The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-09-03
TIE EVENING STORY
Widow Samples Patient.
(By Clyde johnson.

Widow Samples Patient.
CBy Clyde Johnson)
The breakfast dishes had not yet
been cleared away, and yet the
Widow Sample sat on the back porch
with her hands clasped over enc
knee and a thoughtful look on her
face. She was a woman past forty,
and owned and ran her little farm.
A matter had been bothering her for
a long, long time, and she was trying
to find a way out.
Three years before, when Uncle
Abner Gates, widower, had met with
an accident to his wagon while driv-
ing to the village, and had called at
her house to borrow tools to make re-
pairs she had thought we'll of him
and believed he had of her. A week
later he had come back to see if she
had any hay to sell, and she smiled
and blushed as she realized that it
was a mere excuse. She knew that
he had tons and tons of it in his
barns.
The third time Uncle Abner called
he brought some Paris green to kill
off 'tater bugs. He did more. He
went out to the patch and sprinkled
the stuff over a hundred hills, and
when the widow chided him for being
so neighborly he replied:
Pooh! Pooh! Hain't we been Put
into this world to help each other?
L
had a mighty hard time of it,
YES" with a sigh.
Their barns are allus bein' struck
by lightnin."
Yes"
Tin peddlers cheat en-
"They do
And them sewing machine fellers
tuck on the price"
Yes"
Yes, sir, wilder woman has a
] 4
! care who hears me say SO. That
There followed a pause long enough
to have enabled the calf to run six
times around the hog pen, and then
| UncleszAbner finished.
Unless she marries agin.'
The widow reached out for q holly
hook blossom and slowly picked the
pink and white leaves apart and made
no reply for a time. Then she softly
said:
! And widowers don't have such
good times, ether
Not by a darned sight"
They must see many lonely
hours
You bet!''
There must be a wife or there
can be no home.
You are right, widder-dead
right"
Now the logical conclusion to such
g. conversation as the above is plain
| to a blind man. The ground had
ged ready for the crop. The Widow
Sample had perfect right to look
for the logical result, but it didn't
come. Uncle Abner had the same
right but just at the critical moment
he went to pieces like an old barrel
being rolled down hill Two min
utes later he was in his wagon driv
ing off and saying to himself:
'Abner aGteS, you are a dumb old
fraud and orter be fed on frost-bitten
turnips for a year to come! You want
the Wilder Sample and the Wilder
Sample wants you, but you hain't got
the grit of grounding to ask for
her!''
Uncle Abner came back again and
again. He was always more than well
come. He always led the converse
ton around to unhappy widows and
how they might find happiness by an
other marriage, and in this he was as
sisted more or les by the widow, but
always and ever he lost his courage
al the critical moment and drove away
calling himself all kinds of hard
names.
Women should have license under
the new order of things to ask for the
heart and hand of the man they love.
They should not be kept dangling as
the Widow Sample was. The uncer-
tainty of whether she was to become
Mrs. Gates or Mrs. somebody else, or
to go on being Mrs Sample to the end
Of her days, was a very diSagreeable
situation. Today she was on her back
porch bordering this matter when
she should have been at the kitchen
sink with dishcIoth in hand. At the
end of half an hour a smile came to
her face and she heaved a sigh of re-
lief The Widow Sample had found
the idea she had long been seeking.
Uncle Abner Gates was at the
grindstone in the barn putting an
edge on a scythe when a tramp came
along and asked for food and work.
He was filled up and sent to a field,
and half an hour later he was hoof-
ing the highway again. The fellow
had a squint eye and a twisted nose
and could have been picked out from
among a thousand Weary Willies
herded into a ten-acre lot
by heck, but I've been fooled
agin!" exclaimed Uncle Abner as he
found the tramp gone. IF ever 1
come across him" But there wasn't
one chance in a thousand.
The Widow Sample had a kind
hearts for tramps. She always i'm
agined them victims of misfortune
and they were handed out food
whether they offered to pay for it in
work or not. In due time the tramp
with the squint eye and the twisted
nose reached her hospitable farm
house. Due time meant the day af-
Gates The fellow had just been
chased away from the farm below by
bulldog. and was out of breath and
looking pale. Before he could re-
mark that he hadn't had anything to
eat for three days, the widow took
one good look at hi mand threw up
her hands with the exclamation:
.s<,I<