The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-03-16
Euening Story
Paula the Poet.
My DOROTHY DOUGLAS.


Beth, most understanding, capable, /
noodles a chum that an erratic poet
ever had, was busy preparing a dainty F,
and nourishing evening meal.
Paula was girl of brilliant intel
lect. wonderful in poetic fancy but ut
terly and completely lacking in the
domestic virtues. She could no more
have cooked the little meat loaf and
biscuits that were seeming the apart
ment than she could have put out to
sea in the R-34. Her taste in clothes
was simply wish to cover herself de-
Gently, and her hair was long and nat
ural and wound about her head in the
particular way that it happened to go.
And she wore ordinary boots, not san
da1s.
But Paula could write poetry
Beth possessed all the artistic tastes
that go to produce a perfect type of
temperamental poet. Her hair was
furnished and most becomingly
bobbed. Her orange and black
smocks were poems of batik art. and
often while entertaining at tea she
wore an adorable Chinese mandarin,
from which her little feet peeped ont
from the wide trousers like captive
butterflies. There was always incense
burning when Beth was around.
But Beth could cook. make wonder
| full clothes, entertain with great sue
cess, and she was a delightful bit of
/ the feminine weird TO nave ABOUT the
F.! house.
Beth could not, however. have writ
| ter a poem any more than she could
have put together the parts of their
! joint fliv.
Here's another man person want
| ing to meet the poet, Paula called
Beth as the postman left his wares at
the door. HE has been reading your
verse for two years and is coming from
the middle west just in the hope that
I @1@e NJ.
etc" Beth finished off with a laugh.
"Oh--to have some great western
cowboy consumed with passion for me
Just once
! Paula, too, laughed from her nest of
brilliant-hued cushions that Beth had
made, but her laugh was trifle inn
patient.
81 just can't be bothered meeting
all these perfectly strange people all
the time. You've no idea what a muff
I feel listening to their rawlings. I
have absolutely nothing to say to
them and my poor brain struggles
| for conversational nfceties and very
nearly pass out in the attempt"
That's what you get for being
genius" said the unfeeling Beth. THE
penalty for writing boiling, scorching
| love effusions which you no more feel
than 1 do is to have to let all the
strange men in the world come and
gaze into your soulless eyes"
| "You have all the soul and scorch-
ling emotions for both Of u.s." laughed
Paula. 'If we each had temperament
and moods, then, honey, we couldn't
live together so happily" She jumped
| up and Just as Beth was about to
take her hot biscuits from the oven
| Paula swept her into an encircling
arm. you're little duck" she said
laffectionately, land I wish inst for
once you would meet TINS western
cowboy as Paula"
1 When Beth had rescued the biscuits
| she TUNED questioning eyes on Paula.
"If you really mean tit would
be a bit of a lark. 1 have all the
earmarks of a poet-nuttiest of nuts.
exchanged identities, and never were
two more alluring personalities trans
| ferred for the mere sake of jogging
the brain of western cowboy.
And the heart of the western cowboy,
who went by the name of John Ry-
lance, was most assuredly rampant
| when he found two delightful girls
waiting to receive him at tea. The
small apartment was curiously home
like. Rylance felt decidedly at home
even before he was directed by Beth
toward the great cushioned chair in
the sunny window.
Paula had met the big ranchman
with her habitual calm exterior, but
within her brilliant brain there was
an instant desire to write a splendid
poem. She effaced herself behind
a wall of concerted thought that
left Beth e. free hand to weave her ct
about their visitor.
Rylanee realized that his interest
was straying from time to time from
the animated Beth to the strangely
magnetic personality Of Paula. 1t was
true he had come from the west to
meet the poet who had set his heart
to singing by the mere printed words
OF her Songs in Exile" yet now as he
sat looking into her piquarit little face
with it's frame Of bobbed hair he felt
more definitely the lure of the other
girl.
And yet this girl whom he had been
introduced to as Paula Raymond was
the exact duplicate in appearance of
. the type he had expected. There
was the stamp of Greenwich Village
J on her and the undoubted charm of
Rylance could not define. He knew
that while he talked with her he was
. constantly longing to probe the mind
! of the quiet, interpretive, apparently
disinterested girl whom he had met
, as Beth Goodwin.
And the real Beth's alert senses
caught the vague disappointment in
the westerner's mind. She knew tina,
his soul ard the soul of Paula the
! Poet had found something that had
, made meeting of the physical beings
J necessary. 1t had been the lure OF
Paula's soul that had dragged him all
the long way from the west, and now
he was struggling against a vague
: regret that he had come.
1 Into the mind OF Rylance came a
short verse of Paula's that had always
; more or less puzzled him as to her ex-
act meaning. The words of the verse
; could be taken as the reader chose
but somehow Rylance felt a keen de-
sire to know the poets own meaning
He was curious to know if she would
fenlighten him or whether the poem
had entirely drifted from her mind
with the flow of others
Miss Raymond" he said, looking al
: the girl whom he supposed to be
: Paula, Il wonder If you would mind
: very much giving me your own real in
depreciation of these four little lines
He took the little worn volume from
. his pocket and read from it one OF
pa In, i.