Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1924-Jan 1925)

f "MOTION PICTURr CI I MAGAZINE " There was one moment when Hope was quite overcome by the parting with her parents. She would have given anything in the world to have had her mother caress her lory good-bye and then hurried into the train which quickly pulled out. There was another 'moment of pain, then with a toss of her head Hope turned away and mentally plunged headforemost into her design of becoming forthwith as wicked as she could be. While Hope and her Aunt Charity were the acknowledged drudges — Charity gratefully so as long as she could have her Parana the moment she felt overtired — inside the house ; Hank was the man-of-all-work outside. In his father's enforced absence he was kept pretty busy. But during this same parental absence Hank had managed to make several friends. Steve Brodie, for instance, had taken the greatest and most incomprehensible interest in him. For several months past now, Hank had been sneaking away nights when they thought he was locked in his room. Steve told him he liked him and promised him a good job just as soon as his father would let him take it. Hank knew that his father did not like Steve Brodie for some reason or other. His father never bothered to tell him anything. That's the reason he liked Brodie and his friends, because they seemed to look on him as being somebody. The fellows he met in the back of Brodie's insurance office were older than he, but the kind of sporty fellows that Hank would have picked out to go with. They started out by playing dominoes. Then they got to playing cards one night. Hank was afraid at first. But they took great pains and patience with him. They always' had something to drink, too — sarsaparilla or ginger ale. It was the best of its kind Hank had ever drunk. After \ drinking a bottle, they could make Hank do anything and >46 he seemed to feel happy for the first time in his life. One morning after a clandestine visit to Brodie's, his father said at breakfast, "You smell just like you've been adrinkin' my Parana — no wonder it goes so fast !" Hank protested. "Now, dont add lyin' to stealin' — you know you did ! Go to your room !" Hank did, and he felt as tho he would like to have had a whole bottle of that wonderful soft drink of Brodie's and drink it right down. That night he went again. He asked if he couldn't have a bottle to take home — to keep it in the barn, of course. "Why. I guess we can give him a bottle as often as he wants it, cant we, boys? A nice feller like him!" And they did give him a bottle. And whenever things would go askew. Hank would sneak out to the barn and take a little and feel better right away ! Nobody paid much attention to him anyhow, so if he acted a little queer — which he felt somehow he was doing — it was not noticed. It was so good that he felt he couldn't do without it ! So that day he and Hope were coming up the street, after having seen their parents off for San Francisco, he saw Steve Brodie and another man standing in front of the house, he was tickled to death. One reason was, his bottle was empty. He liked Steve anyway, for that matter. "There's Steve Brodie !" he told Hope. "But who is that nice looking man with Mr. Brodie?" asked Hope, a thrill of feminine consciousness running thru her. Hope liked men, but her admiration had usually been limited by the apertures in the "front room" blinds thru which she peered at them, thinking how pleasant it would be to actually know one and "go