The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-11-26
EVENING STORY
The GriSt.
BY ARCHEY CAMERON

John Gates came out of a trance
like stupor and started in disgust. He
had not been the victim of a bad
dream. No, he shivered, would that
life were like that dream!
Two minutes before there had
danced before his VISION picture of
an old grist mill.~He eould see the
trees lazily and happily brushing it's
caves with every puff OF wind, and
the dam that laughingly dashed its
spray against it's rocky formation. And
his father. with his kindly old eyes
and stopped shoulders, pouring into
the mills grist fine whole wheat.
And then he saw the pure-whits
flour, SO much in keeping with the
sacredly pure precincts about which he
had scampered years before, barefoot,
poor, but happy. And then the sweet
smile of his mother-that dear kindly
soul, whose haPpiest mission was min
istration to his boyish whims and an
appreciative fathers wants. And then
he woke up!
For a moment he surveyed himself
sadly. Those bare toes of his boyhood
were now encased in rich comfortable
shoes, showing off in marked contrast
the worn carpet on which they rested.
He fingered nervously the well-tailor-
ed clothes that long since had re-
placed torn, ragged overalls and smiled
bitterly. And then he looked up!
An old man bent over a desk sew
eral feet away seemed to remind him
of the old miller, his father. with his
sparse gray hairs and stopped shout
ders-until he looked up. A pair of
rascally, cunning eyes met Gates's fur
lively. and then darted to a rough
looking individual waiting, as was
Gates, on one of the chairs in a row
about the wall of the large outer Of
flee. A buzzer sounded and the door
of the inner sanctum opened.
mr. M VT hy,cJy flx,x lit
pered the old man to eaother. Leave
it to Jerry Rletzman. He'll fix you
up
The man grunted unintelligibly. and
rose hesitatingly to his feet. He, like
most of his waiting brethren, had
the far-famed P. Gerald Bletzman,
self-styled at law" was to
do the fixing" or. rather, the "un-
fixing. For Bletzman's many hired
henchmen proclaimed that no matri-
monial knot was too hard for their
patron to unite. He said SO himself,
right now
"Jes' leave it T. me-" doomed a rau-
cous voice, which Gates recognized as
Bletzman's as he hurriedly pushed a
spidery-looking young man out of his
office. I'll get somethin' on her.
They amt none o. them too foxy fer
Bletzman, are they, Pete?"
Pete, his assistant, acquiesced
speedily with chuckle, and Bletzman
bent a beady eye on the man who
stood close to Pete's desk
Come right in" he welcomed the
other suavs'y, laying a sweaty palm
on the clients sleeve. Pete bring
tn gentleman's card in-now"
The door slammed and again the
outer office subsidized into a low muir
So, unused Gates, this was what he
had come to. A place where the
sacred ties of marriage and mother
hood were banded about like packing
boxes and card-indexed like a case of
measles. Br-r-r!F
And across the room, instead of the
sweet smile Of his mother, "a gray
haired wonla N in gray clothes smirk ed
fraternally at him while waiting her
turn.
This drove Gates's eyes to his lap,
on which rested a neat packet, which
he now united tagging forth a yell
lowish paper. he. fell to reading it.
and again it eonjured forth Visions
from out of happy past
There was a great high-ceilinged
parlor, smelling deliciously of fresh
picked blossoms and echoing the
sound of many laughing voices and
the crinkle of many stiff party
dresses And rose-bower in the
| center under which an ecstatic couple
were receiving congratulations. And
Gates, as he read his marriage license,
heard anew, as if it were yesterday,
the little old pastors solemn warning,
Whom God hath joined together, let
| no man put asunder."
Purity we'll prepared. amt yuh.
| mister?" The voice at Gates's elbow
caused him to thrust the paper back
in the packet, and he looked up to
meet the leer of the man on his right.
My old woman swiped mine,'' con-
tinued the other, obviously. Least
Ct I1ct1r civ - ~
Hoped with. Cost me fifty extra t. get
| new one. Amt women tn darnest
yeggs?"
Gates stared at him unseeingly,
| but the last remark caused him to
SILVER anew. Lucille, his wife, a
| yegg? Never. She was a fine girl.
thru and thru. They just couldn't get
! along-that was all. And some one
had suggested Bletzman to him.
| and
"Y'n come outa tn mill sadder an
poorer" vouchsafed another waiting
one. 'Bletzman'll see t. that
out of the iIl," echoed Gates to
| himself, in horror. To be sure, it was
MILL but what kind? Bletzman's
mill swallowed up human souls and
Could that hoidenish girl be hkened
to his fathers flour? Or the decrepit
red-nosed wreck at his side who called
is-wife-a-yegg? Or that old
woman who f1irted with him, and in
| whose brassy locket at her wrinkled
neck there probably reposed pictures
of her grandchildren? And was he to
be made a party to fixing" his wife
little winsome Lucille, whom he had
wronged? Yes, he reflected, he had
wronged her. No wonder she had
complained of his friends coming to
the house, drinking heavily, talking
loosely and gambling madly. 1t had
offended those finer sensibilit.es tina,
now, IN MIN, in the midst of Bletz-
| mans revolving atmosphere, came
back with a rush. Why hadn't he
given up those friends? Why hadn't
he kept that promise to do SO, the
| giving of which he had called hen
pecky? If he only had kept it-she
might still be-with-
Two doors opened simultaneously
Thru one burly individual showed a