Plato - "Laws"

Richard Le Gallienne - "Old Love Stories Retold"

Catherine Parr Traill - "Lost in the Backwoods"

Jane Austen - "Pride and Prejudice"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Long Chance

P >> Peter B. Kyne >> The Long Chance




Donna realized it too. For the first time in her life she was angry,
although not for worlds would she permit Miss Pickett to realize it.
She had the postmistress on the defensive now, and she was determined
to keep her there; so, in calm gentle commiserating tones Donna read
the riot act to the embarrassed gossip. Mentally, morally, physically
and socially, she was Miss Pickett's superior and Miss Pickett knew
this; her instinctive knowledge of it placed her at a disadvantage and
forced her to listen to a few elegantly worded remarks on charity, the
folly of playing the part of guardian of a sister's morals and the
innate nastiness of throwing mud. It was a rare grueling that Donna
gave Miss Pickett; the pity of it was that Mr. Hennage could not have
been there to listen to it.

The postmistress was confounded. She could think of nothing to say in
reply until the right moment for saying it had fled; and her pride
forbade her acknowledging defeat by tossing her head and walking out
with a grand air of injured innocence. In the end she lost her
composure entirely, for while Donna's remarks had seemed designed for
the "folks" whom Miss Pickett seemed to fear might "talk," the latter
knew that in reality they were directed at her.

To be forced to listen to an almost motherly castigation from Donna
Corblay was too great a tax upon Miss Pickett's limited powers of
endurance. She flew into a rage, all the more pitiful because it was
impotent, murmured something about the ingratitude of some people--"not
mentionin' any names, but not exceptin' present company," and swept out
of the eating-house; not, however, until she had commenced to cry, thus
acknowledging her defeat and humiliation and presenting to San Pasqual
that meanest of all mean sights, a mean old maid, in a rage, weeping
until her eyes and nose are red.

In the afternoon Donna had a visit from a Wells Fargo & Company
detective. He was a large fatherly person, who might have had girls of
his own as old as Donna, and he stated his mission without
embarrassment of preliminary verbal skirmishing. "From various sources
around town, Miss Corblay, I gather that it is quite possible you are
acquainted with the man McGraw who is suspected of the recent stage
robbery at Garlock."

Donna admitted, smiling, that it was quite possible.

"Have you any objection to telling me all you know about him?"

"Not the slightest. It is your business to investigate this matter, and
I have refrained from telling others whose business it is not. If I
have your word of honor that what I tell you is for the company you
represent and not for the gossips of San Pasqual, I can save you time
and trouble and expense."

"Thank you. It is a rare pleasure, I assure you, Miss Corblay, for a
man in my line of work to receive such a prompt, courteous and
businesslike answer from a woman. You have my word that anything you
tell me is in confidence."

"Did Miss Pickett send you here?"

"Indirectly. She gave some information to our express messenger who in
turn gave it to me. I might add that the interest of our messenger
ceased when I took up this case."

"Very well" replied Donna, and proceeded to tell him with infinite
detail, everything she knew concerning Bob McGraw, excepting the fact
that he was her husband. In five minutes she had tightened the web of
circumstantial evidence around him, and then unloosened it, and at the
finish of her recital the detective had no questions to ask. He held
out his hand and shook hers warmly.

"I think you have solved this case for me, Miss Corblay. However, there
is one matter that will be hard to overcome, and that is the
identification of McGraw by the passenger, Carey."

"Who?"

"A passenger. His name is T. Morgan Carey, of Los Angeles. He is rather
prominent in business circles--a pretty sane, careful man, and his
testimony would have considerable evidence with a jury."

"Find out from the messenger if Carey identified Bob--I mean Mr.
McGraw (the detective smiled slightly) before the messenger gave chase
to the hold-up man, or after he returned with the hat. If the latter, I
can explode his testimony. I happen to know that Mr. Carey is a
business rival of Mr. McGraw's and very unfriendly to him. It would be
to Carey's great financial advantage to see Bob (again the detective
smiled) in jail. Then ask your agent at Keeler to make inquiry and
learn if a tall young man with auburn hair didn't ride into town the
day following the hold-up, mounted on a roan horse. If he sold the
horse, saddle and spurs, purchased two burros and outfitted in Keeler
for a prospecting trip, that man was Mr. Robert McGraw and he didn't
arrive bareheaded. I think you'll discover that you're following a
false lead."

The detective could guess a thing or two; otherwise he would not have
been a detective. He guessed something of Donna's more than friendly
interest in the man he was after; an interest which he felt to be
greater than a mere feeling of gratitude for what McGraw had saved her
from, and his sympathies wore with her. She had been "open and above
board with him" and he appreciated the embarrassment that might attend
should the matter be given publicity.

"Whatever I discover will not be made public, Miss Corblay. Thank you."

He lifted his hat and walked out, while Donna, selecting one of the
late magazines from the news-stand, sat down and read for the rest of
the afternoon.

Eight days passed before the detective appeared again at the counter.

"Miss Corblay," he reported smiling, "you're a better detective than I.
McGraw didn't do the job--that is, your--Bob. But some other McGraw
did. The fact is, he's sent back the money he lifted from the company
and the passengers. At least, a number of them have reported the
return of their cash. Here's a note the agent here received a little
while ago."

He passed a type-written sheet across the counter to her. Donna read it
carefully.

"The plot thickens. However, this is only added proof that my line of
reasoning is correct. This line, 'I didn't have no business to do it in
the first place,' clinches the testimony. The Robert McGraw of my
acquaintance never uses double negatives."

"And he couldn't have arrived in Goldfield with a burro train in less
than six weeks. You say this man uses double negatives. There's a clew.
Who, among your acquaintances, Miss Corblay, uses double negatives?"

"Every soul with the exception of Mr. McGraw" replied Donna. "Following
a clew like that in San Pasqual would be like looking for a needle in a
haystack. But I think I could name the man who wrote that note."

"Who is he?"

Donna favored the detective with a mocking little smile.

"He's a friend of mine" she said, "and I never go back on a friend."

"Well," he replied jokingly, "I can't imagine a friend going back on
you. However, I'll not be curious about this chap. He appears contrite,
and the incident is closed. But all the same, this is one of the
queerest cases I've had in all my experience," and he went out, still
puzzled.




CHAPTER XVIII


Thanksgiving came and went, and with, the approach of Christmas came
the knowledge to Donna that her tour of duty behind the cash-counter of
the eating-house was rapidly drawing to a close--for the very sweetest
reason in all this sad old world; a reason as yet apparent to no one in
San Pasqual but Donna herself; a very tiny reason against whose coming
Donna had commenced to plan and sew in the lonely hours of her vigil at
the Hat Ranch, waiting for Bob to come back, that she might impart to
him the secret. Yes, indeed, a most valid reason. Donna hoped it would
be a man-baby, with wavy auburn hair like Bob's.

On the first of February she gave notice of her intention to resign her
position on the first of the following month. Bob had left with her a
hundred and fifty dollars, the balance of her little capital having
been expended during their honeymoon trip and in outfitting Bob for his
trip into the desert, and but for the fact that the thousand dollars so
thoughtfully provided by Harley P. was still in the eating-house safe,
Donna would have been placed in a most embarrassing position. With the
knowledge that she had ample funds with which to maintain herself and
her dependents at the Hat Ranch until the birth of her child, however,
Donna decided to remove herself from the prying gaze of the San
Pasqualians by resigning her position. The fact that her marriage to
Bob was not known in the little town was now an added embarrassment,
and the necessity of conveying to the world the news that she had been
married since October was imperative. She decided to go up to
Bakersfield, visit the city hall and request the clerk who had issued
the license to Bob and herself to give the news of its issuance to the
papers. She was aware that Bob knew this clerk and for that reason they
had been enabled to keep the matter secret.

But the news that Donna Corblay had resigned the best position
obtainable for a woman in San Pasqual--and that, without assigning any
reason for her extraordinary action--spread quickly, and Mrs.
Pennycook, with envious eyes on the position for her eldest daughter,
visited the hotel manager and tried her persuasive personality to that
end.

After that visit, there was no need for explanation. Mrs. Pennycook,
with horrified mien and many repetitions of "But for heaven's sake
don't mention my name," furnished the explanation--and to a lady of
Mrs. Pennycook's large experience in matters of maternity, there was no
heretic in San Pasqual who doubted the authenticity of her verdict.

Of the whisperings, the interchange of gossip and eager speculation as
to the identity of the man in the case, the haughty stare of the women
and the covert smiles of the men. Donna was not long kept in ignorance.
On the fifteenth of the month the manager came to her, announced that
he had already been fortunate enough to secure her successor, paid her
a full month's salary, and with a few perfunctory remarks touching on
his regret at losing her services, indicated that she might forthwith
retire to that seclusion which awaited her at the Hat Ranch. Donna,
proud, scornful, unafraid in the knowledge that she was an honorable
wife, deemed it beneath her dignity to reply. She removed her little
capital from the safe, balanced her cash and walked out of the eating-
house forever.

She had come to the parting of the ways. Her condition demanded the
immediate presence of her husband, notwithstanding the fact that to
call him in from his wanderings now might mean the abandonment of his
great dreams of Donnaville. All her life she had needed a protector;
more than ever she needed one now, and she was torn between a desire
for the comfort of his presence and an equal desire to sacrifice that
comfort to his great work, by refraining from sending Sam Singer into
the desert with a message to him. She knew she could send Sam over the
Santa Fe to Danby, and in the miner's outfitting store there Sam would
be directed to the country where Bob's claims lay. For two days she
wrestled with this problem, deciding finally to prove herself worthy of
him and face the issue alone.

But the time had come when San Pasqual, representing Society, must be
accorded the right which Society very justly demands--the right to know
whether its members are conforming to all of the law, moral and legal.
Donna realized that her silence in the matter of her marriage had
placed her in an unenviable light, and while she was striving to
formulate a plan to make the announcement gracefully. Mrs. Pennycook,
emboldened by the absence of Harley P. Hennage, gathered about her a
committee of five other ladies and swooped down on the Hat Ranch.

Donna was standing at her front gate when this purity squad approached.
She guessed their mission instantly, and welcomed it. Whether
gracefully or ungracefully, the matter would soon be over now, and it
pleased her a little to note that all six ladies were leading matrons
of the little town. Each member of Mrs. Pennycook's committee reflected
in her face mingled sadness, embarrassment and curiosity. For three of
them Donna felt a genuine regard; she realized that their visit was
actuated by a desire to help her, if she required help, to lend her
their moral support in the face of suspicion, whether just or
otherwise. The other three, including Mrs. Pennycook, Donna knew for
that detestable type of womankind best known and described as "catty."
Some one of these three who knew would fire the first gun in this most
embarrassing campaign, and in order to nullify their fire as much as
possible, Donna decided not to wait for that opening broadside, but to
sweep them off their feet by a wave of candor and frankness, leaving
them stunned with surprise and ashamed of their own suspicions.

Upon its arrival, therefore, Donna greeted the delegation cordially,
receiving an equally cordial return of the greeting from all except
Mrs. Pennycook, who swept into the Hat Ranch in dignified silence, head
up and nose in the air, after the manner of one who scents a moral
stench and is resolved to eradicate it at all hazard.

"This _is_ an unexpected pleasure" Donna said hospitably. "Do come
in out of this dreadful heat. I've just finished baking a lovely layer
cake and you're all just in time to sample my cooking. I'll have Soft
Wind make some lemonade. We scarcely require ice here, the water from
my artesian well is so remarkably cool."

Graciously she herded them all into the shady patio, brought out chairs
and ordered Soft Wind to prepare a huge pitcher of lemonade, while she
herself carried out a small table, spread a tablecloth over it and
crowned it with a layer cake, seven plates, and the accessories.

The delegation squirmed uneasily. The cordiality of this reception and
Donna's apparent pleasure at the visit, together with her total lack of
embarrassment, placed the ladies at a decided disadvantage. Even Mrs.
Pennycook found it a tax on her ingenuity to solve tactfully the
problem of accepting Donna's layer cake and cool lemonade in one breath
and questioning her morals in the other--if this phraseology may be
employed to designate the problem without casting opprobrium on Mrs.
Pennycook's table manners.

There was a silence as Donna poured the lemonade and helped each
visitor to a section of the layer cake. When she had finished, however,
she leaned her elbows on the little table, gazed calmly and a little
roguishly at each guest in turn, and stole their thunder with a single
question:

"How did you all discover that I am married?"

The silence was painful, until Mrs. Pennycook choked on a cake crumb.
It was a question none of them could answer, and this very fact made
the silence more appalling! Even Mrs. Pennycook, who had organized the
expedition, blushed. Finally she stammered:

"We--we--well, to tell the truth, we hadn't heard."

Donna's eyes were wide with simulated amazement.

"You hadn't heard!"

"No" snapped Mrs. Pennycook, quick to see her opening, "but we were all
hoping to hear--for your sake."

"But you guessed something when I resigned my position at the eating-
house?"

Donna could scarce restrain a smile as she saw the eagerness with which
Mrs. Pennycook showed in her true colors by walking blindly into this
verbal trap. A slight sardonic smile flickered across her stern
features.

"We didn't suspect. Everybody in town _knew._ And, not to beat
about the bush, Miss Corblay, we came here to-day to find out. We're
old enough to be your mother and we have daughters of our own, and in a
certain sense, havin' known you from a baby, we felt sort o'
responsible-like."

"Ah, I see" Donna almost breathed. "You were suspicious-like."

Two of the committee showed signs of inward disturbance, but, having
fixed bayonets, Mrs. Pennycook was now prepared to charge.

"We came to find out if you're an honorable married woman, or--"

"Quite right, Mrs. Pennycook. That is information which you, and in
fact every person in San Pasqual, is entitled to know. I am an
honorable married woman. I was married in Bakersfield on the
seventeenth day of last October."

"Well, then, where's your husband?"

"That is a question which you are not privileged to ask, Mrs.
Pennycook. However, I will answer it. My husband is about his lawful
business somewhere in the Colorado desert."

"Who is this man?"

"My husband's name is Robert McGraw."

Six separate and distinct gasps greeted this announcement
extraordinary. A tear trembled on the eyelid of one of the ladies of
whom Donna was really fond and whom she had reason to believe was fond
of her.

"Well, dearie" replied Mrs. Pennycook unctuously, "it's kind o' hard-
like to tell whether, in your present--er--delicate condition, you're
better off unmarried-like, or the wife of a man accused of holdin' up a
stage at Garlock."

"It is embarrassing, isn't it?" Donna laughed. She was not in the least
angry with Mrs. Pennycook. In fact, the gossip amused her very much,
and in the knowledge of the day of reckoning coming to Mrs. Pennycook
she could afford to laugh. "What does Dan think about it?"

"Mr. Pennycook, _if_ you please" corrected his wife. "We will not
mention his name in this matter."

"Well, then, what do you think of it, Mrs. Pennycook?"

"To be perfectly frank-like, an' not meanin' any offense, I think, Miss
Corblay, that you drove your pigs to a mighty poor market."

"It does look that way" Donna acquiesced good-naturedly. "I'll admit
that appearances are against my husband. However, since I know that the
charge is ridiculous, I shall not dishonor him by making a defense
where none is necessary. He will be in San Pasqual about the first of
April, Mrs. Pennycook, and if at that time you desire to learn the
circumstances, he will be charmed, I know, to relate them to you."

"I am not interested" retorted the gossip.

"Judging by this unexpected visit and your pointed remarks, dear Mrs.
Pennycook, I think I might be pardoned for presuming that you were."

Mrs. Pennycook made no reply, for obvious reasons. The sortie for
information had been too successful to please her, and in Donna's
present mood the elder woman knew that she would fare but poorly in a
battle of wits. Indeed, she already stood in a most unenviable position
in San Pasqual society, as the leader of an unwarranted attack against
a virtuous woman, and her busy brain was already at work, mending her
fences. In the interview with Donna she had expected tears and anguish.
Instead she had been met with smiles and good-natured raillery; and she
had an uncomfortable feeling that her fellow committeewomen were
already enraged at her and preparing to turn against her. She drank her
lemonade hastily and explained that their visit had been for the
purpose of setting at rest certain unpleasant rumors in San Pasqual,
wherein Donna's reputation had suffered. If the rumors had proved to be
without foundation they would have felt it their business to nip the
scandal in the bud. If, on the contrary, the rumors were based on
truth, they had planned to give her a Christian helping hand toward
regeneration.

"I am very glad you did me the honor to call" Donna told the committee.
"I had kept my marriage secret, for reason of my own, and I am glad now
that my friends will brand these rumors as malicious and untrue."

The committee left in almost as deep sorrow as it had come. Donna
walked with them to the front gate, and at parting two of the women
kissed her, whispering hurried words of faith in her, and from the
bottom of their truly generous womanly souls they meant it. Donna knew
they did, and was deeply grateful. In the case of Mrs. Pennycook,
however, she had no such illusion. She knew that disappointed vengeance
had served to sharpen Mrs. Pennycook's unaccountable and unnatural
dislike for her, and it was with secret relief that she watched the
members of the committee on social purity return to their respective
homes.

The following morning Mrs. Pennycook departed on a journey to
Bakersfield, the county-seat. Here she invaded the marriage license
bureau and requested an inspection of the record of the marriage
license issued to Robert McGraw and Donna Corblay on October
seventeenth.

To Mrs. Pennycook's profound satisfaction there was no record of such a
license available. Business in the marriage bureau was dull that day,
and the license clerk turned over to Mrs. Pennycook the bound book of
affidavit blanks, which constitutes the record of the county clerk's
office and from which the deputy clerk fills in the marriage license
when he issues it. She searched through the records from August up to
that very day--searched painstakingly and thrice in succession, while
the deputy looked on covertly from a nearby desk and smiled at her
activities. He might have informed Mrs. Pennycook that the record of
the issuance of a license to his friend Bob McGraw and Donna Corblay
could be found in the back of the book, where it would not be
discovered by the newspaper reporters who came each day to make
notations of the licenses issued. It is an old trick, this; to fill in
the affidavit blank toward the back of the book, where the record will
not be reached in the regular course of business until a year or more
shall have elapsed. The deputy county clerk was a friend of Bob
McGraw's and as he had promised not to give him away, he would keep his
word; so he snickered to himself and wondered if this acidulous lady
could, by any chance, be McGraw's mother-in-law. If so, he felt sorry
for McGraw. He sniffed a quick divorce.

Mrs. Pennycook could not find the record she sought, and demanded
further information. The clerk informed her gravely that, aside from
personal experience, all the information on marriages in Kern county
was contained in the book before her; so Mrs. Pennycook returned to San
Pasqual, vindicated in the eyes of the committee on individual morals.

The following day Mrs. Pennycook called a meeting in her front parlor,
and to the credit of San Pasqual's womanhood be it said that two of the
committee failed to respond. However, Miss Molly Pickett volunteered to
enlist for the cause, and a quorum being present Mrs. Pennycook
announced that Donna Corblay's statement that she was a wife had not
been substantiated by the records of the county clerk's office. Having
examined the records personally, Mrs. Pennycook felt safe in assuming
responsibility for the statement that Donna Corblay was not married,
despite her claims to the contrary.

"Then," murmured Miss Pickett sadly, "she is not an honest woman!"

"_Decidedly_ not."

"I expected this--for years" Miss Pickett continued, and wiped away a
furtive tear. "Poor girl. After all, we shouldn't be surprised. I'm
afraid she comes by it naturally. There was a mystery about her
mother."

"Well, there's no mystery about Donna" retorted Mrs. Pennycook
triumphantly. "She's a disgrace to the community."

"What can be done about it?" one of the committee inquired.

"I believe," another volunteered, "that in San Francisco and Los
Angeles they have homes for unfortunate girls. If we can induce her to
go to one of these institutions, it seems to me it is our duty to do
so."

"I wash my hands of the whole affair" protested Mrs. Pennycook. "I went
down there, as you all know, an' did all the talking and acted
sympathetic-like, an' got insulted for my pains. I'll not go again."

"Perhaps you didn't approach the subject just right, Mrs. Pennycook--
not meanin' any offense--but you know Donna's one of the high an'
mighty kind, an' you an' her ain't been any too friendly. I think,
maybe, if _I_ was to talk to her, now--"

"I'm sure you're welcome, Miss Pickett. Somebody ought to reason with
her like before the thing gets too public, an' I don't seem to have the
right influence with the girl."

"I'll go call on her, if one or two others will go with me" Miss
Pickett volunteered. She omitted to mention the fact that company or no
company, she would not have missed the opportunity of taunting Donna
for a farm. However, two other ladies decided to go with Miss Pickett,
and forthwith the three set out for the Hat Ranch.

There was no layer cake and lemonade reception awaiting _them_ at
the Hat Ranch. Donna, upon being informed by Soft Wind that three
ladies desired to interview her, met the delegation in her kitchen,
which they had entered uninvited. She surveyed the nervous trio coldly.

"Is this another investigating committee?" she demanded bluntly.

"Well, in view o' the fact that there never was any marriage license
issued to you an' that--that stage-robber--"

"Miss Pickett--and you other two shining examples of Christian charity!
Please leave my home at once. Do you hear? At once! I have no
explanations or apologies to make, and if I had I would not make them
to a soul in San Pasqual. Leave my home instantly."

The three ladies stood up. Two of them scurried toward the door, but
Miss Pickett lingered, showing a disposition to argue the question. She
had "walled" her eyes and pulled her mouth down in the most approved
facial expression of one who, proffering help to the unfortunate,
realizes that ingratitude is to be her portion.