The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-01-28
EVENING STORY
Wanted-A Soldier.
BY MONA COWLES.
Copyright, 1918, by the Mcclure
Newspaper Snydicate.)

Tom .Conklin was stationed some
where in the east, in the United
/ States. with a dozen more other
young men in khaki. guarding an i'm
portant railroad bridge, placed on the
map beside a venerable old town, the
proudest boast Of which was its blue
blood, its historic old graveyard and
its Carnegie library, which contained
! a number of volumes quite beyond
the usual allotment for town of such
small population. .
To any normal man in khaki, and to
! Tom Conklin especially, there are
things that would recommend a town
more instantly than blue blood, grave
yards and libraries. There may have
been pretty girls in the town. In fact.
there were, and those pretty girls were
patriotic. but their patriotism took
! the form of knitting innumerable
/ wooden mufflers and wristlets and
aviators' helmets rather than in actu-
ally converSing with or cheering the
homesick hours of any of the little
tgroup of men in khaki who were
guarding the bridge by day and night
Lecturers came to that town every
once in while to deliver talks about
what We Are Doing for the Soldier
Boys Over There" and the men on the
bridge were given free tickets to these
entertainments. But Tom Conklln
had little taste for war lectures. He
was getting enough of the gloom there
on the bridge, and he was not enough
of an antigua ian to appreciate the
charm of the graveyard As for the
blue blood-well, perhaps he hadn't
enough blue blood in those thoroly
American veiHs of his to have made
| it worth while for any of the blue
! blooded ones to make his acquain-
lance.
| In towns such as the one in the
| west where he had been raised, he
knew how differently he and his pals
| on the bridge would have been re-
| ceived. He had to swallow hard
sometimes as he thought of his own
sisters and the cordial girls at home,
who would have been glad enough
| to dance with him and his homesick
| companions. But perhaps such towns
boosted of less distinguished history.
| Surely they did not have SO many old
inscriptions on their tombstones, nor
so many books in their library.
y So it was that in that library Tom
| found hsi only diversion. He was not
naturally a bookworm, and at first he
after hour pouring over the pages of
THE Three Guardsmen" or THE
Count of Monte Cristo."
Others came and went in the Ii
brary, but he sat there hour-after
hour, almost glad that no one spoke
to him, for had they done SO he might
have felt that he was unwelcome even
there. But there was one reader be-
side himself who fingered long and
came often. And that other person
was girl-young and, it seemed to
Tom, very pretty. Sometimes he
the dusty volume before her, and
wondered if she were as blue blooded
as her townSpeople. He watched her
face as it registered the pleasure or
disappointment she derived from what
she was reading.
<l4x
pencil, and Tom, with his pulse beat
ing at a rate that startled him, sprang
from his chair and half way across
the room to pick it up for her. The
girl smiled kindly at him, and then,
apparently looking to see whether
anyone were looking on, thanked him
Tor the courtesy. All that she said
was, Il thank you very much" with
a pretty accent on the very; but Tom
felt that he had found friend. It
was the first time a girl in the town
had spoken to him. He looked about
TO see that ne one was looking, and
said:
You seem to be a great reader
too" for in his own estimation he had
recently put himself in the class of
b okworm-
After that the girl always bowed to
him when she saw him, and sometimes
when the librarian wasn't at hand she
exchanged little comments about the
weather. Gradually they found it con-
venient to take seats nearer, till final
s. lis of the same table.
one rainy evening, when it was
darker than usual at closing hour of
the library, Tom had the temerity to
hold the door open for the girl and
to open her umbrella for her He
had no umbrella of his own, naturally
and instead of taking hers from him
the girl asked whether he would not
hold the umbrella over himself, too
They walked along, the fog and rain
shielded them from the gaze of towns
| folk, who would surely have been sur
prised ~to see a soldier walking with
one of the mice girls of the town
Again on rainy day, when Tom
and the girl had been reading till clos
ing time, they walked down the
street together under the girls UNI
brella.
Don't you ever grow tired of sit.
ting there. porting over those books?"
Tom asked. He himself was frankly
weary of it. He came there now only
for the sake of the smile that he knew
the girl would give him.
Eyes, do" she said; land very dis
couraged. You see, I'm looking for
soldier
Tom caught his breath and laughed
The girl laughed back and looked
teasingly into his eyes.
MOB the kind of soldier you think
mean, she said. I'm looking for
Revolutionary soldier You see, our
family are newcomers here. We've
been here only since my great-grand-
father was a young man. Most of the
best people in town have always lived
here; that is, since Colonial times.
I'm So anxious to belong to the Patri-
OTIS society,"" she went on to explain;
but to do that I must prove descent
from an ancestor who fought in the
Revolution. I've been searching thru
the old records and family histories,
and 1 thought I'd find one sure: but
Il wouldn't let any of the people
! here know it don't believe any of
ton. You don't know how much it
means to me to find that soldier.
These people are SO patriotic that they