Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

of the school board who took a disapproving attitude toward slacks for teachers, but I wasn't an old maid yet, I had decided defiantly. I would wear them around my own home if I pleased. At least — there was a little vanity here — I had the figure for them. And if the school board thought that a good figure and a reasonably pretty face were liabilities, the children didn't. Becoming clothes, a judicious use of make-up, a new hair-do occasionally — children noticed them all, I was convinced, and liked the teacher who wore them the better for it. The early dusk fell while I was still busy with the dahlias, and a band of light fell across me from the living room of the house next door — Charles' house. It showed me to Charles himself as he came down the street. "Hi, Fran," he said, stopping just outside the hedge. "Aren't you picking a funny time to start gardening?" "Hi." I sat back on my heels, smiling up at him. As always, the sight of his long ranginess filled me with a bittersweet happiness — as always, through long practice, I showed nothing of what I felt. "It's these bulbs — I don't want them to freeze in the ground." "If you'd waited until tomorrow afternoon, I'd have helped you." "I know. That's why I did it today. I don't want you to spoil me." BUT that wasn't the reason. I could meet him like this, for a few minutes, and keep up my pose of casual friendship, but an afternoon of working by his side, listening to his deep voice, watching the movements of his hands — no, I couldn't trust myself over any long period of time, Inevitably, the moment would have come when love looked out of my eyes. It was all the same as it had been before he went into the Army. I'd thought that three years of not seeing him, three years when all my anxiety for his safety had had to be stifled and hidden, would give me a new strength, so that on his return I could easily treat him merely as an old friend. Foolish hope! In the first moment of meeting him after his discharge I had known how foolish it was; I had had to hold my arms at my sides with a muscular effort to keep them from reaching out toward him. He stepped back from the hedge. "Well," he said, "you know if you ever do need help around the house — you or your mother — just yell and Bob or I will come to the rescue." I thought he was going on then, and he did move a foot or so, but he hesitated. "By the way," he asked abruptly, "speaking of Bob — how.'s he getting along in school?" What I did then was done entirely on impulse. I could never have planned it, I would have been afraid. But he was offering me a chance to confide in him — and after all, he was Bob's father, it was his right to be consulted. I said quietly: "Not very well, Charles. I've had to keep him in quite often — I had to keep him in today, in fact." "Yes," Charles said. "I know. Not about today, of course, but — " He turned back to the hedge, and I stood up and went to him. All at once, the atmosphere between us had changed. He had lowered his voice, and in lowering it he had brought us together. It was as simple as that. "What's the matter with him, Fran?" he asked. "Have you any idea? He's not stupid or lazy — I'm sure of that." "So am I," I told him. AFTER "I feel like a new person since taking the Bonomo Home Course," saysBETTYE HOWELL of Albany, Cal. BEFORE fa* ..,, ■*&%& 4£f LOSES 20 POUNDS IN 6 WEEKS Gains New Charm and Confidence as she learns New Beauty Secrets "I'm so very, very happy," writes Bettye Howell. "Me! Strutting around, showing off. What a wonderful world this is now— dates, parties ... I just can't believe all this is happening to me." The old story over again. In 6 short weeks a lonesome discouraged girl becomes a new, attractive, sought after, streamlined beauty. 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