The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-06-18
EVENING STORY
To the Old Mems Home.
BY S. B. HACKLEY.

at tell you, Herndon, I'm getting
tired of having an old nuisance
around. AS dependent as a baby, and
still acting like things belonged to
him! Yesterday he took hah-peck
of those October peaches I'd intended
to dry, to those dirty Bryce children!
Isn't there a poorhouse or an 'fnstitu-
ton of some kind we could get him
into? Answer me, Herndon Cope
land!"
porch of the great old -queer-winged,
red brick country house, her nervously
energetic hands peeling peaches. A
handsome old man. bearing himself
with an air of stateliness that com
ported well with the goidheaded cane
that lay across his knees. sat on the
stile in front of the house.
The low-spoken answer of the hus-
band did not reach him.
Yes, the Home for Old Men would
house." the woman went on, but who
wants to pay that hundred dollars or
so entrance fee?" -
Old Allen Clifford had been brought
up on Louisiana plantation. and
when he had married the young
woman, Myras had brought him, un-
willingly enough on his part to her
home in the Blue Grass. L -
Why he married -Myra Herndon, the
handsome girl wintering in the South.
he never knew. unless 1T was that
when his heart was bleeding over his
broken engagement to Marie Balquet.
and the rumor of her coming mar
riage, he was easy prey
Myra had not been unkind to him.
She had not sympathized with his va
carries, but she had treated them with
tolerance; she had not troubled him
in his taste for curios and antiques,
and when his fortune was gone, thru
his mistaken kindness to a friend, she
had used hers for their maintenance
without overmuch upbraiding.
When Myra was gone and her prop
erty, entailed, had fallen to her
nephew, Herndon Copeland, there was
nothing else for Allen to do but to stay
with Herndon.
For some months he had been quite
happy. Old Joanna, the housekeeper
and cook, waited on him agreeably
and patiently; Herndon kept him sup
piled with Havanas and little pocket
| money. He still rode across the
country when he liked, he collected
his curios without mental apology to
any one. $50
Then Herndon had married Sophia
Vail. A fortnight after she came into
| the house she unceremoniously re-
moved Aliens ancient candlesticks,
his bits. of stone, his coins and his
sharks teeth from the parlors to an
| old outbuilding. He almost wept
when he found a treasured bit of
i heavy crystal from the hot springs of
/ Arkansas taken for a prop to a
chicken coop.
| Then the young bride sent away
i black Joanna and cared for the house
and cooked the meals herself. Allen
| no longer had his hot water brought
| to his room, his chocolate and his hot
biscuits for breakfast. Sophia de-
clared that coffee and toast were quite
sufficient for all her family, and that
/ vf7A n I1n1~ ieyIat
| on themselves, as she did.
| Old Allen was troubled. The ladies
of his household had always required
servants; they had always been hos
old. No one Of them would have
/ dreamed of sending relative to an in
stitution of charity.
A Slow tear-the tear of old age
hurtAcrept out on Aliens cheek. He
felt in his pocket for handkerchief,
newspaper he had picked up on the
| road that morning.
He wiped his eyes and adjusted his
glasses. To his surprise, the paper
was copy of a southern. daily. and
on its cover was a picture of the st.
Charles hotel. He drew a quick
breath. He had not seen the st.
Charles since his brother Hubert S
wedding party went to, New Orleans,
thirty, forty, or was it forty-five years
back 2? ---5s
1t was the. fashion then for other
young folk to accompany the newly
married ones on their wedding jour
ney. He and Marie Balquet had been
of the party-brown-eyed Marie.
whose grace and vivacity had en-
chanted his heart and of whom, even
d, now, when he was old-69-he could
not think without quickening of his
pulses.
Their quarrel was over a red rose
y -
from her belt and lightly presented to
the best mana mere nothing, when
one looked back.
7 Oh, to go back home where he had
known her-once more to see the old
cypress trees under. which he had
kissed her; to gather a handful OF
lavender water-hyacinths from the
bayou, as they had so often done to-
gether in the old days-before-be-
fore they sent him to the Home for
Old Men!
They've old mems homes in Louisi-
ana as well as here" Allen murmured
an hour later as he bridled Major, his
horse. IT shall put by one hundred OF
the two hundred Felix Sommers will
give me for Major to pay the admis-
sion fee, to--to an old mems home in
my own state, and tomorrow I shall
go home"
In the late afternoon two days later
the decorators, working in the parlors
of the st. Charles hotel in prepare
ton for a great reception that was
to follow the wedding of a young
Englishman to a city belle, saw an old
man stop before an old-time mirror
"It's the very same glass;" the old
gentleman murmured, tapping the
>(face of the great mirror, that held
near its frame a flaw or two, where
with the years the quicksilver had
begun to slip, the very same that
over my shoulder showed me the lit
tie affair of the rose. Wicked thing
why have they kept you?"
He'd fit on Royal" observed one
of the decorators to a companion
Allen heard him.
I'm in the way here he thought
III go down on Royal and look a,