The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-03-13
EUening Chat
Two True Stories.
BY RUTH CAMERON.

do you want a story out of a book
OF a true story?" 1 sometimes ask my
little nephew when he is begging for
stories.
And he always says, ga true story
hope you like true stories as well
as he, for L have two to tell you to-
day.
In a department store the other
afternoon an old man waited on me.
In his eager haste to get me the right
thing he tipped over pile of shirts
which a younger clerk was showing
to a customer. I expected a protest
and for a moment I thought it was
coming. Then, Never mind, pop"
he said pleasantly, and put the shirts
back in place.
Later, while waited for my
change, I saw him go over and ask
the older man, Are you coming il
Monday, pop?" (He was evidently an
extra clerk, hired for the sale.)
Il don't know said the older man,
and therewas a world of pathos in his
wistful old voice.
We'll give me your number and
I'll find out for you," said the young
er man.
All of this happened at the end of
what must have been tremendously
busy day. Every clerk in the shop
had the license of strain and weari-
ness to be cross. And instead of
crossness was this chivalrous helpful
ness to old age. There's a queer,
warm, quivery feeling in the heart
that beautiful things like love and
music and glimpses of high qualities
give you As 1 stood at that counter
waiting for my change. I felt that
CULVER.
The second story is about little
peddler woman. She came to sell me
needles. It was cold day, and
asked her in for cup of tea cts a
who ys-knows-somehow, and l
wouldn't exchange these tea parties
and the heart glimpses that come to
me through them for the finest social
tea parties in the world. Try it some
day if you never have). At first she
was shy, then the story came tumbling
out in broken English (she was a
young Jewish woman).
Her husband was a tailor, and
everything was well with them until
he got blood poisoning from a finger
prick. He had been at the hospital
for eight or nine weeks; they thought
they could save his arm and that he
would be able to work in a few weeks
more, but in the meantime their little
savings were all used up. The Sum
day before she had had no food but
stale bread in the house for herself
and two babies. Her neighbor Cher
name was Mrs. O'Something plainly
the little boy why he was eating stale
bread, and after the fashion of youth
he blurted out that it was because his
mamma said she had nothing else to
give him.
At that Mrs. O'Something had taken
the little peddler lady in her arms and
cried, and then had gone home and
brought her potatoes and butter and
tea and milk and a lot more things.
The upshot of the matter was that
the neighbors, led by Mrs. O'Some-
thing, had gotten enough money to-
gether to supply the peddler lady with
a stock of needles and were taking
care of the children for her.
The address she gave was in very
poor neighborhood, poor as we use
the word, but so rich in charity, in
neighborliness, in humanity that at
this little glimpse of their secrets, the
warm. quivery feeling took possession
of my heart.
The moral of my stories? Aren't
they interesting enough to be their
own excuse for being? But if you
must have a moral. it is this. This is
what the poor in this worlds goods
are rich enough to do for each other
Am 1 giving in proportion PRO
tected by the Adams Newspaper Ser
vice.(