The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-06-24
EVENING STORY
The Fairy Wish.
BY HILDA MORRIS.

mantle about Elsie Boggs. She was
nearly 80, with sandy red hair and
spectacles. She lived alone with a
qderulous maiden aunt. and she mad
never, SO far as any one knew. had
lover. Yet her sandy red head was
filled with dreams. Perhaps the new
librarian. who handed out an armful
of romances to Miss Boggs every Sat
urday night, might have guessed this
fact. But the ladies at the aid So
, ciety, the neIghbors who saw her
about her household tasks and most
of all Aunt Hattie, did not know that
Elsie az forever dreaming of princes
and warriors, beautiful ladies and good
and evil fairies. Not that Elsie be-
Iieved in fairies. of course. Still. it
was pleasant to imagine things as
they might be if there really were
fairies who could make wishes come
true.
When we entered the war the ladies
of the StillEille Aid society. like the
ladies of other aid societies all over
the country, began to knit for the
soldiers. There were strange things
discussed at their meetings in those
days. other things than the new church,
calpet and the best way of doing up
peaches. Soldiers, hospitals, France
that far country of Jeanne dare
StiIlvilIe, remote in its little valley,
was touched with the spirit of high
adventure, and something OF the spirit
of romance.
To Elsie Boggs it was all like a. page
from one of her stories, preferably a
historical one. She had thought ro-
! nance a book-thing, of adventure, as
belonging to past ages, yet here ro-
nance was coming to life before her
very eyes. and changing the slouching
boys she knew into erect young he
roes in khaki, with a strange earnest
| ness about their faces. Elsie threw
herself. heart and soul, into working
for the soldiers. No fingers were as
quick as hers with the knitting
| needles. She was quite the town won
der. Sweaters, socks, helmets-she
| turned them all out with amazing
rapidity- But, since there was 10
| longer time to read romance. Elsie had
to make it up for herself.
For many years she had had habit
| OF wondering what would happen if
certain conditions were thus and so.
and now, quite suddenly, she caught
herself wondering what would happen
| if the soldier for whom she was knit
| ting a particularly fine sweater should
learn that she had knit it, and IL he
! should some day come to find her and
she should be no longer red-haired
and freckled, but as lovely as the
y
| cover. He would make love to her,
of course, and then
Aunt Hatties voice cut in upon this
| reverie. -
ST hear Bud Emery has enlisted
| Aunt Hattie said, as she came in from
| the street. There amt going to be
| a young man left in this town. l
don't know what we're coming to.'
bud Emery" echoed Elsie. "Well,
he's not so very young. He used to
be in my class in school. He's 80,
anyway"
But at least he hasn't. any wife or
| anyone dependent on him. I never
heard of Bud counting anybody"
mo. I guess he never did," Elsie
agreed. But even as she spoke she
wondered whether the shy glances he
had used to give her in school were
not kind of counting. But was pain
fully shy. but she had always felt.
somehow. that he liked her. He had
| never liked any one else. apparently.
\ However, it would be difficult to
imagine Bud Emery as a figure of ro
she, with sandy hair that bristled
fiercely all over his head. He ran
feed store, and was believed to oe
comfortably well off. He lived down
| at the Palace hotel and was notably
| unsociaI in his tastes. Elsie had al
| not picture him in any but workaday
guise.
AS Elsie went. on with that extra
fine sweater, a Daring idea came to
her. Never before in her life she put
| one bit of her sentimental thought
with a desire to label that sweater, so
that the soldier who got it could come
to find her if ne chose. Furthermore,
| as she worked she knitted into it
what she tried to imagine was fairy
| wish; wish that he would want to
| find her.
The sweaters were destined for some
far-off Red Cross station, so Elsie
| felt quite sure that on>one she knew
would ever see the slip of paper that
| she folde1 into this garment. 1t bore
| her name and address, and it might
| be that some time she would hear
| from the man who received it.
Elsie saw Bud Emery before he
| went away to camp. and tried to
| fancy how he would look in a khaki
uniform. He was so big and sham
| bling, so awkward and shy! 1t was
| hard to imagine him erect and trim.
yet she knew that he would make a
| fine soldier; Bud, Emery was true
blue.
The weeks went by after she had
sent away that sweater, and nothing
| happened. Perhaps it took time for
the articles to reach their destination,
perhaps her sweater had been lost on
the way, or perhaps the man who got
it had not noticed the slip or cared to
1 write to her If he had. And SO, event
ually, Elsie gave up thinking about it.
| After all, she was a red-heired old
maid, and would be a Sad disappoint-
ment to any soldier. She had been a
| fool to dream of romance. The army
might make the men over. but moth
ing could make her over. Her part
! was just to stay at home and knit
| And then, one day, there came a
letter for Elsie. She rarely received
| letters, and this one was addressed in
an unfamiliar hand, very large and
black, almost as if a man had written
| it.
She opened IT with a fast-beating
heart, and hastily scanned one page,
| camp Devons" it was headed. And