, "They've caught them! They've caught them at last, Judith," Mrs. Blakeston gasped, "Just read this." She laid the paper before Judith, her finger indicating the headlines, "John Shirly Apprehended." Judith read and her hand quivered. She felt a smothering sensation as if she were about to faint. "Isn't it great?" Kate Blakeston continued. "Won't your husband gloat, though." "Gloat?" The word coming after that disturbing con- versation jarred on Judith's sensibilities. Was Kate merely excited and careless with her words, as usual, or did she mean exactly that, "gloat"? The thought took her mind, for the mo- ment off the fact that Edna and John were coming home under the care of the Sheriff. "And Edna is coming with him," Kate Blakeston rattled on. "Think of her nerve. I wouldn't face this town after that, not for forty old husbands like John Shirley. She certainly has stuck to her handsome criminal. Maybe she won't feel so much like sticking when she finds how much this town can snub her. Your husband can get his revenge now. The detectives have done wonderfully in hounding the fellow down." "Revenge," "hounding," Judith winced. She had never noticed before how wild Kate was in her speech. As a bosom friend of Judith's, Kate had always been a most enthusiastic admirer of Phil. And here she was talking of him as if he were a stage villain. "Perhaps the fault is with myself today," Judith conjectured. "Perhaps L am supersensitive because of the re- marks I overheard about Phil." So Edna was coming home again! Edna her dearest of all friends. She thought of Edna's sensitive nature and her de- votion to John. It would be a terrible ordeal for her even if every one were kind. Kate's canversation indicated that they would be anything but kind. Judith excused herself from the loquacious Kate and hastened home. The trouble of her girlhood friend hurt; but something else came nearer home just then. She crumpled the newspaper in her hand. Somebody had said that her husband had lost something more precious than wealth, had called him a shark. Somebody else blunderingly or meaningly had spoken of him as HEARTS AND HOLLYHOCKS 617 gloating, hounding. She could not bear to think of those hate- ful words in connection with her husband. She was thinking of this when her Phil came in. And unconsciously, quite uncon- sciously, she searched his face for that missing something he had lost. Phil glanced at the paper in her hand but made no com- ment. They seldom discussed anything. An off-hand remark, a superficial comment and then each was off to his own in- terests. "Oh, mother, listen to this new record," young Phil, Jr. burst in'o the room "It's one of Dafaure's latest records It's an old thing but it's a cracker jack when Dufaure sings it." The full, rich tones of the baritone seemed to have life. They seemed to reach out into the room and Judith felt as if they had caught hold of her heart and held it quivering. This had been the favorite song of their courting days, hers and Phil's. How many times they had sung it together! How many times they had pictured themselves as growing old to it's melody and ideal. She had not heard it for years. "And now we are growing Old, Maggie, and the trials of life nearly done." Judith felt the tears smarting her eyes. That was to have been their closing chapter. Hand in hand, heart in heart, as only years of tender confidences and sweet intimacies can make to one. She glanced at her husband. Was he, too, stirred by the old memories? Did he, too, realize how far they had strayed from their early ideal. His brows were knitted in irritation. "I wish you'd turn off that wretched noise, Phil," he jerked out. What you people find in such stuff beats me, anyhow." Judith took up her newspaper and fled to her room. She couldn't cry. She couldn't think. It was true, terribly true. And others had been first to sense the all-too-apparent change. He had lost — lost irrevocably, she feared, that elusive something not to be weighed against wealth. It was all so new, so overwhelming, she wanted to get away from it for awhile be- fore she faced it with resolution. She picked up the paper and read the account. It was two years since Edna and John had fled from disgrace and justice. Judith's throat ached with pain of it all as she read of the sick- ness, privations, hardships, despair of the two. Their splendid pitiful devotion to each other! Edna's heroic sharing of the misery. Her efforts to keep up her husband's spirits! Her hourly fear that he would be taken! The times without number when she had started up from sleep, dreaming that he had been found! Judith read while every nerve in her body throbbed with the pity of it all. Their beautiful love had made real again 618 IMPROVEMENT ERA the early years of their marriage. She forgot the episode of the evening! Forgot that she and her beloved had broken apart and "the splinters" were neither "fresh" nor "fine." Impulsively she caught up the paper and hurried down to her husband. "Phil, dear," she cried, "this can't happen. They have suffered enough. We haven't missed the money! The loss was ours alone. The law will cease to prosecute them if you say, 'enough!'" , Phil stared at her uncomprehendingly. "Oh, it is enough, dear. Think of poor Edna! Think of John! Think of all they've gone through! Release them, dear, let them go. Heaven only knows why he did it. But he's surely been punished enough. Make them leave him alone, dearest, or it will break my heart." Phil's reply cut cruelly. "You must be crazy, Jude, My honor is at stake. A man doesn't keep high priced detectives on a criminal's trail for two years to make fools of them and a fool of himself at last. He did it to feed her vanity, if you want to know why he did it. He didn't need it for himself. He did it to help her keep up with this infernal social set you\e got here. The only decent thing she could do was to stay with him after she got him into the mess." "But it is Edna, dear, Edna and John," his wife pleaded. "Your John, my Edna! Why, you and John went fishing to- gether when you were boys! Edna was the first I told of our en- gagement. Together we brushed and braided our hair at night and told each other of the events of the day ever since we were girls. Then she'd run across the lawn to her house or I'd run over to mine blowing each other our good-night kisses! I can't let you prosecute him, dear, I can't, I can't!" "I'm afraid you'll have very little to do with it, Jude," Phil replied coldly, resuming his paper. "And don't interfere in my affairs again, unless you can be sensible." "Sending him to jail can do no good. It can only feed your revenge. They used to send men to jail for their debts and thus make it impossible for them to pay them. Some day the folly of sending others to jail as we do now, will be seen. He has suffered so terribly, Phil. He will never do it again." "No, I guess he won't," Phil sneered. "And nobody, reading' of his experience would think of following his example." "That's enough, Jude," Phil dismissed her curtly, as if she had been a despised clerk. "They'll be here soon and the law shall take its course." Judith, with one long, despairing glance at her husband, turned away. The utter futility of pleading was all too appar- HEARTS AND HOLLYYHOCKS 6l9 ent. And yet he had been the tenderest of husbands. His com- plete detachment from herself and lack of consideration for her feelings or view-point meant more than she dared to admit even to herself. Perhaps he had not taken time to read of the wanderings of the two. Perhaps if she left the paper near, his curiosity, after all she had said, might draw him on to read the details of their lives for those two years when his detectives were trail- ing them. She hopefully laid the paper on the table at his el- bow and went to her room. There she sat for hours to think, and finally went to bed to toss and think. Sleep was impossible and still she had not thought it out. She. did make one resolu- tion before dawn and that helped her to doze off for a few minutes. (To be continued) The Spring 0 how marvelous is the spring, Such a live pulsating thing. Bees and birds are humming, singing, All of nature's voices ringing, And the heart within me sings 0 how glorious is the spring. I How inspiring is the spring, Buds are bursting, ev'rything Pushing upward, struggling forth From the womb of mother earth. Who can estimate the power Of the spring's awakening hour? Glorious spring, 0 how surprising, Like a resurrection morn; Ev'rything again arising That in winter died forlorn. Can I doubt the resurrection When I see the spring's perfection? I Every bird its voice upraises Singing forth its Maker's praises. Not a melancholy note Issues from a single throat. Let me, too, stand forth and sing Praises, in the glorious spring. Shelley, Idaho Joseph H. Dean