The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-07-10
EUening Story
The Girl Who Was Elsewhere
BY LOUIS RAYBOLD.

ID 4NOO4o TIA 0OAAJ.
Ever since she could remember,
Mary Louise had hated her environ
ment; hated the gone-to-seed street
she lived on; hated the dingy, paint
peeled house where her aunt took
boarders; hated the dining room
where three times a day she served
scant portions to the joshing young
men who formed her aunt's clientele.
But most of all she hated the
kitchen, where for hours on end she
stood at the sink and labored at greasy
dishes stacked unfortunately high.
1t was to mitigate all this that Mary
Louise had invented her game-not a
Pollyanna game, whereby she consoled
herself by thinking how much worse
off she could have been. To be frank,
she didn't believe she could have been
worse off.
Her game was one of imagination,
and distance. She played she was
elsewhere. That was all. To her
aunt, she appeared to be standing,
drab, untidy figure, above a steaming
dishpan. But to herself to Mary
Louise, she was sitting OF little round
table beside a blue, blue sea, ordering
watercress salad or peach ice cream.
Or else she was on a hilltop capped
with daisies, dancing with arms out
stretched to the four winds of heaven.
Mary could play this game with in
finite variations. for every spare mo-
ment she could grasp, she read
read the newspapers, stray books left
around by the boarders, and, most
worth while of all, every volume of
her uncle's library which he had in
herited in turn from an uncle who
had actually appreciated books So
Mary Louise ran the gamut of English
poets, modern novelists, and the En-
cyclopedia Britannica. And as a re-
suit, she could exult over her drudgery
and sing, I'm not here at all. I'm
away, away, away!
Yet it was this very saving expedient
which nearly cost her her life and
happiness.
To begin with, there came one day
to the house an applicant for room
who was different from the usual run
of boarders on the street-a young,
clear-eyed man who said he was doc
tor in training and wanted temporary
accommodation near the hospital.
His first glimpse of Mary Louise
occurred under circumstances that
were equivocaI. Young DR.. Stewart
hear her refuse to go to the moving
pictures with Sandy Briggs, a persist
ent tormentor of the girl, whom she
could not stand.
mo, thanks" returned Mary Louise
to his solicitation.
Should think you'd jump at the
chanceI' And Sandy's tone was a
sneer. Never going anywherer'
lightly. well, don't worry about me.
While you're at a stuffy movie IL
shall be dancing to heavenly music on
pavilion by the sea in the arms of
"a prince!'
The doctor had only overheard the
words, had not seen the whimsical
face of the girl. Soberly he reflected
that a dancing pavilion and the arms
of the sort of man she would doubt
less designate as. prince were no
place for his landlady's niece. IT
wonder her aunt allows it," he rumi-
mated, and then forgot Mary Louise
entirely.
The summer days arrived heat
laden. One morning over the steam
ing suds Mary tainted. One day, two
days. three days in bed brought no
Improvement. Wan and still she lay
and refused to eat, her eyes always
on the window. Aunt Jennie, sudden
ly bereft of the faithful service of
years. in something like a panic
thought of young DIR. Stewart in her
second floor front and summoned him.
And SO Mary Louise was DR.. Stew
arts very first case outside the hos
pital. Brain fever he called her ILL.,
ness. Said it was brought on by heat
and overwork and, after he had heard
her babble of blue seas and daisy hill
tops and round tables where one or
dered delectable foods. by "overstimu-
lation of a remarkable imagination"
shes always been that way" ex-
planned Aunt Jennie fretfully. Queer.
If she was hopping up the kitchen
1LOOT SLlS u tell IIl6 SIlS was TtQlAS heT
motor car down Fifth Avenue and peo-
pie were smiling and bowling. I'm not
here at all, she'd say
And it began to look as if poor Mary
Louise would indeed not be there, so
very, very frai1 were growing the
threads that bound her tired spirit.
And the young DOCTOR becoming des-
perate, realized that not only was 1t
because she was his first real patient
that he could not lose her, but because
she had come to mean the whole world
to him, and more.
Mary Louise! Mary Louise!" he
whispered brokenly one day when
Aunt Jennie had left the room on some
errand. Stay with me, dear!"
And Mary Louise, lifting thin veined
lids from her wonderful eyes, had re-
sponded in sheer amazement. And had
stayed.
Some weeks later, dining in a hotel
veranda at Waikiki, outside Honlulu,
where DR.. Stewart had gone to take
over part of a fellow physicians prac-
tice grown too large for one man, he
surprised a PARKWAY look in his young
wifes blue eyes.
MARY Louise" he demanded stern
ly, and grasped her two hands.
Where are you now?"
Mary Louise smiled tenderly into
his eyes. II was thinking what long
long way had come to be here, fig
uratively, I mean. AS for where I am
Pm at little round, round table,
by a blue, blue sea, eating peach ice
creami" Then she SOhered and held