Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1948)

■'."■. Reunion at Beechwood: Baby Hope and little Sammy with Harry Davis (played by John Raby) and Joan (played by Mary Jane Higby), in—" "Aren't you going to answer it, Lilly?" asked Sammy hopefully. '"Course," said Lilly, turning. "And you make tracks for your breakfast — " "I've got it, Lilly." Mother Davis' voice floated up the stairs. "All right, Mrs. Davis. See — " Lilly said accusingly to Sammy, "you keep me from my work and make your poor grandma run to answer the phone on a hot morning like this. Now, is you coming or is you ain't?" She reached for him, and he rose slowly, his eyes fixed on her face. Lilly gaped. "Sammy Davis!" "I spilled it," Sammy explained. "I sees you did. But what — " She touched a plump brown fingertip to the sticky mess on the rug. "That ain't plain water paint, Sammy Davis. It's something you mixed up." "I mixed some paint I found in the barn with mine," said Sammy helpfully. "I wanted it to stick. It spilled under me. It was an accident, Lilly, an' — an' you said accidents can happen." "I ain't beliein' that," said Lilly. "But you don't has to sit in it, does you? Sammy Davis, sometimes I think you is just a bad boy!" Sammy's lips quivered, and Lilly felt an answering contraction in her own heart. "I didn't mean to, Lilly — on a stack of Bibles." Lilly caught her breath. Her arms went around him, and now there was paint not only on the floor and on Sammy's pants, but on her clean apron as well. She couldn't stand it, hearing the little boy repeat the phrase he'd picked up when he'd testified at his father's trial. It wasn't right for a child to have to remember a thing like that; it just proved a saying her own momma used to have about the big black bird of trouble throwing his shadow before and behind. Lilly knew all about the black bird of trouble. Seemed like, lately, he'd made the Davis farm at Beechwood his regular roosting place. Holding little Sammy tightly in her arms, Lilly let her mind go back over the past few months. First there had been Betty MacDonald, Mr. Harry's secretary — the whole mess of trouble had begun, Lilly reminded herself, when that Betty had fallen in love with Mr. Harry. She was the wilful kind of girl who wouldn't take no for an answer, and she'd done her best to wreck the marriage of Miss Joan and Mr. Harry and ruin the lives of their best friends, too. Why, Miss Joan had even packed up her things and taken herself and little Sammy back to her mother's place in Stanwood! Poor Irma Cameron, Miss Joan's best friend who lived down the road a piece — everything had been going fine in her life, too, until Betty MacDonald appeared on the scene. Seemed like everything that woman touched turned out terrible. Miss Irma was in love with Steve Skidmore — had been for goodness knows how long. And then didn't Steve go and fall in love with that MacDonald hussy, and didn't she marry him, just so's she could be near Mr. Harry! Miss Irma's heart was like to break, Lilly recalled, shaking her head dolefully. Just about the only good thing Betty MacDonald ever did was the very last thing she did. She'd given her life for young Sammy — snatched him from the path of a truck, and been killed doing it. For that one piece of goodness, Lilly was grateful to her. She hugged Sammy tighter, remembering. Well, then, it looked like things were going to settle down and be peaceable — and then what happened? Just as if Betty MacDonald's ghost had come back from the grave to haunt them all, that's what it seemed like — because didn't her cousin Betty Scofield turn up in Beechwood, and wasn't she the dead spit and image of the first Betty, both in her looks and in her heart! That was right about the time Sammy's sister, Hope, was born, and Miss Joan in the hospital and all. Good, kind Mr. Harry, always rerdy to believe the best of everyone, always willing to lend a hand to people, tried to help Betty Scofield, who told him she was in trouble. And what did he get for his goodness? He got himself charged with murdering her, that's what! Lilly shuddered, remembering that awful day when the police had found Betty, strangled, in the Davises' barn, and the worse days that followed, when Mr. Harry was on trial for his life. Finally, Steve Skidmore had confessed to the murder, in time to save Mr. Harry. But not in time to keep Miss Joan from risking her life. Trying to help Mr. Harry, she'd tracked down a man Betty had known, and that man, hoping to keep Miss Joan from making public the things she'd found out about him, had kidnapped her. The car in which he was taking her away had been in an accident, and Miss Joan had landed up in the hospital again. If there wasn't a potful of trouble for you, Lilly wanted to know what you did call trouble. But now things were straightening out, at least a little, and Lilly had her fingers tightly crossed. Mr. Harry was safe, free of the murder 61