The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-12-28
THE EVENING STORY
The Light in the Kitchen.

nights searching the skies at the OBJ
servatory on Tower Hill because he
| loved it. The scientists and attendants
recognized the tail young man with
the shoulders of an athlete and the
bullying brow of a student as one of
themselves, and he had the run of
| the place.
Tower Hill stood between the ocean
and the plain. It shot up into the air
several hundred feet. Oak Harbor,
city of considerable size. nestled at
| its base, spread over the plain, and
climbed ambitiously uE its side.
eagle On his crag, and sweep the pa
geant sea with a long, slim, powerful
telescope that was his own property
| Between this telescope and the great
barrel which peered into the myste-
ries of the sky, and was moved only
| by ponderous machinery, he was per-
fectly HAPPY.
| One evening in early spring the sky
was overcast so that no stars were
visible, and the sea was empty of
ships. Wiles took his telescope to-
| a loophole in the dome of the observa-
tory, adjusted it on its tripod and
| sat down to the eyepieee. The city
of Oak Harbor was in front and be-
meath him, pricked out by its hundred
Thousand lights.
Dividing the town into vast check
| erboards were the electric street
lamps glowing white in the gloom.
mellower and less obtrusive tint.
They peered from the open doors and
windows and tWinkled shyly through
the budding trees. The great office
buildings, tier on tier. illumined like
the portfolios of undreamed of ocean
liners, thrust themselves proudly
aloft. The trolleys, whose snoring
hum came family to him in his eyrie,
were moving streaks of fire. Motor
cars flew whittier and thither like or
derby firef1ies.
! Seated thus at his telescope, Hoover
WiIes felt like one of the immortals.
He abode on his mountain, above hui
mainly and its petty, buglike emotions:
How aimless and useless seemed all
| this fastening to and fro! What waste
Of energy in trivial blind pursuit of
pleasure. Surely an anthill, with its
misdirected activity. was a conserva-
tive and intellectual community beside
the city of Oak Harbor!
| Thus musing. Wiles turned his tel
escope slowly, like long. moving fin
ger. 1t showed the groups waiting for
Icars on the corners; occasionally
lit followed an automobile for block
Tor two. Then, as it swept far to the
| left, the telescope seemed to stop Of
it's own volition on a pretty scene.
| A lighted kitchen window, sur
rounded by vines newly green, filled
| its field. Within the kitchen, small
boy was sitting at table eating.
young woman was waiting on him
| She wore a light dress, and had
PERCUSSION of dark hair. Wiles felt
that she was pretty, though his in
strument would not bring out her
| face in detail. But the air of beauty
was about her.
In her passing to and fro. once she
stopped to tousel the youngsters hair
The watcher could see the happy
smile on the lads face Presently.
having finished his supner. he showed
back from the table. The girl, bub-
bling over with mirth and high spir-
| its, began to dance about the kitchen.
The light, irregular steps were the
personification of grace She swayed
back and forth across the space OPP
posite the window. The boy ciapped
his hands gleefully Wites watched
the scene until the dance was over.
Then he leaned back, took long
breath, and said:
| 81 shall find that girl and marry
herr
Wiles had cause to regret not keep
ling his eye glued to the telescope;
| for when he looked again, the lighted
window had vanished. Either the tel
lescope had moved. or else the light
in the kitchen had been extinguish ed
For two hours he peered steadily into
the eyepiece, in the vain hope that the
dancing girl would again fit across his
field of vision. But not another sight
of her did he get. At last, reluctant
lily, he gave 1t up and went home.
4
post His heart beat with anticipa-
| ton as he sat down at the telescope
and watched the dusk close in and
the lights of Oak Harbor spring into
being like jewels on a velvet cloth.
The glass was as he had left it the
night before.
| Again he was disappointed In an
hour of painstaking peerirg he picked
up a score of kitchen windows; but
| in each something was lacking. This
one had no vines about it: that one
did not have a table within the line of
vision; the third was lighted by cleo
tricity instead of gas, and so on. NO
sight of the dancing girl as he
had begun to call her, gladdened his
heart.
| When the clocks in the city below
began booming the hour of IL, Wiles
admitted to himself that it was too
late for small boys to be eating sup
per, and for pretty girls to be float
I ing across a kitchen floor like thistle
/ down. So he turned hihs attention to
1.-THE stars. It was a very wandering
attention, though; the stars could have
lskipped from their courses and gam
boiled together with the lambs ere
Ecomment or censure would have been
elected from Wiles.
For a week this continued. From
shortly after 7 until II he would sit
lat the telescope. searching patiently
for the vineclad kitchen window
which seemed to have emerged from
the land O. dreams Tor a night TO Tor
iture him with lodgings. only to slip
back again before his fingers could
Iclose on the vision and prove it real.
And then, as capriciously as it had
Iappeared before, the window and the
ldear sight behind it came. back
Ito him. It was revealed even as the
theater curtain rolls UP on an en-
Ichanted first play.
There was the window, bordered
with its tender greenery the homely
nIQQSanf.
table and the small boy seated at it
leating his supper: the girl in low
chair in front of. him elbows on
knees.
Presently the boy finished his meal
land began a spirited tale. He meas
lured with his hands, made q motion