Smyrna times. [volume] (Smyrna, Del.) 1854-1987, 1906-11-28
- G6e -
SarnariitanS
By C. B. LEWIS

to help others over the same road for
pay. So long as her ambition was kept |
within bounds and her prices were not |
too steep her native town of 5000 in |
habitants supplied fair number of |
pupils. and the local press now and |
then referred to her in way that was
pleasing.
One unfortunate day Miss Minis de-
cid-ei that elocution such as hers should
have no limits. The village boy who
fell into the frog pond decided that if it
was good for him it ought to be good
sor the whole United States. Miss
Minis reasoned after the same fashion.
She collected her bills. packed her
trunk and set out for the METROPOLIS.
and never was young woman more
sanguine.
In a week she was surprised. In a
month she was tired. In two months
she had decided to drop elocution and
look for place as typist and stenog-
rapher. Her mind was fully made up
on this point, and yet she could not let
go of elocution with bang. She must
part from it by degrees and make the
parting less painful.
Miss Minis sat at the open window
of her boarding house and dallied with
elocution. In her we'll modulated voice
she went over three or four of her
choicest gems and then brought out
THE Wanderer."
She had always made a hit in this.
1t was about a lovely girl who left her
village home for a great city, and after
using up AL her money and pawning
everything that her uncle would adj
vance on she committed suicide, and
the landlady found her dead when she
went in to collect her weeks rent in
advance
In elocuting this pathetic appeal Miss
Minis had to simulate Encouragement.
sorrow, grief, appeal resignation and
several other things calculated to
arouse human interest. and she had an
audience without knowing it.
On the floor above was a young man
who had been in the boarding house
almost as long as she had but they
had not been introduced and had taken
very little interest in each other. He
was the audience on this night. Miss
| Minis voice hoated up to him, and he
listened and became interested. Grad
ually he found his sympathies aroused.
| From what he could make out she was
clean discouraged and ready for the
| deadly fumes of charcoal She was
even hungry for food at that moment,
and there was no one in the great city
to whom she could turn.
The young man was deeply affected.
Here was a case right under his nose
where sympathy and cash were re-
quired, and only that evening he had
lodged the landlady when he came in.
He was perturbed and upset for few
minutes, but finally reasoned it out
that if the poor girl stuck to her pro
gramme and died it would save he1
being disappointed in love in the flu
ture.
When a long silence had followed
her fearful appeal to heaven he
brought out a manuscript and begar
to read aloud. He was no elocutionist
He might have been one had he no
become a dramatist at an early age
The manuscript in his hands was ;
play written by himself. 1t is need
less to give it a name, but it may b,
said to have been pathetic. 1t had
hero, and the hero went through trou
BILE enough to swamp a canal boa
within five miles of Troy. He KEEP
, hoping and hoping. but it was no use
5 As soon as he came in sight of a goo
q thing it vanished. He hung on an
/. hung on until the beef trust made it
last raise. and then he starved t
death with the same dignity that b
had lived.
What the dramatist was reading wa
the soliloquy of the hero when he ha
abandoned all hope and decided tbs
nlince pie was no longer for him. I'll
reverie of the elocutionist below wa
broken by his reading and raving. 81
listened, and tears Of pity came to hC
eyes. She had thought the world ws
harsh to her, but here was worse cas-
g than hers. She hadn't gone hungry We
Y but here was a young man literal
starving to death. She had heard hi
say that even the mice had abandonC
his room and that. unable to find a
" ether morsel of food, the cricket !
/. longer sang for him.
Miss Minis did what a practic
young woman should do under the G
= cumstances. The hour was not lat
w and she put on her hat and went dow
stairs and hunted up a delicatess
store and bought some smoked tong
and crackers. These would keep t
! spark Of life in the young man oy
night and next day things might tn
for the better with him.
- When the dramatist had conclud
reading his hero's soliloquy-it was
ira millionth reading-his thoughts turn
/. once more to the young woman belo
He still had a couple of dollars left a
he could not see her die for want
3F sustenance. In handing in the S
tenance would also hand in his sy
pathies and encouragement If
found her obstinately determined
her er die he might even promise her lie