The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-01-17
EVENING STORY
Bill and Bella.
BY JANE OSBORN.

JANE O0bOfSIN.
Twe1ve-year-o Bill Burton kicked
the large whitewashed stone that
marked one side of the driveway that
led into the Mapes farmhouse and his
cousin a decade older. looking little
sheepish and decidedly uncomfortable
in a stiff starched collar on the warm
vacation day, patted the boy on the
back.
Il didn't know-how could know %
he said. Things like that a fellow
doesn't plan to have happen. l hadn't
even seen Bella, had 1 90
mo, but if I'd known you were GO
ing to get that girl crazy and get en-
gagged and everything, why I'd told my
mother and father, I would, not to
stead telling them I'd share my room
and everything.
Il thought youd want to go fishing,
| like you SAID you would, and every
| thing, and here after only a week you
| do thing like this. Well, go, smarty,
l guess I can get along without you.
Only, anyway, l think you might let a
fellow know that you werap going to
do it, stead o. springing it on him aft
| er I'd been digging bait and making
| the springboard in the pool and every
thing
! The truth was that Bill Burton. once
| the idol of his young cousin, Steve
| Miller, after having arranged to spend
| his months vacation at at the Miller
! farm, where for several seasons he
| had shared the boyish pastimes of his
| cousin, had become first smitten with
| and then gagged to Bella Mapes, the
blue-eyed daughter of neighbor
| farmer of the Mil1ers. On the day in
| question he had made a clean breast
| of the case to his youthful cousin and
| explained that as he had accepted
an invitation to spend the afternoon
and take tea with the lovely Bella he
could not go fishing with his small
cousin as that young man had ex-
| pected he would
So they parted at the white stone
| that marked the driveway of the
| Mapes farm that summer day a dozen
years ago, and after trying to find
| sport in fishing alone and making nu-
| merouS resolutions never to get silly
| about a girl young Steve entered the
| Mapes farm by back way and found
| a shady place beneath a lilac bush
| where he might nurse his resentment
| in the vicinity of his cousins undoing
and possibly make observations of the
| charming Bella. 1t was all entirely
| Inconceivable to him that any young
man. least of all his cousin, Bill Bur-
ton, could find more satisfa ction in
the society of any girl than in himself.
There was certainly nothing under
handed in sitting quietly under the Ii
! lac bush and watching Bill and Bella
| if they passed, especially as he would
never O1VuISe any one Whatever he
| might see or hear.
He might have observed that Bella
blue eyes Shone with unwonted hap
pineSS and that she was decked out in
her crispest white frock. But Steve
couldn't see that Bella looked at all
different from usual and it was in
conceivable to him that Bill was
greatly enjoying himself. Then he
| overheard this:
But you really are the dearest. best
man in all the world-really you are,
and 1 ought to know, because l have
brothers and cousins and I've always
known lots of boys And you are, oh,
SO good looking, Bill Truly you are
L never cared about a mans being Sc
awfulIy tall if he was only well built;
and you are awfully we'll built. Bill
Why, Napoleon was lots shorter than
you are and Alexander Hamilton
wasn't bit taller. 1t isn't as if 1 was
a great tall GIRL
how this kind of talk interested him
1t threw side lights on this matter OF
courtship that he had never dreamed
of. There was a lot of talk in be-
tween and then he listened attentive
~ again.
II know you are going to make a
great success, Bill. Men with fore
heads shaped like yours always do il
they are started out right. And YOU
are started out right because your
=
talent for business. 1 just know you
, are going to make a great success
Oh am so proud of my Billy. He's
just the dearest, best, bravest man il
the world
At the next opportunity Steve crepi
. out of the lilac bush and made tracks
, for home. Later he confessed to Bill
what he had heard
Il see now why you wanted to &c
and set engaged he said. II didnt
/ know that was what it was like before
l-cause. of course. no one but YOU
) girl would ever tell you all those
. things. Gee. but she THINKS you arr
: just perfect. don't she, Bill? I dom
suppose she even noticed thest
freckles on your nose.
So it was that the elder cousin gav'
the younger what he regarded as {
sound. sage piece of advice. ''Thert
: are girls" he told him. who will wan
you TO do all the Hattering, all th'
r kidding They may be the more fas
cinating kind. But they don't maxi
the best s&eethearts and wives The.
t expect too much and instead of help
y ing fellow I'D the road to success