The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-02-05
EDening Story
1 Times Square Adventure.
BY WILL T. DAVIS.

square is as many kinds ola crowd
as there are pairs of eyes to watch it
and minds to speculate, upon it. Take
! it on a Saturday afternoon when the
theaters have poured out their matinee
audiences to swell the already teem-
ing multitude, and representative
temperament is liable 10 shrink from it
to something much like terror; for
then it becomes a mere moving mass.
the individuality of each component
human atom merged and lost in it
like that of a pebble in a stream of
lava. To the less Imaginative, the
! crowd is likely to be only an incon-
veniently large number of persons
/ going home from shows or headed for
places to eat. To the cynic, it is a
browning example of the folly of man,
that he should choose to jam himself
into eighteen inches square of shift
ing space, and be elbowed and jostled
| at every step, when he could as well
have eighteen miles if he so elected.
To Edna Stearns The Times square
crowd on the particular afternoon
| when she found herself a part of it
seemed to consist entirely of ogling
eyes.
Now there IS type of woman, gen.
orally very young, sorely given to find
ing, in the most casual glance of a
] man-any mana wicked intent to
flirt. Be it stated definitely and once
for all that Edna Stearns was not~of
| this type. The reason she felt that she
was being unduly stared at lay in the
fact that she was indeed being stared
/ at in just that way. And the reason
for that fact that she was an I'M
usual looking girl.
For Edna had very beautiful red
hair and a great deal of it, and big
tawny eyes with surprising dark lashes
and brows. Men of a certain stamp
txrri7I 1rrrow
and perhaps more openly and more
hopefully, on Times square, If the girl
be small-town girl and hasn't been
| in the city long enough to have ac-
quired the habits of dress and the
assurance of manner of the initiate.
And that was the case with this girl.
1t was a new experience for Edna,
for she had never been on this part of
Broadway before in her six months of
breadwinng in the metropolis. And
the manner of the experiences effect
on her might have been forecast by
any one who had noted the color of
her hair.
IF just one more of those dressed
up rowdies looks at me in that awful
way she stormed inwardly, It'll
surely scratch him.
Now of course, Edna might have
turned the first corner and gotten
off Broadway altogether. But she had
an appointment to meet a girl from
her own town at exactly fiye-thirty at
the entrance to the building where the
friend was employed. The building
was on Broadway between 44th and
45th. and the friend had directed :
Walk up Broadway from 42nd
street. Edna knew no other route
and, besides. it was almost five-thirty.
wherefore Edna stuck to Broadway.
1t was at 44th street that Edna,
walking with her head high and a
danger signal flashing in the tawny
eyes, encountered the most persistent
starer of them all. As she stepped
girls progress was fairly blocked by a
young man, who not only stood stock
II still and devoured her with his eyes.
4 but who actually had the temerity to
speak to her.
BEG pardon" he said, "but I'm very
sure that you and 1 are old friends
trembling with indignation, Edna
tried to avoid the fellow by stepping
around him and hurrying on almost at
run. But the man was not to be
shaken off. He was at her side in an
instant. "Really," he exclaimed,
you're making mistake, think!
Aren't you
Edna stopped in her tracks. az
won't have you speaking to me-" she
b1azed. "If you don't go away shall
call policeman
Two or three men in the crowd
looking curiously at the pair as they
momentarny impeded the stream OF
sidewalk traffic, showed signs of
stopping and taking in the show. In
another moment there would be a
crowd Edna's temper was at the
point where she would have welcomed
it-and the inevitable policeman. The
young man faced an emergency. But
instead of sinking off, he met 1t by
Selling the girls hand, tucking It
under his elbow and speaking very
rapidly but distinctly into her ear:
II you're not Edna Stearns, I'm in
wrong; dead wrong, If you are, I'm
IN the biggest luck of my life. I'm
Bob Fellows,"
oh, my goodnesst'' cried Edna.
Hurryi Let's get out of this, ouick!''
You see, along aboue the beginning
or the war, when the boys were start
I ing overseas, the particular boy who
belonged to Edna's girl cflum had
mentioned in a letter that his hunkie
had no sweater and no mother or sis
ter or sweetheart to make him one
| ana the chum had read the letter to
Edna And Edna had knitted a
sweater and sent it to the bunkie
That's how it started. And thru the
. correspondence that followed Edna
: and the soldier had become wonderful
friends Such fine. frank, manly let
! tiers the boy had written; and towards
! the- last such intimate, hopeful ones
: that seemed to take il for granted that
When the war was over they wera tc
be very, very dear friends indeed
Then he. had gone across Edna had
one letter after that telling that he
: had been sent to the motor transport
service, and then silence. Months
later the name of Robert Allison Eel
D lows, degree undetermined" ap-
! peared in the list of wounded. But
Edna could learn nothing more. Some
how she never believed that the boy
j had died. He had Just forgotten her
Observation-Disclosures