Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 11, 1925 — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

PETERSON PRIDE. “ Robin always does keep ahead of you, don’t he?” Minna’s voice had the pride of a child. Her cheeks shone astoundingly clear with a glow like Michigan holly, in the smoke of the Clause store. She was small, with a positive chin, her mouth turned up at the corners ready to laugh. She was twenty, three years married to Robin Peterson. Cathead village had decreed that Minna should marry Nels Nielson when she was seventeen. She was orphaned, unusually pretty, a woman grown. Nels Nielson had the name of a steady man. He was saving, fearless of weather, and besides held com- mission to carry the mails from Ottowa Is- land to Cathead. That meant six hundred a year, in addition to passengers and the fruit crates in cherry season. There were girls aplenty along the Michigan coast who envied Minna Peterson the chance to catch Nels Nielson. And then Minna, with a perversity which no one ever suspected, ran away one Satur- day afternoon and was married by the jus- tice of the peace at Cedar Bridge to Robin Peterson. “You'll have to lift twice a day,” she told the fisherman in Johnnie Clause’s store, “if you’re going to keep up with Robin!” She waved her hand and a rampageous wind slammed the door shut after her. “ And if that ain’t a damn shame!” ex- claimed Ernie Jaynes under his breath. _“ Where is he at?”’ Walter Cook wanted to know. “In my shack,” Casper Clause said, “ drunk as the devil on Saturday night. We might go down, see if the wind ain’t like to straight him up.” “Tl go to hell yet, lyin’ to that girl,” Ernie Jaynes growled. ‘‘ Seven hundred pound! He ain’t lifted seven hundred pound in a month! And me tryin’ to be small—” - “How much did you lift to-day?” asked Johnnie Clause. “Half a ton. Your dad took nine hun- dred himself. And now we got to go stir out that derelict!” _ Minna Peterson ran down the street past the butcher shop and peered in its frosty window. Where could Robin be? She 303 halted a moment before the pool hall next door. The entrance swung open and two men came out. Minna looked past them into the warm lamplight. Robin was not there. The west wind spurted across sand hum- mocks from Lake Michigan. There the sun hovered over Ottowa Island, and immersed the turbulent waters for a moment in a sin- ister and prophetic aura. For the minutest fraction of time it glared through a breach of cloud banks, like some unwelcome, por- tentous omen, then dipped its head; night ~took its place on the upper Great Lakes. - Minna Peterson shivered and started on toward home. She felt the sharp, lashing bite of new winds in the gale that had been making all day. To-night would be a night of turmoil, she knew deep in her sea-loving heart; distress signals would fly before morning, flares burn at the coast guard sta- tions; a night of uneasy watches up and down the coast, a night of panic, a night to brand men cowards or mark them heroes, and drown them together, each as deep and wet as the other. She closed the door to her own house be- hind her, chucked wood into the gluttonous kitchen stove, and set about preparing sup- per. It was five by the alarm clock on the wall. The house shook in the exasperation of the winds. The kettle hummed, and the fire crackled under it. Minna made biscuits. Robin liked hot breads. Whatever he liked he should have! What other woman on all the coast didn’t envy Minna such a good looking man? They were all jealous of Robin, all those louts in the fishing fleet! IL. Op Casper Clause, who never doddled Over a necessary job, led the way down toward the beach. His slicker bristled out behind him in the wind, and he walked with a flat-footed waddle, blurted whole- heartedly, and sought no shelter. Ernie Jaynes trudged behind him. Ernie bent like a sickle when he walked, his emaciated head pushed forward. ~ In the rear Walter Cook puffed enormously, co (E Z oo , , * es! Th A ed a ff Aol ef Wear, Aa - yard i FT ry 2 Para erat y: PETES TYE EL TP Pee fo Ree Ss ea