Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1916-1918, 1917-08-17
Euening Story
WAITING FOR WATRous.
BY Dorothy Douglas.
Copyright. 1917, by the Mcclure
Newspaper Syndicate.)


It was cheap little restaurant on
the east side. The food was not bad,
neither was the service, but there was
a sense of baroness about it all.
Watrous went there for his midday
meal because 1t was inexpensive-an
attraction for Watrous. He didn't have
much money and had scarcely hope
of ever having any He was the type
that blessed, happy-go-lucky type, that
finds happiness in the moon, the flow
ers and in the very fact that God has
given us life.
His position was an indefinite sort
Of clerkship in department store in
the neighborhood. In the evening he
, wandered OYER to one of the bohemian
restaurants, his violin under his lang
uid arm, and there played while art
lists, actors, futurists-what not-ate
heterogeneous mixtures of food.
Watrous enjoyed this part of his
daily toll. He found huge interest In
the animated or dangerous or silently
melancholy being who styled them
selves temperamental souls. He al
ways longed for third hand that he
might sketch them as he went to
sketch each day the inmates 'of the
cheap little east side restaurant. But
with his fingers busy with bow and
fiddle, he could only imagine their
quaint attitudes on paper
So Watrous went his way. making
rather wonderful, if assorted. collec-
tion of friends as he drifted along the
bubbling bohemian current.
In the cheap little restaurant he
usually sketched attitudes while he
absently swallowed whatever his wait.
ress had considered nourishing and had
placed on the polished surface before
him.
Had Watrous been observing he
would have known that he was. per-
haps, the best-cared for patron in the
place. Molly Carey, who, waited on
him, always saw to that while she
waited wistfully for the day when he
would turn his eyes in her direction.
She had that motherly tender look in
her eyes that an artistic soul needs in
the eyes Of his life partncr-and sell
dom chooses. If Watrous was con-
scious of this attention no one knew it
but Watrous. He sketched on the
menu cards whatever came within his
vision and tossed the quaint little
sketches aside when finished Just as
he cast aside his serviette when the
final mouthful of coffee passed his
lips.
He always left a dime on the table.
Molly Carey saved all those dimes.
What her dreams were or what inten-
tons she had wound about them was
her own secret. She preserved them
no less Systematically than she saved
every sketch that Watrous made on
the menu cards. sgs
The sketches were far more clever
than she realized-portraits of, pa
irons in various characteristic atti-
tudes. The very tone. or, perhaps,
lack of tone, of the cheap little res
taurant was wildly drawn.
The only sketch he had made which
Watrous did not leave in the restaur-
ant was one of Molly. Something about
her usefulness, her entire lack Of
self-consciousness had dragged n
hasty likeness of her from his pencil.
He had it in his room on his shaving
stand Dreamy. semi-conscious appre-
citation had prompted him to put it
there.
Watrous was never definite about
launching anywhere. There were days
when the last quarter had gone '.some-
where in the world of spent money"
However. his lunches had been regular
since he had the Bohemian restaurant
to play in. That brought him a decent
cheque each Saturday, which, with his
salary for clerkship provided Watrous
with regular nourishment
But because he never quite knew
whether his coat was on or not, nor
remembered having purchased cloth
ing at odd optimistic moments, Molly
Carey supposed him to be desperately
poor and most unhappy. 1t was diff
cult however. for her TO reconcile