Radio and television mirror (Jan-June 1941)

' r ■ At nineteen you could be so cruel — and Peg was ruthless in her hatred. but John. A jovial John, grinning deep clefts into his cheeks, his grey eyes beaming. A quiet John, asking, "Will you marry me? Now? Right away?" A serious John, telling her about his first wife, Anne, who went out on the lake alone one stormy night eight years before and never came back, telling about his children, Bud and Peg. "It isn't really fair to ask you to take on such a responsibility. You're so young — and they're pretty spoiled, I guess, being without a mother for so long. But I know they'll love you, just as much as I do." A timid John, afraid he would lose her because of his children, saying hopefully, "I know it's a lot to ask of you — " KAY remembered how blithely she had looked forward to this new adventure of being a mother as well as a wife. Having John's love, she felt equal to any task. It had been easy to win Bud's affection. He was twelve years old, healthy, curious and eager. From the first moment, he had been wiMing to accept her. She had loved him on sight and it wasn't long before he considered her one of his best friends, in spite of the fact that she was a grown-up and, what must have been worse in his eyes, a "lady." But Peg. A dozen instances of Peg's hostility flashed like pictures on the screen of her mind. Peg, when they met for the first time, looking at her with cold, speculative eyes, never even putting out a hand in welcome. Peg being defiant. Peg calmly assuming that it was Kay, and Kay alone, who objected to her late hours and unexplained dates. Peg being impertinent and deceitful. If only, Kay thought, she could understand Peg — be friends with her, help her! She was such a strange girl, beautiful and gay and capable of a disarming sweetness, which Kay could not help feeling was a truer indication of her real character than the sullenness she wore whenever she was with her father's new wife. She was not — Kay struggled to analyze her — very stable emotionally, nor very happy. She conceived violent affections, as well as violent hatreds. She had absolutely no ability to judge peopie, especially men. And whatever emotion she happened to be experiencing at the moment filled her entire horizon. Her impulses, her 16 ungoverned temperament, might some day lead her into serious trouble. And yet, as Peg herself had just pointed out, you couldn't treat a nineteen-year-old girl like a child. Even if she acted like one. Looking backward, Kay saw herself at nineteen and thought how much more mature she had been than Peg. But then, she'd had a job — two jobs, really, because she was working on a newspaper as well as going to college. There hadn't been time for petty resentments or equally petty enthusiasms. Now, if only Peg were busy on something that seemed important to her instead of being so idle — It was a chance, a slim one, but still a chance. Kay's over-stimulated mind turned it over and over, wondering how to test it. Of course, Peg must never even suspect that Kay wanted her to take a job. How then to manage it? . . . Dawn was stealing into the room before Kay had a plan. She found suddenly, that she Was relaxing contentedly and from eyes grown pleasantly heavy she watched the pink fingers of light gather up the shadows and sweep them into nothingness. Sleep came upon her unawares. She slept only a few hours, yet she woke feeling refreshed and eager. All morning, she went about keenly aware of a new sense of well being, of belonging to the house and right after breakfast, as soon as John had left for his office in the bank, she went in to Walnut Grove to set her plan for Peg into motion, she felt for the first time that she belonged there, too. Before, she had sometimes felt that it was slow and dull, a backward place compared to Chicago. But now, as if her eyes had been given new sight, she understood John's pride in it. It was a small town, but it was growing. And everyone in it was helping it to grow. The butcher, the baker, the policeman on Main Street, the young woman pushing the baby carriage, and all the others — the young and the old, the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor — all of them were just as much a part of its growth as was Mr. Clark, who smiled so condescendingly to her from the steps of the bank where John worked. Usually, Mr. Clark irritated her deeply. He was so conscious of his position as president of the bank RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR