Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 222, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1912 — ADVERTISED FOR MAN COOK, GETS A WIFE [ARTICLE]

ADVERTISED FOR MAN COOK, GETS A WIFE

jAm) She Was a Woman Who \ Wouldn’t Let Any Man Boss Her.

By TEMPLE BAILEY.

'(Copyright, 1911, by Associated Literary Press.) “Women,” said Capt. Cobb, “are not {wanted here.” \ ' “But you advertised,” timidly, “for i* cook.” , "I did,” said the captain, “but I stated, specifically, a man cook.” “But I thought—maybe—" “You thought wrong,” said the capitals He shut the door, and the woman [ with a sigh sat down on the step. Presently the captain opened the door. iHe had on his hat and carried a cane. jHe stopped short at the sight of the drooping figure in front of him. “What’s the matter?” he demanded. : “Well, I’m tired—l—” the little iwhite face under the round brown bat Igrew suddenly blank. The woman on the step had fainted! As he picked her up, the captain tshouted for his next door neighbor, iSarah Tucker, who came running. She was a stout, good-natured creature, very much out of breath as she bent over the tiny bit of femininity which the captain had laid on the sofa ;ia his sitting room. “Why, she don’t seem nothing ! but a child,” said Miss Tucker, pity,ingly; “if it wasn’t for her gray hair and a few wrinkles you’d say she wasn't more’n twenty.” “What ain I going to her?” the captain demanded. ‘X can’t have .her here.” Miss Tucker straightened up and looked at him with withering scorn. “You ain’t going to turn her out right now, are you—a starvin’ creature like she is?” The captain stared. “Starving?" Sarah touched one of the thin hands. “It’s like a bird’s claw,” she said softly. "People don’t get hands like that when they have enough to eat.” She bent to her task of reviving the sick woman, and the Captain ran to the kitchen. He came back with an assortment of provisions. There were lobster, two sea biscuits and a bottle of milk. i “Well, of all. the combinations,” said Miss Tucker. “What she needs la something hot You run right over That Miss Dorcas Ijams Snodgrass, some beef boilin’ on the, stove, and you get her a cup of broth.” Tfhe captain ran. When he came back with the steaming cup in his hands the invalid was sitting up. Her soft curly gray hair was down and her head was against Miss Tucker’s broad shoulder. “You’re very kind,” she said as the captain handed her the cup. “No, I’m not,” the captain said hastily. "It’s Miss Tucker. And if you’re well enough you’d better go right over and stay with her tonight.” A frightened look came into the faded blue eyes. “I am all right,” the pale lips faltered. “I can go on —presently.” Miss Tucker looked at the captain In scorn. “Of course you’re coming over to stay with me,” seh said. “I’m going to put you to bed, and you shall have a nice long-rest. I’ll bet you’ve walked all the way from Salem.” “Yes,” the wayfarer whispered. “I’m —T’m tired.” Capt. Cobb, watching, felt a lump in his throat. He felt himself something of a brute, too. “Could you stay here tonight, Sarah?” he asked, dubiously. “Perhaps she oughtn't to be moved.” “No, 1 can’t," said Sarah Tucker, shortly. “She’s goin’ home with me. 1 ” As the captain watched the two women walk slowly across the lawn he was seized with a sense of desperate loneliness. The wayfarer had left him without a word of gratitude —Sarah had flounced out with her nose in the air. He cooked a lonely supper, then went over to inquire about the invalid. He found her sitting on Sarah’s porch. She looked even more frail then he had remembered, but there was a pink flush In her cheeks and she had on one of Sarah’s pink wrappers. The captain asked bluffly after her health, and made a sort of awkward apology. “You pee I’d advertised for ,a man cook. I wanted some one to help me with the boats, renting them to people and all that, and a woman couldn’t do it.” She nodded “Isn’t Miss Tucker lovely?” she said. The captain’s eyes rested on Sarah. Her smooth brown hair was parted over a serene forehead-,* her eyes were sparkling. She had on a white shirtwaist and a white linen skirt, and a white apron was tied about her expansive waist. yes," he said, as one who has suddenly waked. “I guess she’s real pretty.** , “She’s asked me to stay here with her.” sAid the invalid, “and help—till —I can get something else to do.” It came to be a common thing after that for Capt. Cobb to call on Sarah, and Violet Dean — tor that was the Invalid's name. For years he had lived next floor to Sarah, and while he had talked to her over the fence, he had never called. An early love affair had left him a woman-hater, but now he felt that there was safety in numViolet grew prettier as she grew

stronger, and the captain’s eyes rested often upon her. She had an appealing feminine manner, which drew him to her. Sarah was not appealing, but Bhe was a fine woman. The loneliness of his house began to be appalling to the captain. For the first time In his life he wondered why he had not married. He won* dered, too, why he had sooner recognized Sarah’s competency and beauty. He had a feeling that Sarah could do without him, but that Violet could- not. If he asked Sarah to marry him, Violet would be left alone — and he was sorry for Violet. Divided thus between pity and love, he delayed his wooing. Then camejt day when the heavens fell. “Violet and I have decided,” Sarah told him one September day, “to spend the winter In the city. She knows of a good boarding place where they’ll let her help with the linen room, and I can board, and then we’ll be together.” The captain let them go. He had to. He wanted to k’eep Sarah, but he couldn’t throw Violet out on the j world like that. ’ He took care of Sarah’s cat and her ; flowers, and wrote to her about them \ once a week. Violet usually answered ■ the letters. “Sarah says she’s busy ’ sight-seeing,” was the excuse she gave. One morning there, came a letter in Sarah’s writing. “I’ve got to tell you something that I’m afraid won’t please you," she said. “It turns out that Violet’s husband Is alive. I thought he was dead, but they were separated, and their pride wouldn’t let them come together. But” they have made up and now she Is the happiest woman you ever saw. But she ought to have told us —it wasn’t fair to you not to.” The captain puzzled over that sentence. Then he took the next train for the city. “What made you think I’d care so much?” he demanded. . Sarah blushed. “Anybody could see you were in love with her,” she said, “the way you kept coming to see her.” The captain groaned. “It’s you I’ve been In love with ever since you took Violet in and made me feel what a brute I was.” “But you never used to come,” Sarah faltered, “and I think Violet thought you cared f6r her —that’s why she begged me to come to the city.” “Violet’s a nice little woman,” said the captain, “and I am sorry for her. But you’re my kind and she ain’t. Now she couldn’t stand up against my temper for a minute, Sarah. But you wouldn’t let any man boss you, and that’s the kind of a woman for me. I’ve had my own way so? so many years that I’d be a terror to a meek woman.” Sarah smiled. “You don’t knowl how meek I’d be if I was in love,” she said. “Are you in love?” the captain asked, anxiously. “Do you think you could love me, Sarah?” And Sarah, her good face all rosy with blushes, laughed a little and replied: “Has It taken you all these years to find it out, captain?”