The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-05-27
BUYING OF THE HOUSE.

| It's a sunny Saturday afternoon IN early
| April, but not exactly an April afternoon;
rather one of those precoeious days OF
| delicious warmth and full. summer-like
sunshine that come 10 remind US that May
and June are close behind the spring
showers. You and Mrs. Modestus sit on
the top step of your front veranda, just
| as you sat there on such a day nearly
/ three years ago. As, on that day, you
were talking Of the future; but you are in
very different frame of mind today. In
few short weeks you will be sdrift upon
a sea of domestic uncertainty. For
/ weeks you have visited the noisy city,
hunting the proud and lofty mansion and
the tortuous and humiliacng fat, and IL
has all come TO this-a steam-heated fam
lily hotel" until such time when you can
find summer quarters; and then, with the
fall, a new beginning OF the weary search.
And then-and then
Coming and going along the street. your
friends and neighbors give you CHEEKY
greeting, to which you respond somewhat
absent-mindedly. You can hear the voices
Of your children and their little neighbour
friends playing in the empty garden-pIot.
You talk flags. You do not know Just
what you are thinking about; still less do
you know what your wife is thinking ebout
but you know that you wish the children
would stop laughing. and that the people
would stop going by and nodding pleas
antly.
And now comes one who does not 20 by.
He turns in at the gate and walks up the
gravel path. He smiles and bows at you
as il the whole world were sunshine-a
trim little figure, dressed with such ar
:istic care that there is cheerfulness in
the crease OF his trousers and sauvity in
his very shirt-front. He greets Mrs. Mo
destus with world of courtesy, and then
ne sits conlidenttally down by your side
and says: MY dear SIR, am come to talk
a little business with you"
No, you will not talk business. Your
mind is firmly made up. Nothing Will
induce you 20 renew the lease.
But, my dear sir he says with an en-
thusiasm that would be boisterous as ar
acean wave. If 1t had not so much oil on
its surface; II don't want you to renew the
lease. 1 have a much better plan than
that. want you to buy the house"'
And then he goes on to tell you all about |
ii: how the estate must be closed up; how |
names figure so small that II gives you /
two separate mental shocks; first, 10 rea- |
lie that it is within your means: second, |
to fird that he is telling the truth.
He goes on talking softly. suggestively. |
telling you what a bargain IL is telling you /
all the things you have put out of your
mind for many months; telling you-tell-
ing you nothing, and well he knows It.
Three years of life under that roof have /
done his pleading for him.
Then you wife suddenly reaches out her
hand and touches you furtively.
ooh, buy it," she whispers huskily. III |
you can" And then she gathers up her
skirts and hurries into the house.
Then little later you are in the library,
and you have signed a little plain strip
o. paper, headed Memorandum OF Sale"
And then you and the agent have drunk
a glass OF wine 10 bind the bargain, and
then the agent is gone. and you and your
wife are left standing there looking at
zach other with misty eyes and question
ng smiles, happy and yet doubtful If you
have done the right or wrong. But what
L matter, my dear Modestus? For you
could not help yourselves.-H- c. Bunner
IN Scribner's