The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-06-17
THE EVENING STORY
The Lucky Man.
(By Joanna Single. }

| 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 a hard look in her blue
| eyes. But the young men in the case
could hardly have been expected to
see this. There were two of them
and number more. but Gene Turner
and Ebe Fisher were ahead-or 1T
| looked that way. Also it looked as II
| Gene were having the best of it, If by
best is meant the lady's favor. 1t was
odd, too, according to the ideas of the
other girls at the Cosmopolitan depart
ment store. They would have thought
Suzanne-born Susan Jane-would re-
quire some sort of style in a fell
| lah!"
Gene was not stylish, but he was
young, and straight. and wore his
working clothes with a jaunty grace
He even carried dinner bucket as II
that were a matter to be graced in
the doing. And he earned thrice. at
carpentering, what Ebe Fisher did be-
| hind 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 Ry-
an, had somehow escaped the warm
| heartedness of her race which was a
pity. But she was a good clerk, with
|
| 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 old aunt to whom she gave
| 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 or
| H., -1,@ I've
and a bright rug and settee bought on
the installment plan. For the rest, she
owed it to herself to dress like
| lady.
Her immense self-conidence gave
her a certain charm to the circle in
which she moved IS she was gay,
saucy, independent, with that little
touch of feline cruelty which men
laugh at and love in a pretty girl, not
realizing its real signif1cance-unless
they marry her!
All winter she had danced and fiirt-
ed and-worked. Ebe, as the most de-
sirable man in her train, she had TAX
en- 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 nonchalant and IN
dependent as herself. 1t was this reck-
Iessness of consequences which MADE
the store fguratively hold its breath.
They began, the girl clerks. and the
men, too, to bet on winch Wouiu pe IH0
lucky man.
Even Gene had become really inter-
ested 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 taking her to
the theater or a park oftener than
Fisher could. At first he had been not
at all in earnest, simply amusing him.
self. He made love to no girl, FOR ne
had an old mother to support who was
the apple of his eye, and ne was pay
ing for little lot and cottage.
And Suzanne? She had merely used
him for a foil; there had been only
Irritation, less clumsy than his, put
certainly, even then, none too subtle.
She would not at first have dreamed
of marrying him, but somehow he
was not a 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 run
ming over in the evening once a week
or so, and sitting in the front room
ly he made himself welcome in the lit
tie kitchen which old Mollie. the aunt,
kept shining and comfortable, and
which. with it's furniture hand made
by her dead husband, and her OLD plue
dishes was far prettier and more
characteristic than all Suzanne's cheap
frinpery. 1t irked the girl that the
handsome, laughing young 1enoW
should spend a good hour OF his call
sitting with the old woman, making
her chuckle at his jokes. mending
thing for her, doing a bit of hammer
ing or saving, and always in a jolly
objectionable way
once the girl joked-rather serious
ly-at him on the subject. "A body'd
think you were dead STUCK on Aunt
CHI
ST am" he retorted. "She's almost
half as nice as mother-I'm used to
old ladies an I like them: Come out
home with me some night and VISIT
mother She's a bit lonely, and l try
to stay home with her a good DEAL
The girl tossed her head. She had
no mind to fuss with the old lady. But
secretly, she did want to see his mouse.
She had in the back OF her mead
notion that a strong, independent man
with a house of his own might not be
bad to marry. She had no idea of vast
ing her youth in a department store
she intended to marry.
And as for Gene; he had become
fond of the girl. He was at times,
sure he was in love with her. But he
was by nature deliberate-he never
hurried a thing. She would get ac-
ouainted with his mother. 1t even
entered his head that if she should
care for him and would marry him,
Aunt Molly could have her little
house moved to a corner of his lot,
and he and his girl wife could have
their "old folks under their eyes. He
was a born son.
He noticed that Ebe Fisher was be-
coming more and more frequent, |
more and more serious in his atten
ton to the girl. 1t awakened his sense
of rivalry. And, though he hardly
knew it, he was sorry for Suzanne. He
wanted her to have a chance to be
quiet at homee to dress her hair like
a real woman instead of a hair dress
er's dummy, to stop chewing gum, and
talking pert nonsense at every man in
her path. He wanted to protect her
even from herself. He finally de-
cided to ask her to marry him, and to
see if she loved him. His mind dwelt