Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 165: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a ; oe 4 “a te r ay } / ‘ Phy } - pee ee es And the rest of Milledge was inclined to take McGurl’s appraisal. “oF him. George had nothing in common with the young fel-_ lows of the little village. He held himself aloof, _ Spending what little leisure he had alone i in long walks or in his barn lodging. © There was a difference there, a sharply marked difference. village youths as “ Towners.” There was not so much contempt in the term as 42 sense of distinct difference. © What’s towners?” Patricia asked. George looked dazed. ‘ Why—towners, that’s all. Just towners.” He had a fight with one of the young loafers who sometimes honored the garage with their presence. Resenting a remark made in Patricia’s presence he went: into action and had his vast strength been given the opportunity somebody would have got badly hurt. passably and George was ridiculously out- classed, for all his muscle. Patricia stopped the fight. She leaped between the combatants, her eyes wide with anger, her hair flying. “ You ~ can find something better than a sick man to fight, I think,” she cried scathingly. “ Go home and beat your mother, Hod Graham! ee She surveyed the disappearing, crestfallen — group with scorn. ae ‘The dirty towners, es she snorted. George, § sharnefarediy bathing his beaiced eye at the faucet, looked up to grin grate- fully. So Milledge wrote him down as a harm- less, form of half-wit, to be laughed at, but not in the presence of Patricia McGurl. For Patricia believed in George all the time. George was her own personal triumph, far more thrilling than the reclaimed goat. He was her star patient. When he would let her, Patricia would follow him anywhere. She delighted to run over to the garage and talk to him as he labored. She delighted - to take walks with him. She discussed all of her numerous and kaleidoscopic plans, hopes and aspirations with George, when George had time to listen. Patricia was going on seventeen and young for her age. She had yet that ‘colt- like look. with her black hair usially flying loose and her legs too long for her skirts. George referred to the But the loafer could box = ENCHANTMENT. | 635. She was without self-consciousness or femi- nine guile—a sexless person of mad, gener- ous impulses, wrapped up in this queer piece of human flotsam she had saved from the grave. Patricia came into the earage on a March afternoon, tossing her hair and muttering aloud in sputters of indignation. George concealed beneath a car at one of his grimy tasks saw her pace the floor and heard her angry declaration, “They make me sick, the towners. Nothing but smart Aleck towners, that’s what they are!” “ Who makes you sick, kid?” he inquired, emerging into view. © Everybody,” Patricia declared. “ Every- body. and my father a all the rest of ’em, too, -all but Dr. Reed— “ What they een doing to you, Patsy? g “ Nothing!” She flushed and scuffled her boot toe across the floor. ‘ Yes, they did, too!” she amended. “ They laughed at you, that’s what. ‘They were all down in the post office and I went in for the mail _and somebody—it was Hod Graham—made a smart crack about you. He said I always had some kind of a sick goat around the place, but this last one I found didn’t even have sense enough to put up a fight—” “He did?” George asked thoughtfully. “Ves, but I guess I got even! JI just lit in and told them they didn’t begin to know anything about you, and when you got back your memory this little town would be pretty sick to find out who you Teally are—”’ “ You told ’em that, kid?” “Vou bet I did. I just lit into them! ‘ If you weren’t nothing but a lot of hicks and towners I guess you’d recognize a person of some ee when you see one,’ I told them— “ Hunh!” George said doubtfully. “ Pat, do you honestly think I’m as good as all that?” “ OF course, you are. Anybods can see you don’t belong i in a place like this—any- body with sense. Oh, George, don’t you re- -member ae ee it is you used to be? Think, George, think hard!” — George rubbed his dirty. face with a dirt- ier hand. But it 1 come back all right. The Hod Graham and all the boys, yes, “God!” he groaned, “don’t I 1a) micboo <S.CO