The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-09-03
THE EVENING STORY
Her Born Right.
(By John Curran.)


was dressing for her Office work of
the day. that Betty Wayne discovered
that she had no reason for being
nothing to live for. As she brushed
back to its usual neat order her still
heavy brown hair. she looked closely
| into the mirror and realized that she
looked every minute of her thirty-two
| years. There were little selfish lines
about the good dark eyes, a set look
ABOUT the once soft mouth. And when
sne Duttoned on her collar, she sudden
ly realized that she had worn that kind
OF collar with that kind of a waist
| longer than she cared to remember
maid.
AS she ate her breakfast in the mod
crate priced boarding house her new
awareness told her she had become
a fixture there. No one asked what
she wanted-they all knew. 1t would
be the same at the Office. Mr.. Jones
would know what she could do and
into rut. She was becoming, even
to herself, q habit. She mentally
shook herself awake.
As she took the car that morning,
she wondered what could have hap
| pened to make her SO suddenly dis
satisfied with herself. She was sure
she was physically we'll, health was
another habit of hers. just as 1t was
A6OAt 70 WIll0 16lISES SUNDAYS IN
| stead of going to church. This was
Friday, she resolved to make some
| changes in her routine. She would
go to the nearest place of worship on
the next Sunday.
She took her place in the office at
the usual hour and worked all day.
But at noon she changed her place of
lunching. And still the queer feeling
that she was somehow being cheated
came to her. She felt as If the wave
| of life had receded, leaving her high
and dry on a desert island of self
She was growing selfish. Since her
few relatives had died and since she
had lost Henry, what had she thought
of others? She looked about her
keenly, almost forgetting to eat
What she saw was a sweet faced
girl. blushing and dimpling shyly at
the whispered words of the broad
low opposite. And at a large table in
the center of the little cafe-a family.
A strong man, gray at the temples, a
woman also a little gray, and three
ing continually to the mother, the
wife. Her face was very content.
She had a right to grow gray, to be
less straight than at twenty-she had
youth. She had woman's born
right. Then Betty Wayne knew.
She went back to the Office with a
loneliness that Enawed at her heart.
IL nurt. put was gooo-it was an
awakening to life after years of a
sort of dead numbness. What though
Henry had proved untrustworthy
All men were not deceitfuli In shut
ting him from her life, she need not
have shut the whole of life away from
her. There must be those, somewhere,
who needed her.
That night was a hot. tossing,
sleepless one. Had she been hard to
the one lover of her young woman
o. her ~ u
said, for her to insist on a long en-
gagement, both working, though in
different cities. for a common end,
their home? He had protested that
was too long for man to wait. Per-
haps It was. She herself had been
rigidly true to him, sternly so. Then
she had heard of and verified his
girl who lived near him. Betty had
| written him scathingly. A week
| later he sent her an announcement
of his marriage to the other girl.
That was all, and it was nearly ten
years ago. and since that-she had
worked, slept, eaten, put a little
| money in the bank. What was it
worth?
Saturday was a hot. trying day. The
office closed at noon. Betty, now hat
ing her room where she usually mend
| ed and did odd things on the half
| holiday. walked out upon the street,
determined not to do anything that
she commonly did. Instead of banking
| her check. she Endorsed 1t. had 1t
cashed and started to find a new place
| for lunch. At a hot corner she ran
| into two weary, white faced girls she
kenw by sight from buying goods from
On the instant she stopped and smil-
| ed. acting on a new and human i'm
pulse. She asked them to lunch with
her. They stared, but went gladly.
ordered a SUBSTANTIAL dinner. with
| something cool for salad and ice
cream for dessert. She told them who
she was, and her sympathy presently
ticed that they said little about them
| selves.
"We've the afternoon. and lucky we
have. We have to wash up our things
for next week and look after some
you ought to see them little rats
cute an pretty in them two little
rooms, and afraid to death to move
till their. father gets home. Their
GLADYS, the girl with the immense
blonde couture. took up the tale.
1.-THE girls nine and the boy six,
an the girl she does the cookin' and
goes to school; and goes after the boy
| Their fathers bound they shall be ed
ucated. They haven't always been
1 down on their luck; they have some
clothes that some woman made. you
can see that-a woman who loved 'em
| to DEATH"
| Betty nodded. The lunch was over,
| and she rose with her guests and paid
/ the check. They thanked her heart
/ fly But again she did the unexpected,
/ even to herself.
| "I've nothing on earth to do. Sup
| pose you take me with you and let me
see the children? What do you do
| for them2 Will their father like II?
Does he-iiI-treat them ?"
| They gave her a glance of scorn-
tbut how could she know?
mot on your life!-he adores them
| childrenl His wife was In a hospital
two years, and it took even their lit
tie home to pay the doctors and all.
We've got It out of him little by little.