The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-04-17
THE SECOND MOVING
For the Sunday Eagle.


sound of the noon gong and groups OF
some talking and laughing. other:
looking worn and tired, hurried from the
Various class rooms all to one objective
point-the womans waiting and cloak
room.
There were women old and young
women with eager drawn faces and
rounded shoulders, women with eye
glasses and double chins; women with
pale cheeks and thin hair fast turning
gray; women with bright eyes and steps
full of the gaiety add life of youth. We
all carried books. lecture pads and port
1oIlos, signs of the same mental work,
Tor this was the first session of the great
summer school where conditioned under
graduates were making up work. and
students eager for the doctors degree,
were spending the summer days in study
as time too precious to be lost. The rest
of us were school teachers from various
parts of the country, some ambitious to
rise in their profession, and doing adj
vanced work piece meal; others studying
In hopes of better positions and yet
others-women with tired faces who
were doing review work to bring their
pedagogy UP to the standard of modern
methods. Bursting into the cloak room
and in the dim light of the stuffy place
we began a hurried search for umbrellas
and rain coats while the July rain beat
an incessant patter without on the
worn sofa near the window lay a woman
with a pale face and ivory white hair
which spread unloosened over the hard
head of the loungs. AS passed near her,
she opened her eyes and i recognized her
q member of our section in English COM
position, one whom 1 had often seen, but
never yet spoken with
Are you i'll, today?" I asked in re-
Spouse to her faint smile Of recognition
: No. only tired" she answered in a
soft voice-and in the tones of that voice
came before me a picture Of a southern
plantation, with lazy negroes and broad
fields of cotton. In the distance lay the
mansion with the air of the MONDAY
siesta about 1.-THE stuffy room and fall
ing rain were lost in the charm of that
voice.
And I was right. She was a southern
woman daughter of the confederacy
who, before the war had known all the
pleasure and luxury Of a petted child.
She had grown to early womanhood in
these surroundings, when the war began
and changes came.
She told me all this as we walked
through the park near by late one July
afternoon, for we had became close
friends since that rainy day when a smile
and chance word of sympathy had
drawn us together
Il cannot tell you about the war. dear
she said. ''Of course 1 saw much of 1t
and heard more. Then there We're those
days when news would come that cousins
and friends We're killed and those days
of awful blackness when, after long hours
of waiting, we knew my only brother
had been killed. Father had died years
before. Another dear friend''-she caught
her breath an instant-"was among the
missing after this battle and we never
heard of him.
Il remember very little about the !
freeing Of the slaves now. but our ex-
perience was like that of most of our
neighbors. Then we lost our home and |
moved to town. 1 had to begin work.,
There was a world of pathos in these /
last broken sentences, for this woman
was not a modern girl DESTROYS of a
career, nor girl fitted by training for
charming womanhood and courtly manner
would make her a rare ideal for any
young girl to aspire to.
Il remember my first school," she told
me one day Il was only seventeen and
totally unsuited for the work But the
big boys ALI fell in love with me-" she
added with \ touch of coquetry.
This / coulN well believe and impulsive-
ly 1 burst out, Truly can't understand
how a woman like you, so suited for a
charming wife. ever came to''-I stopped
My child she answered with a little
flush, my friends-my equals, were all <
dead or gone away from us. other men
asked me to marry them, it is true, but
j could teach and be kind to trades peo-
pie, but 1 could not marry them
In class work. my friend had but little
to say. but drank in information in an
eager, DESTROYS fashion. Though she
never told me, judged she was making
up for some of the deficiencies of her
girlhood;s schooling. when theme work
was unknown except on exhibition uRy.
when one read Towering compositions on
Spring Time" and The Voyage of
Life. The technicalities and specific
directions of section b, English >, were
an unknown world to her.
Only once did she have n theme read
before the class by the instructor. This
was a rare paper on industrial Condi-
tions in the South after the War" and in
this she spoke indeed as one having
No congratulations. no self
evident facts. no economic theories were
discussed, only the personal experience
Of one WHO knew. Often I wondered con-
cerning her life-the part untold: 1 re-
jailed the little pause after she had
spoken of the friend who was missing
after the battle. But probably l should
have never known had it not been for
,ne of those happenings which tell US {
hat after all the world is not so large
rs it seems 1t was the day before the
beginning of the new term. when many
students were enrolling 1 was waiting
o finish UP some library work and had ,
zone into this class to be with my south
I'm friend. who was planning 10 leave
he next day.
We sat listlessly during roll call when in r
to the name John Tonner," a :
all dark haired man of twenty-five arose. q
Ny friend started, grasped my hand and +,
whispered. Come into the hall. quickly" r
She had turned SO pale l feared she was ,
roing to faint. but she recovered herself 7
md whispered breathlessly. John Ton =
ler-that is his SON. He looks lust as ,
Iohn did at his age I told you of him. >
le was missing after Spottsylvania. He .
owed me and we had quarreled-and he >
lever came back. Child. l must see that :,
10Y and find out'-and she talked on =
xcitedlv unheeu,nC me