The Ypsilanti Daily Press

SYNOPSIS

ADAM NORTH, young bachelor who recently converted an old linseed buggy factory into a war plant, becomes a fill-in for the town's party givers along with STAN POTTER, whose husband Bill has lately been breaking evening dates to negotiate a real estate deal with ALICIA CARTER, a widow with flirtations. Adam unknowingly is loved by his secretary RUTH MOOREHOUSE, who is presently having difficulty dissuading the affections of JACK VINTON, a mechanic in the plant. Adam not being aware of Ruth's feelings is just becoming intrigued with BRENDA LEIGH who is now enjoying an extended vacation in Linville which she left several years ago to launch a journalistic career in New York City.

YESTERDAY Jack Vinton takes Ruth for an evening drive and again proposes marriage. Ruth reiterates her explanation that she's fond of him but couldn't think of accepting his proposal while her affection for Adam still continues.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

RUTH AND JACK then got into the car and drove off. When they were moving up Linville's main street, Jack suggested ice cream at the corner drug store.

When they entered the drug store they saw Brenda Leigh sitting at the soda counter with the editor of the Linville Gazette. They were deep in conversation and didn't see Ruth and Jack as they passed.

But when the editor left Brenda turned to look about her and finally saw them at a table in the corner. She drained her glass of soda and went over.

"Mind if I be the crowd for a few moments?"

Jack sprang up and got a chair for her. "Sit down, by all means," he said. "I've something to say to you anyway."

"You're not a crowd," said Ruth. "Have an ice cream?"

"No, thanks. I just had a soda with the editor," Brenda replied, and took the chair Jack was holding for her.

"Which reminds me of what I have to say to you," said Jack.

"What on earth is it?" Brenda asked. "You sound as if you had a lecture all planned."

"I have," said Jack. He sat down, smiling at Brenda. "You've no business wasting your time in here with that hard-boiled editor."

"Why not?"

"You're upsetting my plans, and knocking my prayers sky high."

"Your prayers?" said Brenda puzzled. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"It's like this," said Jack, as Ruth sat and wished he would keep quiet. "I've been praying that you'd fall in love with Adam North and marry him—and here I come into the drug store and find you hobnobbing with the editor, as you call him."

Brenda laughed. "It was purely business, Jack. He's going to let me look through the old files of the Gazette to get some historical data for stories about Linville."

"Well, that's all right then. I forgive you. Is that material for your stories you have with you?"

"No, this is the manuscript of Peter Platt's play. We had a meeting tonight, and I've been asked to go over it and polish it up here and there."

"You mean Mrs. Platt's going to put it on?" asked Ruth.

"Yes," Brenda replied. "And you and Jack will probably be called upon to play the two juvenile roles."

"As an actor, I make a good toolmaker," said Jack.

"I love playing!" said Ruth. "But everybody's so busy nowadays. I don't see how we can spare the time for rehearsals."

"You'll manage," said Brenda. "Anyway, it's for the USO, and you can't turn Mrs. Platt down."

"But about those stories you want to write about Linville," said Jack. "You should turn your attention to Adam. He has more local history on the tip of his tongue than the Gazette has in a dozen files."

"So I've heard," said Brenda. "But Adam is too busy at the factory to talk to me."

"He finds time to play fill-in for absent husbands," said Jack. "So he ought to have time for you."

"Don't be silly, Jack," said Ruth. "Honestly, sometimes you talk like a matchmaker."

"I'd turn matchmaker for a fact," he said, "if I thought I could marry Brenda off to Adam. Now there is the perfect match. Mr. and Mrs. Adam North, living in the old Leigh house. Mrs. North writing swell Southern yarns, and Mr. North running a factory and puttering around his garden. Say, Brenda, did you know Adam likes to garden?"

"No, I didn't," Brenda replied. "And I'm not going to intrude any longer. The idea, neglecting Ruth and your own love affair while you try to marry me off to Adam North."

"Well, I still say it's a swell idea," said Jack. "And if you're honest, you'll say you agree with me."

"Adam's a fine man," Brenda said, "I grant you that. But modern though I be, Jack, I'm still mid-Victorian when it comes to proposals. I still think that proposing is the man's job."

"I reckon you're right," Jack agreed. Then, grinning, he added, "You know, of course, that 'asking Adam' is an old Linville custom."

"So I've heard," said Brenda.

"Then why don't you join up and do some asking?" Jack went on. "Maybe Adam would like being asked to marry, for a change, instead of being asked to fill in at dinner or a bridge party."

Brenda laughed. "I'll waste no more time listening to your nonsense." She got up and started toward the door. "Good night, you two and pleasant dreams!"

"Same to you," Jack said, standing and watching her go. He sighed. "A darned fine gal if ever there was one," he said when he had reseated himself. "Adam North must be blind as a bat not to see it."

Ruth pushed back her chair and got to her feet. "If you're through trying to marry off people," she said, "you can take me home."

"Sure," said Jack. Then, as they went out onto the street, he said, "Well, I'll at least be able to make love to you in the play, if we get roles."

"How do you know you will?"

"We'll probably be cast as the romantic interest—that's why."

"But suppose we are cast as brother and sister."

"Heaven forbid!" Jack exclaimed. "I'm getting pretty tired of having you treat me like brother."

During the next few days Brenda Leigh discovered that there was a great deal more work to be done on Peter Platt's play than she had realized when consenting to undertake the rewriting job. But she stuck steadily at it. For one thing, she was glad to have something to keep her busy, so that she wouldn't have so much time to think of Jack Vinton's talk about her and Adam North. That talk had depressed her no end, and it still depressed her whenever she let the memory of it come to mind. To make it even worse, it was hard to understand just why she should feel depressed.

But when she recalled what Jack had said about "Mrs. North" and "Mr. North" living out at the old Leigh place, she found herself wondering if she had made a mistake in going after a career. Thinking about how pleasant it could be living at the Leigh place with a husband who loved and admired her, and seeing all her friends married, in homes of their own, belonging to each other, had made her realize what a lonely thing a career could really be.

She was thinking along those lines now as she walked toward Mrs. Platt's residence, the rewritten version of the play under her arm. All those who were to have parts in the play had been notified, and Mrs. Platt had asked her to come and read the manuscript aloud to the gathering. She wished now that she had refused, for the depression was heavier upon her than it had ever been. Not only did she keep remembering a lot of things Jack had said, but she also remembered some of the things a doctor had said to her up in New York. His words came back to her with remarkable clarity as she slowly walked along the street.

It was almost as though she were watching a sketch being played by two people, with the setting the office of a cosmopolitan doctor.

"Miss Leigh," the doctor had said to her after hearing her explain something of how she felt, "what you need is a generous dose of romance."

"What?" she had exclaimed, looking at him in utter amazement. . . . Imagine going to a medical practitioner to get a tonic for your run-down, tired-out feeling, and having romance prescribed! "I certainly hope you know what you're talking about," she had added.

"I most certainly do," the doctor had said. "The trouble with you modern women is that competition with men in the business world has gone to your heads. It's taken something out of you—the little feminine charms, the helplessness, and—"

"In other words," she cut in, "we have ceased to be clinging vines."

"Exactly!" he agreed. "And what a pity! Men like women not to be so devilishly self-sufficient. And another thing, men can attend to their business and still find time for romantic moments. But not you women. Oh, no. You're so excited over your new freedom, you've forgotten how to be human, forgetting sex is absolutely necessary if you're to have any balance." He paused and shook his head slowly. "No matter what work or career a woman takes up, her first duty always should be that of being a woman."

(To Be Continued)