SHORT
STORY.
HIS FIRST-BORN
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, MARCH
Prepaid Advertisements
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FOR EACH INSERTION.
1913.
TO LET.
TO LET,
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BY
ANNIE HOWELLS FRECHETTE
Mrs. Lake sat on her vine-cov- ered porch in the moonlight, lis toning to the sound of retreating wheels until it died away in the distance. Presently came the long whistle and the roar of an incor- ing train, then a silence, followed by the shrill signaling whistle and the dull rumble of the depart ing train as it passed into the forest beyond the town.
Ju
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understand myself as I must have been then. But I realize the sin now, and each duy it confronts me more sternly, and each day feel more strongly that I must atone for it. But how-how?
I
“You remember, the summer I left college, you and our old doctor thought I had overworked my strength, and I was sent out to the far West, to ride and canoe and hast, and bring back the health you feared I had lost. Ab.] woll, I went; and in the wild new country and in the freedom from restraint ran wild. 8
As she sat in the moonlight with the heavy fragrance of the honeysuckle filling the air, and Bilence once
more settled
I
When no further sound came, she dropped back from her eager, listening poise, and realized that the decisive stop had boon taken, that her boy for he was still
"But of course you do remem- boy to her heart, although he had long ago taken his place among ber all this, and bow I came back men had gone forth on the quest to you brown and sunburned and which might bring confusion in-strong as a young tree. You were to his life. and the other lives eager to hear about all the wild united, to his.
doings, of my life on the cattle range, my gallops over the plains, and my stories about the Indians had made friends with. I told you much, bulI did not tell you all. And yet, even now, as I look over the sleeping villago, she back at myself with the loathing tried to understand all that I do, I can't believe that I hid she had learned in the last two what I did from any sense of days. No complicated problem guilt, for, strangely, I did not feel had come into her life before, oven any. That soose only came to me though while still a young woman the night after your little godson she had been left a widow with was christened. If you remem- two boys to bring up. They had ber, Marian's rector dined with given her comparatively little
us that evening. After you and trouble, though she had been far Marian had said good night to us, from an unthinking mother. She had been their comrade as well as
their mother, perhaps all the more
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central accommodation, light and
FROM 18 February, MEIRION, airy, os First and Second Floor,
No. 10, Peak, furnished or unfur-in new building being excted for Mesars, nicked. 6 Rooms.
WHITEAWAY LAIDLAW & 00., No. 6, DES VEUX VILLAS, 58. LTD. Entrance from Des Voeux Road, The PEAK, from 1st March, 1918.
Electrio Lift to all doors, Electric Premises will bothoroughly repaired, Light throughout. painted and colourwashed.
No. 21, SHELLY STREET. To let or for sale, GLENSBIEL,' Barker Road, No. 124, Peak, 6 rooms from 1st March, 1918.
No. 119, The PEAK, furnished, from middle of April until end of Octo: ber, 1018. Four Bedrooms, Tennis Court and Garden.
CRAIG RYRIE, No. 4, the Peak to let; fine situation; 8 rooms; tennis and croquet lawns..
No. 8, DES VIEUX VILLAS, No, 62, Peat, & moms.
No, 106, Peak, CLAVADEL 5 rooms, fully furnished with Tennis Court, for about 18 maths from lat May,
FOR SALE-HARTING and RO- UATE, on parter Kowloon Inland Lot No. 1154,
རྩྭ་
Apply to
LINSTEAD ́& DAVIS, Brd Fier, Alexandra Building.
Hongkong, 25th Feb, 1918,211
T
The plan can be soon and all particu- lars obtained at the Offices of Messrs, PALMER & TURNER, Alexandra Buildings, 3rd Floor.. Hongtoer. 20th Supt., 1912.708 T LET fani bed from end o March, house on Peak, two "ted- noms, two sitting rooms, large verandah, tennis ground-50 Peak.. Rougknoz. 2 (at Feb., 1918 · 199 ~O LET LARGE substantially bulls situated on front, East Point, Forfarther particulars apply Property Office, Jandiat, Matheson & Co., Ltd.
588 Hongkong. 18th Aug., 1912. /*ODOWN,No. 145, Wanchal Road.
Apply -KWONG SANG BONG, LID, 248, Des Voeux Road
Central (Office), or 93, Prays East (Warehouse).
Longkong. 10th Feb. 1913179
TO LET SMALLGODOWN" at
'No. 1 Cross Lane, Wooobai, near No. Police Station. Fo: farther par- LET on 2nd Floor No. 2. Podles apply to H. DIXON, Nol 125, der Street.
Wanchal Hosd One roomed Office. Apply Property Hongkong, 27th Fab., 1913. office, Jardins, Matheson & Go., Ltd. Hongkong, 22nd May, 1917. [385
W
1220
SAMPLES MAY BE OBTAINED
ON APPLICATION
TO
GARNER QUELCH
WANTED. WANTED: T. la Gedown
́„with absat 6,000 to 8,000:quara! set groun & floor space. Mast be co- TEL. 636, J.veniently u.tel and tolerate. Reply to P. C. D. care of this offer. [222 Hagkong, 21th Feb., 1813.
TO LET:-No. 1 Austin Arenur, Apply A RAYMOND c. DAVID & CO. Hongkong, 28th Feb, 1913
Kowloon, possession 1st April.
night when the voice, which was we sat and smoked, and fell into not a voice, questioned me, there
a serious mood and talked of the has been no forgetting.
serious things of life. He is only
"Every time I look at my boy,
[221
grass, and now calling to them from the low drifting clouds.
And when morning finally came, she awoke to face an unbe lievable situation. The night ba-
Leir comrade because she had a few years older than I, and we or feel his delicate little bands, fore she had only suffered. "To Inst the companionship of their have the common meeting ground or kiss his tender, warm cheek. day she must think. father and her interests were un-of years, if not much else. He another child stands beside me and
died of one of those swift ailments
that overtake childhood," she and
he
answer to his thought.
that poor
...
.
"And now, dear mother, since
You
divided. They had always been spoke of my little boy. He said watches me with wistful, jealous Mrs. Lake was not one of those very close and dear to each other; it must be a strange and solemo eyes. I am haunted by a father-sternly just and righteous women. and when; a fow yours after his feeling that came to a father when less child who tries to slip its little who spring to meet an evil-doer, father's death, the younger of her held his first-born in his arms. brown handinto mino and become sure of but the one stony path to boys had suddenly sickened and And he looked at me as if for an a part of my life. No matter how point out to him. By nature she loved pleasant rather than stony. buey my days are, it keeps at my paths even for the evil-door to walk the remaining boy clung together, he evidently expected for I could night.
I could not give him the one side, and it lies down with me at a. Throughoutliereimple, uncom and oried in each others's arms,
plicated life she had tried to do and found comfort in their sorrow not truthfully say that any deep
her duty, but she had met duty in through their love and companion-feeling had come to me with the I have told you all, can you for-sach a gay and butering spirit
little chap. Of course I loved
that she had never felt quite sure ahip. And after a time they grew happy again, and their lives went him, and I was surprised at him, give me so far as to help me? peacefully on..
and I was afraid I might hurt him feel that I must go in search she had not somɔlow evaded it. Often she had said to herself ifI touched him; but the relief of the child. If it is living, and Now, for the first time, she long I can find it, I feel that I can in ed to be stern. She knew her Marian was safely that she knew her boy's very thought, that ho kept nothing through her suffering was what I part wipe the stain from my life task would be far easier il, when from her. Even when he had really felt: Terhaps because all by claiming it before the world, her boy should come to her, she
I must do this. Through its ten could say to him: gone from her into a home of his of the great events of my life have childish years it may always have "Why do you come to me to own, she did not feel that she had come so in their natural order, I lost him, or that he had given her have accepted them as natural felt an alien among its mother's ask what you shall do? place in his heart to another. Sho and have been unmoved by them people. It may have feelings it know that a sin is a sin, and one. cannot understand. It may be such as you have committel must "I walked with him to the gate know how devotedly he loved his wife and baby boy, but ho lind when he left, and after we had neglected, or made to suffer for its be atoned fr, no matter how bit found other places for them in his parted I stood thinking of what different nature. I dare not for ter the atonement may be."
She tried to realize herself say warm heart, and it was sweet to be bad eaid, and I wondered if got it any longer. Strangely know that they had not made him were really lacking in deep feel enough, I think of it rather than ing something like this to him-- Andifferent to her. He still came ing. I admired his gentle calm She and I were two wild, irrespon tenderly, who had come to her of the mother as the wronged one, to her boy, whom she loved so to her with an almost boyish con- catimate of life, and I recalled his sible creatures who wronged each now, as he used to come years fidence in her power to help him serious words; I wondered why other. Batit-the helpless child ago, to ask forgiveness for some
fuck thoughts had come to him through any doubt or neod.
And he had come to her now in instead of to me, and whether may need me. How can I do boyish fault, and help inca ing it.
was capable of being good harm to oiler?
my duty by it now, with tho least She paused in her slow dress- his sorast perplexity..
ing to gain such comfort as she Two days before, she had father to my boy-my first-born,
The night that followed the might by shifting the blame from received a letter from him, which as he had called him in his bibli-
cal phraseology.
crming of this letter was one of him to herself. Wherein had she had revealed him as she had never dreamed him, and had opened "Then something strange hop-fitful sleep and sudden awakening; failed toward him, that on the before her an unbelievable page pened. As I stood thinking this, of dreams in which the mother. in his past.
the soft wind blowing light and son were wandering over winter-swept prairies in search of The letter had begun with butly about me, it seemed as if s brief preface, and had rushed in- voice, which was as much the some elusive object which fled
I
I
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(Continued on Page 125
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to its bitter theme as if the writer wind as a voice, came like an echo before them, now hiding in tall ALEXANDRA CAPE CO.
i
feared to lose courage if he paus-to the words first-born which ed. He wrote: "I will be with had been in my mind. As if from you almost as soon as this reaches a great distance it spoke in the you, but only for a day.'
strange, topeless voice, and said: "The time has come, dear I am your first-born. Have you mother, when I must confess been a good father to me?
something to you, and you will There was a quality in the know that it is not easy for me to wind as if it had swept across fall you" my shameful story. I great, flowery prairies, and that can not tell you how gladly I summer ten years ago came and- and I remem- would spare you the pain of denly back to me; listening to it, did I not so sorely bered the Indian girl, whom I had need your wise (counsel. I feel scarcely thought of for years.
Notice
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that you can and will advise me "I can only think now of her TURKEY SPONGES
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wrong I have done. I do not ask but I am sincere in telling you
you to share my burden for selfish that the evil I did was done for RUBBER SPONGES
relief, but I come to you humbly lack of thought. Though I cams
for difficulties confront me which took to you knowing that a poor
ever way I look, and I need your little being was coming into the BATH GLOVES
help as I never before needed it. world, I did not realize the wrong You must know the character I had done; nor did the girl scem of my confession before I go to to or to blame me. She had her you. Face to face, I fear I might savage moral code, and I had my not have the courage to make it code of oivilization; but neither
saved us from ourselves, bu
It has to do with a sis I do not know what has become
committed feu years ago when I was little more than of her, or even whether she is asboy Marat I can not tell living. She went out of my mind why it did not seem a sin, or almost as completely as she went trouble me much- I cannot now out of my life Bat since that
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