The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1915-01-19
used TO being alive.

jor, please-found her days becoming
more and more filled with the drudg-
cry of Homework.
AS in all newspaper homes, their
mornings we're their evenings. This !
was their time together; this when |
! they read and walked, and in those !
sunny hours the little nome seemed !
| all that was cheerful to Robert. But
there were often days when. tired
from a late assignment of the night
before, he had to sleep until it was
time to go back to work; so, often,
Polly began and ended her silent day
alone.
When Robert took her in his arms
and told her how great was his happi-
| ness in the thought that at last she
was sheltered from the buffeting of the
world, told her of his strength, his ex-
hilaration, his lust for work, because
he had before him the constant realiza-
ton that at last he was doing hers as
we'll as his own; then. indeed, she al
most cried out to him. But his joy
was too beautiful
In the long, silent evenings. her
thoughts turned to the office. To the
city editor. goading her like gadf1y to
catch the first edition, to the thrill of
excitement as her story, page by page.
was whisked off by the copy boy, to
the lull till another assignment, filled
in with an argument with another
mind as alert as her own, a battle
fought point by point about some topic
of tomorrow's news. filled with good
natured acrimony.
Or an Office joke, for which no one
was ever too tired, and for which time
could always be found.
That was where her Robert was,
where her old friends were, where her
heart and life were.
The old comrades we're playing the
glorious game, and she, the Major
hearted, put her poor dropping head
on Polly's pathetic attempt at sewing
and sobbed out her loneliness into the
; awful stiffness of Roberts protecting
home.
Polly began to grow pale and list
2 less as the summer came on. Robert
asked often and tenderly if she was
( doing too much They had started a
I little garden in the spring.
2 Patiently Polly bent over the unac
8 customed task until her back and heat
+ ached, and, somehow, the things didn'
+ grow after all When they did, she
3 could not find any great thrill over
4 little green shoot, but Robert eXulted
Z and told her bow beneficial it wal
I working in The soil.
x| She smiled, still too much the moth
8 er to tell the truth and ask of hin
x the sacrifice of giving up this newly
q found JOY of protection.
>" AS the weather grew pleasanter. tn
II people from the Office came out Otter
err, and Robert was surprised to fin
= how keen was her interest in them an
Z their work but he laid it to her warn
+ hearted concern for her old friends
x and supposed much of it was tactfull
Z assumed
+ He, personally, tried to keep hi
2 work out Of his home as much as Il
i could having read that fallacy som
Z where in his early youth and keepir
+ It by him az beautiful but uninvest
y gated theory.
i Soon the Old friends began to motto
z change. They asked Mcpherson
Il she was not well, and the dear old b
80 said he feared she was feeling the {
feet of the years of hard work befo
-- he had been able TO care for her.
- She was sometimes tempted to a:
him if he had ever heard the story
the veteran flre-engine horse tn;
n after receiving a reprieve, insist
upon answering all the alarms just t
same. She knew how the poor Q
boy felt.
Once. tentatively, she asked If
foun the little home and it's surroul
ings all that he had expected them
be, and the radiant smile with viii
he answered won the day for t
suburb.
But finally Robert asked an {
friend who was doctor to dine WI
them. Ostensibly the visit was soci
for Polly declared she was not at
ILL.,
He watched her carefully throu
dinner, talking on every subject unt
the sun except health.
"Does she need rest, doctor?' r
ert asked anXiously, when they w
alone.
Rest" the doctor snorted. 81
you ever know a greyhound to thr
at the end of leash?"
Robert calls her the Major now.
is the editor of a magazine.
He finds that it is quite as delis
full to have her as a companion, C,
rade, and fellow worker as it was
have her Tor charge.
She was not of the species ivy
could not cling and thrive.
But the knowledge that a strong ;
~ to lean upon is ever ready if she
need of il, to support or to strike
her, has given her that beautiful il,
dent independence thar is posses
only by dependent women. She
little arrogant III hSr love- a little Il
- terful. perhaps. but Robert is one
the men who urdc rstand.
And Roberts h any less hap
He looks on with the tolerance
st. Bernard who is allowing a s.
terrier to worry his bone.
His shelter is ready for her W
ever she tires, his savings are accu
lating for their old age. All is