The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-11-02
STORIES ABOUT TOWN.
How a Repertoire Pianist Sees
Things.
SOME OF TIE HORRORS OF IT.

Ske Ought to Get Unmarried as
q On as Possible-A Chance Meeting
ith Charles Gardner.
Did it ever strike you what terrible
thing it is to be pianist for the average
10c. zoe and SOC show at anything less
than $1,000 a week? If there are two
matinees it means at least eight three
hour stretches of misery Of the most
awful kind. The horrors of Armenia
would be JOY compared to it and there is
no more escape
The pianist must see it all. He is
bound as by chains and writhing does no
good. When the poor, prosecuted heroine
cries on her bonded knees with her
grasshopper-like arms bare and out
stretched to the second villain, DO not
KILL meh. Do not KILL meh," he
is unable to dodge and when
the hero announces that ''She is
a Woo Oman, and it is MY duty to
protect her." he has to stay and watch the
protecting done, though it is ninety
woman against 200 pound villain with
a club and knife and pistol by one
fell wave of his puny hand.
Murder is a common every might spec
tacle TO him. and it is a wonder he does
not become SO accustomed to it that he in
udvertently does few odd jobs a it him
self when he does not have to make his
piano light the way of the heavy villain
to a desperate deed like blowing open
painted cracker box with powdered
resin.
Night after night he must sit unaided
and watch with cool. calculating eyes
death dealing arson and robbery and abb
duction and brutality that would make a
more untraveled man shiver with hor-
ror. But it never touches him.
He is growing heard hearted withall,
for he sees the innocent accused and cou-
demned and the guilty triumph, but he
doesn't worry about it, for he knows this
world was built by just and mighty
play wright, who doeth all things for the
best. and gets the villain pinched in tho
finale.
He sees the babe torn from the mothers
breast and suffers not, for he is we'll onto
the fact from many hundred similar ex-
periences in the past, that within an hour
she will be back again a full grown
young lady, with a yearly income of $780,
600 from the estate of a father to whom
the mother had been true for all that
lapse of time.
What does the experience of the re-
pertoire pianist not cover and is it q won
der that he is a hardened villain himself, ,
without pang for humanity CT the pub
lie that has to hear him play. He must
nave revenge on somebody, and why not
you and me-?
About two miles west of Topeka lives
a woman in dugout
She is young woman, but one would
hardly guess it from her sunken checks
and hollow eyes and gray streaked hair
Five years ago she was a happy, red
checked. dark haired bride with the
World before her and future that looked
gay aud happy and rose tinted. What
deceiver Future is. Today she is worn
and wasted with toll and caring for her
two little children, the descendants of a
worthless, dissipated father, who is
curse to his young wife aud to himself
He is gunsmith by profession, but he
does nothing and the only money he gets
he forces from her when she has earned
little at hard days washing. She is
not willing object of charity, though
Mrs. Thorpe knows about her and de-
scrbes her as we'll educated and gentle
One of the children is a boy of three
years The other is a girl of one Both
are dark haired and pretty. The family
has very little to eat and very little 10
wear.
Yesterday Potwin woman gave the
little mother a dollar. On the way nome
she met the husband and foolishly in her
Joy told him of her wealth. That night
the dollar was spent in a disreputahle
place down town and the husband went
home drunk to abuse his miserable wife
and crying children.
Such things are read of in books and
seen in plays often but they sometimes
creep out after all.
The other day Topeka man got on a
train at Kansas city to go to Leaven-
worth. He had cigar and decided he
would go into the smoking Car to smoke
it.. He sat down aad while preparing the
cigar and finding a match he hummed
softly to himself Before he had the
cigar lighted he was wondering what the
tune was He knew it well enough but
could not place it. Try as he
might it seemed that he could
not name it Several minutes were
consumed in that sort of thing,
and finally he found the name. It was
Little Bunch of Lilscs." He was salts
fed with the decision and wondered how
many years it had been since he mad
thought of it.
In less than three minutes a rather
| heavily built man of perhaps 45 years
came in dressed in gray and sat down ny
| him, Five minutes of conversation ever
their cigars told him who the newcomer
was. 1t was Charles A. Gardner.
Was this premonition, affinity, mind
reading or simply coincidence?
MANHATTAN COCKTAILS.
John Sanbrus Thought he was There or
he Would Have Kept sober.
GAY tank Ay var in Manhattan" said
| T0hn H. burU rubbo6 hia ovaa