The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-03-31
EVENING STORY
When Dancing Was Necessary.
BY JANE OSBORN.


The easy chair placed under the
green shaded light in Mrs. Humphreys
second floor front ceased to offer at
fractions after Bob Norris had been in
Burtontown two weeks, and Burton
towns Cinema Palace ceased to en-
tice. A good magazine story and an
easy chair or a moving picture thriller
had been well enough for an evenings
diversion back home" where there
was not the haunting feeling that such
pastimes were the only possible diver
sions. But homesickness became
more deep-rooted when Bob reflected
that such were the only possible ways
to pass an evening.
Bob had come with the three or four
hundred other out-of-town employee
to be the human factor of the big
Arden plant at Burtontown. And the
fact that Bob Norris was one of the
most promising men in the plant and
that already he had charge of a de-
partment did not make conservative
Burtontown folk open their arms bit
more cordially to Bob than they did to
Nell Talmedge. the quiet little slip OF
a girl at the telephone switchboard,
whose weekly salary was not an eighth
people.
Burtontown distinctly resented hav-
ing the Arden plant people there, ana
it registered this resentment by refus-
ing to open it's doors and by advancing
prices for living necessities of ali sorts,
as the demand for them became great
er.
IF you don't want to die of home
sickness commented the young man
who inhabited Mrs. Humphreys sec
ond floor back. you've got to learn to
dance It's a necessity. Not that you'll
get asked to any of the dances given
by the Burtontown people, but the
girls in the Recreation association
here at the plant are getting up some
dances, and if you can dance, well,
you'll be drawing card at those dan
ces, and you can at least get acquainted
with some of the plant girls"
Bob made some remark about
thinking dancing was a waste of time
also something to the effect that
plant girls weren't anything to lose
ones heart over" but on his way to
Mrs. Humphreys that evening he look
ed longer and with more interest at
the sign in the drawing room window
of one of the old Burtontown man
sions: Dancing Lessons; Private or
in Classes
The next evening Bob made hasty
attack upon the front door of this
spinster to whom the single belonged.
NO. l don't want to join class"
he told her, "and I'm not anxious to
have any one know that I am being
coached. But L do want to get hold
of this thing as soon as possible"
Bob Norris worked conscientiously
and with intense application. Three
nights a week he went to his instruc-
tor, and he arranged for seances with
her i'll an early morning half-hour
gained by rising earlier and lingering
for a shorter time at Mrs. Humphrey
breakfast table.
He rehearsed the steps in his mind,
and in his room he went thru them.
He took up the subject as he did any
other problem, first getting at the
| root of the matter" as he said.
And if fox trotting can be mastered
| by a systematic knowledge of the steps
! that make it up. and if waltzing is a
| matter of scientific accuracy, then Bob
would have been in two weeks mas
| ter of the dancing. But unfortunately
dancing is an art. One must have a
soul for it. as for other arts. One
must feel it. and Bob did not.
I So three weeks after his initial les
son he went to the A. r. A.-Arden
Recreation Association-dance with a
I certain amount of confidence. He APP
preached his first untutored one-ster
with the assurance of well-crammed
| undergraduate approaching his final
eXaminations-sure that if he keeps
| his mind working he will succeed. AS
for any. anicipatory pleasu in the
| joy of the danceTBob did not know
| that such thing existed.
But he did want to meet some OF
| the girls. even if they were only work
| ers in the office of the Arden plant
He wanted to hear their laughter and
see them in some other surroundings
| than that of tile daily drive.
zone thing that is important" the
| instructor had told him, lis to make
| your partner think that you are en-
| joying the dance even if you aren't
| A girl doesn't like to dance with q
man who appears to be working like