The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-02-17
Epening Story
A Matter of Ranges.
BY WILL i. .AMES.

as an engineer. Each August he
steadfastly refused to do any work at
all, but reserved the month to the ut
ter relaxation of fishing for tautaug
at a very precise point ranged by the
steeple of Cave Harbor church and a
certain blasted oak across the cove
one way and the direction line of the
Halliday family pier the sother way
The ranges established to a foot, the
location, away down at the bottom of
the cove, of the cluster of-rocks where
all the tautaug of Sanderson- bay
seemed to foregather for lunch.
For the same eleven months of each
year Bernice Halliday, to the intense
disgust of her mother. devoted herself
to mourning the wrath of recalcitrant
employers of women and children and
to the leading of a strenuous and mil
liant life generally in her official ca
pacity of state inspector Of employ
ment conditions for women and chill
dren.
The whole of the eighth month she
swan, canoed, danced and had, on
the whole, probably the best all
around good time OF any OF the girls
of the rather exclusive Cave Harbor
summer colony.
OF course, of all things in the world
the most natural and befitting would
be that these two doors of things, the
36-year-old engineer and the 28-year-
old Sociologist, both spending a
month's,vacatton at the harbor every
year, should be at least interested ac-
quaintances. Herbert Calhoun, on his
reputation alone, was a man not to be
ignored anywhere.
Bernice Halliday, whose name was
identified with half the factory well
fare legislation in her home state in
the last three years, was a bit of a
celebrity as well as a most uncom-
monty fine looking young woman.
Yet as Bernice sat on the end of
the Hallidays' pier in her bathing
suit, swinging her trim and besocked
legs over the water. and as Calhoun
brought his stubby skiff to an an
chorage hundred feet off the end
OF the pier, there was no sign of any,
thing like enthusiastic sympathy be-
tween them. The least that might
have been expected of the masculine
neighbor would be friendly wave of
the hand. And the least that might
have been looked for from the femi-
nine one would be a CHEEKY, Going to
try them again?" or some equally
amiably inanity.
As matter of fact, Herbert Calhoun
merely acknowledged the existence of
Miss Halliday by a stiffly perfunctory
bow, and Miss Hallady's return of that
meager courtesy was so very casual
that an onlooker would have been hard
put 10 II 10 MAKE dIIlOdFlI IndL Sne
had reciprocated at all.
For thirty long minutes the man in
the boat fished assiduously. He baited
with a whole rock Scrab. He took the
crab off the hook, cut it in two with
a heavy jackknife and tried one of the
halves. He took off the half and put
on a very much smaller crab. He re-
moved that and substituted a fiddler.
He banished the fiddler and baited
with the luscious inner mechanism of
a clam. He swore, earnestly and ex-
pertly. But he did not get bite.
For thirty long minutes Bernice Hal
liday continued to sit on the end of
the pier. swinging her legs. BY no
sign did she give evidence that she
even remembered the existence of the
man in the boat. But she did.
'Copceited old prig!" Bernice was
saying to herself, the while she APP
peared. to be lost in lazy contempla-
down the bay. IF he were just an
ordinary smarty. I'd tell him. But he
isn't: he's a most extraordinary one.
The idea of his trying to lecture me
me!-on the proper sphere of wo-
man! And sulking when 1 let him
know that I considered my work just
as important as his and didn't propose
to give it up, ever, to be nothing but
just some mans wife, And saying
there were some things. like factory
management. and. his oldAengineering,
that were actually as far outside the
feminine understanding as fishing
If you please-and, of course, the wo-
man hadn't been born who could give
her mind to cause and effect in the
catching of fish, And now look at
him-sitting out there by the hour ev-
cry day-and he hasn't hooked
b1ackfish this season."
IF that girl comes and sit on that
pier tomorrow" inwardly foamed Cal
houn, land silently revels in my rotton
luck, by thunder. I'm going to pack
up and get out of here! Jeering at
me, she is, because I said there were
masculine stunts ind feminine stunts
and that bridges and factories and
fishing were masculines and in my
line, and writing verse and being
mentally and spiritually as well as
wife-were feminine and in her liner'
Still not fish bit, and still the
girl on the pier sat swinging her legs.
But into her heart was creeping a
shadow of contrition. Poor old boy!"
she said to herself; its shame, after
And if he should decide that it's hope
less and give up and go away alto
gether!" Something very like panic
came with the thought. Then, quite
suddenly, Bernice put the flat of both
her hands upon the stringer on which
under body and dropped like a plum.
met into the water. She swan directly
toward the boat.
Are you sure you're on your ex.
act ground, Herbert?" she inquired
in the most friendly of tones as she
f1oated easily on her side close to the
skiff.
"Certainly-Bernice. L have the
ranges to a hair
That's what you meant" said Ber-
nice, padding slowly up to the boat
and reaching for the gunwhale, when
you said fishing was a masculine ac-
demanding study of
cause and effect-wasn't it,"
Yes" Calhoun replied, uncompro-
misingly, but with an uneasy sense of
danger somewhere about III a
woman were coming after tautaug
she'd fish anywhere. A man knows
that If you're ten feet from the right
spot you might as well stay home
He finds out exactly where the right
spot is and he fixes it by ranges SO he