The Topeka state journal., 1919-07-29
EVENING STORY
A Matter of Tradition.
BY DORA NOLAN

her well-shaped bead and toiled on
thru the bIistering sun, up the grass |
grown lane and thru the knee-deep |
sorrel and daisies. 1t was with a sigh !
of grateful relief that she gained the /
shade of the pillared porch of the old \
Caverly house. The door stood ajar. !
Opening it. she peeped into the de-
serted mansion and was lured by its
cool shadows. Picking her way care |
fully over the uneven flooring. she
passed thru the stately colonial en- !
trance into. wide hail. thence up the
somewhat rickety but beautiful stair |
case and into a great empty front T!
chamber.
Here, on a built-in seat by one of
the many-paned windows, from which !
the glass had long ago fallen, Alicia
seated herself, removed the wide
shade hat and laid 1t on the window
sill. A cool breeze from the water
ruffled her fine brown hair There
was no sound but the drowsy hum of
! an occasional bee and the soft swish
! swash of wavelets on the beach below.
There is a certain sleep-inducing
! quality in the early afternoon air of
a midsummer day that is difficult to
! resist when one is alone and fairy
breezes caress ones eyes. Alicia didn't
/ try very hard.
! Presently she was thinking in a con-
fused, half-conscious way of the things
that must have happened in this old
! AAOGSSr dOaA0OhC0 lOWs SlS ndQ De6n
told, for twenty-five years. This old
front chamber-how many lives had
| it welcomed into the world; how
many ushered out? How many young
brides had looked out of this very
window down onto the sparkling
ocean?
Alicia's eyes were closed now; she
didn't trouble to open them to see just
how that sparkling ocean must have
looked to the young brides. The hot
midday air was an easy victor.
The soft purring of the waves on
the pebbly beach became more in
! sistent; the tide was rising. With it
came a stronger breeze.
1t lifted Alicia's shade hat and
waited it gently down to a resting
eral bees investigated its wreath of
gay-colored flowers with disappoint-
ing results-and flew away. moraliz-
ing, no doubt, on their particular YER
sion of the aphorism, "All is not gold"
etc. Alicia slept on.
Somewhere in the direction of the
very rough road from which
branched the grassy lane new sound
originated. 1t was an alien, nsechan-
ical sound If the sleeper had awak-
ened she would have identified it and
wondered a little perhaps
A powerful car was passing over
or rather, thru-the abandoned thoro-
| fare. A quarter of a mile from the
house 1t gave up the undertaking and
the driver picked his way up the lane
like one unfamiliar with. his sur
roundings yet not unprepared for
them.
I Gaining the level plateau where an
unobstructed view of the old mansion
could be had the young man paused.
and with folded arms stood deep in the
sorrel and daisies. Thru wide-set. hu-
morous eyes he took in the scene be-
fore him. Poor Dad!" he sighed at
I last. and made his way toward the
house
why. even some of the poppies
still growing in front of the housei"
he exclaimed. Ahcia's hat played its
practical Joke for the second time.
But not with such disappointing re-
suits this time to the be-fooled. For
Pliny Caverly the fourth decided in
stantly that he would like a girl who
wore hat like that-and there might
be reasons why it was important that
he should.
Holding the hat gingerly in his
hand Pliny stood still and studied his
ancestral home at close range. The
windows over the porch would be in
that front chamber where he was born
and where-but somebody was sitting
near one of them. Just a glimpse of
fine brown hair and high forehead,
that was all; but it was rather tan
talizing to Pliny-for the reason.
Could it be the girl of the poppy
hat. sitting up there in that historic
front chamber where dad had first
seen his mother, when she had come
from boarding school with dads sister
} for n vacation, the chamber that had
been a sort of upstairs sitting room
in those days? He'd see. would
I Pliny, right away; 1t was important
he should know. He thought he liked
the soft brown hair and 1t certainly
was well-modeled forehead-but he
knew he liked the hat and what the
hat whispered of it's owner.
1t was very still, that well-shaped
head of which he could get but a
glimpse. Evidently its owner hadn t
noticed his approach. Would it be
possible to gain that room unheard :?
he wondered
Surely it would be no trespass-it
was his house. It all events. Pliny
= tried it, and succeeded. He reached
} the doorway on tiptoe, the shade hat
still in his hand. There the intruder
: stood motionless. drinking in the pic
ture before him-the slender, girl in
a frock of delicate green, the girl with
fine brown hair blown lightly about
| by the ocean zephyrs
The girl of the poppy hat in
dubitably: The right girl-the right
! girl OF all girls And sleeping quietly
on the window seat
So moveless she seemed so very
stin, that suddenly a panic fear snote
, Pliny He took hurried step forward
: and Alicia opened her eyes. They
; looked. first straight into Pl:ny's-
: and then dazedly about the old. dis
r mantled room. ''I was thinking of the
Deoplc who must have lived and died
: here; and of the brides-why, 1 must
r have fallen asleep! Your
: YES" interrupted Caverly. ct found
! your hat on the grass. And I was
{ thinking of brides, too. Brides-and
! this room. You see''-Plinv went on
2 like race horse. giving the girl Of
the poppy hat TO chance to sneak
S there is a tradition in the Caverly
family that the eldest son always
meets his bride Tor tire first time in