The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1905-03-24
The Man and
the Hour
BY KEITH GORDON
Copyright, 1904, by Frances Wilson

Elinor for the first time in her life
was looking the future squarely in the
eye Hitherto she had been content to
nibble at life, munching away content
edly enough, satisfied with the joy of
the moment. And she might have gone
on so for an indefinite time had it not
been for the occurrence of the Sd of
June.
New Years day is significant only
because then, by common consent,
time moves up q number. This partic-
ular June made an indelible impress
sion on Elinors mind because on that
day she began to be thirty two-began
at the very beginning, Of course, but
still she began.
Il shall say Pm thirty-one all this
year anyway" she announced defiant
~ to that other self that receives our
dearest condolences. Its such bad
form to say you're thirty-one years and
two months DID, or whatever it may
happen to be. And if I have to write it
I'll make it thirty-o one in round num-
bers-not even thirty-one plus" All of
which, as the reader can see, was very
INSCRIPTIONS.
However, as she found by far the
worst thing about beginning to be thir
ty-two was the fact that you couldn't
forget it. The harder you tried the bet
ter you remembered it.
''Well, what if / ann"
This was the remark that our heroine
slung into space when, after a week Of
torment, she sat down with her chin
resting on her hands to have the thing
out. What if I am? So are plenty of
other glr-wOmen, | mean. Alice is
thirty, Mary thirty-one, Mabel twenty
eight"
She paused in her enumeration, struck
by the thought that all these friends
were married. Matrimony was sub
Ject to which she had given the mini
mum of thought. She supposed she'd
come to it some time, but she was in
no hurry to enter that narrow pasture
SO long as there was pleasant browsing
| to be had outside.
When she had thought of it at all it
had seemed to mean chiefly a tiresome
| round Of housekeeping that resulted in
| three perpendicular lines just over the
| nose, a memorandum Of worry that she
secretly determined to avoid as long as
| possible. But now that she was be-
| ginning to be thirty-two the thing was
| different.
Could it be, she asked herself, that
| she had made q mistake after all and
that those three incisive lines were as
much Of an honor as an officers bars?
Could it be that there was a point
when one began to be thirty twO-for
instance, when becomingness demand
ed that one should lay aside Miss
just as it required that one should
stop wearing pink?
She faced her plight with stiff up
per lip, realizing that she had no one
but herself to blame. There had been
a number of men-the mischievous dim
pie at the corner Of her mouth danced
into sight for a second at the thought
Of how many-who had done their best
to stop her in what she now recognized
! for the first time her mad career She
had declined their offers kindly but
| with a certain royal carelessness that
rocked not of possible dark hours to
come. When did any woman born to
the belief in the divine right of queens
ever foresee reinforcement?
She had inadvertently lived over"
as she had once heard it quantity
phrased. There was no doubt about it,
she was an old maid She repeated it
aloud in all it's brutal truth, scorning
such euphemisms as ''spinster' and
bachelor woman"
You're an old maid-just plain old
maid!' she said audibly. But it sound
ed like joke-like one of those things
too bad to be true. She would proba
bly, wake up after bit to find that she
had been married since her eighteenth
year and had son ready to enter col
| lege and daughter about to make her
debut.
No such happy awakening came,
however, and with desperate philoso-
| ply she decided that since she was
an old maid she would enter into the
| IOIC lOl dH IL was WOIlu. Al lCdSL
she would avoid the error Of being
! kittenish.
Little by little her plainest gowns
were brought into requisition. Certain
little graces and frivolities OF the toilet
were one by one abandoned. She timid-
| ly asked Alice, her closest friend, to
teach the children to call her ''auntie,'
| thing which she had hitherto forbid
| den under the penalty, of sudden
death to the cherub that should first
| be guilty of it.
What is the matter with you?" gasp
| ed Alice, with stare of amazement.
"And what have you been doing with
your hair, and why are you wearing
that ugly old dress, with all the hand
some things that you have?"
I'm just wearing the things suit
able to my age before the dear friends
have a chance to point them out to
me-" was the answer, and that night
her friend confded to her husband,
| with thoughtful regret that Elinor was