The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-11-09
The Euening Story
The Real and Only.
(By lola Forrester.)

sides, Larry had the inquisitive ro-
mantle sense, and he often wondered
| whether some day the Girl, the real
| and only, would walk up and ask him
for ticket, and maybe he'd be abb
Sc nt-minded and let her get by with
out recognizing his fate.
| And after all, it was Marty who no.
| ticed her first, but then Marty had
better point of vantage than he did
| back in the cage. Marty took the
tickets tick 1s and H., could ID see everybody up
about 5:45,- as a train pulled out,
Marty strol1ed over and said: HE
was right on time tonight, wasn't
he?"
ST missed it," said Larry. What is
shes been waiting here regular
and frequent for three nights now,
and he comes at 5:45. Some girl, be-
lieve me, Larry"
1t was not spoken lightly or jocular-
ly. 1t was almost solemn, and the
next night Larry watched for her.
When she came to buy her ticket he
other three nights without the great
light of truth breaking in on him.
For it was She! He didn't have to
be told twice. All he did was look at
Somewhere Larry had read about girls
who were 1issome and winsome and
the kind that just took the heart out
of you without asking.
Her hair was fair, blond as a child's,
and wavy, and her eyes were dark
brown. They made Larry think of
dusky, velvety moths wings in color
and her mouth just for all the world
like half opening rosebud. He wish
ed she would look up at him, but she
went on past Marty to the platform,
and he saw that she was waiting.
For three weeks or more Marty and
he watched the progress of her ro-
nance. Neither one approved of the
man. He was too young and sure of
hi too nonchalant' Marty said.
meant you didn't give a hap whether
she was there to meet you or not.
Sometimes he was late, but she never
was. And finally, when the 5:45 Har-
lem express pulled in one night, she
saw him through the window with an
other girl, and he didn't get off that
night.
She must have been crying, Larry
reasoned it out afterward. The steps
were icy that night anyway and slip
perry, but when she turned around to
go down them to the street she fell,
and it was Larry who reached her
first and carried her back to a bench
in the warm waiting rooms ~-w
Pm not a bit hurt" she faltered
"Only shaken up a little bit. 1 can
go home"
Whereof, with great emphasis on
the impersonal business responsibility
he felt, Larry told her he got off at 6
and would see that she reached her
home safely. And Marty whistled as
he saw them board the uptown train
together when the night ticket taker
came on, whistled all unconsciously:
You changed my life with Just one
smile that day,
I never cared what other girls might
say,
Tum-tum-tf-tum-ti-
Larry heard it floating after them
like benediction that first night
And he did his very best to help fate
along. If there had been tears on her
laSheS when they boarded the train
there was none there by the time he
left her at her door up on Eighty
sixth street near Madison avenue
They had made wonderful strides in
acquaintanceship. He had told her
he was taking the night law course at
the university, and she knew he was
born in Cranston, VT, and his mother
belonged to the D. A. r. 1t all helped. |
She was a New York girl, she said |
born right over on Lexington avenue,
near Grammercy park. They had
moved uptown after her father died, |
and she was a stenographer in a
wholesale house on Park place.
All the way back to his room, Larry |
said her name over, Alice Carlson |
Perhaps she had inherited that blond |
spun-gold hair from some Morse an |
cestor, he thought, and her rare, clear |
coloring.
Marty was the first to notice the
failed to appear on the platform for
the 5:45. Harlem express. Several
times the young man in gray got off.
and looked about, but she was not
there. and he seemed troU bled. Then
came a night when he waited around
until the 6:10, which Larry always
took, and he saw her.
And, just as he approached, Larry
tucked her under his lee, so to speak,
and put her aboard the train. She
was a bit white, but game, with her
head uplifted and her lips smiling at
Larry, and when they had gone sew
eral stations she said:
did you see that young man in
gray? II know him. He's often in
our store. He's a salesman"
Yes said Larry pleasantly.
Seems to be what we used to call up
home sort of spruce looking
She laughed, and shook her head.
81 don't know. don't like that
sort. Seems nice to meet somebody,
real somebody like home folks, don't
you know? New York's so strange
you almost lose yourself in it,
you have to keep fearfu1ly busy so
you don't get homssick," he laughed
down at her. II sit in that cage and
dole out tickets till 1 want to yell like
a Sioux, throw up the job and walk
back to Cranston in the Green Noun
tains. Then 1 think how 1 can pass :
my regents examination in the spring,
hang out my single down in one of
those marble forty-story caves around
lower Broadway, take a post grad up
at Columbia while I'm waiting for the
big case to trot along, and so I set
my teeth and hang on. That's the I
way to win in anything-you just
hang on
She looked up at him admiringly,
her eyes sparkling with interest
looked until something in his own /
blue eyes brought the color to her
face. something that told her plain as 1
any words that he loved her and {
meant to win by just hanging on and {
not giving up.