Middletown transcript., 1894-03-03

.A>.G - 5;soo,,oro :,
America. Their
were two great apartment houses oppo
site each other, with the constant roa
and jerk of the elevated road lyin
between. Workmen had been comm,
and going upon third tall white build
ing on an opposite corner, with al
empty lot lying adjacent, and boys o
his own age had been playing in there
playing all sorts of tantalizing games
ever since Wilbur Clint had move,
into the fifth fiat.
He used to stand at the window il
his nightgown and look at them. II,
wore his nightgown half the day some
times, because it seemed SD senseless tt
dress himself when he could not 60 out
His mama gave him his bath an(
tucked him into bed at night, and ther
in the morning, long before he was up
she took the elevated and went away
down town to magazine Office where
she read stories which other people
wrote, and patiently sealed them uI
again and sent them back to the
writer's.
Sometimes her heart used to ache al
the oldfashioned, provincial views OF
life which so many of the stories
showed. When Wilbur's mama, sit.
ting there at her desk, in her neat black
gown, hesitated over page of spidery
writing and smiled little at the corners
of her mouth, it was a certain sign
that she had found another love story,
told in the good old way, where cruel
fate had at last allowed the lovers to
fly into each others arms, and they
made their exit amid shower of rice
to the tune of wedding bells, their sor-
rows ended forever.
''I do wonder" she said to herself as
her pen hung over the authors address
she was putting upon one of these
manuscripts one day, show Mrs.
ever came to write such story as that.
WE'LL we'll! Maybe her husband died
on their honeymoon, poor thing!"
One day the editor of the magazine,
who was very busy man indeed, cam5
into the tiny little room where his
reader sat, and fumbled over some of
the thick packages which were piled all
about.
"Mrs. Clint" he said, ''are all the
story writers getting cynical? What
is the matter? 1t seems to me we
haven't had really cheerful tale for
six months.
Mrs. Clint used to think great deal
about her little boy as she went up and
down on the elevated, and as she sat by
the lamp and darned his little stockings
at night, or lay with his curly little
head upon her arm. She looked at him
anxionsly to see if he were getting pale
with the confinement. She knew that
it was all wrong, but she knew no
other way. A little lad of five could
not be allowed out on the street by
himself. :.
Sometimes she too saw the boys
playing on the vacant lot where the
builders piled their waste. They used to
take an old tin pail and build a fire in
it. and swing it in blazing circle
about them; and then Mrs. Clint
would shudder all over, and make
Wilbur promise that he would never
go out alone.
The fat was little more expensive
than Mrs. Clint could rightly afford, but
she had taken it because the janitor's
wife was an old acquaintance, an old
sorvant in the boarding house where
Mrs Clint had lived when she had first
oome to New York, fresh country |
oirl with an ambition to write for the
She had had number of
stories accepted, had done all sorts of
work for syndicates and newspapers,
and had gone to the theater with nice
ambitious young gewspaper mer, who
+hraw work her way, and told
stories of prominent people and then
humble beginnings. And then finally
~ lad married one of the most ambi-
tious Of them, and had gone to Paris
with him for a year, and had been de-
lirhtfully happy.
They had gone to all the places
,ybore artists and writers had dis
the unusual and the pictur-
esous They had had a little apartment
m upder the roof with a wide, wide
window looking out over all Paris;
I'd there had been azaleas in all pots
N the sill, and gay cushions on the
:, ,,,a,, beneath and young Mrs. Clint
Ia wondered if there were ever two
,sonla in all the world so happy.
r. was here that Wilbur had been
horn. and two months later they were
. ,o,,ad hack to America by the paper
-n .~;. worked for, A Presidential cam
,a;nn was Just coming on. and a
norker like Clint was needed. Il was
'nmmer, hot, close summer and Cllnt
: -. = liz wife and baby down on Long
,ooA ! little town "swept by the
lsaan sian hreezes y as the pulsing electric
'0ean - ~ Madison Square announced.
go'ea1 Igo - mo down every night he could,