Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1914 — A NEW TYPE OF GIRL [ARTICLE]

A NEW TYPE OF GIRL

By LAURA KIRKMAN.

■<Copvri«ht. IM4, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) Kenneth Grey winced as he passed a group of young people on his way to grayer meeting, He knew that their amused eyes were on his highly polished shoes, which shone brightly in the glare of the street light. “Spotless,” he heard Jessie Dean giggle as he passed. “He’d say ‘immaculate,’ ” corrected another voice, mockingly. Kenneth was glad when he reached the church. Inside its solemn walls he was able to forget the derision that stung him on every side. For, although he had always known himself to be an outsider in Greenville Center, he had never become accustomed to the spirit of mockery with which he was treated by the town’s young people. Although he was their own age, he had not a friend among them. “Sissy Grey,” he had been ever since he could remember. On this particular night he entered the church as he had done a thousand times before —went into his pew, bowed his head a moment, then raised his eyes to give one sweeping glance around the chufth. But there the similarity to his conduct on other nights stopped. His sweeping glance terminated on the slim hand of a yodhg girl sitting in the pew in front of him and he caught his breath. The hand was manicured! Kenneth stared at the strange girl. She and he were the only two persons in Greenville Center with manicured hands. He felt almost relationship for her. “Who is she?” he asked himself repeatedly. “Is she «a summer guest, or la'she some one’s city relative?” At length he decided that she was a summer guest. He had heard that old Mrs. Hartwell intended advertising for some this summer. Little did he hear of that sermon. He sat through the'evening as though spellbound. Here, before him’, was a new type of girl—a girl who would not —wotild never think of laughing at a man whose nails were manicured. “Would she laugh at me for picking and choosing my words?” he wondered, recalling the myriads of smiles that hjs vocabulary had called forth. But this question he had no way of answering. He could merely sit and look at the back of her pretty head until the meeting was over. Then he followed her home. She did come from old Mrs. Hartweirs. She was undoubtedly a summer guest. As the girl turned up the walk, and he wandered on, thinking about her, he saw that Bob Granville was coming toward him. Turning, when they had passed, he saw that the fellow turned in at Mrs. Hartwell’s gate. Mrs. Hartwell was a distant relative of Bob. Not for years had he been to see her. Kenneth halted in the shadow of an elm tree and listened. Plainly, he heard BoJJ’s voice ring out: “Good evening, Aunt Hanna!” “Aunt Hanna!” repeated Kenneth, indignantly. “As if he ever called her that before! He’s just trying to make friends with that girl. He thinks she’ll go around with him just because he has money—the way all the other girls do. Well, she’s not a Greenville Center girl. One glance at his grimy fingernails will be enough for her.” It was a relief to him to see/ as the week flew by, that although Bob Granville called on the summer girl every night she never went out with him. “She can’t do any more than be polite to him when he calls,” he told himself, hopefully. “It’s me she’ll go out with —when Lmeet her!” And at last he did meet her. It was at a church social. Quite frankly he went up to old Mrs. Hartwell and asked her if the young lady would object to meeting him. As he made the formal request he heard one of the town boys giggle and repeat his words to one or two of the girls. “Now, we’ll see Sissy Grey make an impression—with his fingernails," came in loud tones, just as Mrs. Hartwell presented him to the girl. The girl heard. She looked behind her in surprise. , Then, casting a swift glance at Kenneth’s hands, a light of understanding broke over her face; she had grasped that his nickname was “Sissy.” After a few hurried and nervous words, Kenneth excused himself and left the girl. He walked swiftly from t-he grounds. Up the street he flew. Blinding tears stung his eyes. -The girl had been prejudiced against him before she had had a chance to judge of him. For in that light of understanding that had passed over her face he thought that he had seen as well a shadow of derision. Perhaps she was amused to see the hands of a country • boy manicured. Perhaps he had not taught himself in the right way; he had only had directions from a magazine to follow. Or perhaps—he stood still on the sidewalk —perhaps the polish on his nails was ridiculously bright. He had noticed the polish ou the girl's nails was decidedly duller. Had this been oversight or intention? After this he kept away from those places which the girl frequented. He felt 111 at ease in her presence. If she had noticed his difference from the other town men naturally It would not have been so bad —even if that difference were overdone. Bitt now that her attention had been called to It—now that she was watching for it! The last possibility of their ever be-

coming friends was shattered when Letty Gleason made friends with her. Letty was Kenneth's worst'enemy. “What fun she’ll have telling the girl how diligently I practice on the piano!” he thought bitterly. That story—a true one —was one of Letty’s best pieces of evidence against him. , For a time he let his piano go untouched. He preferred to play in the winter—when the- windows could be down. In Greenville Center it was a disgrace for a man to have an accomplishment of this sort. Then, one night, he flew to the old friendly piano, in spite of the fact that the window was open. This was the night of the entertainment in the town. hall. Under other conditions, not for anything would he have missed the entertainment. But —she would be there. , For by this time he had grown to avoid her for other reasons than reasons of sensitiveness; he had grown to love her. Her pretty face and dark hair haunted him. Her shell-like fingers, «o unlike any other girl’s he had ever seen, seemed to be always in his sight. She seemed to him a fairy thing—a girl not for such a man as he. “Tiiat’s why she hasn’t gone out with Bob Granville, or any of the rest,” he realized, sensibly. “She’s too good for us. She is here only for a rest.” Of late he had worn a duller polish on his nails. Now, as his hands trailed over the piano keys they looked dess garish—more as though they might have belonged to a cultured man of the world. He played softly, not over happily. He wa q thinking of what he might have made \of himself if he had had better advantages. “Such a woman as she couldn’t laugh at —a faultlessly dressed and kept man,” he thought, with a little twist of the mouth. ’ Then he started. He was conscious that some one else was in the room. Turning quickly he was amazed to find—The Girl! The girl stepped forward. “I couldn’t bear to stop you—it was so beautiful,” she said in a low, musical voice. “So I came right in. I hope you’ll excuse me—l know you so slightly—but some one told me that you own the “Fifth Chopin Sonata,” and that’s the one I’m to play to night in the town hall —and I forgot to bring mine with me in my trunk.” He sprang to the piano. He found the piece of music. Eagerly, inarticulately he offered it to her. “If there’s any other iliece I could lend you?” he faltered, eagerly. Through the dim light the girl’s face shone sweetly, ethereally. One fine, delicately kept hand toyed with the sheet of music." “There’s - nothing you could lend me,” she answered, “but there is something you could do for could come to the hall and turn my music as I play; you see, no one else knows enough about it to do that.” He never could remember, afterward, how he found his hat and asked her if he might- not escort her there. Not even long after—when he had won her.