The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1891-07-30
WITH MUCH ADO,
BY j. T. NEWCoMB.

VIE lived; sixteen houses lust alike.
So much alike, indeed, that when
John came home at evening he used
mechanically to count the gates as he
passed along until he came to the
ninth.
Then he turned in, and there tho
parallel ended, for the little woman
who always opened the door and
helped him off with his overcoat and
asked him if he was very tired and
gave him a kiss which made him for
get it if he was, was, in Johns eyes at
least, like no other little woman in
the whole city or in the whole world,
for that matter,
They had been married but q year
or so, and they were very happy in a
quiet, simple way. It was a very
simple way, and one day was a good
deal like another, for John was clerk
in the State Department., which is not
an exciting life. They had their break
fast each morning at exactly 8, and
John kissed his wife at the door at
exactly thirty minutes thereafter,
and, with his little red napkin lunch
in his hand, walked past the eight
gates and turned down Sixteenth
street toward the State, War and
Navy Building. He always took out
his watch and looked at the time
when he reached the circle at Massa-
chusetts avenue, and ifit was sixteen
minutes before nine he walked a little
slower, Or little faster if it was four
teen. 1t was usually exactly fifteen,
and then he kept right onwith his or
binary gait.
At ialf-past 10 a big gong always
struck in the corridor, and John
would push the papers aside on
his desk and take out his little
red napkin with the lunch in it,
and the man on his left and the man
in front of him would take out their
lunches, and then they would eat and
talk about the news of the day, or
one OF the older men would tell stories
OF more or less color about his earlier
days, before he was swallowed up in
the great Federal machine. When the
bell struck again at 1 o'clock they all
went back to their work, though John,
as he put away his napkin, always
thought of the little woman who had
handed it to him in the morning, and
it helped him through his afternoons
work. .
At 4 o'clock he went down by the
elevator and up Sixteenth street
again until he came to the street with
the sixteen houses. There he turned
and counted the gates and began over
again. That is, his real day seemed
to begin then, for here WAS the only
place and the only time that his life
was different from that of the man
who lived next to him, or the man
opposite, or the man who lived IN
another row around the corner.
At least this is the way it had been
until very lately, There had been a.
change, however. John was one of a
great many young men who go into
the departmental work in Washington
with the intention OF saving enough
money to start in some profession.
Most of these young men keep that
intention until they begin to find now
and then astreak of gray in their hair,
and they say they are too old.
But John Weston was not going to
be one of that class, so he said. He
had a. good salary, and he did save
money, but not fast enough to suit
him: so, when he found that he could
could get extra work with extra pay
at the department., he got into the
habit of bringing home roll under
his arm of an evening, and when dim
ner was over and he had smoked a
cigar and spent an hour with his wife,
he would light the drop light on his
study-table and work until late at
night. Sometimes he worked great
deal later than was wise. - ..-..
His wife used to sit by the fire with
her work and watch him as he bent
over his desk, and very often she
would sigh quietly to herself as she
sat there, for try as she would, and
she was a very dutiful little wife, she
could not see it quite as he did, de-
spite herself, cared more to see John
happy and not overworked than she
did for that indefinite some time
when they were to leave Washington
and-go West.
~ She tried once or twice to get him
to work less, but he only smiled and
talked so enthusiastically about that
some time that she had to give it
up.
One evening she sat by the fire, with
her hands in her lap, not working,
and looking very serious. She an
swered little abstractedly the few
remarks that her husband made as
he went on with his work, for she had
an idea that she was revolving and
weaving in her mind. When
John finally pushed away his
papers and leaned back in
his chair with the familiar, "Well, lit
tie woman, = which meant that he was
through for the evening, she got up
and perched herself on the wide arm
Of his study chair, looking still very
serious and solemn.
"John,' she said slowly, don't you
think l am very useless?'
Very said John with q smile that
made her settle the question lover
fashion before she went on.
"But really" she said, cit is all on
one side YOu do all tha work and r