The scene of the play is laid progressively in Reading, Illinois, and Joplin, Missouri, not that these towns are more important to the play than any other Middle West municipalities.

The Livingston household consists of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Livingston and their daughter, Grace. She is a girl of twenty, no particular beauty, but a girl any fellow would find attractive. She is the sort of a girl one must go to a small town to find-a clean, athletic, feminine, normal girl.

The fourth member of the family is Dr. Myron Anderson, Mrs. Livingston's brother. He is a doctor of the old school, the sort of man to inspire confidence and good enough for any one who hasn't sufficient money to indulge in a specialist. It is generally Dr. Anderson who does most of the talking after dinner, every day, and up to the time when the young men drop in to call on Grace. It is nearer truth to say he does the talking. Perhaps Grace would be playing the piano; Mrs. Livingston would have some family mending to occupy her restless hands; Mr. Livingston with his evening paper would be lost to everything but the news, and after the doctor had finished bis customary "forty winks," he was ready to talk for or against any subject of which he happened to be given a lead.

One night, Mr. Livingston found an item about a regular caller at the Livingston home, Richard Loring, and, at Mrs. Livingston's request, read it aloud. There is a ring at the door bell and Dick Loring enters. He was, as Mrs. Livingston described him, "a wild, straying sort," and as anxious to leave the home town. as Grace. He had a sort of contempt for those fellows who considered Reading "good enough" and who decided to keep on there. Having a college education, seen a bit more of life than his fellows, he had a feeling of superiority and this was not always concealed.

LIVINGSTON:-Young Dick Loring is leaving town, Grace.

GRACE:-Yes, I know.
LIVINGSTON:-Huh?

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-Grace knows about it, dear; but it's the first I've heard. What does it say?

LIVINGSTON-Huh?

into it, Grace puts down her book and listens). Friends of Richard A. Loring, junior, will be pleased to hear of his association with the Central Pacific Railroad as a construction engineer. While they will regret his departure from town, they will be anxious to see him succeed in his chosen profession. We understand from Richard that he is to receive a fine remuneration.

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-Well, thank goodness I have a daughter and not a son.

DR. ANDERSON:-Wouldn't you like to have a son, sister?

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-No, boys grow up and leave. home.

DR. ANDERSON:-Well, girls do too.

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-My girl won't; will you, Grace? GRACE: I haven't decided yet, mother.

DR. ANDERSON:-You won't have much chance to leave home if you don't hurry up and grab one of these boys.

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-Don't get that notion in her head, Myron. There's no need for her to hurry. She's young yet.

GRACE:-I'm twenty.

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-I wasn't married until I was more than that.

DR. ANDERSON:-Well, there was a reason in your case, sister. The town we lived in was so small it was hard for a young fellow to find it.

LIVINGSTON (Suddenly awakening from his resting). What's hard to find?

DR. ANDERSON:-I'm not going all over that again. LIVINGSTON-(To Mrs. L.) What is it?

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-We were speaking about sons and daughters, Fred, and saying how much more likely a boy is to leave home than a girl.

LIVINGSTON-Oh! (goes back to paper).

DR. ANDERSON:-You wouldn't be able to get Jim Powell to agree with you, sister. He has three sons who are patermaniacs.

GRACE: What are patermaniacs?

DR. ANDERSON:-They love their fathers so much they won't leave them-even to go to work.

GRACE:-I am.

LIVINGSTON-Huh?

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-Grace!

GRACE: (Embarrassed for a moment, then recovering herself). Well, I hope I am. And when I do-I mean, if I do, I've got it all planned. I'd just have a very quiet wedding, and then I'd have a honeymoonsome place is doesn't matter much where you go on your honeymoon. And then I'd want a home of my own; and the last place I'd want it is here in Reading.

And then there is a family discussion, just such a one as happens in every home where there are marriageable daughters. Grace declares her ambitions to have a home and children, and refers to Dr. Anderson the momentous question of when a girl can tell the man she loves. The mother joins in the discussion, but finally gives up in indignation at Dr. Anderson's encouragement of Grace's

views. After proving to her own satisfaction that her father has fallen asleep, Grace enters into a discussion of the relative merits of Dick Loring and Tommy Tucker, with the sensible old physician. She decides that Dick is romantic; that Tommy is not good-looking, but dependable and obliging, and that she wouldn't have him if he pursued the old-fashioned way of asking her parents' consent first. The doorbell rings and Livingston awakens with a start and looks about him in a bewildered way.

LIVINGSTON:-What?
GRACE:-The door-bell.
LIVINGSTON:-Oh, who is it?
GRACE: We don't know yet.
LIVINGSTON-Oh!

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-I'll go, Grace.

GRACE: It must be Dick, mother's going.
LIVINGSTON-Aha!

GRACE:-Father'll start to wake up now.

DR. ANDERSON:-Yes, but only long enough to go to bed.

(Loring enters, greets Grace first, then Mrs. Livingston, then the Doctor. He is a good-looking boy, about twenty-four, strong and athletic.)

LIVINGSTON: We've been reading about you, tonight, Dick. (Mrs. Livingston keeps her eye on Dick all the time, as if she didn't trust him even in her sight.)

DICK:-Yes?

LIVINGSTON: That's correct is it-that you are going away?

DICK: Yes, sir; it's all settled.

DR. ANDERSON:-How soon are you leaving, Dick? DICK:-In another week.

DR. ANDERSON:-Where

are they sending you?

DICK: I'm not sure yet.
LIVINGSTON:-Eh, what's

that?

MRS. LIVINGSTON :-He doesn't know where he is going.

LIVINGSTON: Is that so? DICK-I don't care much, so long as I get

away.

DR. ANDERSON:-Tired of us here, Dick?

DICK: Oh, no. There are some I'll hate to leave, but there are some I won't miss much. I think, though, it's a good thing to get away. There isn't anything for me here in this town.

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-Well you mustn't get too rest

less, Richard. You know

DICK: A fellow has to do a little rolling, though, Mrs. Livingston, to find a good place to stop. There are a lot of fellows who'd have done better if they had rolled away from this village.

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-Why, I think most of the boys we know are doing very nicely. Now, you take Nathan Allen, helping his father in the store. Mr. Allen told me he didn't know what he would do without Nathan.

GRACE:-That's all right for his father, but I don't see where it is, helping Nate much. I think Nate is terribly stupid anyway.

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-Grace!

GRACE: Well, I do. If we didn't have weather, I don't know what he'd do for something to talk about. DR. ANDERSON:-What about Tommy Tucker? DICK:-Well, er

MRS. LIVINGSTON:-I won't have you say anything about Tommy. I wouldn't care if he'd never been off Main Street all his life-Tommy is a nice boy.

DICK:-Oh, I don't mean to say that any of them are not, Mrs. Livingston; but Tommy is in the class with the rest of them. But who can do anything in the real-estate business in this town. There isn't anybody moving into the place, and the people here wouldn't sell anything they had anyway. Tommy is wasting his time here and I've told him so, too.. DR. ANDERSON:-Tommy seems satisfied. DICK: That's just it, doctor, they're all satisfied. GRACE: And they are all dull, deadly dull. MRS. LIVINGSTON:-I won't let you call Tommy dull!

GRACE:-No, Tommy isn't; but real estate isn't a very romantic business.

Tommy enters a typical, small-town young

stones.

buttonholes

business man, diffident but with plenty of underlying self-reliance. He has brought Grace the usual box of candy. Mr. Livingston seizes on him for a game of bridge, and, much to Tommy's dismay, Grace and Dick beg off. He is captured and half-heartedly plays, watching his rival and Grace enjoy a conversation on the sofa. His torments are increased when Grace and Dick go out on the porch to look at the stars. Finally Dick departs, evidently not in Grace's favor. Dr. Anderson departs on a sick call, but calls Tommy on the telephone, tells him that Grace has rejected Dick, and cautions him to sail right in and grab her.

With father and mother upstairs Tommy's chance finally comes and he schools himself to it. He tries to literally grab Grace, as Dr. Anderson coached him, and makes a botch of it.

TOMMY:-I'll tell you the truth-while you were out there with Dick to-night, the doctor told me I was all wrong-I ought to be romantic. He told me a lot of things to do. I can't remember all of them, and I couldn't do them if I could. I was going to speak to your father and mother to-night. I told the doctor I was-and then the telephone rang, and he told me— again I wasn't to do it. I had forgotten that, too. GRACE: I thought that was it. Did he tell you Dick and I had a quarrel?

TOMMY:-Yes.

GRACE: And the reason?

TOMMY: He didn't have time. He just said be romantic and grab her quick.

GRACE: (Laughs). You do love me a lot, don't you, Tommy?

TOMMY:-Oh, Grace! I can't tell you how much. GRACE: You don't have to. I wonder if you would marry me if I said "yes?"

TOMMY:-Grace!

GRACE:-Wait-if I said "yes."
TOMMY:-Yes.

GRACE: Provided we go away some place to live? TOMMY-All right. Wouldn't it be almost the same if we took a couple of trips each year? Then, when we came back everything would be practically new!

GRACE:-I won't compromise on that, Tommy. TOMMY:-All right, but there is my business, Grace. GRACE: Haven't you faith enough in yourself to build up another some other place?

TOMMY:-Yes, I guess I could do that! Is that all you ask of me, Grace?

GRACE:-That's all, Tommy.

TOMMY:-Gee, what a lucky fellow I am!

And after their honeymoon they have settled in Joplin, Missouri. Not a great deal of difference, this Joplin from the Reading they had left, but it was "going away" for Grace. It was nearing the end of the first year of their married life, the time during which the good

doctor had told Grace she would have to be prepared to forgive her husband three times a week. Tommy has secured an option on some real estate which he feels sure the railroad will have to buy to run its tracks through a certain district. Every cent he could beg or borrow he has paid in to hold the option. And the evening arrives when he is to entertain in his home, a small flat, the purchasing agent of the road, and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Barstow, and receive Barstow's answer.

The climax of her trials has been reached as Grace with only a substitute, clumsy negro maid to help her, struggles to prepare for the function in the small Joplin flat. Tommy has told her of the deal. He can't keep silent about it. He has even sold her Liberty Bond, but with great fortitude and the prospect of $100,000 profit, Grace is keyed up to receive the important guests.

Mr. and Mrs. Barstow arrive. The dinner starts. Grace is so keen about it all that she does the honors of hostess nervously. Then the door-bell rings and Dick Loring enters. He has found out their address from Grace's mother. She welcomes him with fervor, and, in her enthusiasm, explains that her Tommy is to be a rich man. And it all comes out that Dick is the new construction engineer of the new line that is to run through Tommy's property-the property Mr. Barstow is to buy. And Loring throws a bomb into camp when he announces that he has been informed that the deal has fallen through-that the rails are not to go through Tommy's property at all.

DICK: Well, the answer to it is that I am holding down a very good position. And I have had even better offers. How have you been doing, Tommy? TOMMY:-Oh, I'm making out all right. GRACE:-Making out all right! He's doing splendidly. Dick, Tommy is going to be a rich man! DICK:-Tommy rich? Is that so?

GRACE: Yes, Tommy's sold-
TOMMY:-Never mind.

GRACE:-Tommy has a big piece of property the railroad is going to buy to build a new road. DICK:-Oh, that new spur line?

TOMMY-Yes.

DICK:-Good boy, Tommy.

GRACE:-Tommy has been awfully clever about it. It was an old amusement park and Tommy found out that

DICK:--Amusement park? Out by Hillsboro? TOMMY:-No, not by Hillsboro-Knollwood. Great Scott! Hillsboro is thirty-five miles south of there. DICK:--SO you are going to sell the railroad property in Knollwood, are you?

TOMMY: Yes, and now that you are connected with the railroad, I may charge them more for it. GRACE:-Tommy!

Grace is strung to the highest tension. For months she has sacrificed herself-given up everything. Tommy, too, has been noble and self-sacrificing. It has been a hard struggle and just as the goal was in sight! One word leads to another, and despite all the doctor's warning, anger and exasperation-shame, too, because Tommy is a failure-overcome Grace. Packing her grip, she goes home to her mother in Reading. But Tommy clings on. He won't give up. But he does start drinking.

Addressing the chair last occupied by the

BARSTOW: Are you sure of what you're saying, Loring?

DICK: Sure-why, I'll bet you a year's salary to the rent of this flat that I'm right.

TOMMY:-(Feels in pocket, remembers he has no money). I don't want to take your money.

BARSTOW-Huh! Tucker, have you got the maps? Maybe Loring has the names mixed.

TOMMY-I'll get them for you.

And the bubble breaks-busted by an old boyhood friend! The Barstows and Dick leave and Tommy is left alone with his distraught little wife. The words fly back and forth.

beloved one, he declares his faith in himself and in his project, when Barstow returns.

TOMMY:-What's your little trouble?

BARSTOW:-It's about that transaction of ours. Now, I want to put my cards on the table with you, Mr. Tucker-to be fair and aboveboard. TOMMY:-Cern'lly.

BARSTOW: A week ago, I was commissioned to get that piece of land you own. I have been all that time dickering with you, because I wanted to get it as cheap as possible. TOMMY-Nacherly.

(Continued on page 106)