The Topeka state journal., 1897-12-10
AN OLD MAIDS SONG.


on the bread plate. She was familiar with
all varieties of boarding house servants.
and she knew that all alike despised her
as 81 the fourth floor front" She knew by
heart the landlady's stories of pressing
present needs and of past affluence. She
had nothing to learn in the matter of sub
stituted gas jets, and her feet were trained
to skip tho torn spots in the stair carpet.
Altogether there was nothing in the old
maids position in her boarding house to
account for her serenity
Down town the old maid was a ste
nographer in law office where prettiness
was at d discount rs a hindrance to unre-
mitting toll She did not realize that her
chief attraction to her employers was this
lack of distracting features and complex
ion. Long as she had lived in the sordid
but educating boarding house she had not
learned every thing that was to be learned
about motives, and she believed that her
fathers old friendship with the lawyer
had much to do with her position.
Before that remote day when the old
maid first came to the law office and the
boarding house she had lived in the coun-
try. Even yet, when the spring rains
came down and drenched the grim pave
ments, she had swift, heeting sense of
late SHOWS melting by the rim of the
brooks and of timid flowers pushing
through the soft earth, and in the city
parks her mind turned toward peaceful,
pastoral ways, and her eyes were filed
with visions of billowy, blossoIning trees
of pl0wInen moving across upland fields,
of the waking up Of life and industry. In
short, the old maid was a poet, although
the crude little expressions of her emotions
never met the keen eyes of critics or even
the kindly eyes of her friends.
Well, once upon a time the singer came
TO the boarding house on the square. He
was young and his audiences-they were
largely feninine-declared that nowhere
else was there a singer who caroled out
songs and sobbed out ballads so knowingly
Whether or not he was peerless is ques-
ton, but at any rate he had made great
success, and people wondered that he
should come to the dingy abode of the
boarders and the old maid. Some said
that it was because he had lived there in
the days before he was known to fashion,
and some whispered knowingly that the
lady to whom the singer sang lived over
the way in the stone house with the bal
comics at the windows and the guarding
lions at the door. Be that as it may, it is
a fact that when the singer came to the
city for his series of concerts and recitals
he sanctified the abode of the old maid
with his presence for whole week. And
the old maid was ag.itated mystcriouslJ by
his presence, though it is doubtful whether
he even saw her shabby little figure.
One night she slipped down the stair
way when the house was still and slipped
a paper beneath the singers doorsill. The
paper bore a set of verses written ia the
fine hand of q woman who was educated
quarter OF a century ago and little note
that read:
IF you should sometimes find this
worthy to sing, 1 would be the happiest
woman on earth. y
Now the singer felt brutal Indifference
about all happiness save his own. which
had been sOrely tried that night by the
lady of his songs So he merely muttcred
"ConfOund imbecile wOmen!' Then he
looked at the verses and went gloomily to
bed. But through the night, as he reflect
ed upon his blighted hopes and the hard
ness of his fate, some of the old maids
lines sang themselves through his mind.
I'll see thos in each flower that grows.
Thou art not lost while lives the rose,
Not lost while lives the rose.
the foolish refrain insisted.
In the morning the silly rhymes would
not be banished. He found himself hum
ming them to an air and by and by-so
weak was he, owing to the cruel lady-he
sat down at the piano and played the air
softly.
1t was. the same week that he gave his
great concert at the hall up town. With
Indifferent generosity he offered the land
lady tickets to be distributed, and SO it
L
gether.
The old maid was very pink and tremu-
lous, and not being in her confidence,
could not understand her state After all
there was nothing in successful singer
of So to excite a spinster stenographer of
90.
The singer had sung grand opera arias
and the music from masses. He had sung
Scotch ballads and German love songs.
But he could not sing enough to satisfy
his audience After each properly num-
bered selection he was recalled again and
again Finally he came out and said:
I wish 1 could tell you the author of
the words 1 am going to sing. They were
sent to me anonymously in manuscript,
and have no means of giving credit to
whom it is due
The old maids fingers quivered She
breathed sobbinGly and drew closer to me,
and 1 wondered whether she We're going
crazy
Then the singer sang the simple verses
They may have been very bad as verses,
but song they were u success. The au-
dience listened intenrly, the women look
ing up, as women look when lowered eye
lids would let the tears brim over. And
when the last verse rang out, plaintively
and proudly
And. though thou hast banished me,
touch thee il each noddilg flower
I see thee, Gear one, every hour
In sky star sea,
All beauty holds some hint of thee,
And SO tho caIst uot Danish me,
Thou canst not Danish nc
the hall forgot to applaud for fully three
seconds when it caught its breath and sur
reptitiously wiped its eyes-that is, all but
the old maid. She wept quite openly,
turning her radiant, tear stained face to-
ward me:
It's 1ninel It's miner she half sobbed.
"Oh, it's mine, and 1 am so happy"
And then she told me the whole story.
But neither pra, ers nor cntreatics could
prevail upon her to let me tell her secret.
And the boarders still wonder why it is
that n cnlorless Iittla IaCir Ike the old