The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-04-14
THE EVENING STORY
Her Wedding Supper.
(By RTIbv Raughman1

Her Wedding Supper.
(By Ruby Baughman.)
The little brown cottage cuddled
lshyly away among the lilac bushes
humble and modest as its own mis-
treSs. Since the death of her widow
mother, Margaret has lived here alone.
1.-The tiny rooms had watched the years
trace lines of departing youth on her
gentle face, though their own trim
IneatneSs showed little evidence of the
lapse of time. The oaken chairs, the
lcarefully-dusted table the brightly
polished stove, stood just where they
had stood the dreary morning after
the funeral The black walnut clock
seconds passing away, its equilibrium
assured by the same bit of pasteboard
tucked under one edge The rugs
showed no wear from the soft tread
of Margaret's dainty, unalabitious feet.
Placid, habit-bound, solitary, the
house and its owner had grown with
the flying years.
Into this measured seclusion the
small village obtruded little Interrupt
ton. With the chatter of village talk
and the clack of idle gossip Margaret
had nothing in common. A slight deaf
ness, quite imperceptible to less sensi-
tive spirits than her own removed her
| a bit further from companionship. Her
family, her mothers people, finding
her queer" slowly detached them
selves from her. Gradually her life
was absorbed into her books, her
garden, her sewing and her house
| hold cares, until the world outside her
own time-worn brown fence palings
and the hedge of yellow roses, came to
have the unreality of a dream.
True, dreams of the future had
come to her earlier moods; the feni-
nine. yearning for some one to share
her life, for tiny fingers TO disturb the
monotony of orderliness that pervaded
TQIr+ I1ohi I'D
swallowed these creations of her
fancy.
The events of human experience,
death, love, pain, sorrow, fear, left her
untouched, appearing to her lonely
aloofness as unreal as the human be-
ings they blessed and cursed.
Even Jacob Wilkins. in the big
white house beyond the rose-hedge,
had long since lost the quality of &C
tual earthly existence. He shoveled
the snow regularly from her walk in
winter; he sawed her wood and stack
ed it neatly in the tiny "leanto;" he
trimmed her hedges and moved the
grass plot; but he never ventured into
her garden or her sitting room. So
even he, in time, grew to be as lacking
in the human qualities as the elements
he protected her from thus generously
and carefully.
| To a sense, however. of his very
genuine protection, Margaret's awak-
eDlnB GAME S1VOQSAA.- "a I'll ~
tramp shuff1ed in one summer after
noon from the outer haze of things,
within the range of Margaret's near
sighted vision. Catching a realiza-
ton of her lonely nselessness, he
demanded food and money, stepping
threateningly along the stone walk
toward the startled woman
Fear gripped her relentless, over
whelming fear, all the more dreadful
for the long years of impunity it had
| H.. .@-%l4 H.
not scream, nor rum, nor defend her
self; she froze into a moveless image
of fright.
"You clear out of here quick. you
ornery cuss!"
Margaret's eyes lifted to the smil-
ing gaze of Jacob Wilkins. Even in
| her disarray of ideas. memories of
| sleigh-rides, of parties, of picnics, of
moonlight walks with the youthful
| counterpart of this man struggled for
her attention, but the tremorS- of fright
stifled them again. With his usual I'M
assertiveness, he venture6 to take her
trembling fingers, gently, slowly, into
his big hands.
1T amt right. Margaret, for you to
| live here alone like this. 1t amt safe
for you he explained softly, as If he
comprehended the shock to her awak-
ened helplessness.
She could only SILVER with the pas
sing of the terror. She felt his anxious
would you-do you think-don't
you believe-could you come over to
the big house and live with me and let
me look after you? II would be
safer" he added breathlessly.
The abrupt invasion of the things of
this world had left her powerless to
think or to act. Her universe was
crlimbling to pieces beneath her feet.
| All that he meant she did not COM
prehend She knew only that his
| fingers were kind and strong, his voice
tender and assuring. With the chill
of alarm. still shaking her voice. she
whispered,
ooh yes, yes, yes"
"I'H bring DR.. Brandon right up
here and we will be married this very
afternoon"
CDR. Brandon? Married."
why, sure; you can't come to live
with me unless we are married" hold
ing her f1uttering hanlss in his per-
suasively tender palms.
Before her unaccustomed thought
could traverse the length of the new
| proposition he vent on:
"In be right UD with him. I'm
| glad you're wearing the white dress
with the pink daisies in it, Margaret,
You had one like it years ago and it
always looked to me like a wedding
dress
/ With weakening knees and be-
lwildered spirit, she sat down on the
grass edge beside the walk, to think
things out with a brain. that would
| not wrestle with this middle of mum
dane affairs. Too brave to cry, she
Icould only pick the green blades one
lby one. and lay them in row on her