ERBzine 3403: Poor Little Rich Girl

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Volume 3403

PANEL 1: "Come home, Gwennie!" cried Mollie, the maid, excitedly.
"Mollie!" pleaded Gwendolyn, "why do I have to go home so soon?"
"Because your Daddy's just made a million dollars on the Stock Exchange!"
"But, Mollie," Gwendolyn asked anxiously, "what diff'rence does a million make?"
"Heaps!" cried Molllie. "Rich little girls don't play out on the sidewalks."

PANEL 2: "Go, Molllie," exclaimed Gwendolyn, "there's Mister Organ-Grinder!"
"Sure, you don't want to bother any more with that noisy, old creature!" said Mollie.
"But he's my friend! declared Gwendolyn.
"Darlin'!" protested Mollie, shocked. "Your mamma, ---she wouldn't like it --- you, dancin' in the street, now that you're so rich!"

PANEL 3: "Mollie, 'phone that stylish beauty-parlor," ordered Gwendolyn's mother; "--- shampoo -- facial -- finger-wave--manicure."
"Mother!" broke in Gwendolyn, happily. "We're going to the Park to hear the Band after supper?"
"Daddy and I are celebrating tonight," her mother answered. "A swell dinner! And a theatre!"
"But, Mother," Gwendolyn persisted, "don't I celebrate?"

PANEL 4: Darllin', eat yer supper," coaxed Mollie.
But Gwendoly scarcely heard. "If Daddy takes Mother out," she faltered, "he won't sing to me when I go to sleep. Oh, I s'pose it's all right, But" ---- solemnly ---- "I can't help but wonder, is it going to be nice to be rich?"

PANEL 1: "It's a' extry," declared Mollie, "and I heard the newsboy plain, hollerin' 'Stock Exchange'."
"Oh, what if it's all about Daddy!" returned Gwendolyn.
"Sure, I dout that," said the maid.
"Anyhow, Mollie, please let's ask the elevator-man!" begged Gwendolyn.
"Dearie," Mollie cautioned, "don't git yer hopes up."

PANEL 2: "It is about Daddy!" squealed Gwendolyn.
Mollie proudly read aloud to the elevator-man: "'Jim Ward Cleans Up On The Stock Exchange'."
"Your Dad is famous," the elevator-man told Gwendolyn.
"He's made o' money!" Mollie boasted.
Gwendolyn was startled. "Made of money? But how can Daddy be made of money?"

PANEL3: "Sure, the buildin's on fire! gasped Mollie.
Gwendolyn laughed. "No-o-o!" she corrected. "Look! It's Daddy!"
"Yer Daddy," wailed Mollie, "and that crowd'll crush him to a pulp!"
"Mollie, we must help him!"
"Right!" agreed the maid, "And this minnit, I'm 'phonin' the Po-lice!"

PANEL 4: "Stand back there!" the Police commanded, trying to rescue the new young millionaire from his excited friends and neighbors.
"Oh, Daddy," greeted Gwendolyn, "I'm so glad you're not different -- not changed, and made of money! But, oh, how'll Mother ever get in alive!"

PANEL 1: "Gwennie, where is your mother?" Ward asked, suddenly frightened.
"At the beauty-parlor," Gwendolyn and Molllie ansered in the same breath.
"Oh, quick, Mollie!" Ward directed the maid. "Get that parlor on the 'phone! Tell Mrs.Ward she must not start home! That mob downstairs is dangerous."

PANEL 2: "Oh, Mister Ward!" almost sobbed the maid. "We're too late! Mrs. Ward's just left the beauty parlor, and she's on her way here!"
"If that crowd sees her," Ward cried, "-- if they recognise her, theyll crush her to death!"
"Oh, Daddy," wept Gwendolyn. "Has Mother done anything wrong?"

PANEL 3: "I must stop my wife!" Ward yelled; "- - - keep her out of that jam!"
"Click!" shouted a man. "My candid camera got all three of 'em!"
"It'll be tough work helpin' y' out this way," warned a Policeman. "Your hall's packed solid ev'ry inch!"

PANEL 4: "This is the quickest way!" Ward called back to the Police. "Follow me down as fast as you can!"
"Do y' see the lady comin' anywhared?" asked the patrolman above Ward.
"Yes!" was the answer. "There's my wife! On the edge of that legion of lunatics~"

PANEL 1: Leadng the Police, Ward fought his way through the dense throng. Now the press was so great that women were fainting. And even men, caught in the melee, were struggling helplessly. But the new millionaire had but one thought -- to reach his young wife.

PANEL 2: Alverna Ward was in no danger --- yet. Smiling radiantly, she enjoyed the sight of the rapidly swelling mass of neighbors and curiosity-seekers; enjoyed, also, the new experience of being greeted with excitement, and enthusiasm -- admiration, too, --- cameras --- and requests for her autographs.

PANEL 3: "Alverna!" Ward shouted warninglly. "Quick! Turn round! Go! We must run!"
She onlly smiled at him. "Oh, you wonderful darling!" she answered. "You're a hero! And I'm happy!"
A Police Captain realised the danger of the Wards. "Reserves!" he yelled to a patrolman. "Call 'em!"

PANEL 4: Alverna, exhausted and breathless, was finally lifted to a narrow coping. But Ward knew that his wife's safety was only temporary. That milling horde had apparentlly gone mad.
"Let us alone!" he shouted.
And, "Get back!" ordered the Policeman; "-- get back!"
Alverna was panting. "Oh, if help would only come!"

PANEL 1: Help came. Not a moment too soon, scores of uniformed men poured into the street, and bore down on the mulitude surrounding the new millionaire and his young wife.
--- But by now there were many who had suffered far more in the riot than had the trapped pair.

PANEL 2: And while scores of Police charged the crowd, to scatter it, from the opposite direction ambulances arrived --- to care for those who needed medical attention.
Fainting women and trampled men were rescued from the dense gathering and hurried to where they could be given first-aid.

PANEL 3: From a megaphone in a police-car, a voice blared out peremptorily across the swarming hordes:
"You are ordered to disperse at once! Get out of this street! Go to your home! If this order is not promptly carried out, we shall be compelled to use tear-gas!"

PANEL 4: At the threat, the crowd hastily scattered. Ward carried his wife into the entrance leading to their apartment.
Now she was safe. But --- one floor above in the Ward's living room -- all was not well.
For Mollie, leaning from a window, screamed frantically for a Doctor.

PANEL 1: Terrified by the threatened danger to her parents, as the mob hemmed them in, Gwendolyn had fainted.
"Gwendolyn!" Jim and Alverna cried out together, heartstricken at sight of their unconscious little daughter.
"Don't be scairt," reassured a Policeman. "She'll be comin'-to in a minnit."

PANEL 2: "Oh, Daddy, did ev'rybody want to kill you and Mother?" Gwendolyn faltered.
"No, my baby!" laughed her father. "What happened was, they all lost their heads."
"Lost their heads?" cried Gwendolyn, aghast. "Oh, Daddy, you mean all their heads are off, and they can't find 'em?"

PANEL 3: "Here's the Doctor, Gwennie," announced Ward, tenderly. "He's going to help my little girl."
"Oh, Daddy!" --- then Gwendolyn clutched her father's sleeve in fear as she spoke low to him.
"Now that you're so rich, I'm 'fraid the Doctor'll want to cut out my appendix!"

PANEL 4: "Great Guns!" exclaimed Ward. "I thought I went loco when I made my million today. But I wasn't a patch on our neighbors!"
"Look what they did to me!" Alverna complained. "Just the same, I'm celebrating tonight."
But ma'am!" implored the Policeman. "Don't risk leavin' this flat!"

PANEL 1: "Roses for Mrs. James Ward," announced the florist's boy.
"Snakes alive!" wailed Mollie. "More flowers?"
This is a fierce toime t'bee-stow bouquets, kid!" scolded the Policeman. "Don't ye know 'tis past midnight?"
"Sorry, Officer," apologised the boy, "but our instructions was 'Deliver prompt'."

PANEL 2: "And this toime what av ye got?" demanded the Policeman.
"Three telegrams for James Ward," answered a messenger-boy.
"And a special-delivery," added a postman.
"Is the whole town writing and wiring me?" asked the new millionaire. "But when do we get some sleep?"

PANEL 3: "This is awful!" groaned Ward, fairly beside himself at last.
"And they're crazy if they think they can sell me real estate, and autos, and radios at one o'clock in the morning!"
"But here's the cure for it," vowed Mollie. "With yer permission, snip goes the telephone-wire!"

PANEL 4: "No, we mustn't cut our 'phone off," warned Mollie's employer.
"But letters -- telegrams -- flowers -- telephones -- camera-fiends - and autograph-nuts pounding on my door!
--- Alverna, dress yourself! Quick! And dress Gwennie! By the back way -- to a hotel -- we'll try a sneak for it!"

PANEL 1: Determined to find the peace and quiet they needed,
the Wards stole thorugh their kitchen-door and down the back-stairs to an alley-way leading into the next street.
As Jim Ward hailed a cruising taxi, Gwendoly glance around, "Good-by, dear Mollie," she whispered.

PANEL 2: Peering through a window of the taxi, Gwendolyn caught her first glimps of the huge, splendid edifice in which she was not to live.
"Oh, goodness!" she breathed. "Is it the biggest hotel in the world?"
"It's the swellest !" proudly answered her mother.

PANEL 3: As a page led the way to the handsome, lofty entrance-lobby, Gwendolyn stared back a the hotel "starter".
"Mother, he must own this place!" she declared.
"Look at the gold on his clothes! Oo! I'm 'fraid of him! Alverna laughed nervously. "I am, too," she answered, "-- almost."

PANEL 4: Gwendolyn, alone in the sitting-room of the suite her father had just taken, stared in awe at the gorgeous furnishings.
"This must be where he lives," she decided -- still thinking of the "starter".
"And, my! Will he really let us stay in here tonight?"

PANEL 1: Dawn of the following day found Mollie intrenched behind a bolted door which carried her own placard:
PLEAS NOTIS MR AND MRS WARD DONOT LIVE HERE NO MORE
SO NOBODY IS HOME TO ANSER NOCKING
BUT JUST THE SAME LEVE MY PAPER.

PANEL 2: But the Wards were too excited to sleep.
At daylight, the new millionaire ordered the morning papers.
And Gwendolyn was wakened by the astonished exlcamations of her parents
as they read their own names across each front page, and looked a their own pictures.

PANEL 3: "'New Millionaire Causes Near-Riot'," quoted Ward, laughing.
"Say, but won't this make the old home-town sit up!"
"And that hick-village of mine will pass out when it sees this!" exulted Alverna.
"My, what a swell snap! And, oh, Jim, my hair looks simply grand!"

PANEL 4: "Puffy, I was crying when the man took my picture," Gwendolyn reminded her Teddy-Bear.
"And I guess maybe that's why the paper calls me 'the poor little rich girl'."
Then, "The Poor Little Rich Girl" -- she read it slowly again.
"Well, I think that's reallly what I --- I am."

10.

PANEL 1: "Next," Ward said gaily, "breakfast for a millionaire's family!"
"Not down in the dining-room," replied Alverna, quickly. "We'll all dress, and then go out."
"Out?" laughed her husband.
"We'll eat right here! -- melon, and grapefruit! And strawberries! The sky's the limit for my sweet girls!"

PANEL 2: "Here's that dandy breakfast I ordered!" announced Ward, starting for the hall door.
"Jim!" cried Alverna. "Don't let the waiter in! Not Yet! Not till I'm out!"
Gwendolyn stared anxiously at the door. "Mother!" she asked; "does the waiter scare you like that owner?"

PANEL 3: "Great spot for the table!" Ward agreed.
"A glorious view, sir," returned the waiter. "-- And I'll fetch a high-chair for the little miss."
"Little miss?" Gwendolyn repeated to herself. "I never was called that before!
And a man doing Mollie's work! I don't like that at all!"

PANEL 4: "Why did you run out of the room when the waiter knocked?" Ward asked his wife.
"'Fraid you didn't look dressed-up enough?" added Gwendolyn.
"Gorgeous hotel -- gorgeous breakfast -- and my sweetheart crying!" teased Ward.
"Oh, Jim," Alverna wept. "I just can't bear to tell you the reason I ran!"

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