Hyder weekly herald., 1933-01-07
Rocking Chair
By JANE OSBORN
@ by Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.
 WNU Service


 R| of Brockton college make special effort to be back at commencement time. Last June it was 1922's turn to come back and the usual arrange ments were made to provide for their entertainment during the gala week. Cynthia Burton was making prepara- tions for the Sunday tea party which her father, Professor Burton, always gave for the men who returned
 Saturday morning Cynthia was beat ing up the batter for variety of sugar cookies for which the Burton tea par ties had long been famous Ten years ago she had helped her mother with these dainties and since her mothers death she had taken loyal pride in making them in the precise old-fash- toned way.
 Stella Alden, her cousin, sat beside her cracking nuts that were later to be chopped and used with cream cheese and other things for the filling of the sandwiches next day. She had stopped on her way to Cynthias at the railroad station on preteXt of getting time table and there she had seen some of the ''boys of 1922"
 If the gang isn't all here," she said. lit is almost all here. You've no idea how some of them have changed. l was talking to Harry Wallace-'mem- Der Harry? Well. he's quite gray but terribly good looking. And Fred's com ing-soing to put up at the inn be- cause he's brought his wife. Tim Bruce and Granger Yates and Piggy Brown are all back. Carrot Jones and Spinich Smith are coming-and some- one said they had heard in a round- about way that Rocking Chair was coming. Member Rocking Chair?"
 Cynthia looked up with suspicion of a smile. "Yes-I do. But I don't believe he'd come. He's been in South America ever since he graduated"
 "Queer fish, wasn't he?" from Stella. Piggy Brown said he hadn't heard anything about him-couldn't even re- member why they called him Rocking Chair. Nobody could"
 Cynthia knew well enough but she didn't say so. In the days when the 1922 men were still undergraduates Professor Burton had held open house for students every Sunday afternoon and there were always fifteen or twen- ty who availed themselves of his hos- pitality. Cynthia's mother poured the tea in the old drawing room while Cynthia. rather shy girl under twenty had brought the tea things and the sandwiches and cookies from the kitchen. And almost every Sunday for two or three years a lank, rather awkward boy had sat at one side of the drawing room in the old-time rock ing chair, drinking tea, which he could not endure, for the sake of the cookies and other dainty morses that went with it. He continued to come because each Sunday her mother had held his clumsy brawny hand in hers and made him promise to come again the next week. and there was mute look of gratitude in his deep gray eyes as he looked down at her.
 On the campus, in the dormitory-alI about the college town-the tall, awk- ward student who was working his way through college was known as Rocking Chair. And Rocking Chair he had remained in the memory of class mates. Most of them could not even recall that his real name was Ben Owen.
 Since then, of course, rocking chairs had gone very much out of fashion. And Cynthia had met with no opposi- tion on the part of her father when she wanted to carry the old rocker up into the attic.
 Having cracked and shelled the nuts Stella made excuses. She wanted to dress for the ball game that afternoon. She thought from something that Piggy said that perhaps he might call her up.
 So Cynthia went on alone with the preparations for the next days spread.
 Sunday morning Cynthia went up into the attic and in a dingy corner found the old rocker so covered with dust that it needed thorough soap