The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-08-12
EUening Story
An August Moon.
BY RUBY DOUGLAS

Hope Fenton did not believe in
fairies. She had been out in the world
of reality too long to have retained
her faith in anything SO pretty. But
she did believe in following a persists
ent urge that seemed to come to her
repeatedly from somewhere out of
her own ken.
1t was her last summer vacation
before she should leave college and
she was worried as to how she was
going to pay~fler expenses in her SEN
ior year. She knew there would be
many extras and her meager income.
earned thru the college year by work
outside of her studies, barely paid her
actual expenses.
School teachers whom she knew
were going up into a mountain hotel
to wait on the table for two months.
she could. Somehow. it seemed to
her not quite the sort of work that
she would have chosen.
"BeggarS can't be choosers," she
sad at last and, following the urge.
she wrote to the manager of the
mountain inn and applied for a posi-
ton.
She did not tell Tom Baker what
she was going to do. He was a sem
ior. also, but in a different college,
and she felt, somehow. that he would
not approve Of her doing this sort of
work. He had never known that she
had so difficult time getting along.
Evidently his people had plenty of
course, for she had never heard him
speak OF being worried.
With two OF her friends who were
going to the same inn, she left the
city for the small mountain town
where she was to spend the next two
months Every time the girls talked
about the work they were about to do
they burst into peals of laughter. And
hoy Ilr1Sf n !, h. the
Il do hope 1 shall be able to hold
the position, girls said Hope as they
We're being carried over bunny noun
tain roads in the hotel bus.
Position? It's a job! And what
you get will be wages-not salary.
You might as well get yourself right.
Hope, before you get in wrong" said
| one of the school teachers. She felt
that she could come down off her dig
nifty now that she was not being an
| example to fifty-odd children.
Hope was so nervous the first night
at dinner that it was all she could do
| to serve the nice family at the table
| to which she had been assigned. The
family was evidently remaining for a
Few days, for there was no tip offered
to her, and she felt relieved
Her zone in the dining room was
extended the following day until she
had four. tables, and then she had
little time to be nervous Sh., found
i
waitress, and she agreed with the girls
that the white uniform was very be-
coming to her fresh coloring and fair,
wellkept hair.
The week ends brought many tour
lists, and the girls had busy time and
| received some substantial tips. They
used to gather in the room of Hope,
as they called it, and count their
change and gigBle and have a relaxed
hour after the hard days work
HOfn ~ lIS hnr Cg-Ao
and is as kindly as he can be. 1 had
only one crank today-an old maid of
q man who wanted his beans cooked
away down low in the pot the way
they do back home in Kentucky. I
tried to get him some frizzled-looking
black ones and he grunted a thanks,
I'd hate to marry soma of these men,
wouldn't you?"
The other girls agreed that it wasn't
a bad way to get insight into mascu-
line characteristics. Altogether, they
found the work interesting, amusing
and very profitable. Hope could sec
herself quite free from financial wor-
ry during her senior year. And the
mountain air was giving her a new
lease on life in spite of the hard work.
I'm expecting my family this week
end, Sister," said the man whom Hope
had been serving for a, week. Gould
you arrange fer larger table-three
children and Mrs. White? And-Pd
us, if you cam
Hope said that she would do the
best she could and felt flattered at
the kindly interest of the elderly man
even tho he had chosen to call her
rather Familiarity Sister" She could
see that he was well intentioned.
'And my wife's chauffeur is a col
lege lad who isn't accustomed. 1 think
to roughing It. Please see that he is
we'll served outside. will you?''
Hope said that she would and when
she had taken care OF the whole
White family and had been introduced
much to her embarra ssment-to
Mrs. White and the children. she
slipped outside to the room where the
chauffeurs ate their meals.
Coming in at the door opposite, Just
as she entered the room, was the tall,