The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1917-12-27

leaned or the barbed wire, a little
piantive voice called "Hello" softly.
Pearson TOOK refuge in silence.
With flash and fiutter of feminine
| flounces she was over.
"That's still barbed wire," Pearson
called.
"Oh!" she clarionetted, "a barbed
interviewed to drop on his top step
in breathless scorn. "Was 1t thatr
| she demanded "I've been home a
whole day."
NO" said Pearson calmly, II don't
| mean to come. You've so many dane
ing about you that I'll never be missed.
And, anyway, Polly, hear such out
rageous things about you. Is 1t habit
Of yours to whistle up your dog and
stalk from the room in the midst Of
all the proposalsT
Its because they make such blum
der Of It," said Polly. II know how
it should be DONE"
you're not so pretty" said Pear
| son, disapprovingly.
mo" plaintively.
you're little and you're brown"
EYES," more plaintively.
''Then why-why-" irritably, "does
everything In mans shape go down
before your"
II don't know; but"-sorrowfully-
''they do. IL" she sighed heavily
"fell the bearded men at a breath, and
| the youths that grow between. But
| perhaps you aren't familiar with Long
fellow" Polly was gone, and her low,
hooking laugh drifted back to Pear
| son.
Pearson had closed the door to his
heart and rolled big stone against
it, telling himself he was done with
womankind forever, as far back as
Polly's pinafore days.
Polly came to the barbed wire some
times, but she made no attempt to leap
over 1t. Always she was very, very
gay, and after her going Pearson
, counted up his birthdays, ran his fin
gers through his hair turning gray on
his temples, and called himself an old,
old fool.
The twilight hour that Polly leaned
| over the wire to pin a rose that had
burned in the coils Of her golden hair
on Pearson's coat she sang something
tender and foolish about the rose be-
ing her heart.
your heart" Pearson chided. "It's
asleep, little child"
ITS his heart that sleeps" said
Polly. 'The little white guest cham
Der that is mine has It's door aJar, but
he won't come in, ever"
Afterward he crept up to his room
to drop his arm on his desk and his
head on his arms, and sat there, while
night gathered deeper and deeper into
the room.
Pearson stumbled down the stairs
that echoed to his footsteps, the empty,
lonely stairway over which no wom-
ans soft draperies ever trailed, and
out on the porch, there to find Polly
on the top step.
He sank down beside her. "What
becomes of men who hang around the
side entrance of heaven, straining
their ears to catch the music, when
they know 1t is never possible for them
to slip In; what becomes Of middle
aged Peris, Polly?"
81 don't know" said Polly, "but /
know what should become of Them"
scornfully. "Why doesn't your Peri
90 around to the front? Perhaps she
hasn't any spirit, either, his heroine;
perhaps she sits on the doorstep and
waits, perhaps"
"Pollyl"
"He's-he's a wooden Indian" said
Polly. HE let's the girl sit there on
his steps and pretend that she's look
| Ing at the stars. He doesn't care. He
thinks she's doll-baby stuffed with
| sawdust; that she cares for all the
empty, gay, frivolous things that she
hates; he thinks she likes to be for
ever surrounded by lot of pink
checked, light-headed boys that bore
her so. And all the time she knows
| I'm sure don't know how, for he acts
so queer-that he loves her, and that
a little question Of arithmetic troubles
him. 1t doesn't really trouble her.
| The arithmetic Of the heart isn't
counted by years. He's lonely and sad,
and she can put into his life all that
| 1t has missed, but not unasked, and
sometimes she's wild thinking things
over" Holly's voice trailed off into
silence, and she struggled with a sob.
The sob acted as an accolade on
Pearson. 1t raised him into knight
Grant bewlldered, it's true, but ready
and eager to go to the very ends Of
the world, II need be. after this dere-
lict who had stolen his little chum's
happiness from her.
He put out his hand and 1t fell on
Polly's bent head. polly" he said;
'Polly"-helplessly-"if he were here
beside you"
"He is" sobbed Polly.
Copyright. 1917. Western Newspaper Unionl