The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-30
EVENING STORY
All by Chance.
(By Alonzo Thomas.O


(By Alonzo Thomas.)
Miss Gertrude Whitney painted a
little.
She composed poem now and then.
She wrote a story now and then for
the magazines.
She read a good many books.
That was the sum and substance of
what Miss Gertrude Whitney did, and
there were good reasons why she
didn't do more or less. She was all
alone in the world. She had an apart
ment in the city and maid. She
had just enough of an income to
maintain her comfortably, but not to
meet the bills of travelling.
Miss Gertrude never would become
even n second-rate artist, and she
realized it.
Her poems didn't bring either
words of flattery or tears of sorrow
from her maid.
to say farewell to her, and always
came back.
That idle life had lasted for three
years, and she had often asked her
self what she was going to do about
it. Nothing, was always the answer.
She simply had to wait, and she
couldn't be sure what benefits might
accrue from waiting. Miss Gertrude
had never been in love, or you might
infer that she was waiting for mar
! rage.
And so she attended the theater
now and then, made brief trips here
ard there, did her shopping like any
! other young woman, and sat on park
| bench with her book Scores and
scores of times men had come that
way and seeing her alone on the long
bench had halted and were about to
sit down when look restrained
them.
1t was inevitable that a morning
! wv I1n I'D
did. Miss Gertrude sat at one end
of her favorite bench with a morn
| ing paper in her hand when a young
| man of about twenty-five came along
and took the other end, and also
opened a newspaper. He didn't bow
and he didn't ask her permission
! 1t seemed to Miss Gertrude that she
| had been snubbed, ignored and con-
! temptuously treated. and she hoped
| the newcomer would-try to open a
conversation with her so that she
might snub him. But he didn't try it.
| On the contrary, he turned partly
away from her, sat very still and read
very intently. She sat there for ten
minutes. When she got up to go she
expected he would look up, but he
didn't. On the contrary, he seemed to
| look down.
The next morning Miss Gertrude
| took her accustomed seat. She had
about forgiven the young man, figur-
/
| come along and taken the seat He
ought to have at least glanced at her
in respectful way, but perhaps he
was in trouble and his mind was busy
in other directions. She did not at all
expect him this morning, but he came
along as before and took the same seat
and unfolded his paper.
| By and by a squirrel came to be fed,
and without taking his eyes off his
paper the stranger reached into his
/ lot ri bor Id
of peanuts.
That squirrel would have been an
! excuse for him to glance at the girl
and even to smile. but did he glance
or smile? Not bit of it.
| rs he deaf or dumb or near sight
ed?' queried the girl of herself, but
| she had to admit that he seemed to
have all his senses
Then two squirrels had a row on
the bench, and Miss Gertrude jumped
up in alarm, but the young man kept
his eyes on his paper.
| II was provoking, and for a moment
she felt helpless. Then she rose nm
and walked away as haughtily as a
duchess, taking care. however, to leave
her handkerchief on the seat behind
her, knowing that the wind must blow
it along to him
Did the young man call out?
off? ma
wv at oil MISS NTerlfuQe. walked
slowly and expected a call every sec
ond, but none came. After she had
turned a bend in the walk she said
a thing or two to herself, and with
the toe of her shoe she gave a poor
hoptead a kick that carried him over
the top of bush. She dallied around
: for fifteen minutes and then walked
. back to the bench. The stranger had
gone, but the handkerchief was there.
1t had fluttered over to him. and he
had picked up stone and weighed ii
! down.
rs he a human being or a bear.'
exclaimed the girl as her cheeks grew
scarlet. We'll, he won't get another
5 chance to ignore met
! And next morning she ensconced
herself on a bench half a mile distant
and she had just made herself believe
! that she had got the best of the SCRAP
, when who should come saunterine
\ along but the same young man with
his newspaper, He took a seat as il
/, he owned half the bench, and as il
/, there was not woman within hall
a mile of him.
Til ignore him as 1 would a bull
y frog. and l won't be the first to go,''
e At the end of an hour the young
: man folded his paper, said ''Ho-hum,
rose and sauntered off
81 declare. l don't know VIII t to DE-
with such q man as thati'' exclaimed