The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-11-20
Eoening Story
Selma Sings.

b OOhO1a4 DOOGLAS.
Selma was the possessor of a won
derful voice. She had beauty, sue
cess and a fund of good health. Her
health, however, she preserved with
great care and took her walks as regu-
| larly as a well-running clock ticks.
Each afternoon. hail or snow. saw
/ Selma in low-heeled boots and COM
| Portable walking costume leaving her
| house in the lower Forties for her con-
| stitutional of nhour between and
o'clock. And altho Selma had sue
| cess, health and most all the good
things that life had to offer. she still
| had failed to find the one greatest of
all gifts.
Selma had never loved richly, seri-
| ously nor yet even happily, and she
| had reached the age of thirty-three.
| 1t was not that Selma was of a cold
| temperament-far from it But it had
seemed to her that the men who had
loved her could easily do without her
They all were self-sufficient and she
would never fill the vital place in their
lives that she felt love ought to fill.
She was curiously hampered by per-
| haps exaggerated sense of desire to be
an absolute part of the man who
loved her. She wanted a man to be
| that essential element in her own life
| If she were to really love.
| Many of these thoughts were what
passed thru her mind while she took
her daily walk and divers problems
were happily solved during the con-
stitutional hour.
| Selma had not realized that in one
| of the houses she passed her voice, re-
| produced in it's glorious perfection, was
| daily listened to with eager ears by
nerve-worn weary hero of the war.
But one evening when soft dusk
was creeping down over the city street
Selma, passing that house and for the
first time conscious that it was her
own voice she was hearing and had
heard each evening, subconsciously
during az long period, stopped to
glance within the unshaded window
Sitting with head forward and with
WEAKNESS and nerve strain casting its
terrible whiteness over his face, was a
man whom Selma thought was the
soul of tragedy. Before the war he
must have been big and powerful and
able to face a world of struggle and
to conquer it. Now, he was a shadow,
a man riveted down to the CHASTITY
memories of the battlefield. Selina's
sixth sense told her all this as plainly
| as if his nurse lowering discretely in
the room beyond had told her.
| That same sense urged Selma into
that room. Something told her that
her presence, her voice was needed to
stay a mind from eternal wandering
among the shadows She did not
know that a crisis was near in that
tired brain-that hidden cords were
ready to snap-but she told the nurse
who let her into the house that she
wanted to sing in person to the man
who was listening to the reproduction.
The nurse looked into Selina's eyes.
recognized her as the great contralto
who had given her wonderful voice so
freely to the fighting men and well
coined her warmly.
| He went right thru it ALL" she told
Selma. indicating her patient. "he
Joined with the British at the begin
ming. We are having a losing strug-
gle with nerves and BRAIN"
| Selma looking pityingly at the big
man who had not as yet seen to whom
his nurse was speaking. When he
turned and looked at her his eyes lit
for the first time in many months. A
slow glow kindled and Selma knew
that the soldier was familiar with her
face as well as her voice.
! IT heard my voice on the machine"
she said by way Of asking a reason for
her visit. land I have taken the lib
erty of coming in to sing to you in
person" She took the hand he eager
ly held out to her and held it in a
warm life-giving grip. May I sing
for your"
I'm a fool-a perfect fool, over
your voice" he said slowly, and gazed
with all his soul in his tired eyes at
Selma as if not realizing that she
actually stood before him.
! His nerves were at swapping point.
Selma knew that he was having a
great mans fight to retain control.
| You sang for us over there" he
added. 81 have never forgotten your
voice-it is the only thing on the face
of the earth that gives me a seconds
I est from-havoc."
| Selma had a moment of inner
Thanksgiving that she had been per-
mitted to pass the particular house
and enter therein.
81 am going to sing then" she said
gladly. land every day until you are
tired hearing me I will come and sing
| any songs you want to hear She
smiled her rich. womanly smile direct
| ly into John Hayward's heart.
She sang, sand the sweetness and
emotional timbre of her voice with its
wonderful essence of potential energy
and life stirred the soul of Hayward