The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1917-07-12
CASE OF BUMPS
BY JOHN BUTLER.

|
Cupid intended fondly to beat for each
other, may go for weeks and months
and years without any such beating.
There was Miss Annette, who came
here to the city from Kalamazoo, the
celery town of the West, and secured
place as typist and stenOgrapher.
She had a heart and Cupid intended |
that it should beat for somebody, but |
the weeks went past and she didn't |
find the man.
There was Stephen Douglas, who |
came from the town of Yaphank, a |
town on Long island. He secured q
place with firm as cashier and book |
keeper. Cupid had plans concerning
Stephen. He should have a home and
a fireside and loving wife and half
a dozen children, perhaps. But Steph
en- pored over his books by day and
walked home at night, and didn't see
anybody who looked like girl he was
to fall in love with.
And all this very time Miss Annette
and Stephen occupied boarding houses
right across the street from each other.
When a fog drives into New York
it comes from the rivers on both sides
of the city. 1t makes tunnel of ev-
cry street. You may have crossed a
street a hundred times to some desig-
mated point on a reasonably dark
night, but if you try it in fog you
will go wrong.
Miss Annette got home before the
fog came, but later on she had to run
| out to the store a block away. Steph-
| en- Douglas also got home in good time.
| But he had to 90 out later to get some
tobacco for his pipe, and while these
| two people were busy on their errands
| the fog drove in, and it was like pull
| ing down q window shade. Stephen
started to go around the block to the
left, and Miss Annette started to go
around the block, when they bumped
and romance had begun.
OF course, there were EXPLANATIONS
and explanations and, of course, Steph-
en- volunteered to escort Miss Annette
| across the street. She hesitated and
then accepted his offer. They started
directly across and, after five minutes
Of cropping, they found themselves
down at the corner. That corner was
| Only half a block from either boarding
house, but it looked so weary and
strange and altered that they could not
say that they had ever seen it before
| They were across the street, however
and they had only TO follow the side
II, al hn-
trouble. There We're three houses jus
alike. and You had to get your nose
almost against the doors to tell one
from the other. Stephen returned
across the street, and by good luci
he found his own door. 1t took Mis-:
u Annette twenty minutes to find shri
ter in her own room.
! No landlady, however good and nc
: BILE she is, will ever introduce you t
a boardcr in some other landlady'
house 1t isn't ethics. The one board
er might induce the other boarder {
= leave his happy home. Stephe
thought Of various ways TO bring abou
Q an Introduction, and it may be tina
/ Miss Annette gave the matter som
thought, but no introduction had take
5 place. when Stephens tobacco ran low
Il and he had TO go around the block az
other evening. 1t wonderfully haI
pened that Miss Annette had to go OF
!. the same evening.
d 1t wasn't foggy this time. But ther
' was a gale of wind. 1t sent hats an
signs flying. 1t made pedestrian
+: clutch at ratings and lamppost
Stephen was blown off his course ha
: n dozen times, and u great big police
man picked up Miss Annette and ca
. ried her half a block and told her I
e wait for a lull in the gale before ST
= attempted TO cross the street. Aft,
e ten minutes she started out, her hea
D. down of course, and, bump, she wei
V full against Stephen and the two WEI
y down together. They hung to eaC
!" other, and finally got across the stree
to Miss Annette's door; and Their
covering on the steps, talking more
the door than to each other, they e,
changed names. and one ran into II
q house and the other crossed the stree
K 1t was, of course, the duty of Il
e young man to call, but just then
e, great fire broke out, as he was goir
d home one night. 1t was just as Mi
Annette was going home, too, and the
! suddenly found themselves in a gre
: crowd. The engines came, and wOmt
II came running. Stephen and Miss A
# nette bumped against each othe
They smiled, and then Stephen had Il
le holiness to take her arm and lead h
out of that crowd. That's all Cup
had been waiting for. He left her
=. her door, and without being cOaxed
nt all he said he would call in about ;
re- hour, and his old bookkeeping mig
go hang itself. His fond heart kne
= whom to beat for, and it beat. SO
the one across the street. Steph
called. There had been three bumI
and he did not get another.
Copyright, 1917, by the Mcclure NewSp