, 1905-03-08

$1,000 - 'CS tAAhA
Will had found Il mutual resting place
at tie bottom Of an extremely dainty
japanese wastebasket which occupied
at least a twentieth of the floor space
in the room the girls had %tenanted to-
gether. On top of them the bright lit
tie creature had piled numberless dance
programmes. fans with names scrawl-
ed across them and Il couple of period
icals containing verse from the pen of
the irrepressible Viii.
Of the three men VIII had been most
in earnest. The afternoon of the mar
rage he had gone west TO work for IL
Chicago newspaper and to forget. The
latter part of this purpose was set
forth beautifully in one of the letters in
the packet.
Anne Stacey, who had written ION
space" for a living since girlhood and
who had never had a sweetheart. had
rescued the bundle from the Japanese
wastebasket. She recalled viii as 3.
fine. broad shouldered young fellow
who up to the time that he had ceased
visiting her chum. Il few months be
fore, had paid no attention whatever TO
the large mouthed, small nosed, intel
lectual girl who always made Il point of
having an engagement somewhere with
in ten minutes of the hour of his ar
rival. Anne had never beer noticed,
and she didn't expect it. She prompt
ly forgot being snubbed and remem-
bered only that once Will had pressed
her hand quite tightly while he said,
Little woman, | think you understand
what this means to me-"
Recollecting this, M had adopted
the letters. At first she had enjoyed
them only as love letters-letters which
were real and which said just what
she had been making her people say
for ever so long. Then, as the deser-
ton of the bright little creature came
TO be realized as an endless desertion
and as she made no new friends. those
ardent notes had commenced to seem
her very own. Their author was her
lover. She read them over and over
and over, making them more personal
with each reading. For three years
she fed her hungry soul with them.
and then, being temporarily destitute
of ideas for stories, it had occurred to
her that they were the clew to one
ready made-a story of which she was
the heroine.
"A Taker of Crumbs" was duly fin
ished that very night and dispatched to
the mail box in charge of the young
woma in the room adjoining, who was
going out to buy ice cream. Anne
thought about it a great deal i'll the
days that followed. A dozen times h
would have given the world to have
had it back, if only long enough to
have substituted fanciful terms for the
ones she had taken from the letters.
Dear Lady o. Miner Twice at night
she dreamed that VIII had come out
of the west to rebuke her for stealing
his love words and to take the packet
out of her keeping. AT the end of a.
month she got II check from the maya
zine to which the manuscript had been
sent, and after that she merely waited
for the appearance of the story in
type. When it did appear, illustrated
with a picture of a very tall girl hold
ing two extremely long arms toward an
astonishingly low door in the middle
distance, she was surprised hat no II
seemed to AXE the least notice of the
tale. -
Anne went back to her work and
wrote other stories. BY grace of these
and "A kindly providence she was able
TO pay 81 to her landlady regularly on
Saturday evening and to take three
car rides Il week. Every Wednesday
morning she walked uptown and drew
a little money from a newspaper for
which she wrote ii column called Hints
for Home Makers" She dined at g,
revised manuscripts until 10 and cried
awhile over the bundle of letters before,
going to bed. Now and hen she stood
at the window, looking out upon the
hurrying throng and remembering that
not one person in all that throng cared
whether she lived or died.
Three weeks after the publication OF
"a Taker of Crumbs" she found lying
on the table in the lower hall an en-
velope without the name of a newspa-
per on it. The postmark was New
York. She climbed the steps leading
to her room and sat down on her
couch to read the letter. Dear Lady
o. Mine"-yes, it was addressed to her.
who would have believed that there
was so loving n little in the
world? May I call tonight? That's
rather soon, l admit, but-well, l ana
very lonely too. Will"
Anne Stacey got up and dropped
the packet of letters in the Japanese