Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1921)

A Dramatic Tale, Entered in PHOTOPLAY'S Fiction Contest — The PHOTOGRAPH Wherein an old man's memory almost wrecks a perfect honeymoon. By W. TOWNEND Illustrated by T. D. Skidmore SOL GRITTING, the proprietor of the hotel at White Gap, leant forward in his chair and knocked the ashes from his corn cob pipe out on to the stone hearth in front of him. "Gosh-ormighty!" he said. "Listen to that. Lucy! Seems like winter has set in right early this year, hey!" Lucy, his daughter, who had kept house for him ever since the death of Abe Drackett, her husband, ten years before, sat on the other side of the big open fire-place, piled high with glowing red-hot pine logs. She did not answer when he spoke to her, but went on with her knitting, almost as though nothing he could say were important enough to cause her to raise her eyes, even for a fraction of a second, from her work. To Sol's way of thinking, his daughter's one fault was her lack of interest in His conversation. That he had told her all he had to tell her hundreds of times before seemed but a poor excuse. No right-minded man or woman, let alone his own daughter, should have grown tired of hearing his stories of the real California, the California of his younger days, when men were brave and true and proud of their honor, and the women were all beautiful and pure, and tongues were guarded and justice was swift, as swift sometimes as the pressing of a trigger, and money was plentiful, and the air was like crystal and the sun had not yet lost its warmth nor the skies their blueness. Sol gave a little sigh and listened to the steady beat of the rain on the windows of the dining room and the swishing sound of the wind in the branches of the pine trees. "Bad night, ain't it? Whew! Gittin' old, I guess, ain't I?" He groaned as he leant forward once more to place another log on the fire. "I mind me jest such another October in . . . now, let me see ..." He frowned and stared thoughtfully into the blaze and then he must have dozed, for all at once he was roused by his head falling forward. He straightened up quickly and pretended that he had been thinking. "Yeh, Lucy, I forget now which October it was when we got the rain ... I clean forget ." . . " He broke off, then, feeling that he had touched on a dangerous topic. He was seventy, it was true, and when the weather was damp, he found it difficult to get around as easily as in the past; but seventy was not really old ! He would be old when he was eighty, perhaps, or eightyfive, but at seventy . . . seventy was almost the prime of life. He was still in possession of all his faculties and his memory was as good as ever . . . He grunted and stuffed more tobacco into his pipe. His daughter roused herself. "Dad, ain't you smokin' too much to-night? It's gittin' late, it's twenty minutes of nine already. Before you know where you are it 'ull be time fer bed." She paused, her plump, pink face suddenly alert. "Listen a minute . . . ain't that an auto comin'?" Sol frowned. His hearing was excellent, and always had been ; surely if Lucy could hear, he could hear, too ! He watched his daughter's expression anxiously. And so, although he had heard nothing but the wind and the rain and the crackling of the fire, when Lucy nodded her head sharply and raised her eyebrows with a look of astonishment, he too nodded and looked astonished. He even judged that it was safeto offer a remark. "Say, what the hell they doin' this time uh night, hey?" He was relieved when he heard at that moment the unmistakable sound of the hooting of a motor horn. 30 Lucy was on her feet. " Dad, " she said, "here's folks comin'. I got to git busy. " Sol groaned. The pain in his back made him slow in his movements. "Gosh! Say, I'd better see who it is." Lucy turned and made her way to the door. " In yer stockin' feet! You won't do nothin' of the kind. First thing you'll know you'll be down with pneumony. " She stopped. " Better go into the kitchen an' see what them kids uh mine are up to. Tell Billy to git the lantern ready. Them folks 'ull want to put the auto up in the barn. An' hurry up! ..." "Whew!" Sol stood up. "Now, where in thunder did I put them blame' shoes uh mine?" * * * * ""THE two guests, a Mr. and Mrs. Wainton, from San Fran*■ cisco, so they had written in the register, came downstairs at last and entered the dining room, hand in hand. Sol chuckled. At a glance he had seen that this quiet, pleasant-looking young man with the friendly smile and the tall, slender girl, who wore a big gray coat over a cream silk waist and a gray tweed skirt, were on their honeymoon. He greeted them warmly. "Mrs. Wainton, Air. Wainton, I hope you're satisfied with your room. I'd be obliged if you'd let me know if you ain't. Will you take the rocker, ma'm, in front of the fire ... a terr'ble rough night, ain't it!" The girl, a pretty girl with dark brown hair and eyes as blue as the Californian skies had been in the far-off past and cheeks flushed the color of the pink roses that grew on the porch in summer, smiled at him. "Thank you, Mr. Gritting, very much." Sol, encouraged by their friendliness, felt that later, when they had eaten their supper, he would tell them some of his stories. He squared his shoulders and beamed. "I don't remember such a night as this, early in October, since ... let me see now ..." He frowned in the effort to remember the date that had slipped his memory. "Oh! I got it now . . . not fer fifteen years. No, sir, not fer fifteen years. We had winter mighty early that year, same as it looks we'll have it thissen." The girl wriggled her arms free from her big coat. "It's nice and warm, isn't it?" She held out her hands to the blaze. "Are you cold, Peggy?" asked the husband. "No, but I was just about frozen coming up the hill ..." "Were you lost, Mr. Wainton?" asked Sol. "Lost! No. We got stalled on the road, that's all. We were hoping to make Santa Teresa by dark, but there was too much mud." And then the young man laughed and apologized. "Not that I'm sorry, Mr. Gritting. I'm very glad that we've had the opportunity of seeing your hotel ... very glad, indeed. Isn't that so, Peggy?" "Why, yes," said the girl slowly. "Why, of course." "Once upon a time," said Sol, plunging into the past, "we used to have guests a-plenty . . . the year round. But now . . . shucks! Californy ain't what it used to be . . we ain't troubled much between the end of September an' May. You'd be surprised. I guess it's them motor-cars .. . . folks won't come anywheres 'less the roads is like boulevards . . . that's a fact, now, ain't it? My day, Mr. Wainton, we used to do all our trav'llin' by buckboard or horseback, but times is changed . . . yes, Mr. Wainton, times is changed."