The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-19
EVENING STORY
A Case of Bumps.
(By John Butler.)


1t is one of the many mysteries OF
great city that two hearts, which
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 a
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 a
place with a firm cashier and book
keeper. Cupid had plans concerning !
Stephen. He should have home ana |
fireside and a loving wife ana nan
| a dozen children. perhaps Bu'
Stephen pored over his books by DAY
and walked home at night, and didn't
| see anybody who looked like a 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 oth-
| err Their hours for going to work
| and returning were about the same,
and they both had a walk or seven
blocks They both had a front room
on the third floor. They both ate about
the same sort of food. Both landladies
kindly saw to it that their board plils
lever run over the week. Cupid was
| in no great hurry to bring the FOND
hearts together. He was Just waitlnS
| for a little romance as an excuse.
When fog drives into New ork II
| comes from the rivers on both SIDES OF
the city. 1t makes a tunnel or ever
street 1t brings sort or darkness
| which is worse than darkness. III
chokes the street lamps. 1t beWiders;
| 1t makes every policeman on fixed
post seem to be nine feet high, and
the fog gets in his throat, and he mas
to roar % you when ne SPEAKS. hoa
may have crossed a street hundred
times to some designated point on
reasonably dark night, but if you try
it in a 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 Step hen
Douglas also got home in good time,
but he had to go 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 window shade. Stephen
started 20 go around the block to the
left, and Miss Annette started to go
around the block, too. They had to
go slow; they had to avoid pedestrians
They hal to hang to ratings and
fences. They had just neared the
boarding house patronized by stephen,
: and the young lady's boarding house
1
2 bumped and the romance had begun.
} OF course. there were EXPLANATIONS
and explanations ana, of course,
Stephen volunteered to escort Miss
Annette across the street She hest
, tated ami then accepted his offer.
They started directly across and, after
. ! five inmates of cropping, they found
t themselves down at the corner. That
, corner was only half a block from
either boarding house, but it looked so
yTra1 ST. off 11a
they could not say that they had ever
. seen it before. They were acr ,ss the
, street. however, and they had only to
follow the sidewalk back. Then there
| came another trouble. There were
three houses just alike. and GU had
, to get your nose almost against the
? doors to tell one from the other
Stephen returned across the street.
i and by good luck he found his own
door. 1t took Miss Annette twenty
, minutes to find shelter in her own
room.
. 1t wasn't very extraordinary to
bump against young man in a fog,
/ or for the young man to bump against
, a young woman, but they both felt
! that the fond beating of their hearts
; had begun at last. There had been
no introduction, but there was to be
> one. Your heart can't go ahead and
do a lot of fond beating unless you
know for whom it is beating. 1t might
be beating for Sarah Brown, when it
was intended to beat for Susan Smith.
No landlady, however good and noble
she is. will ever introduced you to a
boarder in some other landlady' S
house 1t isn't ethics. The one
-. boarder might induce the other board
err to leave his happy home, by say
ing they had cranberry sauce every
night for dinner at his house. Stephen
thought of various ways to bring
? about an Introduction, and it may be
that Miss Annette gave the matter
hJIt M int rd 1cfj n n
taken place, when Stephens tobacco
ran low, and he had to go around the
block another evening. 1t wonderfully
happened that Miss Annette had to go
out the some evening.
It wasn't foggy this time. But there
L was a gale Of wind on it's way from
i the Rocky mountains to Coney Island.
[ 1t came like runaway team. 1t sent
| hats and signs flying. 1t made pedes-
: trians clutch at ratings and lamp
e posts Stephen was blown off his
r course half dozen times, and a great
Il big policeman picked up Miss Annette
/. and carried her half a block and told
her to wait for lull in the gale be-
= fore she attempted to cross the street
!, After ten minutes she started out, her
d head down of course, and, bump, she
= went full against Stephen and the two
It went down together. There were
o more EXPLANATIONS and explanatio
i but they were blown away as fast as
made. They hung to each other, and
: tIley HHaliy got across the street and
>, to Miss Annette's door; and there
covering on the steps and talking
=. more to the door than to each other
u they exchanged names, and one rar
: into the house and the other crossed
IL the street.
1t was, of course, the duty of the
e young man to call, but just then he
r, had some extra work to detafn him
lie at the Office every evening for a fort.
night He meant to call. He wanted
to call. That loving wife and happy
IT hearthstone were in his mind all the
e time. They We're much in his MIND
$ that he made four and three come tc
the sum of eight his Books.