The Twin City star., 1918-09-28

single threader," but loud had been |
the objections. Her patrons didn't |
want. to run the risk of having seams |
come undone in church or at sociables. |
as they had heard of their doing when
sewed in that careless manner.
The doctor had never called on Mar
garet before except professionally once
or twice, and this was not exactly a
social call. He had been designated
by the local authorities as one of those
to help with the Thrift stamp canvass
and he nad, much as he disliked to do
it, to find out from each person on the
street just how much he or she would
invest in Thrift stamps before the first
Of the next year.
Margaret didn't hesitate in explain
ing so long as she might had she not
heard the doctors condolences two
months before. Her excuses were
much the same. Farnamtown was
slower pay than ever and thread and
findings were getting higher every day.
What If she did charge little more
to cover the increase? If the ladies
didn't pay till year after next that
really didn't help. So except perhaps
for one or two stamps she could make
no promise. She would like to dis
pense with her one apprentice and
save her small wage, but she was an
odd little girl-daughter of poor
widow--and If Margaret didn't employ
her goodness knows who would; and
then what would become of her?
If there were only something she
could do to earn a little extra every
once in a while-she had heard of peo-
pie doing that. So had the doctor and
he, too, wished that in Germantown he
might find some simple task to per-
form by which he might earn the lit
tie necessary to make his small SUBJ
scription to government loans and
Thrift stamps.
Now they had both told each other
their little predicament and somehow
they felt that there was something be-
tween them that did not exist between
| them and anyone else in Germantown.
The doctor rose and as he passed the
kitchen door, he shifted ever so slight
ly. Miss Margaret told him he smelled
cherry jam. She'd just been putting
it up; that is why she had to pick out
the seams SO late. He shifted again
pleasurably and then in a twinkling
she stood beside him with slice of
her light, oatmeal war bread and lit
tie saucer Of fresh cherry jam to be
sampled.
That was how it began. The doctor
said he had some cherries going to
waste on his place. He couldn't sell
them and he couldn't eat them all. He
smacked his lips over the sample and
said he could well afford to pay q lit
tie to have his cherries converted into
food for next winter. And that was
how Miss Margaret made arrangements
to earn her bit toward buying Thrift
stamps. It was very little, but the
doctor felt he was not rash In spend
ing 1t. Besides, he could send some of
the jars to his mother and brother to
help provision them as well as himself.
The doctor brought the baskets Of
cherries in stealthily and Margaret told
none of the neighbors of the arrange
ment. And then one day when Mar
garet had to have some repairs made
on her old house-there was a leak in
the roof that needed soldering and
there were some loose drains and one
Of the front stairs had grown old and
sagged out Of place-the doctor asked
her why, If she had to pay some one
s0r doing the work, he couldn't come
and do 1t himself. 1T isn't exactly
surgery, but I've always been fond Of
tinkering," he said. And that made it
possible for the doctor to begin pay
ments on the next bond.
1t was the last evening of the repairs
on the sagging step, which the doctor
did by stealth to keep the secret from
the neighbors, as Margaret had kept
hers about the cherry jam. Then, not
with the greatest fluency, but with suf-
ficient explicitness, the doctor told
Margaret that they simply must unite
their forces still further. He didn't
ask her to marry him, as he had in
tended to; he simply told her that she
had to. And Margaret's mind ran on,
woman fashion, and predicted the buy
ing Of more stamps and more bonds.
They could live In one house and both
keep on with their work, and there
would be only one furnace to keep
coaled, and that would make possible
a real show Of patriotism.
| And the plan might have worked
had not the announcement been made
the very day following that poor little
Farnamtown had been chosen as the
site for new hospital and that Doc
tor Burton had been appointed one Of
the resident surgeons-and that meant
opportunity to do his bit as he had
dreamed Of doing it, and incidentally
enough to make possible Increased con-
signments to. the brother and mother
and enough left besides to send to OBJ
livion forever the symbols of the "es-
| fohl1 l1chYo ontO IN Aforoo rof,u ~o~