Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 235, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1913 — MEDDLESOME OLD MAN [ARTICLE]

MEDDLESOME OLD MAN

By DOROTHEA THOMPSON.

They used to say, when I was a boy at home, that If I grew up without being jailed for forgery it would speak well for my home training. However that is, I had a knack of copying to a nicety any signatures or addresses that I picked up. I used to do it for the fun of the thing, but never, even in school-boy crises when a note from home would have worked wonders with a hard-hearted teacher, did I use the gift to my own ends. Beyond, that is, making the boys’ eyes pop at the way I could reproduce their crude boyish signatures or the more flowing and flowery ones of the teachers. I’m an old man now, and comfortably enough off, but what I have has come to me honestly. I have wondered, sometimes, whether the accomplishment was still at my fingers’ ends, but—lt still is! Next to my little four-room bachelor apartment is its twin, a rear flat; and not so many months ago it was taken by two girls—gentle and wellbred, or I’m no judge of character. The older of the two I had no love so quiet, dark girl, too sober by far for her years. But the young one! I could hear her singing through the paper-thin walls of the cheap flat, and I grew to distinguish her voice in the indistinct murmur when they were talking. She was as full of songs and thrills and sheet light-heart-edness as a bird. The fitst time I saw her I thought to myself that she deserved better than to be cooped up in a four-room flat with a sister who would probably be just as happy without her. But there I was mistaken. Her sister adored her. However, I discovered before long that I was not alone in my opinion of her deserts, and many is the time I’ve heard her laughing voice in the hall answered by a masculine one, and not always the same one, at that.

But she had her favorite. I could hear the note of real welcome in her vqice for one of them—a fine lad, as deserving of her as ever a man was of a woman. Tall and strong and well-born, her choice was easily my choice, too. I used to pass them in the hall often on their way to some merry-making, and she had ever bright nod and a word for me. And then, when they came back, many’s the time I’ve caught the note of tern derness in her voice as she said goodnight to him at the door. And he adored her—one look at him when they were together would have told that. In the snatches of their conversation I got as they passed through the halls—anything said in the halls was common property to all four flats —I learned several things about (hem. For one thing, there was real sympathy between them, understanding that was surprising, considering their youth. Another was that each of them had not a little pride, which, but for the love between them, might have caused trouble of no common sort. Going through the halls one day I found a scrap of paper, a note, folded in half, but with no address on it. I opened and read it rather shamefacedly. It was in French, and said that the writer had gone out, would be back in an hour, and please to wait. Then a little sentence Of affection, that old as I am made my heart beat faster in sympathy. It was signed "Mercy,” and Mercy was the name of my young favorite. I turned it over, and saw, what had escaped me before, that it had three initials on the out-sider-B. L. C. I remembered a sentence of laughing remonstrance once -—“Why, Bert Carter!” Undoubtedly she had tucked the note behind her mail-box for him to find if he came over unexpectedly. I put it back guiltily. Bless the babes! Did they think that no one else in the city spoke French? Still, I reviewed our fellow flat-dwellers, and decided that save for tne they would have been safe. In winter came a tiipe when my little Mercy was sick. A light case of scarletina, her sister said—told me through the door. Really nothing at all dangerous, only too contagious to allow her sister to go to and from ber school-teaching, or even through the halls. So I got into the habit of bringing up their mail to them, and every morning there was a letter for Miss Mercy Judson in the same handwriting. I was rather interested in that hand-writing; if I had been unable to class the boy before that writing of his would have helped me. It was unadorned, and rather smaller than the average masculine handwriting, but it Carried with it a sense of absolute reliability. Foolish, perhaps, but I have always thought that my gift carries with it the ability to read character in writing. When Mercy recovered the spring came on as if by a signal. I heard the boy’s voice again in the halls, and met them going in and out again, as happy and over-joyed as if she had come back from the brink of the grave to him. The sewing machine was busy those days —I could tell by the whir It made —and once when I brought up a letter that someone had dropped Jfercy came running to the door with her hands filled with fluffy white stuff. I felt as happy, and yet as bereaved, as If she were my own daughter and getting ready to leave me. Everything was quite as it should be though, and I hoped fervently that they’d be ag happy as they deserved. Then in April something happened. I heard them at the door one night, and listened deliberately for the

“Good night, Bert, dear,” that Always came. But this time I was disappointed. Instead, I heard the boy say with feigned cheerfulness: “Good night, Miss Judson,” and her answering “Good night, Mr : Carter,” I didn’t like that It sounded serious beneath the banter. Then the boy said soberly, “Be sure I’ll come when you send for me, Mercy.” And Mercy answered with gentle stubbornness, “I’ll never write till I hear from you, Bert,” and the door closed slowly. Bert didn’t know, as I did, that Bhe stood waiting at the door instead of hurrying down the long passageway; waited till the clatter of Bert’s feet on the stairs and the slam of the door proved to her that Bert had really gone. Then I heard her go back down the passage, and after a minute she began to play the piano. But iff a moment more that stopped with a discord, and I guessed, though I could not hear, that Mercy was crying. I waited almost as eagerly as she for the boy’s step again, and the boy’s' voice in the hallway; but two weeks passed, and I knew that, stubborn young things that they were, they stood a good chance of spoiling the wonderful thing they held between them. Mercy crept in and out of the flat like a pale little ghost, and one day I spoke to her sister of it. “No, she doesn’t look at all well, Mr. Bonner,” her sister admitted, “but I don’t know what the matter is.” I stole a look at her out of the corner of my eye. The woman meant it! Was she blind? Well," the long and short of it is, that it got to be too much for me, and I put an end to it. One day when Mercedes had stolen out as usual, I wrote a note —in French, and in the boy’s unadorned, dependable handwriting, and tucked it behind their mail-box. It was just a sentence or two, but I ended it with the phrase that had ended Mercy’s note to him. I had an idea that it was a sort of pass-word of theirs, and I was right.

From the* window, I saw,, Mercy come in. There was a pause in the vestibule, then the heavy door opened and Mercy stumbled up the stairs. I watched her through the half-open door, and her young face was alight with joy almost too great to bear. A moment later the door opened and she flew out again. I knew Bert was to have his answer. The next day was warm, so warm that windows-were open everywhere; and so It comes that sitting in mine, I heard the end of the story. Oh, the sound of that young voice again! For me and one other, there was no sound like it on earth. Then there was a duet of voices. They were evidently sitting on the deep window-sill—his arm around her, I had no doubt. After a moment of silence, the episode of the note was reached. In the boy’s voice I heard incredulity, astonishment. Then Mercy’s voice came clear and convinced. “But, Bert, dearest, it was in your dear, funny writing, and in French. And oh, Bert, it ended —you know how!” Then I gathered that she got up and found It for him. There was a moment of blank silehce —then in a voice of awe and wonder: “By jove, it is! You’re right." "Let’s keep it always, dear,” Mercy said softly. “We can’t quarrel again after that.” Ah, well. Even meddlesome old men have their uses. (Copyright, 1913, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)