Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1914-Jan 1915)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

86 MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE the utter monotony and sharp drudgery of her days. The day of the fracas with Delia, Nance mounted "Wonder" with an even greater relief than customary. With the wind blowing keen against her face, her slim little body subject to the motion, her head flung back in unconscious abandon, she forgot the harrying of the day's work — forgot Delia's shrewish scoldings and Daniel's jibes and taunts. Letting "Wonder" guide her, she followed the main road and stopped a moment at the postoffice to inquire for the mail. A group of cowboys adorned the door-steps, and they accosted her familiarly. "Got a date with Smilin' Jim, Nance ? ' ' called one. * ' Dont hurry if you have, Nance. He aint up and doing till moonrise," laughed another. Nance surveyed them seriously. Her quaint, wistful little face was interested and questioning. "What do you mean, boys?" she queried. The boys roared at her evident gravity. "Why, Smilin' Jim!" they chorused; "haint y'u heard of him, Nance? He's seen round these parts a lot — his ghost, of course; always got a smile — kind of vacant, but pleasant as pay-dirt. Nice old geezer if he was equipped with a body." "O-oh!" Nance nodded. "A ghost — I see ! Do y 'u — boys — do y 'u consider ghosts — dangerous ? ' ' "Not Jim's," affirmed Tom, the first spokesman. "Y'u wouldn't be one mite afraid of Jim, Nance — he's too gentle in his ways. ' ' "I think," the girl considered, "that I would like to meet Smilin' Jim." "Why?" curiously from the boys, to whom the phenomenon of yearning for a ghostly encounter was novel. "He — he might be able to tell me where my — father is, ' ' she said. There was no mail, and Nance followed the road out of the town and rode along a more or less unused track by the mountainside. Heedless in her thoughts, Nance had let "Wonder" pursue the roads at will, and she realized of a sudden that this portion of the hills was new to her. Smoke curled among the tree-tops in the distance, and when "Wonder" neared it, the girl saw a tiny shack — the rudest and tiniest that she had ever seen. She rode up to a small, inadequate clearing in front and coughed portentously. A man appeared at the diminutive doorway — a man who had to bow his tawny head and stoop his massive shoulders before advancing into the open. His eyes held a timid, questioning look, but the smile he gave her was very sweet and pitiful in the gentleness so lovable in the hulking brute or the powerful man. Nance's heart pounded against her thin ribs in mighty thuds. This was Smiling Jim ! She knew it, certainly, intuitively. And if this were a ghost, then was the race of man overshadowed in girth and brawn. Ghost or man, Nance knew no fear. This was the first person in many a long day, outside the heedless throng of cowboys, who greeted her with a smile and took her little, toil-rough palm in kindly clasp. "I've lost my way," explained Nance, as the big man stood by her broncho, holding and patting her hand, with a curious, faraway look in his shallow, tranquil eyes. "Tell Jim," he answered her, in the uncertain voice of one inured to. silences. "I came from Center Roads," she said, "and I've let 'Wonder' take me — and — and — she's taken me wrong." "Cant you stay here, pretty, with Jim?" "No, oh, no!" the girl returned, patting his hand in turn. "I wish I could, but I have to get home in time to wash the supper dishes for Delia. ' ' "Delia?" "Yes— Delia; Delia Higby. She takes care of me — at least I sleep in her house. It's the biggest house in town — the Higbys' is." Jim's heavy brows were drawn tightly together. His breath came sharply; then he sighed and smiled. "Will you come again?" he asked wistfully; "not many come by Jim's — and I — I like you "