The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-03-03
EVENING STORY
Why Norma Left.
(By Jane Osborn.l

1t was blue Monday on the calendar
for Mr.. Burton Majors and Mr.. Majors
was not the man to see pink clouds in
indigo weather. The subway had TAX
en- the edge off the day, to begin with.
No, earlier than that, it had been that
ungrateful, unregenerate Sam Yong,
who did his oriental best to play the
houewifely role in Mr.. Majors's up
town apartment. In a mood of for
getfulness he had served fried bamboo
sprouts in Mr.. Majorss breakfast dish
of rice and had forgotten to make any
coffee. Its a cursed shame that a
mans got to get married to have
home,'' was Mr.. Majors's verdict.
Just then he was tanning his way
thru the crowd on the subway plat
form into a car already filled to ca
pacity and for the next half hour he
suffered, in common with the other
folk who slept and ate breakfast and
dined in one end of the city and work
ed and had luncheon in the other, the
discomfort of being alternately churn-
ed and compressed.
Then things went wrong in the Of
flee. He jiggled the telephone inn
patiently for five minutes before he
heard any response, and then boys
crude tones came thru to him. He
was used to a girls voice. He re-
membered now that it had been a
voice cultivated, calm and sure in it's
handling of vowels and consonants.
The breaking soprano that came to
him now was nerve racking.
why didn't any one answer soon
er?' he asked-only he did so with
more emphasis.
''She's left came back to him.
She has left, has she? Well, why
didn't the office manager know and
why didn't he get another girl to take
her plaee?''
Ssh did tell 'em. Only he thought
she was bluffin'-thought she was
beefin' for more wages-on'y got six
a week, but she didn't know anything
but switchboard work and he thought
she'd stay on when there wasn't any
more coming. But she's left all same
Majors recalled the voice of refine
ment. For moment it seemed to
him that that voice would be worth
to him personally as much as eight
dollars a week. For two dollars a
week more than the present broken
treble probably cost he could always
have those well-modulated tones at
the other end of the wire.
well, why didn't the office man.
ager let me know?' shrieked the inn
patient Mr.. Majors. Il want that girl
back. Where has she gomez"
There was a suppressed. unsteady
keep house for the girls club. That
is, she's fixin' iup a place for them
to live at-some' place where thew
won't have to come from so far NJ
sister that's in the club says the girls
have to spend so much on car fares
they've decided to live near and so
that there Norma, why she said if
they club together and get her as
| much as she was getting here she'd
get out and make SOM place for
them to live at that was nearer. Some
! sketch, that girl, huh 2" The voice
| almost forgot for the time that the
| secretary of the concern in which he
was an inconsequential atom was at
/ the other end of the wire but then
as much an interest in the coming and
going of mere switchboard operator
as Mr.. Majors had just shown was
unusual. Hence the lapse
| Mr.. Majors continued with his tele-
phone directions and forgot that par
ucuiar trouble for the nonce. But
as the week advanced he missed tho
voice more and more. In the mean
time there We're business worries
aplenty and then there was that
dreadful problem of getting in and
out of the subway to his up-town
apartment every day. and the China
man-aDd of course, no one co,,Id i've
Ndown town in comfort. Hotels weran,t
homes.
In tn meantime Norma had bean
earning her six dollars a week that
the girls at the club had pursed fo,.
her. She had found, two block
away, curious row of houses. relics
of the days when the region was the
most secluded of the downtown
| fashionable neighborhood. Behind
these houSes-cheap, but respecta BILE
rooming places now-had been an
| other row of houses Once a narrow
street had run there. There was but
one of these houses left. Around it
| was large cemented court. The bu-
reau of buildings had not allowed Of
| hJIi1 fn iratt-
space. Well, Norma had found this
spot and she had also found that
| thru some long lease on the remainder
of the estate to which the sequestered
house belonged the plot could not be
Il disposed of for ten years more. In
the meantime the little house was
leasable, Norma supposed, for a COM
paratively small amount. She went
to the agent and after some difficulty
in persuading him of her sincerity, got
him to quote price for the ten years
lease. The terms seemed to her per-
fectly satisfactory. Then came the
task of finding some one who would
l-lend the girls club the amount nee
essary for the first three months
rent, and the other ecesSary-much
larger-needed to put in the neces-
sary improvements. One of these
improvements was the erection of a
trellis over the cemented court yard
where Norma planned to grow vines
Then there were to be boxes where
she planned to grow flowers so thai
the house would have a garden III
spite of the bare cement courtyard
But she finally did find some one
to trust her-she called in person or
the. richest woman she had ever heard
about and would not leave her house
till the rich woman had consented tC
see her personally. AS Norma ex
| planned she simply wanted to borrow
the money. The gift was not one OF
money but of confidence. The girl:
in the club were self-supporting ant
the house would soon pay for itself
Mr.. Majors. meanwhile, grew mor'
and more distraught over the raspint
II aI,I ord IT