The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-01-09
TIE EVENING STORY
When Brother Fred Came.
(By Claudine Sisson.)

when Brother Fred Came.
| (By Claudine Sisson.)
Seated before a bright CRATE fire in
the library. with a good cigar in his
mouth and his feet in another chair
Tommy Glens was content Without
was a winter blizzard, with snow ping
I'D to the tops of the fences and gale
chasing itself down the country high
way: within the house was no other
| human being. The mother had gone
away the day before on short visit.
| and the cook had been given two days
holiday. Tommy had felt himself able
to wrestle with skillet and coftea pot
and had been left to do it,
/ Tommy Clens gravitated between the
city and his mothers manor house He
was supposed to be studying for the
| bar, but he wasn't wearing out his
brains He had been at It a year. and
yet he doubted if he could fill out the
blank spaces in a bill of sale. Tommy.
being "a years old, was supposed to
| have his eye out for naatrimony, but
! he hadn't Tommy wasn't looking for
trouble in any direction He just want
ed to be let alone and take comfort.
And so the gale roared. the snow fell.
the drifts piled up. and Tommy Glens
| smoked and read and yawned and Won
dered why so many people spent so
much time in kicking when the kicks
did not good.
A mile away. an hour or so before the
lone young man sat down, Miss Nellie
Grafton looked from the window on
the storm for a minute and then turned
to her mother and said:
"Why. mother, it's growing worse all
the timer
ssYes?'
ITS a regular blizzardr'
ct guess 1t Is"
with the cutter to get Fred. He isn't
very we'll you know. and he couldn't
walk a mile and a half through this
storm. He'll try to, though. if I'm not
there
Brother Fred was to come from the
city on the o'clock train. Had his
train come through he would have been
with it. and Just outside Of the depot
he would have found three snow-cov-
cred objects representing his sister and
a pony and cutter. The train left the
city on time. but lost two hours buck
ing the snow drifts. No sister. no pony.
no cutter to greet him when he at
length arrived No hotel at the coun-
try station. and the man in charge of
the depot said it was against orders to
permit suspicious persons to pass the
night in the waiting room. It was
therefore Fred for home and some time
before midnight he got there. It was
to find that the pony had arrived an
hour before him, dragging the cutter
on it's side and carrying a great hump
of the feecv on its back and the mother
walking the floor and wringing her
hands.
"She's been tipped over in some drift
and is freezing to DEATH" was the vail
Brother Fred should have stumbled
over the victim if she had kept to the
road. but as he hadn't he had to take
it that his sister had staggered aside
before falling. OF course he must re-
turn over the road. The pony was
brought out to face the storm. the
whip vigorously applied and the search
for a freezing or frozen girl was on.
AS the pony made his slow wav
through the drifts the brother had
time to wonder what a frozen sister
would look like. Would she begin to
freeze at her ears or her toes first?
would there be a smile on her face or a
look of terror, Would her hands be
folded over her bosom or would thew be
extended at full length. as If rea ching
for the aid that naver came? In lifting
the Door girl into the cutter might she
not break in two and have to be car
ried home in halves?
Tommy Crlens was so content to hear
that old blizzard raging outside while
he was so comfy where he was that
in time he dozed. In time he also
dreamed In some other time he dream
ed that he was with DR. Cook within
1000 miles of the north pole and that
he was listening to cries for help. Those
cries awoke him. and then he heard
them in reality.
Bareheaded and in dressing gown
and slippered feet Tommy made
rush for the arctic circle, which was
the highway, and when he returned
to the house he bore the half fnsensi-
bic form of Miss Nellie Grafton in
his arms. A quarter of a mile down
the road. as she was returning home.
the pony had tried to climb the fence
and had upset things. and then
started off for his warm stable.
The girl had made Roadway until
exhausted. and the point reached
happened to be in front of the Glens
house. Three or four calls for help,
and then Miss Nellie was a huddle IN
the snow She only dimly realized it
when she was carried into the house
and the warm library and placed in
the big rocking chair. and to this day
she is not sure that Tommy Glens
danced around her and exclaimed:
what shall I do-damn it, what
shall I do It's a girl. and If don't
do something she'll die.'
Tommy had done nothing as yet
not even to look for the brush broom