The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-08-27
A WHITE PARASOL.

to the Office force and went into the coun-
try for two weeks summer vacation his
numerous friends nodded to each other
and remarked that it was about time that
popular young man got away from work
and worry, for of late he had grown thin
and white and was looking fairly
wretched. They were sorry to see him go
for their own sakes, but glad on account
of his, and the farewell greetings were
filed with wishes for a restoration TO
health and all sorts of good luck and for
tune and rest. And. feeling as if he would
like to take all Sof them with him-fOr
many Of them needed rest as well as he
Harold thanked them heartily and bundled
himself OF into the country, leaving the
city and the Office, with all their manifold
trials and tribulations, far behind.
1t was quiet, old fashioned little farm
house where the health seeking young
man finally decided to stop, with a moth
erly little woman who had ''seen better
days in charge, and with acres of sIOping
lands and rich fields rolling away from it
in every direction, while meadows of wav-
ing grass wound through by gurgling
brooks and inhabited only by birds and
little animals of every description stretched
far away back of the low, never painted
little home. An ideal spot the young man
thought it the day he drove up to the gate
TO ask for drink of buttermilk, and an
ideal spot he found it when, few hours
later, his telescope trunk and valises were
put down in the clean, best room and he
himself ensoonced there for the holiday.
Before Harold Barnes had become d mere
slave in the mercantile world he had
achieved some little reputation among
those who knew him as an indifferent
poet, and though the last few years of his
life had been such as to drive all that sort
self settled in this picturesque old spot,
there came sort of aftermath Of his
former harvests in the fields of rhyme and
he went to work again laZily scrawHng
verses whenever the fancy struck him.
And scrawling verses being conducive TO
retrOspection, the past began to parade
itself before his mind one day and bring
back great many things he might wish
to forget.
There are very few men of Harold's age
who have not either had or are at present
going through with a love affair of some
sort or other and he, being rather up to
date young man, had left his far behind
him. A long train of differences, misun-
derstandings and hot words caused by too
little thought on her part and too much
on his had caused the breach between him
and Beatrice Harland. He had gone his
way in a sort OF dazed but determined be-
lief that she was wrong and he right, and
she had done likewise. When he found
that she did not ask him to come back, he
only plunged deeper into work and tried
to forget, and she plunged deeper into So
ciety and did forgotten the time being.
A few months later her father went west
and soon after sent for his family, and
thus the two who might have been happy
lost sight of each other.
Young Barnes had dreamed of what
might have been for awhile after the es-
| arrangement, but only for a little while,
and today as he wandered slowly down the
little crooked path leading out into the
! cool meadow, with here and there a sunny
| spot lighting up the long grass into more
| vivid hues, there was little thought of re-
! gret for the past in his contented mind. If
! he had not forgotten entirely, as men are
| so often accuse of doing he had put away
| that portion of his life so FAR it did not
| cur to him, unti1 he reached the gnarled
| apple tree down by the brook, quarter of
| a mile from the house. Then a sudden
! food of memories came over him, and he
| stopped still and gazed before him at tire
object that had brought them back
1t was a little white parasol, so like the
] one she had once carried, and under which
| she had sat when the last quarrel reached
! its height that his heart beat fast and his
self possession fed like a cloud before the
/ sun The fluffy thing of lace and silk,
/ stuck so jauntily in the ground near the
| old tree, drew him on as a magnet the
| steel, and before he knew it he was sitting
with his back to the tree, looking longing
| Nv and with mixed emotions at that en-
| blern of the long ago. For half an hour be
| moved not, while picture after picture OF
that past came before his mind. Then the
! handsome eyes closed, the pencil and pad
/ of paper with half finished poem on 1t,
dropped from his hand, and this romantic
br,r mi have
such an unromantic thing had he known
it, fell quietly asleep as if his heart had
never been broken by any one.
Ten minutes later he woke to find the
sun beating down on bim-but through
the white parasol, which had been care
i fully raised and placed where it would
4 intercept the hot rays. Red with anger at
/ himself. he started to his feet, when an
i other bit of white silk caught his eye, this
| time lust on the other side of the tree
where he SAT. For moment he debated
| what TO dc, and then there stole out from
under that white bit of finery still whittier
banda hand which he could never forget,
asleep or awake. 1t was the same little
! f neers, the same little wrist and the same
little PM. palm.
Harold'a heart was in his throat, and
the love that had so long lain dormant
sDrang to life again in the moment that
followed. Slowly the hand crept toward
the white parasoI, and slowly his crePi
toward ths little one. A moment it hest
tated ther,s, and the next his strong
brown flnge rs had closed about hers, and I
1nuffied LITTLE scream came to mis- cage
ears.
'Beatrieer' he cried, springing to hi
feet and striding around the tree, SIS i
you indeed?''
To which very foolish remark she mad
no reply at all, Trough her eyes spoke vol
umes. The next IA oment the little whit
parasol had turned over and was sailipi
cheerily down the meadow before a merr.
breeze while its owner was being crushe'
TO certain young maH's breast and hear
ing all sorts of Wild, sweet statement
poured into her pretty ears.