The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-04-25
THE EVENING STORY
Uncle Hiram's Experiment.
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The old farm had been sold-the
farm that Hiram jackson and his
bride had come to three days after
their marriage That was a long thirty
years ago. Both husband and wife
were now over fifty, gray-haired and
bow-backed. There had been years
and years of the hardest toil-sickness
-debts-accidents; but man and wife
had worked together and had con-
quered.
That evening as they sat on the We
randa and the sun went down there
was lonesomeness they had never
felt before. Selling the farm was tear
ing their world up by the roots. For
a long time they didn't speak. For a,
long time they didn't look at each
other. In week more the buyer was
coming to take possession. The wife
had these thoughts alone as the tears
stood in her eyes. The husband had
other thoughts mingled with them.
That day as he chatted with a
neighbor the neighbor had said:
'Well, Uncle Hiram 1 make out
that you are fifty-three years old, and
you have done a heap of hard work.
1 wouldn't take you for over forty,
however. If you was to dye your hair,
shave Up and put on a good suit of
clothes you'd pass for a spruce young
widower out west, where you are go
| ing. Good wife you have got, but it's
a pity you are married. You ought to
have a chance to run around and see
life.''
| Both laughed at the remarks, but
they stuck with Uncle Hiram. He had
toiled like a slave. He had never been
twenty miles from the farm. He had
never attended a circus. To bed at
o'clock-up in the morning at 5; pillow,
plant, reap-that was the daily rou-
tine. Then there was milking to be
done, hogs to feed, wood to cut. He
had gone through all this without
complaint but just now he was feeling
the bitterness of it.
Uncle Hiram turned a bit to look at
his wife. In his selfishness he gave
her little credit. She had done her
best. She had often taken the place
of a man in the field. If age showed
more on her than on him, if her hair
was whittier, if she was more stopped,
if her face carried more wrinkles, he
should have felt more tender. But he
didn't. His bitterness was all for him
self. He had planned to go West and
buy another farm. He must take the
"old woman" with him to b drag on
him. Never until this evening had he
thought her misshapen or homely. The
words of a neighbor, uttered half in
! Jest were bearing fruit.
| That night Uncle Hiram scarcely
| closed his eyes in sleep. There was
a change in him, and he realized it.
He found himself planning things that
he would have turned from almost in
fear thirty hours before. Yes, he went
at it deliberately and planned, and
asked if he were awake he deceived
her He didn't want her either to
weep or chatter to disturb his plan
ming. He was to go out West some
where alone and make the purchase,
and the wife was to come on. That is,
hod MIA
the fear of travel that was keeping her
awake that night
| In the next two weeks many people
wondered what had come over Uncle
Hiram. OF course, he would be bit
sad about leaving the cid farm, out
why his nervousness and irritability?
WHY so bruSque and blunt with Aunt
Jane? Why tell so many conflicting
stories as to the locality he should
head for? Those who had known the
man the longest criticised him most.
| When he finally started away there
seemed much pretenSe IN the parting.
The wife felt it, and was not altogether
unprepared for what soon took place.
Uncle Hiram had been gone five days
when a friend from the village placed
a. thousand dollars in her hands and
told her that she would never see her
Husband again.
! Uncle Hiram went West. He halted
in a city for a week to get slicked up.
got through with him. not even MS
wife of thirty years would have fecog-
nized him. Farm life and toll had
been left behind. He wasn't married
man now, but a widower. So ne told
himself by dyeing his hair and whis-
There was no accusing voice. He had
left a thousand dollars behind for the
"old woman" Some men wouldn't
have left a dollar.
Uncle Hiram took another name,
and in due time he arrived somewhere.
He found people who did not hesitate
to ask him why he made fool of
himself by dying his hair and wh1sk-
ers Indeed he was an object OF sus-
picion and was arrested. When ne
arrived somewhere else ne was taken
for a man of sixty instead of fifty
three. The tailor hadn't taken away
that stoop. and he walked with loose
: knees as all farmers do. Boys called
after him on the street In a place OF
amusement he saw a woman whom ne
thought he would like to make his
wife. He was the dashing widower
now. In the midst of his gazing and
thinking the woman turned on him
with:
'sSee here, you old hundred-year-old
manikin. you quit your staring or LII
have YOU thrown out of here!
Uncle Hiram was dyed and padded
but he was deceiving nobody. Peo-
pIe offered to assist him up and down
steps and over rough places, and now
;. and then men appealed to him in re-
gard to dates of sixty or seventy years
} ago. 1t was very often that children
called him grandpa, and he was eau
: toned that such and such weather was
= dangerous for an old man like him.
Uncle Hiram saw the elephant. He
. saw him literally and theoretically
HE couldn't figure where he was bet
ter off for so doing. When he saw the
animal literally, the mehout cautioned
2 him against coming too near, as Be
| hemoth seemed to have spite agains
lold men-
$ In one locality Uncle Hiram re
$ Inewed his hair-dye and started in tt
j court n widow She smiled the dy'
and called him an old foo and helt
4 | the door open for him to walk out. II
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