The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-13
EVENING STORY
Earning Her ss..ss.
(By Jane osborn.)

student body of the college from
which he some dozen years before had
taken his degree, on the condition
that the student body would raise
like amount, he little knew what a
medley of unusual activities he was
starting within the dormitorieS of that
college.
II know it's going to be hard for
the Students" he told the dean of the
college when he made the proposal,
but the ambulance corps needs sixty
thousand dollars if their work is to be
worth while. I'm not millionaire,
and 1 guess it is as hard for me to
get that thirty thousand dollars to-
gether as it will be for each of the
students to do his or her share to-
ward raising the difference"
The dean was figuring on the back
of an envelope as Stanley Ashton was
| tslking to him.
Eyes" he said, having finished his
| little sum in division There are 793
students enrolled this year-about 400
| girls and the rest men. That Will
mean about 1878 student. as l
reckon it In my announcement L
shall suggest that each student try to
raise that sum. 1t will give zest to
their endeavors if each student knows
just what is expected of him.
So the announcement was made,
and for the weeks that followed each
student of the college went around
1
| $37.S3 from his financial endowments
and most of the students of this CO.
educational institution were not pos
| SeSSed of an over-adequate allowance
than on securing passing grades in
their class room work. Dances, ath-
| letics, theatricals-all the usual side
| interests of the colelge-ewer subser-
Went to this desperate struggle on the
| part of the students, each to earn the
allotted quota. The trouble was they
Iaf-, 10 Of
forts to extract the money from each
other by backing shoes, pressing
clothes, darning socks, etc, were rath-
er useless, since no student had the
amount to pay for such services while
| each was saving his funds for the
quota Fudge was drug on the mar
ket, for who had money to buy fudge?
| Margaret Benton achieved quite an
! honor for herself among her friends
| by announcing that she would give up
her Christmas holiday vacation. She
had received a check for $40 from
| home to cover the expenses of her trip,
| and with her parents sanction she re-
nounced this pleasure so that she
might thereby save the larger part of
| her quota There was yet $17.S3 TO be
| earned BY going without fudge sup
plies herself for three weeks she eked
out her funds till she had but $16.75
/ to be earned. Then she earned rs
cents by selling one pair of old rub
/
from two outworn fountain pens and
a last winters hat. Thirty cents she
saved by walking downtown and back
| on three occasions. There then re-
| manned $3.50 to be earned, and there
her fund remained.
Her allowance was exhausted and
there was nothing to save, and every
means of earning money seemed to be
| in use already by some of the 1893.
On certain gray day, when she
I had INDUCED herself to the extent of
using cents carfare to go to collect
| the pittance that the old-clothes dealer
was to allow her for her old hat and
rubberS, she sat crowded in the sur
face car-so crowded, in fact, that she
could not help but hear the converse
4 ton of two well-overcoated men be-
side her.
But what are you going to do
| about it ~ asked the younger of the
two asked. i've done all 1 coald to
| comply with the request of the de-
partment of agriculture. 1 had all my
| fields cultivated on our summer place,
and then 1 couldn't get men to harvest
them. have had to pay SIS day for
man to repair the hotbed frames,
and now I've had the beds planted to
green vegetables in an effort to do my
bit toward keeping the local market
supplied with green goods. I can't get
| anyone to transplant the seedlings.
| Did get a man for 80 cents an hour.
but unless some one watched him
every minute he soldiered."
| Margaret heard the man sitting with
| him suggest that it was more salts
factory to contract the work. Then
| it didn't matter If the men did soldier.
But if there aren't any men to do
! the work what am 1 to do?''
Margaret had only a vague idea of
what a hotbed looked like, but some
/ how the task sounded easy. She sat
quietly beside the young man in the
warm overcoat and allowed herself to
| be carried beyond the street where
she would have got off to return to
the dormitory. For several miles
more she rode, until in dreary coun-
try lane on the outskirts of the city
the man signaled for the car to stop
He alighted, and Margaret alighted,
too. He turned to walk up the lane.
and Margaret, with face averted, fol-
| lowed him a. a distance. He went into
the front door of a rambling. spacious
and well-kept-up country house, and
, after standing in the dampness in the
lane for ten minutes, Margaret rang
the doorbell
1t wasn't very easy but it had to be
done. She asked to be permitted to
do the transplanting, and named as
her minimum price-she insisted on
contract work-S15.70. The man.
who had seated her in front of a
CHEEKY wood fire and stood beside her,
smiling as she made her proposition.
held out against the price. He said 1t
wasn't worth il. and that he could i'll
afford to pay fancy prices But Mar
garet was obdurate, and finally the
bargain was struck. Margaret stip-
ulated that she should be allowed to
do the work when she chose. She
realized that most of it would have to
be done after lecture hours. and may
hap by the light of a lantern
BY the aid of one of the men stu
dents in horticulture, Margaret gained
smattering knowledge of how the
hotbed seedlings should be transplant
ed. She secured a lantern for her
night work, and wearing under her
long coat a pair of working overalls,
which she borrowed from the same
student she started out for her task.
1t was not easy, but she persevered,
even when her hands were bruised and
frb