Charlevoix county herald., 1907-10-05
WAS IT FATEP
A Romance of Roller
Skating.

roller-skating craze going to do3
What brought about Runners wedding
or Shyly's or Sour's or little viii
lows? Roller skating
Willow loved Vera. My, how he did
love that girl! He idolized, Worship
ed, adored her until it was almost
funny. Not to Willow, but to others.
Vera and paradise; no Vera, the other
thing. That was how he felt about
It, though otherwise he seemed per-
fectly rational.
the hour and all hours was how tn
marry and eat three meals a day on
SIS week. He passed hours gazing
in at grocers' windows reading prices,
though Vera had told him time and
time again that she would manage
1t all right.
Vera was the slave of grabbed old |
uncle, her only relative, who needed
lots of waiting on and some one to
abuse. Vera cost him less than
three dollars week and never talked
back. Vera talk back to uncle! Her
amateur performance would have
made a fine showing beside uncle's
professional nagging, he having been
born with gift for that sort of thing.
Whenever Vera had a beau uncle
had convulsion. Willow was pretty .
busy most of the time, covering his
tracks, as he knew that excitement |
was bad for uncle. They managed |
things rather nicely so that uncle's |
weak heart would get no jolts. Then
the roller-rink fever broke out.
Willow, a clever ice skater, had
very little to learn. But Vera! Hon. |
est, it looked as if she just never
would learn. Willow presented her
with a pair of skates, and she began
home practice, guided by Willows in |
structions, and some printed rules. 1t
was easy enough. In fact, there was
very little to it. See that the skates
are fastened securely, stand firmly, ad |
vance right foot, throw full weight
upon it, bend well forward to get
send and glide away" 1t sounded
easy, but it did not seem to work |
in practice.
Vera never glided. Instead she
would wave and wobble frantically
here and there and then zigzag help
lessly to the exact place she did not
want to go. There invariably was
nothing to grab, so down she would
go with such force that everything
in the room would jump, her skates
always striking last. But she perse-
vered.
At last there came a time when she
consented to attend masked carnival
at the roller rink. They wore hired
cheesecloth costumes. In dinky
peasant dress Vera surely looked all
right to Willow.
She was considerable of a girl, to
begin with, brimming with energy. Be-
fore she knew it she had torn herself
from Willows bashful and respectful
hold and was whizzing across the
mammoth rink with power enough to
carry loaded through freight four
miles uphill on wet day. She had
lost all control of herself and that
diabolical momentum increased with
every second
At the opposite end of the rink,
luffing up out of the distance and the
disturbance he was causing, careened
a huge, red, ungainly, masked Santa
Claus, whiskers streaming, his four
extremities doing everything but the
right ones. Plainly the man was de-
termined to cut some particular caper
that he had set mind on II he had to
kill everyone on the floor Singles
and couples sprawled in his wake,
some able to sit up and send maledic-
tions after him, while others had only
life enough to wave a skate-laden foot
in useless protest. A trolley car
would have been as sensible Of at
tack.
The rollers under Willow seemed
riveted to the floor with horror. He
saw that at point near the center of
the rink it was foredoomed that Santa
Claus and Vera should collide with
the impulsion got from new skates
well oiled, a floor that cost $4,000 to
lay and polish, hundred and forty
pounds of uncontrolled girl and nearly
twice that weight of man resolutely
sending himself in the direction he
was determined to CO.
AS In a dream, Willow heard an
attendant say: pal, you shouldn't of
showed your lady out that way when
old reapin' and thrashin' machine is
operatin' h;sself. We don't dare say
a word, for he Is one of the main
ropes here, and can order us out of
our jobs any time he likes. Gee! 1t
looks like we was goin' to need
doctor or a hearse or somethin'."
They struck with a frightful impact
a1d then fell apart and spun about.
One of Vera's skates came down on
Santas head kerwhack. His wig and
beard had fallen off and, ere she
tainted, Vera saw that it was unclei