The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-10-14
The EVENING STORY
Trapping a Lover.
(By Lawrence Alfred Cls

is not meant that a brick house had
fallen on him in the city or that he
had been bumped by a street car on
his way to his club, and that his doc
tor had looked wise and said that he
needed country air to knit his broken
bones.
The young, mans injuries were
purely mental, although any savant
will tell you that a great mental
shock beats falling off the roof of
the woodshed all hollow. He had
| loved and lost. That is, he thought he
| loved, which is about the same thing,
and he had most certainly lost!
| Ten hours before he was to wed
the darling of his heart she packed
her trunk and took steamer to Eu,
rope with another man. She and
that other man were married on
! board just the gangway was being
hauled in and visitors hustled on to
| the wharf.
Young Mr.. Colfax was out $500 in
cash on the to-be wedding. The cold
cash ought always to be figured in
such cases. A few people pitied him,
and a large number laughed at him.
| Even the girls father said the case
seemed to have it's humorous side, |
though he did not volunteer to find it.
Mr.. Colfax used up $500 sending
wireless messages to the fair but
| false one at sea, and only quit when
informed that the bridegroom was
| lighting cigarettes with them as fast
| as they came.
When he found himself thinking of
suicide the young man who had loved
and lost turned to the country and !
| Squirrel Inn. He had seen the place
and knew that it was quiet. Mine
host did not hang out sign of lac |
Grated hearts cured quickly, but he |
was willing to do his best for his |
patrons. Mr.. Colfax had been at the |
hotel for a week and was making a |
game fight to drive away the dark !
recollections, when a restless night |
came. The sky was overcast; the |
wind sighed mournfully; the whip
poorwill went to bed and stopped |
singing. Now and then there came a |
distant wailing. as if some lost spirit |
was crying out to be found and taken
to a first class restaurant for a
square meal
The young man couldn't rest. Such
a night, with the boots of an owl
added from time to time, brought
back with full force the jolt he had
received. If Laura Jean had loved
him-if she didn't intend to stick to
her promise-if he wasn't the man TO
make her happy-if a heap of other
things, why didn't she come out like
man and say so? Why not have
the moral courage to look him in the
eye and say:
Brian. L have sized you up and
thought it all over, and have come to
the conclusion that you are a light
weight. Don't let it hurt your feel
ings, but [ tell you it's all off. 1 have
kept a book account of the value of
the theater tickets, bouquets and
boxes of candy you have Iavished on
me, and tomorrow morning. you will
receive by first delivery my certified
check for $27.20."
That would have been the manly
way, but alas, Laura Jean had shown
that there was no man about her.
Mr.. ColfaX stifled in his room as
he thought. He would go out for a
walk. He would plunge into the night
cI,1 n
commune with the souls of other
young men who had received the jolt.
If he ran across a mill-pond in his
wanderings perhaps
1t was easier and more appropriate
to the occasion to raise his window
and drop to the ground than to go
prowling around in search of the
front or back door, He dropped.
That long wall walled just then and I
an owl hooted. i
The victim of a womans wiles s
knew nothing of the neighborhood. 6
He had sat the veranda and
smoked and thought most of the time. l
He now took the highway and saun- !
tered down it. He cared not whittier !
he went nor how long he stayed. +
1t wasn't as if he was on job for t
wages. t
Forty rods down the road was a a
manor house called the Naples The |
owner was a Mr. Sanborn. About all l
he has to do with this story is the I
fact that he was Hazel Sanborns ia :
Their. a
Miss Hazel had rabbits-five or six f
of them. There had been others, but g
a red fox had come proving and v
found a way to get into the pen. Only o
the night before he had taken one a
of the biggest and juiciest, and left n
the others half dead with fright. Miss u
Hazel had first shed tears. Then she $
had dashed them away and run to d
the gardener to eXclaim: t
Thomas, you are chump!'
Yes, miss was the dutiful reply.
1.-The biggest chump in the county,"
Certainly.
You've let a fox come here and de- d
YOUR several of my rabbits and never U
done a thing about it, VI
Not a thing, miss.
But why in beeswax haven't your c
Because 1 haven't been told to- "
well, I'm telling you now. Papa [
says he thinks there is fox trap t
around. You stir your stunps and find r
out. If there is a trap you set it, g
Just so. miss L find the trap and e
set it and-and-- K
And catch the fox, stupidi' c.
But he may not come back here tt
Then catch something elseI''
A Tilted, jolted young man that goes
put at midnight TO walk his grief away t.
walks as softly as a cat. Mr.. Colfax t;
was tip-toeing when he came to the F
Naples and saw some one turn in there. e.
It had preceded him SO softly that he
hadn't heard a football. Perhaps it W
was another jolted young man. b
Filled as he was with grief and hui Il
initiation, and tire owl hooting and the | tc
ost soul waiting, it seems a wonder II
hat young Mr.. Colfax didn't pass on Vi
bout his business of cussing Laura
lean and the man who got her, but Vi
,n the contrary it woke him up to ri
linking some thinks on the present. a.
The man who skunk around the house tt
vas probabl va thief. He was probably tv