Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1910-06-21

Eyes"
There was a protracted silence. At
last the rector rose and put his hand
on his friends shoulder.
Flora has promised to marry me
after Christmas" he said, land want
you for my best man."
THE LUCKY MAN.
BY Joanna Single.
Copyright 1910 by Associated Literary
Press.
She was young and pretty. But
the prettiness was mostly mere youth
"a physical bloom and softness.
There was a tight little look to her
thin but rosy lips, and hard look In
her blue eyes. But the young men in
the case could hardly have been ex-
pected to see this. There were two OF
them-and number more, but Gene
Turner and Ebe Fisher were ahead
or it looked that way. Also it looked
as if Gene were having the best of it..
If by best it meant the lady's favor.
1t was odd, too, according to the ideas
of the other girls at the Cosmopolitan
department store. They would have
thought Suzanne-born Susan Jane
would require "some sort Of real
style l.. fellah!
Gene was not stylish, but he was
young, and straight, and wore his
working clothes with jaunty grace.
He even carried a dinner-bucket as II
that were matter to be graced IN
the doing. And he earned thrice, at
carpentering, what Ebe Fisher did
behind a dry goods counter. Ebe had
style. He was a good dancer and
dresser, a matter which must have
absorbed most of his salary, had the
girls stopped to think about it.
Suzanne, whose final name was
Ryan, had somehow escaped the
warm-heartedness Of her race, which
was a pity But she was good clerk,
with an undeniable pert prettness, a
wealth of reddish hair, a milky skin
and large, moist, bright eyes. And she
herself had all sorts of style. She was
the best dancer in the store. She lived
with an undeniable pert prettiness, a
SO out OF her weekly 81, and to whom
she paid scant attention. The front
room" was, she made it understood,
for her own especial use, and she
tricked it out with some cheap tides
and albums, lot of photographs OF
everybody who would give her one,
and bright rug and settee bought on
the installment plan. For the rest, she
owed 1t to herself to dress like lady.
Her immense self-confidence gave
her a certain charm to the circle in
which she moved she was gay,
saucy, independent, with that little
touch of feline cruelty which men
laugh at and love in pretty girl.
not realizing it's real significance -
unless they marry her!
All winter she had danced and
f1irted and-worked. Ebe, as the most
desirable man in her train, she had
taken pleasure in playing with. She
liked to make herself envied by the
other girls who counted Ebe Fisher a
sort of a prize, by snubbing him In
favor of Gene, who was as nochalant
and Independent as herself. 1t was
this recklessness Of consequences
which made the store flguratively
hold it's breath. They began, the girl
clerks, and the men too, to bet on
which would be the lucky man.
Even Gene had become really In.
terested in the game. He liked to
see how, carelessly enough, he could
get two dances to Ebe's one, two
walks to his one, the privilege Of TAX
ing her to the theater or park
oftener than Fisher could. At first
he had been not at all in earnest,
simply amusing himself. He made
love to no girl, for he had an old
mother to support who was the apple
of his eye, and he was paying for a
little lot and cottage.
And Suzanne? She had merely used
him for foil; there had been only
filtration, less clumsy than his, but
certainly, even then, none too subtle.
she would not, at first, have dreamed
of marrying him, but somehow he
was not man to pick up and drop.
He left his mark, the mark Of per
sonality which is hard to erase. And
his independence matched her own.
Late in the spring Gene took to
running over in the evening, once q
week or SO, and sitting in the front
room with the girl and chatting her
Finally he made himself welcome In
the little kitchen. which old Mollic,
the aunt, kept SululuS diio SOhaAoA Z
able and which, with its old furni-
ture. handmade by her dead hus'
band, apd her old blue dishes, was
FAR prettier and more characteristic
than all suzanne's cheap frippery. 1t
irked the girl that the handsome,
laughing young fellow should spend
a good hour CT his call sitting with
the old woman, making her chuckle
at his Jokes, mending thing for her,
doing q bit OF hammering or saving
and always in jolly companionable
way.
once the girl jcked-rather serious
ly-at him on the subject. "a body'd
think you were dead stuck on Aunt
Mollie," she said.
"I am he retorted. "She's almost
half as nice as mother-Fm used to
old ladies an like them. Come out
home with me some night and visit
mother. She's a bit lonely, and try
to stay home with her good deal"
The girl tossed her head. She had