RAW MATERIAL.
“You two beat it out of here,” directed Tumtum ominously. “ Beat it! Klatawa! Ramble before I start quellin’ down the yellow peril!”
Chu Fan and Willie Katimura, who had seen Tumtum Teller in action, promptly Rlatawad.
‘“‘ Come on, Cherry Blossom, don’t you be fraid.”’
He threw the slatted door wide open. Clad in a flowered, silk obi, Lillian Hen- dricks ran, flung her arms about Tumtum’s neck. There she clung and clung, and all she could say through happy tears was the name, ‘‘ Tumtum,” that means, “ courage, honesty, a clean, stanch heart,” the name bestowed in prescience and wisdom by her father, old Heavo Hendricks.
“Tumtum,” she said finally, standing with averted face, two spots of red burning upon her cheeks, “ I—Sei Densu went
ashore with aunt, dressed in my clothes.
I’m going to take her home for a while. ‘“‘J—when she told me how she had been sold, seven hundred and fifty dollars,
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to a man she didn’t know, never had seen, I—TI just couldn’t stand it, Tumtum. The way you spoke of her, the little, friendless Japanese girl, Tumtum, that was noble, chivalrous, knightly.”
Knights, Tumtum had an idea, were al- ways bold, so he took Lillian in his arms, whispered in her ear that he had won a girl in a flowered obi and proposed to keep her forever and ever. .
And Lillian didn’t say “no.” After a moment, with an air of proprietorship, au- thority that delighted Tumtum’s heart, Lil- lian ordered him to fetch her a long rain- coat from the hurricane deck cabin, then proceed to his own cabin, and get into some decent clothes.
“ Aunt will be waiting, aunt and Sei Densu in a taxi, Tumtum. Aunt don’t know you are coming, too, Tumtum. Real- ly, you know, Tumtum, aunt never saw you dressed up.- I want you—’”’
Tumtum, grianing broadly, sprang up the companionway to execute the orders of the daughter of Heavo Hendricks.
I WANT TO WRITE A POEM—
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER
I WANT to write a poem to my beloved,
(I have written other poems
To other beloveds!)
I want to tell her that her eyes
Are as blue as the sea;
And that her lips
Are a scarlet lure,
And that the touch of her hand
On mine
Is as thrilling
As music.
I want to write a poem to my beloved;
(I have written other poems
To other beloveds!)
But, gosh,
This beloved knows more about verse
Than I do.
The popular magazines
Pay twenty-five cents a line
For the stuff
She writes.
