The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-04-08
TIE EVENING STORY
What Bob Achieved.
(By Donald Allen.)

| er, and his name was Robert Ander-
| son Jones. He was in love. OF course
no one called him Robert. He was
| Bob" to children and adults alike. He
was short. stout and red-faced-just
the sort of a young man to shoulder
| the carcass of a yearling calf.
| He was SO nadly in love that he
was losing his sleep and his appetite,
and his father became so worried
| about him that he said to the wife
[ and mother:
| Il can't make Bob out for the last
| month";
| But can was the reply.
rs he threatened with consump-
tion?"
About as much as a hitching
| post"
I've thought mebbe he had some-
| thing on his conscience You know
| somebody cut off the tail of Elder
| Spinner's cow month ago. Think
No, I don't think anything of the
sort. What I do think, however, is
that you are a very stupid man.
For why. mother?''
Because Bob is in love, and it's
the talk of the village!"
Our Bob in 1ove!' he asked in as
constituent who's the ga1?"
Yes. Bob Anderson Jones was in
love, and the name of the party of
the second part was Ninita Blythe
Scott. She had been named by her
mother after the heroine of a novel
She had arrived at the age of 20, and
was the daughter of the village
cooper. Though her father made bar
rels and her mother got the Monday
wash out on the line ahead of any
other woman in Freeport' Ninita had
sentiment-heap of sentiment. AL
though the girl was tall and gawky
and was always called Ninny, a few
persons suspected the quantity of ro-
nance in her nature.
If her mother gave her carpet rags
to sew she sat and looked out of the
window and thought of the heroes of
old until a box on the ear recalled
her to the unromantic present.
Her father had two pairs of trousers
that needed patches, but was it any
good to shake them at his romantic
daughter and tell what sort of a wom-
an her grandmother was?
There was no knighthood in dish
washing; no heroism in patches; no
warbling of troubadors in stringing
apples to dry or making soft soap.
That was the sort of girl Bob An
derson Jones was madly in love with
and feared he couldn't get. He had
started in to love her as he would any
other girl, but he was not long in dis
covering his mistake. She would not
go driving with him on Sundays be-
cause there was no romance about a
butcher cart. She would not walk out
with him in the evening unless it was
moonlight.
Sometimes Ninny was sent to the
Jones butcher shop to order cows
would seek to lead the conversation
to the scarcity of young lambs or the
greed of the meat trust, but she an
swered him not. She was wondering
whether Richard the Lion-Hearted
cared whether cows had liver or not. |
Fail IN, low 41o% i
is gaining ground or he becomes
wretched and desperate. There came |
a date when Bob Jones demanded to |
know his fate. The pair was sitting |
on the steps of the village school |
house. Bob had been thinking of |
framed mirror into the butcher shop, |
like the city shops, and Ninny was |
listening intently to the baZoo of an |
old bullfrog that was giving an af- |
ternoon performance down in the |
swamp, when the young man drew |
long breath and said:
''Ninny, I love you!'
s'Yes?" she replied.
81 want you for my wife"
.''Um" with thoughts of the gent |
who crossed the Rubicon.)
I'll always love you. And father
will give me half the shop
"Um.' with her thoughts brought
to tripe)
II will never swear nor scold."
Mop Glow could one be a hero
without cussing now and then?)
I'm most crazy about you Mother
says you don't amount to shucks, but
1 can never love another as 1 love
you. Will you have me? You must
answer"
Bob" she replied as the old frog
a sort of whoop and took
dive under water.
We'll dear"
81 am not your dear. I can never
WHAT"
Unless you rise above the sordid
herd and become my souI-mate."
Herd of cattle?'' he naturally
asked.
Bob, does the great white moon
mean anything to you?"
why, if it's moonlight I don't
have to carry a lantern"
Does the song of the whippoorwill
touch a chord?"
Haven't remarked it. I think him
a fool for singing around nights
when he could be in bed
when the breeze whispers among
the treetops-when the ripening grain
ripples in the field-when the rain
drops patter on the roof-when the
night bird MARBLES to us-when-i
"Oh, come off, Ninny," interrupt
ed Bob. This is love, but it's BUSH
ness at the same time. l want you
for a wife. Am 1 going to get you?"
You have read of Bayard?" she
softly queried-
Not line
"Of the gallant knights of st.
John? OF Alexander the Great? OF
Caesar? OF how the Hellespont was
crossed? OF how America was dis
covered? OF the gallant knights and
,hevaliers that used to ride about
-escuing damsels in distress %
Il never did, Ninny. Ever since l
was IL years old 1 have been helping
father in the butcher business u