The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 72: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

62 THE By the way, I came out here to see if there was any one around to stamp some letters for me. Miss Jones got away be- fore I noticed that they weren’t done.” Bruce followed him back to his office. The extra letters to stamp gave him an added inward twist of feelings already sore enough; but he took them without a sign of protest. “JT don’t mind,’ he answered Wheelock’s apology for the request he had made. He waited until the cashier had betaken his well-groomed person from the place. Then— “I guess I lied to him,” he muttered. “T do mind. Confound it! He and Mercer always act as if it hurt them to see me around; and then pile on the extra work as though they had a right to. They get out to enjoy the nice spring days. I suppose they think I couldn’t take any pleasure in them if I had the chance. Not so far wrong at that. You can’t ride but three hours in this town for ten cents; and I’ll have four left after I’m through with this outfit any- how.” From a locker in the corner he got out a sponge and a little dish. At the sink in the hall he wet the sponge. Soon he was busy sealing the great pile of envelopes. ~The warm weather had offered no real change to the monotony of Evans’s ex- istence. He was only twenty-six; yet his shoulders drooped and his general air was that of the old bookkeepers who have reached the knowledge that this life holds nothing better for them. Bruce Evans was a drudge. For three years he had been conscious of “the fact. Until lately there had been the conso- Jation that he was a drudge for love’s sake. His invalid sister had kept him too poor to strike out for anything better than the job for which he was too little fitted ever to make progress. Six months ago she had died. In another three weeks, barring sickness or accident, the expenses of her funeral would be wiped out. And then— ARGOSY. More drudgery. For five years he had been engaged to Ellen Randolph. Five years ago he had supposed he would soon be in a position to marry. He had not dreamed that his sister’s illness would drag on, or that he would forever remain a sixteen-dollar bookkeeper. And now—he couldn’t ask Ellen to stretch patience any further. She pro- tested that she was more than willing to live within his means. The wedding was set for August. But he wasn’t ready to marry. Not to-day—not most of the days of late. He was tired of the eternal counting of pen- nies; he wanted to live just a little. Together he and Ellen had gone out to a tiny new suburb half a mile from an hour’s trolley ride to the city and the bank. Together they had found a tiny cottage in a fair-sized yard with a chicken run at the rear. ; Together—barring sickness and _ acci- dent—they would go to live there in three months after a wedding the carefully counted expenses of which would be five dollars for the minister and twenty cents car-fare. And Ellen was going to raise chickens in the run and sell eggs and broilers, which he could carry in to town customers by taking the trolley an hour earlier one or two mornings a week! And there was going to be a little garden which he could dig in afternoons for exercise. It would almost keep them in vegetables. For the cottage and the “ large, roomy, fertile plot” the real-estate company asked nothing down at all and the balance the same as rent! Ellen said it was per- fectly wonderful. It was a perfectly wonderful life for ‘anybody that wanted to live it, Bruce thought now. Thus far ten Italian fam- ilies had elected to try it in “ Beautiful Midvale—Overlooking New Rochelle ”— in much the same manner in. which he could overlook the Singer Building from the sidewalk and see the sun above it. The Italian families seemed to like it— and Ellen. E@PMICLOOOKS (E@)