Bogalusa enterprise and American. (Bogalusa, La.) 1918-19??, 1919-05-15
ThePatriotisna
of Susan
IAN
BY JANE OSBORN
BY JANE OSBORN

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/ tCopyright, 1918, by Mcclure Newspaper
| Syndicate.)
Ever since fifteen years before, when
the Yagers had the quaint old Dutch
| porch of their house on High street, in
Tilton, turned into a f1ll-fiedged front
| piazza" Horace Siocum had entertain
ed a passion for Susan--hopeless. but
none the less absorbing. For Horace
was at that time sImrry carpenter by
the day for the builder who built that
piazza, and though he had no mean
idea Of his own calling and had no very
definite notion of the social superior
ity of the Yagers over the SIocums,
Sill it was obviously impossible. Moth
ing could come Of 1t. "0ld Man Yager''
had made what for that town was a
fortune in the leading dry goods store,
and Susan was his only heir. More
over she Possessed radiant red hair,
defiant tip-tilted nose, a fair, rose
colOred skin only the more dazzling for
the contrast OF a few freckles-and
thus embodied Horace Slocum's ideal
Of all that was femininely lovely.
During those days that he sawed
and nailed the boards Of the Yager
piazza the twenty-year-old Susan had
worn hellotrope gingham dress as
she puttered about the garden, and as
Slocum caught glimpses of her through
the windows; and since then there
had been an associational thrill about
that particular hue that had remained
still vibrant. showing that the thirty
eight-year-old boss carpenter" was as
hewitched by Susan as ever. But II
was more hopeless. She was regard
ed as one Of the best fixed" spinsters
in town. She belonged to the Country
club and had a center-aisle pew in the
church attended only by the old arts
tocracy of Tilton.
History moved slowly in Tilton dur
ing most of those Is years, and though
Horace fed on despair, he had little
cause for te6lousy, for there really
were no eligible bachelors in Tilton
nor any reason why they should come
that is. until Tilton awoke one day
and found itself a war industries cen
ter. Then for the first time since
there had been a winter barracks in
old Tilton In the days of the Reyolu-
ton the male population far outnumr
bered that of the women. Only the
males in this case were workmen, me-
chanics, foremen, directors and pro-
moters of a half dozen war-develop-
ing industries.
One morning in the first weeks of
this new regime Horace was feeling
part, sularly down at heart. The house
where he had boarded gloomily for
these Is years had been bought up
at GOOD price as an extension to one
of the plants, and he faced the propO-
sition of being homeless within a week.
IT was the morning he was putting
side porch on Widow Smiths house
next to Susan's-for by this time front
porches had gone out and side porches
we're in demand in Tilton.
TOO bad abort Miss Susan" the
widow remarked. She had brought
her pea Smelling to the side window,
for she was nothing loath to converse
with the comedy carpenter, who stop
ped saving as If suddenly paralyzed
and gazed back blankly at the widow.
whats wrong" he managed to
ask.
ooh, she would manage her own af-
her banking all in an out
of-town bank, wouldn't have lawyer,
and now" the widow Smith here
spoke with slow emphasis as she fold |
ed her hands over the dish of peas
and looked hard at Horace. "Now
she's keeping boarders."
keeping boarders p Horace gasped.
'Yes, and you can believe me that
when any one as proud as Susan va
ger would keep boarders, she's pretty /
veil reduced. But she would have her
,wn way and now-now she's reaping
he results"
The fact really was that Susan had
i houseful of boarders; and as every
me said-and all the neighbors were
,OscipiuS dbOuI lJ--Slle CpuiQH nave
become reduced" at better time, for
here were hundreds Of out-of-town
var workers only too eager to snapAt
chance to become part Of that house
old.
Horace had so long been accustomed
o agnood of calm despair that the PAL
citation he experienced on actually
eeking admission for himself In SUI
ans boarding house was immensely i
isturbing. Perhaps he would not have
cen so reckless, but now for the first
Inc the element of jealousy entered.
here were some so or 60 apparently
ligible bachelors in Tilton, and Of /:
nese Susan had undertaken to accom-
lodate under her spacious roof six
Iorace was the seventh. +
Apparently Susan was a great mana
er, for soon the excellence Of the fare !,
her board became proveHbial !.
trough Tilton. She retained her old
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