Atlanta Daily World

By Helen Topping Miller

TRAPS, Laura was thinking as she listened to Judge Fowler, so many traps set to enmesh the feet of the young, to slow their proud march and turn them into gloomy paths of duty!

"Ellen's very pretty," she said. "It would be a good thing if she fell in love with somebody-the right person, of course. But with girls like Ellen, who have been so sheltered, it's so apt to be somebody all wrong."

Mac's face darkened a little. "You know about this football fellow then? This Italian who seems to be the popular hero of the day?"

"No, I hadn't heard. You mean Tony Ricco? Has Ellen got a crush on that boy just because he has his picture in the paper every weekend? It's a stage we all go through." Laura tried to be light.

I wish it were that simple.

She's had the man at the house."

"Tony Ricco? At your house?"

She could not keep a startled incredulity out of her voice.

"She met him in Florida last summer. He appeared a decent enough chap. I encouraged Ellen to go with the Igleharts to one of the games. The Blaydes let Anne go along too"

"I heard about it. They had to get Jim Eliot to bring them home.

Now don't tell me, Mac, that Ellen started burning after Jim Eliot. I've got my eye on that lad, myself. Besides, he's got a wife out west somewhere that he doesn't bother to get rid of."

"I understood from Ellen that Eliot conducted himself in a very gentlemanly manner. Lately," the judge went on, "this Ricco has been telephoning quite regularly.

Understand, Laura, I try to be a democratic and tolerant father. Martha, too, is a very reasonable parent. But some sort of change is happening in Ellen. She's moody and abstracted and twice lately I've overheard her snapping at her mother."

"But he hasn't been back?"

"I don't know it, if he has and Ellen is not a secretive person.

At least she has never been secretive before. In spite of my conviction that this fellow is entirely out of Ellen's class, I don't enjoy seeing her unhappy and confused in her thinking and her sense of values as she seems to be."

The urge to detonate something with a shattering bang was too much for Laura.

She said, "There have to be people like you, Mac. Pillars!

Every structure has to have a pillar-the body politic, the body civic, and that gaudy creation called society. You can decorate a pillar, carve little posies on it, or hang a flag on it, but it still has to stand alone, lofty and remote, or else it falls into a shattered ruin of stony shards filled with nothing at all."

"At least-" he smiled ruefully "-you concede that pillars do have their function?"

"Oh, yes, I admit that. The sad thing is that the detachment of a pillar is so darned complete.

You wouldn't remember about love at all, would you, Mac? Young, silly love that suffers and dies a million foolish deaths and burns with wildfire when it isn't freezing with agony? For you and Martha I suspect that love was very properly disciplined."

He flushed a little, even the folds of flesh over his collar reddening.

"Well, naturally we grew up in the same environment, Martha and I. Our families were friends, We attended the same school, the same church. It was, you might say, inevitable."

"And tepid," added Laura bluntly, "definitely tepid. Oh, nice and honorable and really quite elegant. All correct, but not much fun, was it, Mac?"

He got to his feet, lumbering a little. "Laura," he exclaimed harshly, "I don't know why I listen to you!"

"You listen because you like truth and because I'm speaking truth. Now you see something coming alive in your daughter, something you never had, something senseless and dangerous according to your stuffy code. You're jealous of Ellen, Mac, because in spite of all the pressure you've put on her to flatten her out into your pattern-Martha's pattern- she's showing symptoms of rebellion. And you'd like to have that rebellion yourself, though you've never dared own it, and right now you hate me for showing you how much you want it. For heaven's sake stop glaring and sit down!"

He laughed, embarrassed, and dropped awkwardly into the chair.

"You rather took my breath away. You're wrong, of course.

You are in contempt of court, young lady!" He laughed, but not heartily. "You have a license, I suppose, to poke fun at your elders and diagnose their inner, secret ills. I can't help the years, but I can keep my body and mind from deteriorating. I can keep my thinking youthful at least."

"You said keep! You mean, you have been timidly encouraging a few reckless notions, Your Honor?" She said it teasingly.

"You." he said, almost lunging to his feet, "are my young idea, Laura. I hadn't realized it till now--but now I'm very pleased with my idea."

She drew back as his hands reached for her. Her chair slid against the wall and she was out of it lithely, but though her small body was tense and tingling with fury, her voice was husky and steady though with an undertone of surprise mingled with contempt,

"This is young business, Your Honor. Fun and games! You really aren't desiccated at all, are you?"

He stalked a few paces, leveled his finger at her. "A young man might not appreciate you, Laura.

That takes discernment... and experience. You are a very rich person, you have so much to give.

You-" he fumbled a little, studying her eagerly-"you have a bouquet, Laura, like fine wine... like..."

She folded her arms and looked at him sadly. "And now what you were about to suggest was that you're taking a little trip-Atlantic City, maybe, or New York,

And a refreshing person who would be a tonic for any man would be wonderful to have along -especially if that refreshing person happened not to have a man handy with guts enough to black your eye or smash your mouth for you! If she happened to be young and a divorced woman, with no tiresome relatives to bother about and no particular social standards to adhere to!"

"My dear, you misunderstood me completely..." he began unhappily.

She flew to the door and jerked it open. "I did, did I? I think not. I had to learn to read signs because I was thrown on my own in the dirty swamp of male intentions. However, for the sake of your proud family and the honor of the courts I'll pretend I misunderstood. Get out now!"

"Laura, I can't leave you under such a misapprehension as this."

She almost pushed him through the door.

"Don't dally, Your Honor. Get out-"

She slammed the door hard behind him and shot the bolt,

Then the violence went out of her and she walked to a desk. snatched out a drawer, took a framed picture from it, set it up right. She glared with eyes that blazed at the young pictured face. the tilted, insolent military cap, the wide shoulders and laughing mouth.

"You did this to me!" she cried. "You made me into this thing-a discard-a lone woman that foul-minded men dare to leer at, You did it, John Blayde. and I'll hate you till I die."

(To Be Continued)