Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1940)

rs 'Tm sorry for you because you are beautiful." Her face stretched with a smile of relief. "But, Mr. Damrosch, if that were really true, why should it make you sorry for me?" she said, her words brightening. His crusty, bent fingers enfolded her hand. He held her eyes with his steady, kindly look. And, Helen Leonard listened to the strangest words she had ever before heard — words which she was to remember throughout her life. "Because — even though you have great success — and, my dear, you may have success even though you do not sing in the opera, you know — even with great success you will most likely be unhappy. Beautiful women generally are." Helen drew her hand from his. She felt a quiver run through her body. She did not know how to take this odd, wise little man. She was frightened, standing there. "But why — Mr. Damrosch?" "Because so many men will fall in love with your beauty — you may never know which one really loves you." He turned away from her then, walked unbelievably fast until he reached the door. Facing around, he said, "Until three tomorrow." Helen bowed, and walked swiftly past him. Now, driving beside grandma in the carriage, she no longer was afraid of the professor. She felt a kindliness for him as she would for an old friend. "I'm still mad at that old fool piano player!" grandma snapped. "Takes more than a couple of wild horses to make me forget about him!" Patting Helen's hand, "I'm glad he's not going to teach you. He can't teach a canary — much less you!" "I — I forgot to tell you, I'm going back tomorrow for my first lesson. He told me to come back." Grandma's wise eyes crinkled, "After I left he changed his mind! Oh, Helen! Just to think — you're to be a pupil of the great Damrosch! And he is great, my dear! Why, he was famous in Europe long before he came to America." Not even the runaway had brought tears to her eyes, but now they trickled out on her rice-powdered cheeks and shone in the afternoon sun. "The old buzzard!" she said. 1 HE hatless, serious young man stood watching the carriage until it was lost in the bustle of hansoms and Victorias and bicycles. "Good-by . . ." he had said and let her go like that. Still, he could see her blue eyes and golden hair as clearly as if he were still holding her in his arms. Thinking of her made him a little dizzy. She was so beautiful and young and smelled so sweet. Good-by! Could he mean that? When her image was etched on his heart. Could being a stranger in New York, could being without a job and not even enough money to hail a hansom and follow her really mean he would never see her again? It couldn't be. Because now he knew why he had come to New York. He could have kept on at his job as reporter in Pittsburgh, but something had sent him to New York . . . something. Now he knew what it was. He had come to find a beautiful girl, who laughed and cried at the same time. "You are a very brave fellow," a man standing beside him said. The man held out a battered brown derby, which he took with thanks. But he resented anyone breaking in on his revery. "I saw you from my office window across the street," said the stranger, who now he saw was small, grey-haired, with the squat squarish figure of an Italian. "And I see now that you like the beautiful girl. I see that, all right." "She was beautiful — but I didn't even find out her name, but I know when she laughs she has tears in her eyes and . . ." Resenting his lack of fact-finding more than the queries of the man, he turned suddenly. "Do you know her name?" "No. But I did not save her life. I should hate to save such a beautiful creature — and never know who she was." Angry at himself for not saying, "You're very beautiful and I would like to know your name" all in the same breath, he muttered determinedly, "I'll find out who she is — someday!" How could he? That was the way things happened in the books he read — not in real life, even in New York. So he added, "perhaps." "No 'perhaps!' " the grinning old man exclaimed. "And when you do — come tell me. I want you to bring the young lady to my theater — come as my guests." Puzzled by the enthusiastic little man, he eyed him with new interest "Permit me to introduce myself— I'm Tony Pastor," holding out his hand. "That's my theater over there. Now, what is your name?" "Alexander Moore." IT was well known along Ninth Street, where the Leonards lived, that Mrs. Leonard — Cynthia — paid little attention to the bringing up of her family of girls. Nor did she appear any more concerned about her husband, Charles. A strange family, indeed. Mrs. Leonard was hipped on the subject of politics. Talked nothing else. And Mr. Leonard, during the little time he spent home, read books by Robert Ingersoll, the agnostic. People said that Charlie Leonard had at one time been owner and editor of a newspaper, and had been considered a good smalltown newspaperman. His paper, The Clinton Herald, was published in Clinton, Iowa; it was a conservative, living-making sheet. Charlie probably didn't have an enemy in town, although, of course, there were those who questioned why any God-fearing man would dare to publish the works of Ingersoll. In Clinton, however, Charlie Leonard had been a happy family man — which was before his wife got the suffrage bee buzzing in her bonnet. Cynthia wanted to establish the right for women to vote — and furthermore, to be elected to an office. And she could quote at length — and did frequently —the exact words of such noteworthy suffrage leaders as Susan B. Anthony and Belva Lockwood. In the Leonard's little frame house, buried among willow trees and surrounded by a picket fence, down there near the Mississippi river bank, Cynthia's vot Helen had dreamed of singing for the great Leopold D a m ros ch . . . but when she was before him, nothing went as she had planned ing talk seemed almost a blasphemy. It had, indeed, fretted her editor-husband, Charlie. Grandma Leonard tried to reason with her son why his wife was so strong for suffrage the night the fifth child was being born. "If Cynthia has her way you're going to have even a fuller house of girls — and they'll all be suffragettes some day," Grandma Leonard told her son. "Equal rights for women — that's Cynthia's slogan. And, Charlie, when you figure out what she's gone through, bringing girls into this world, maybe you won't blame her for wanting everything she can get for them." But Charles never quite figured all that out. He was the kind of quiet, tender fellow who usually could see both sides of most stories and seldom argued about either. He saw Cynthia's side and he saw his own — more clearly. At times her side seemed more forceful, because Cynthia, a broad hipped, huge-bosomed woman with serene dark eyes and crisp, greying pompadour, was a far more forceful and persuasive person. CHARLIE LEONARD reasoned that it wasn't just Cynthia's notions about politics, which eventually influenced him to give up his paper and come to New York with his family. Cynthia advanced a strong sales talk about possibilities for him as a newspaperman in the city. And she pointed out also that there, their girls would naturally have better opportunities to make better marriages than they ever would in a small town. Helen, the youngest daughter, was eighteen before the Leonards were really settled in New York. But the years had not dimmed Cynthia's ambitious interest in suffrage. And it did not take her long to get right into the swing of city life and have her name and pictures and opinions on suffrage printed in every newspaper in town. The Leonards moved into a large house in Ninth street. Cynthia selected a large one, not only because the family was large, but she doubted her husband's ability to earn enough to keep the family going. And with the quantity of rooms there was always the chance of renting them out. Renting rooms soon proved, indeed, a necessary aid to the Leonards' finances. Cynthia selected the location because it would be convenient to her political gatherings. Also, the front parlor of the house offered a room large enough for her meetings and rallies to be held right in her own home! The location soon proved advantageous in other respects — more transients saw the sign in the window and therefore came in for lodging. Then, too, Rose's Italian Garden restaurant opened right next door. There the Leonards ate many plates of spaghetti in place of the meals Cynthia was far too busy to bother about planning or directing at home. Mrs. Rose, the buxom proprietress, had in abundance every motherly quality which her neighbor and good customer, Mrs. Leonard, apparently lacked. The equally strong and outstanding traits of the two were: Mrs. Rose wanted to mother the world, which Mrs. Leonard aspired to run! There was considerable traffic along Ninth Street the afternoon Helen and her grandmother drove up to their address. It took but one look at the Leonard house to know what was going on. Lamps burning in the parlor meant Cynthia was having another meeting. The piled-up bicycles, cluttering the front stoop, testified to that, too. Inside the hall of the house the smell of burning corn oozed out from the kitchen over everything. Against its sweet, scorched smell came the sound of high, hysterical voices. Chatter! Through these at frequent intervals the strong voice of Cynthia Leonard drove onward. Now she spoke — then she led the chorus of "Brighten the Corner Where You Are." After the song, in the following seconds of breathless quiet, Cynthia said, "And if I am nominated as a candidate for the election as mayor of New York City, ladies — I'll be elected!" HELEN and grandma listened to the goings on while Helen took off her hat and finding no place to hang it on the hatrack, balanced it on the banister post of the stairs. "Corn!" sniffed grandma. "Guess Charlie must be home and the girls are trying to cook for him." Corn was Charlie Leonard's favorite dish and Helen inherited his taste for it. She turned her tilted nose toward the kitchen and whiffed the odor pleasantly. "Oh, I hope Dad's home. I want to tell him — " "Tell him all about Mr. Damrosch," grandma said, "Only leave out that part where the horses ran away on account of your mother's parade. "And another thing — maybe you better not say anything about how you felt about the young man, either. Don't want him to think you're getting boys on your mind instead of singing now. You're the one he's depending on to be sensible." "All right," Helen smiled. "I'll remember." Helen tossed her heavy braid over her shoulder and thought that grandma never missed anything. The old woman rustled her way toward the kitchen then, humming "Brighten the Corner Where You Are." She opened the door and a screech greeted her. It came from the green parrot, Noah, swinging from the ceiling. " Votes-f or-women-equal rights ha ha ha!" the parrot then screamed over and over. "Shut your beak!" grandma said, laughing. Charlie Leonard was having a quiet drink, sitting alone, with his elbows rested on his knees, the way he sat when he had been walking a lot and his back ached. His glass, half-filled with bourbon, sat on the window sill near him. And beside his chair, on the floor, was his battered old hat. "Meetings, meetings, meetings!" he muttered as Helen came over to him. "Bicycles cluttering up the front of the house — hats all over the hall. Couldn't even find a place in my own house to hang my hat!" Helen, seeing his flushed unhappy face, filled immediately with sympathy . She sat on the arm of his chair and put her hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Dad — we're going to have corn for dinner. Can't you smell it cooking?" "I don't care!" he said. "Why don't those women 20