The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-07-31
EVENING STORY
Charity's Patient.
BY IZOLA FORESTER.

LULA
She was the fourth Charity Eliza
beth in the Hanscomb family. a fact
which had always made her walk just
a little bit straighter, and as Nab said,
more toplifticaP' than the other four
in the old gray house near Foun-
tain Square When one bears the
name of a great grandmother and a
mother and a great-great aunt, it be-
hooves one to watch ones step along
the primrose path of youth, Charity
had long since decided.
But the day after the doctors fu-
neral, Charity had taken stock of her
self as well as Nab, Tom and little
David, and she had discovered an en-
tirely new element in her, a new
courage and ambition to win out de-
spite the winds of circumstances that
had nearly blown the home nest to
pieces.
you'll never collect any of fathers
bills, Charity, and he wouldn't like
it if you went to law about it," Tom,
overgrown and husky at 16, looked
down at her in worried bewilderment.
1t had not seemed as If the splendid,
hearty old doctor father could ever
pass away from their midst. Every
body's owed him for years"
I'm not going to try" Charity re-
sponded. I'm going to take in wash
NOW, listen" Nab ruffled her
blonde hair excitedly. with hands very
white and pretty from much care and
little homework. Just because you're
going to start at the bottom of the
ladder is no reason for going down
in the cellar, dear heart. Who's go
ing to do the washing and where
are you going to get it to do?"
'welI," Charity drew in a deep
breath, and explained her plan seri-
ously. Three miles up in the hills was
the big new granite quarry, and down
half constructed. Over hundred
and fifty men we're working on it. and
living in camps.
"I'II get the orders. and Tom can
do the delivering with the team. You
can keep accounts, Nab. That will
suit YOU TO a. T and Davie can count
| bundles for u.s."
IT presume you VIII handle the
tubs?" scathingly from Nab.
| Charity leaned her arms on the ia
BILE and laughed. No, she would not,
but she proposed to keep Delora, the
Hanscomb, and likewise hire Delora's
three grown daughters. They would
turn the summer kitchen into laun-
dry and use up some of the nest egg in
the bank towards few modern labor
saving machines.
IL
tive that day. In fact, when Nab
| went back to school, she carefully
avoided the subject, but some way, the
| yellow road cart and STOUT Brown
Betty made the trip back and forth
| day after day between the old gray
house and the camps, and Charity
found her confidence returning when
she balanced books the end Of the
third week.
The first shock her pride received
was one day when smart gray road
| ster pulled up before the side en-
| trance to the lane. and a young man
leaned out and called to her as she
superintended the washing Of some
pongee shirts.
My shirts done yet ?"
Charity met him with dignity and
spirit. Her cheeks flushed from ex-
ercise, her blue apron covering her
pretty white smock. But her brown
eyes met those of the young man with
calm disapproval of his manner.
The name. please?'
Doug Lewis. They're pongee. I
told the boy to hurry them up and
be careful. Send him up with them
by six
They won't be done by then, Mr..
| Lewis" Charity said, evenly and cold
| ly. I'VE are too busy.
He looked down at her keenly, blue
| eyes clashing with brown, and then
he smiled with a flash of even white
| teeth and q CLEAN of fun
You the boss, here ?"
Charity flushd, but acknowledged
that she was. His glance travelled
quickly over the old rambling mansion,
| with all the evidence of bygone gran
| deur and opulence, and now the lean
years that had descended on it Then
| he looked at the substantial forms of
Delora ana her daughters hanging out
! a spotless washing beyond the tall
| rows of sunKlowers and dahlias.
Pm the boss up at the camp" he
| admitted. This is Doctor Hansomb's
place. isn't it? My father said he saved
| his life once thru some operation"
Charity longed to say she hoped sin
cerely he had paid for it, but courtesy
held her back. And her caller added.
as if she knew all about his family.
that they were the Lewises from
Oneonta Point.
That's near Narragansett," Tom
told her at the supper table. They're
rotten rich. Amt he a driver, tho ?
The fellows up at the camp say he
builds that dam in his sleep
Charity did not answer. The pom
gee shirts were finished, and she was
sewing on three missing buttons with
steady fingers. But her thoughts went
back to two years before, when her
father had tried to start the move
ment for the dam, and local politics
had worked against him. The Lewis
money had made it a reality, and she
knew all it would mean to the valley.
opening up its fertility and bringing
prosperity to the farmers, all the old
isolated farms her father had visited
for forty years. She told Tom she
would drive up herself in the morning
with the laundry bundles.
And at the same time. over a blaz-
ing campfire Doug listened to the
story of Charity Hanscomb's pluck,
and how she had saved the nest from
being blown away. One of his fore
men told him-Len Allen, from the
village.
IF those children could ever have
collected what folks owed their faith
err, Charity could have sat and folded
her hands the rest of her life, guess,
but she didn't stop to repine none. She