Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1911 — The Light in the Kitchen [ARTICLE]

The Light in the Kitchen

By M. J. PHILLIPS

(Copyright, IS 10, by Associated Literary Press.)

Hoover Wiles taught astronomy because! be had to live, but he spent hla nights searching the skies at the observatory on Tower hill because he loved It The scientists and attendants recognized the tall young man Willi the shoulders of an athlete and the bulging brow of a student as one of themselves, and he had the run of the place.

Tower hill stood between the ocean and the plain. It shot up into the air several hundred feet. Oak Harbor, a city of considerable size, nestled at its base, spread over tbe plain, and climbed ambitiously up its side. Wiles liked to sit on tbe hill, like an eagle on his crag, and sweep the pageant sea with a long, slim powerful telescope that was his own property. Between this telescope and the great barrel which peered into tjie mysteries of the sky and was moved only by ponderous machinery, he was perfectly happy. One evening in early spring the sky was overcast so that no stars were visible, end the sea was empty of ships. Wiles took his telescope to a loophole in the dome of the observatory, adjusted it on. Its tripod and sat down to the eyepiece. The city of Oak Harbor was in front and beneath him, pricked out by Its hundred thousand lights. Dividing the town into vast checkerboards were the electric street lamps glowing white in the gloom. The lights In the homes were of a mellower and less obtrusive tint. They peered from the open doors and windows and twinkled shyly through the budding trees. The great office buildings, tier on tier, illumined like the portholes of undreamed of ocean liners, thrust themselves proudly aloft The trolleys, whose snoring hum came faintly to him in his aerie were moving streaks of fire. Motor cars flew whither and thither like orderly fireflies. Seated thus at his telescope, Hoover Wiles felt like one of the immortals. He abode on his mountain, above humanity and its petty, buglike emotions. How aimless and useless heemed all this hastening to and fro! What waste of energy In trivial, blind pursuit of pleasure! Surely an ant hill, with its misdirected activity, was a conservative and intellectual community beside the city of Oak Harbor! Thus mußlng, Wiles turned his telescope slowly, like a long, moving finger. It showed the groups waiting for cars on tht corners; occasionally.it followed an automobile for a block or two. Then, as it swept far to the left, the-telescope seemed to stop of its own volition on a pretty scene. A lighted kitchen window, surrounded by vines newly green, filled its field. Within the kitchen, a small boy was sitting at a table eating. A young woman was waiting on him. She wore a light dress, and had a profusion of dark hair. Wiles felt that she was pretty, though his Instrument would not bring out her face In detail. But the air of beauty was about her. In her passing to and fro, once she stopped to tousle the youngster’s hair. The watcher could see the happy smile on the lad’s face. Presently, having finished his supper, he shoved back from the table. The girl, bubbling over with mirth and high spirits, began to dance about the kitchen. The light, irregular steps were the personification of grace. She swayed back and forth across the space opposite the window. The boy clapped his hands gleefully. Wiles watched the scene until the dance whs over. Then he leaned back, took a long breath, and said:

“I shall find that girl and marry her!”

Wiles had cause to regret not keeping his eye glued to the telescope; for when he looked again, the lighted window had vanished. Either the telescope had moved or else the light In the kitchen had been extinguished. For two hours he peered steadily Into the eyepiece, In the vain hope that the dancing girl would again flit across his field of vision. But not another sight of her did he get At last, relunctantly, he gave it up and went home.

The next night he was early at his post His heart beat with anticipation as he sat down at the telescope and watched the dusk close in and the lights of Oak Harbor spring into being like jewels on a velvet cloth. The glass was as he had left It the night before.

Again he was disappointed. In an hour of painstaking peering he picked up a score of kitchen windows; but In each something was lacking. This one had no vines about it; that one did not have a table within the line of vision; the third was lighted by electricity Instead of gas. and so on. No sight of the “dancing girl,” as ne had begun to call her. gladdened his heart. Whed the clocks In the city below began booming the hour of 11, Wiles admitted to himself that It was too late for small boys to be eating supper. and for pretty girls to be floating across a kitchen floor like thistledown. So he turned his attention to the stars. It was a very wandering attention, though; the stars could hava skipped from their courses and gamboled together like lambs ere comment or censure would have been ellcted from WUes. , For a week this continued. From shortly after seven until eleven .he

would sit at the telescope, searching patiently for that vine-clad kitchen window which seemed to have emerged from the land o’ dreams for a night to torture him with longing, only to slip back again before his fingers could close on the vision and prove it real. And then, as capriciously as it had appeared before, the window and the dear sight behind it came back to him. It was revealed even as the theater curtain rolls up on an enchanted first play. Jfhere was the window, bordered with its tender greenery, the homely room, cheery and pleasant under the glow of the shaded gaslight; the table and the small boy seated at it eating his supper; the girl in a low chair in front of him, elbows on knees. Presently the boy finished his meal and began a spirited tale. He measured with his hands, made a motion as if throwing with them, then jerked on an invisible rod. The gestures were eloquent; the youngster was telling about fishing. When he had finished, the girl, and he washed the dishes. She made all tidy with a charming little air of housewifery, and turned out the light. Wiles sighed. He spent the night at the observatory, determined to locate that kitchen window.

When the mists rolled away early next morning and the sun began to gild the plain to the east, Wiles looked into his telescope again. He was overjoyed to find that he could pick out the window easily. He studied it until there could be no possibility of mistake. There was a wide, well-shaded street In front of the house to which it belonged. He followed the street until a gap in the trees betokened an intersection.

It was an achievement to read the name on the lamp post at that corner, but he did it, spelling it out slowly while his eyes blurred with the strain; Locust. But the name of the cross street was effectually hidden. After breakfast at his boarding house, Wiles plunged ’into a series of abstruse calculations, in which the height of' Tower Hill, the magnifying power of his telescope and the distance to Oak Harbor above the sea level all had a part. Just before dusk that day, Wiles, “all dressed up like a broken arm,” aB he admitted humorously to himself, strolled down Locust street at the spot where his calculations indicated his search should begin. Within half an hour he came to a girl hanging over an old-fashioned front gate, and he stopped with amazement and pleasure. “Why, Coralle Fleet!” he cried; “I haven’t seen you for years." The girl, who had dark hair and gray eyes, la which the joy of living was alight, shook hands 1 warmly. “Nor. I you,” she smiled; “and I wouldn’t have seen you now, only I’m waiting for my little brother. He’s late for supper, as usual. That hoy is crazy about fishing. Wpn’t you come up on the porch and sit down?” “I will,” said Hoover Wiles, with solemn joy. That was four years ago. Now, at bedtime every night Hoover Wiles, Jr., a chunky boy with his mother’s gray eyes and his father’s sturdy shoulders, waves “By-by" from a lighted kitchen window toward Tower Hill. Mrs. Wiles throws /a kiss, sor 1 she knowß her husband Is seated at his telescope, waiting for their messages. But the pretty little custom will soon be discontinued. Wiles has advanced; he has just been appointed chief of the forces at Tower Hill, and Is going to move his family to the residence adjoining the observatory.