The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-11-25
EDening Story
A Lost Missionary.
By H IRVING KING

domiuated well-kept acres. 1t was
most proper farmhouse = everything
pertaining to Aunt Jane was proper;
it was an efficient-Iooking farmhouse
everything having to do with Aunt
Jane partook of her efficiency.
Amanda was as pretty a girl as you
would find in a days journey; abound
ing in health and vitality, but rather
given to day dreams and impressed
with the ideas that it was incumbent
on her to take hold of this wandering
old world and set it in a straight and
narrow orbit.
Under a great tree in the front yard
she and her aunt sat in straight
backed chairs sewing. The bloom of
the hlacs had long since faded; but.
there We're other odOriferouS shrubs
about which sent faint perfumes wan
dering on the Ianguid air, and from
a neighboring field came now and
then the breath of new-mown hay,-
and the voice of the afternoon was
punctuated now and then 10y the,
twittering or the songs of birds.
You have heard, perhaps, from
distance, or from-the top of a high
building, that murmuring sound which
is the voice of great city. To city
bred person the country seems silent,
but it is not; there is a voice of the
country as well as voice of the city
-on-y it is pitched in different key;
a drowsy hum made up of the myriad
sounds of animal and insect life which
turks in fields and woods, the muir
muir of streams and the breathing of
winds thru leafy boughs. AS Aunt
Jane and Amanda sat and sewed and
talked in this alI-goIden afternoon
matrimony was the object of their
animadversions- which were no less
both the old maid and the young
maiden the subject was purely acad-
emic. They were perfectly agreed
with regard to the undesirability of
the married state, but disagreed in
their statements when it came to the
details of the unmarried.
Amanda mapped out q strenuous
life as a missionary to some par
ticularly depraved and benighted tribe
of cannibals, while Aunt Jane. de-
clared for the simple life of the farm,
mitigated by a round of gayeties con-
sisting Of strawberry festivals, church
fairs and meetings of the local Red
Cross IN the neighboring village of
Ashville. Amanda today was all the
more insiStent upon the necessity of
her faring forth to somewhere beyond
midas coral strand to wrest his nose
rings and his idols from the scantily
clothed chief of some palm-clothed
isle from the fact that, since she had
been on this visit to her aunt, she
had not infrequently found herself
with a shudder at her own weakness
-picturing with half-Ionging thoughts
the pleasant and comfortable life that
by which she was now surrounded
Such a life might be all right for
Aunt Jane, who had no great uplift-
ing work to accomplish in the world,
but for Amanda such thoughts were,
she Well knew, the suggestions of the
hero of Mr.. Millions celebrated epic,
and she confronted them with a wade
retro SatanaS-or words to that eff
feet Had you told her that young
Doctor Clinton and not the Prince of
a "a VS. of fhoCR rryzV n ar-
ings of her maiden mind she would
have told you that you were Just too
silly for anything;" and believed it,
too-besiG-s very likely being right.
DR.. Arthur Clinton had come. to Ash
Vile the year before to take over the
practice of DR.. Kenyon, superannuated
and retired, and had. the previous
summer, while Amanda was on her
usual visit to her aunt, attended her
for q. bruised thumb acquired by we'll
meant but injudicious attempts at
helping put down the new carpet on
the front stairS-> Somehow that thumb
of Amanda's required a preposterous
number of calls and much skillful not
to say tender. handling by her medi-
cal adviser before it was cured. And
this summer, eyer since Amanda'S ar
rival, the doctor Lad evinced the ut
most anxiety with regard to Aunt
James health, stopping to inquire
after it every time his flivver bore
him in the direction of the Perkins
farm. And that was so often one
might have been justified in thinking
an epidemic had broken out in that
neighb orhood.
ing and sinful thoughts, when they
pictured the attractions of life in the
country, began to center around the
future wife of DIR. Clinton-for, of
course, the doctor would marry some
time; he was not, like Amanda, dedi-
Gated to celibacy and great work.
Struggle as she would these visions of
the life of a country doctors wife be-
came more and more frequent and
she sternly resolved to down them
by a severe and more constant con-
temptation of the joys of missionary
existence.
On the afternoon on which our story
opens she was just in the midst of
description of the happy state of some
cannibal king when she should have
brought him to a realization of the
superiority of roast lamb over roast
enemy as an article of diet, and of
as an article of dress, when, with an
anatomical rattle and a bronchial
cough, the doctors machine came up
to the gate and the doctor dropped in
for one of his little chats, disseminat-
ing youth, health, animal spirits and,
slight odor of the apothecary shop
about him. The longer the doctor
stayed the more Amanda felt herself,
SIpplnSs ana Wnen ne Ilnaily arose 10
go she took a sudden and desperate
resolve. 'Good-by,'' she said. 81
probably shall not see-you again. I
leave for home tomorrow and join
a party of missionaries sailing for
the far East, the following day. The
steamer leaves in the afternoon-I
shall have just time to pack. My par
entS have consented to my trying the
missionary life, but L have heretofore
delayed doing so. I have resolved to
delay no longer. Good-by.'
Aunt Jane exclaimed and expostu-
lated; the doctor looked grave and
sought his flivver with hardly a word
Of farewell. Amanda was deaf to all
Aunt James pleadings; she was firm
with the firmness of paIic-there is
such a firmness- The secret of her
own heart had suddenly been revealed