The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-09-29
TIE EVENING STORY
JIMsIE OF THE rREsrnE.
(By Cecil Allen.l

betty Larned had no trouble in getting /
the same seat every morning the next |
10 the last In the third car
She. liked that particular seat be- |
cause II gave her a long view of the |
marshy creek and the great bay be- /
yond, pouring its restless waters into |
the sea-.
Jimsie's post was on the great trestle |
approaching the draw bridge. At first |,
he had simply watched the trains as
draw.
Being a young man of considerable
imagination. he could picture the long
line or commuters. winding to the fer
RES and then breaking on the shores
OF the big city beyond like a stream
long confined to narrow banks. What |
multitude of interests they represent.
ed! And to no. --"-- of the great
warehouses. skyscrapers and stores
they must scatter.
He felt quite sure that the girl with
the light brown hair and gentle gray
eyes worked very far up town for she
never missed the 7.0s. while most of
the girl commuters preferred the 1928
which brought them into town just in
time to make offices and stores for the
8 O'Clock openings.
In this Jimsie was wrong. Betty
worked quite close to the ferry but
she was an earnest, ambitious young
person, with horror of being tardy,
| SO she took no chances on the seven
| twenty-three's being late. Drawbridges
| she had heard were tricky.
This rumor was confirmed one
morning when the excursion steamer,
Lena Belle, turned contrary in the
draw. and the 7.OS stood on the narrow
trestle till the crew of the Lena Belle
could bring her to time. And that
was the morning Betty noticed Jimsie
for the first time.
Jimsie might have run along with
the rest of the railroad boys to watch
the crew of the Lena Belle but he had
something more pleasant to watch
the girlish face at the first window
from the end of the third car on the
stalled train.
The third car stood right in front of
his little shantv. and directly Jimsie
had reported the delay of the train to
headquarters by telephone, he dashed
back to the track, gazed up and met
the soft, gray eyes squarely.
Instinctively his hand went up to his
hat, then dropped, and flush blazed
up under his healthy tan. The gray
leyes opened very wide, then were hid
den by long lashes.
No. Betty was quite sure she had
never seen this very good-looking
young man fore. He did not live at
Greenport. and he had never worked
in the store.
Maybe she had met him at the single
dance she had attended at the Big
Four Social club. But no, he was not
the sort of man who went to those
I DdllS, Betty was quite sure II Vas
because she had not liked the men
that she had refused all succeeding
invitations from the club.
She raised her lashes just a tiny bit
and met respectful but undeniably
admiring glance from Jimsie's brown
eyes. She tried to look across the
aisle at the impatient passengers,
then down the bay, but the sun danced
so madly on the blue water that 1t
hurt her eyes. And as she had to look
somewhere she looked down again
into the brown eyes of the young track
foreman. M
/, Then with a jerk the LENA Belle
plunged forward into the current. rail-
4 way men shouted orders, -theresswass a
cracking and rafting of machinery
and chains. and the 7.Os plunged on
toward town.
i Jimsie waver friendly hand after
, the retreating Lena Belle" Good old
!. boat! 1t had given him good chance
to study the little girl at close range
and he had not been disappointed.
What was more he knew that the
had taken his measure and would
know him the next time they met
t Now the books on etiquet and the
learned women writer's for magazines
} tell you that you must be properly in
trOduced to man. You must be
chaperoned, and the more pretty yor
: are the more rigid must be the chape.
| ronage.
But the work-e-day world change.
/ many of these things. Jimsie begar
to plan on meeting the owner of the
] gray eyes somehow, somewhere, with
, out the aid or consent of a chaperone
: If you love a girl, you love her, ano
you win her-that was Jimsie's lexi-
con of good form.
And Bette fell to dreaming of the
, good looking young chap who was
watching for her every morning wher
, the 7.OS approached the bridge. FRS
! their eyes carried the message, Their
) they smiled. and finally they nodded
: every morning.
When the spring weather made II
excusab to open a window. Betty
took to gathering a few early blossoms
: every morning and dropping them
over the sill as the train passed the
; track foreman's shanty.
Jimsie was resourceful but he
could find no one who knew where the
girl lived, and he did not dare desert
} his post to come near the window and
. speak even If the train stopped long
! enough for this feat.
Well, there was only one thing. He'd
take day off soon and post himself al
l 1.-THE ferry entrance when the 1.0S pulled
/ | in. She could do no more than turn
him down, he argued, and somehow
: each days glance into the soft gray
t eyes assured him this fate ~-ould not
be his.
5 In the meantime Betty was doing
her share of the thinking and plan
ming, and at last she wrote to Miss
1 Gwendolin Graves, VINO conducted the
: Heart and Home page of the Evening
] Blazer" when young man is sc
3 desperately in love with you that it just
shines out of his eyes and beams in his
) smile. but you don't know him, or any
! one who does know him, but just see
+ him every day on YOUR way to work
what do you do? He might toss you
a note-but then everyone on the train
, would see it and think you were flirt
! and not for worlds would you toss him
a note" And there was a stamped
. envelope and please would Miss Gwen
. colin write very soon
And Miss Gwendolin did. for the
| little letter had the ring of self-respect
' and sincerity in it. But, alas, Miss
Gwendolin wrote that the man would
. find a way if he really loved her, as
re ax-az Droclaimed and that a certain