The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-09-27
THE EVENING STORY
Their First Anniversary.
(By Lawrence Alfred May.)


(By Lawrence Alfred May.)
When Miss Kitty Seaforth became
Mrs. Robert Anderson things had all
been figured out. He was an insur-
ance clerk at $25 per week. Some
day he might have an increase of sal
airy, but for the present they must get
along on his income. He had enough
in bank to buy the furniture, and he
had an eye on cottage in the su-
burbs, and they would not have to do
any pinching to make a fairly good
show.
Bob, do you know-know-'
There she stopped. She had an in
nocent little plot and was near Civ
ing it away.
He didn't ask her to finish. In his
turn he said:
kitty, do you know-know-"
And there he paused and said he
would take another cup of coffee. He
also had been conspiring with him
self. 1t was their first anniversary.
Both knew it and were going to
speak of it, but held their tongues.
They had had to do with a pretty
old rug in the parlor. 1t was dingy
and worn, and both hated the sight
of it, but they had been waiting. Bob
quarters and halves for year, some
times stealing them from his lunch
money, and Kitty had been saving
the same way by hunting for bar
gains ana reCr11nI1nS ner own mats.
To-day that old rug goes into the
dining room and rug that is rug
takes it's place." said Bob, as he
started for the car.
when Bob comes home tonight
I'll surprise him!" chuckled Kitty, as
she saw him depart.
At 8 o'clock in the afternoon a
secondhand man drove up, looked
the old rug over, made a cash offer
and drove away with it. At a new
CfQ
At noon Bob had cut his lunch hour
short to visit a carpet store and pur-
chase a rug. He didn't ask that it
should be delivered at his house. On
o'clock. He had to hire boy to help
him carry it to the car. The con-
ductor was peevish about it and NUT
tered that some folks didn't know the
difference between trolley car and
a moving van. Another boy was hired
to help carry the rug from the car to
the house.
Dinner was all ready, but Mrs. An
derson sat on the floor in the center
of the rug she had bought. 1t was
there she would receive Bob and hear
his EXPLANATIONS of surprise. 1t was
there she would call his attention to
the colors-the harmony-the weave,
and tell him she had saved $29, bit
by bit. He would lift her up and
kiss her and call her his saving little
girl
There was dull thud in the little
front hall. There was a dragging
sound. There was a grumbling sound.
Then the parlor door was pushed
open and something that weighed a
ton was upended into the room.
why, Bob, Bob!"
And the husband entered the room
and sat down and mopped his brow
and felt that he would have to wear
a porous plaster on his back for the
next month.
When he had got his breath he
looked at the new rug on the floor.
bundle he had brought in. Then, in
chorus:
you've gone and bought rug,"
1t was a time for laughing, but
neither laughed. Only one rug was
needed, and good money had been
paid for two. There was also the dis
appointment of not having surprised
each other. The young wife shed
tears, and Bob muttered. BY and by
she walled out:
You ought to have known better"
And so had YOU
"a man can't pick out rug, any
howl"
"He can do better than a woman.
If you have paid as much as five dol
lars for that rug then you've had the
eye teeth cheated out of your head.
Look at this one. will you? Here's
rug that is a rug"
shouted as he worked away and I'M
folded it. TITS only a tapestry, while
mine is a five-frame body Brussels.
Why, Bob, it won't wear-and the
the cIock-and all the girls who come
to see me will know at once-and-
and"
They didn't speak once during din
ner. After dinner Bob went out and
took a long walk. 1t was late when
he returned, and Kitty sat on her rug
crying, but he didn't seem to see her.
He saw the cat, however, and he took
her up on his knee and smoothed her
down and warned her that marriage
was a failure and that she must never
try it. A husband might slave and
economic and half starve and lug
rugs around, and at the end he would
find an uugrateful wife. He had hoped
that his case might be different, but
had been bitterly disappointed, and
of course separation or divorce must
follow.
Next morning he went off to the
office for the first time without the
usual kiss and pat He was martyr.
He knew he was and his fellow
clerks said he looked just like one.
One of them went so far as to say
that if he was a martyr he would
commit suicide.
He gave the husband an idea. At
night when he went home there was
no wife to greet him-no table set
no aroma of coffee and fried chicken.
At the rear end of the yard there
were two shade trees. Looking out
of the dining room window he saw a
noosed rope dangling from the limb of
one of them. and on the ground
under it sat his wife. She was also
martyr. She was also getting ready
to go hence.
| Mr.. Anderson placed the bottle of
carbolic acid in the middle of the I'M
set table, tipped over a chair with a
crash and then went or to a restau