The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-06-07
SHE WILL WRITE A BOOK.

From the start the corner seat was
the center of attraction. When the
artful eavesdropper entered the car,
says the Philadelphia Ledger, she found
it occupied by two very handsome
women. The brown eyed one was talk
ing.
Il always had literary bent" she
said land at last 1 have concluded to
write a book.
The older woman's waning interest re-
vived.
What kind of a book?" she asked.
"A novel. but it will be true. l am
going to write the history of my own
life"
You are?" gasped the older woman.
YES" said the brown eyed one; why
not? l don't know where l could go for
plot more exciting. am not so very
old-as women's ages go nowadays
but think have had more strange
experiences crowded into my twenty
five years than almost any other wom-
an of that age"
The older woman looked doubtful.
That may be so,' she said, yet it
seems that you have happily escaped
many vital forces in life. You have
never had even a nodding acquaintance
with poverty, death has never come
near you, you are not married, you
have never borne a child nor lost one,
you have never-well, in short, yours
seems to have been rather a smooth
existence, and l can't see what phases
of it are going to furnish you material
for a story
The brown eyed woman resented the
criticism warmly.
That is just the point" she said.
Mine shall be an exceptional book. All
those things are so commonplace. They
can happen to anybody. l, as l just
told you. have had unique experiences
experiences that could not come to
everybody. Why, take that affair had
up at West Point two seasons ago, for
example. told you about it at the time,
did 1 not? Oh but that was awful. 1
can't think of it to this day without
shuddering. 1 was engaged to Herbert,
you know. when I went UP to West
Point for the summer. OF course,
was devoted to him and wouldn't have
thought of even looking at any other
man if my cousin had not written me
that she saw Herbert dining with that
red-headed Bailey girl one evening.
Naturally that made me turn red-head-
ed myself, in a figurative sense, and /
got up a Irritation with that young
Putnam fellow just for spite. l own
that in the end 1 really got rather fond
of him. Somebody up at the Point
must have suspected as much. Any
way, Herbert found out what was go
ing on and he came up to see about it.
HE got there one evening when Mr..
Putnam and l were out rowing. He was
waiting at the landing when we pulled
into the shore, and when he saw us two
together he was the maddest man you
ever set eyes on. The way he took on
was something awful. I thought sure
he was going to kill Mr.. Putnam, and
1 didn't know but what he would kill
me- too. But he didn't. Mr.. Putnam
wouldn't let him. He was an angel.
He was just as cool through it all as
could be, and Herbert's melodramatic
paroxysms made him look mighty
cheap by comparison, l can tell you.
My, you ought to have seen Herbert.
He was perfectly crazy all night long,
and tore arund so they had finally to
threaten to arrest him for disturbing
the peace. He cooled down little then.
and after awhile-but there, 1 can't
even stand to talk about it. My suffer-
ings were something terrible, and even
now it gets on my nerves so that 1
don't know whether / can brace up
enough to write the book, but 1 am go
ing to try. OF course, there are lots of
other incidents that 1 am going to work
in to make the story entertaining, but
that will be my climax. Don't you
think it a strong one?'
Yes said the older woman, "but it
seems that if YOU had a few more
touches of elemental nature to work
in"
"More?" broke in the brown eyed
one. What more do l want? There I
have love, jealousy, revenge, all in a
bunch, and if that doesn't make ell
max, what does?'
And when they left the car a few
minutes later it was plain from the
neophyte novelist's point of view her
own experiences-tame though they
sounded to the person who had touched
life at many points-dwarfed all other