Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-12-24
THE EVENING STORY.
A STOLEN HOLIDAY,
Copyright, 1913, by W. werner)

Copyright, 1913, by w. Werner.l
Within doors it was the usual weekday
morning at the Clocks. The four grown
up and near-grown sons and their father
sat at the table while Matilda Clock.
mother, wife and housekeeper, stood over
raging stove baking the cakes for
which there was constant demand
| She was a little woman, with blue
childish eyes-the eager, wondering eyes
of soul that has stayed young in spite
of all the cramping, aging conditions of a
| hard life Life had been very hard for
Matilda, and baking cakes for five hungry
men on a fall morning was not the least
of her tasks. Apparently she had no
thought save for her cake baking, yet,
while her hands were busy, those blue
eyes went rowing out through the open
door to the sunshine that lay beyond.
None Of that glorious air, fragrant and
heady as old wine, got into her nostrils.
She felt a strange desire for it. Matilda
never ate until her man folks were full
and away. Then she sat down to what
they had left and slipped lukewarm coffee
and swallowed, without Zest, a clammy
cake or two in haste, that she might be
up and about her business. Now, as she
saw what they were going to, she envied
them with kind of passionate intensity
that astonished even herself. To slip off
even for one day! Matilda sighed as she
felt that her poor life held no price great
enough to pay for such glorious privi-
lege.
Her husband, having finished. had
hitched back from the table and was
browsing amid the news of yesterdays
paper. Suddenly he chuckled softly.
Here's some fool woman" he said, las
got sick of her house and family and
stole some store stuff SOS she'd get quit
Iaf,, toll loo -
anything I ever heard about Boys. If
you've eft all you're going to, I guess
we'll be getting out. Well start In dig
ging the south piece of potatoes this
morning.
He hung the newspaper on the line and
rose. The boys followed after Without
| a word to the woman at the stove they
left the house.
Matilda stood very still. A little color
had come into her face. She never had
her husband had found there aroused her
curiosity. There must be other women
like herself-women who ached for free
dom and found 1t not She took the paper
off the line and read about the woman
who. in desperation, had courted one
kind of Imprisonment that she might rid
herself definitely of another kind.
II don't blame her." she said, slowly:
mot IL twas such morning as this. :"
She looked at the Uttered table and the
queer and gone. 1 guess I'll slip on my
sunbonnet and step out minute. May
be I'll feel different
She went out of DOORS Once free from
the shadow Of the house the morning
caught her in rush of buoyancy and
gladness. It was as If thousand voices
sang to her, thousand lips caressed her,
thousand glances sparkled upon her
Her gaze met the brook winking under
the little gray bridge that led to the open
pasture, and her feet, following, pulled
her half hesitant body along. She knew
she was breaking every precedent-that
she was doing a wild, unruly thing-but
the morning was to blame for it. the
morning and that far-off woman who had
snatched the captivity of the law in order
to throw off the bonds of monotony and
routine that had fastened her to one place
for a lifetime.
When she came out of the daZe conse-
quent upon her act she found she was a
long way from home, sheltered by the