Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1915-12-23
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That Little Laugh
". of Hers

BY MARY MORRISON RAYNAL

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How fair those lock which now the
] light wind stirs!
| What eyes she has, and what per-
feet arm!
And yet methinks that little laugh
Of hers
That little laughs still her crown
ing charm.
Where'er she passes, countryside or
town.
The streets make fiesta and the
fields rejoice.
Should sorrow come, as twill, to cast
me down,
Or death as come he must, to hush
my voice.
i Her laugh woul wake me just as
! now it thrills me,
That little giddy laugh wherein she
kills me.
-Marot.
Professor Hilton known in college
circles as Old Bones, was witnessing,
for the first time in years, comic
opera. The spectacular, the audac-
ious cleverness, so long undreamed
of in his philosophy, dawned for him
as a fresh discovery. He forcibly
held his feet to the ground to keep
them from beating time to the mus
ic. His nearsighted eyes peared de-
lightedly at the maze Of, lights. His
hands went together with almost
childlike glee when the queen of the
opera glittered before the footlights.
She was a charming1y rounded bit
Of feraininity, this comic opera queen,
welcoming her applause naively, not
much voice, but how she could laugh!
In the midst of the hollow stage
laughter hers gurgled out like the
anotheosis of eternal youth. She
laughed as children should, but rare
ly do. Laughed with an infectious
ness that shook her audience, until
they wiped their eyes and held their
sides in an intoxication of nirth. In
her laughter was the liquidness Of
mountain streams, the ecstacy of mat
ing birds, the giddy irresponsibility Of
lambs on the meadow green.
She must be very good in order to
laugh so, thought Old Bones, only the
superlatively innocent could be so
Joyous. He left the city with the
echo of this laughter in his ears. He
went back to his laboratory, toiling.
in it's smelly depths, but his heart had
escaped from the test tubes. AS he
toiIed, there would ring through his
brain an elfin laughter, whirling,
naddening thing, but with it all ex-
Quisitely dainty.
Less than forty were Old Bones
years, but he had been born old, the
product of academic shades. The
depths of his colleges intellectually
were of his digging but he was help,
less in their times of merry making.
Eloquent in his classroom he was
dumb before slip of a girl. He had
never known woman Intimately,
was not even blessed with the mem
ory of a boyish sweetheart. But at
last he was becoming humanized. He
astonished the faculty hostesses by
accepting their invitations, and listen
ing with intensive eagerness to the
mirthful sounds around him. Some.
times. amid much artificial laughter,
he caught a note of that laughter
which rang continually in his heart.
Sometimes when the faculty chill
dren, chubbily awkward in their little
coats and leggings, were playing in
the dead leaves, Old Bones would
lean on a nearby stone wall listening
to the childish glee, striving to break,
by the nearness to small human kind.
the elfin charm which bound him.
BY midwinter the opera was on the
road, billed to play in a neighborin2
town. Professor Hilton under cover
of attending a convention G nc sciHs'
tific society, was about to hear again
that laughter He had schOoled him
self to disappointment. He told hinl
self that it was impossible for her to
, have retained her spontaneity, that
playing twice daily through season
would necessarily tend to the me-
chanical
The local playhouse lacked the
glamor of the metropolitan theater,
the chorus was diminished. But
there was the same old irresistible
quality in the notes which the little
queen flung out, notes that rollicked
and caroled together like winged
creatures. 1t was rs if Balder the
! Beautiful had been reincarnated, flow
ers should have sprung up il her path
When the curtain fell for the las
time Old Bones, 1ured by her witch
cry made his way behind the scenes.
For a few precious moments the
world was shut ont. Dumb, as he al
ways was with women, his worship
blazed in his eyes. and she, instantly
responsive, Knocked and caressed hini
in turn with waves Of low, Wondrous
laughter.
Again Old Bones returned to hi