On many mornings I have met him walking on the road
and he has told me of men and women who were his brothers and sisters,
his cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers-in-law. The notion has possession
of him. He cannot draw close to people near at hand so he gets hold of a
name out of a newspaper and his mind plays with it. One morning he told
me he was a cousin to the man named Cox who at the time when I write is
a candidate for the presidency. On another morning he told me that
Caruso the singer had married a woman who was his sister-in-law. "She is
my wife's sister," he said, holding the little dog closely. His gray
watery eyes looked appealingly up to me. He wanted me to believe. "My
wife was a sweet slim girl," he declared. "We lived together in a big
house and in the morning walked about arm in arm. Now her sister has
married Caruso the singer. He is of my family now." As some one had told
me the old man had never been married I went away wondering.
One morning in early September I came upon him sitting under a tree
beside a path near his house. The dog barked at me and then ran and
crept into his arms. At that time the Chicago newspapers were filled
with the story of a millionaire who had got into trouble with his wife
because of an intimacy with an actress.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28