Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 219, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1915 — HILDA GETS EVEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HILDA GETS EVEN

By HAROLD CARTER.

“Mother, we can’t let Hilda go. She understands father’s very decided tastes in cooking, and it would take months to train another girt” “But it's natural that she should want to get married, Lucille,” protested Mrs. Hampton weakly. “It may be natural, but we’re going to keep her,” said Lucille, tossing her pretty head. W* “But put yourself in her place, my dear,” answered her mother. "Suppose you were prevented from marrying John. Wouldn’t you feel badly? And wouldn’t you give up any position, if you had to work, to marry him?”

“That’s quite a different matter," answered Lucille. “Hilda is a Swede and Swedes have no feelings. And she’s a servant, and we can't expect that sort of people to feel like us. Hilda is very happy as an independent single woman, and that' grocer’s clerk would probably squander her savings and perhaps ill-treat her. I’m going to stop the affair.” Mrs. Hampton, mildly curious, found her questions rebuffed with all her daughter’s energy; and, being primarily a peace-loving person, she subsided and hoped that nothing more would be heard about the matter. However, events moved quickly. The next day Hilda was in tears, and she sniffed in a very audible manner as she waited at table. Lucille looked particularly gleeful. ‘Tve fixed it," she announced. "Lucille!” protested her patient mother. "Oh, nothing much about that. When I was in the store today I remarked casually that I hoped Hilda had got her divorce in Sweden before coming to this country, because she was flirting a good deal with the young men who delivered goods at the house. That was all. And did you notice that a different clerk delivered the groceries this morning? Hilda will soon get over her feeling, and we’ll keep her." “Lucille, I-am ashamed of you!” “All right, I’ll take the responsibil-

ity—for father’s sake,” said the girl brusquely.

The experiment certainly seemed to have been successful. Gradually Hilda’s disconsolate face grew bright again. It was noticed, too, that she seemed to distribute her favor impartially upon the different tradesmen’s assistants. Where so many shared it, there seemed no likelihood of her fixing upon one in particular. As for Jones, the clerk who had monopolized her, he had left his employer’s services. Katz, the grocer, said that he was going into business for himself. Lucille did not care particularly what happened to him, so long as there was no danger of his detecting the fraud that had been played. „

John Martin and she were to be married in four months* time. They were very fond of each other in a sensible way. Every Saturday night John called, and every Wednesday night he took her to the theater. It was an ideal engagement from a monetary point of view, for John was earning S3OO a month as secretary to a prominent publisher, and’had five thousand in the bank besides. About three weeks after Lucille’s successful maneuver the girl waited in vain on Wednesday evening for John to appear. She was as much amazed as disappointed. It was the first time since their engagement that his regularity had failed. And the absence of a telephone call induced in her first anger, then alarm. --“John is Hl, mother!” she' exclaimed, when at last all hope of his appearance that night had been discarded. “Or else he has met with an accident on the way.” "Oh, no, my dear,” said Mrs. Hampton. “No doubt he was detained at the office on business.” “But he ought to have called me up. I shall call him up and let' him know what I think of his behavior!" cried Lucille angrily. She flew to the telephone and called up John’s address at his apartment house.' ; - - "Mr. Martin said that if anybody

called him up, to say he’d gone to the theater with a party,” answered the attendant’s voice at the other end. Lucille slammed down the receiver. "That beats everything!" she said Indignantly. ""I shall send back his right tonight." "Better wait till Saturday, and give it to him. dear,” said wise Mrs. Hampton. Lucille, burning with humiliation, concluded that what she had to say might better be said than written. She spent three wretched days, which were not rendered any tnore pleasant by the look on Hilda’s face, which now bore a broad smile. Saturday night came, but John did not. This was the climax of Lucille’s suffering. At ten o’clock she sat down and wrote him an Indignant letter, breaking off the engagement She was glad, she said, that she had found him out at last, before It was too late, but she wished he had been enough of a gentleman to tell her what she had wanted to tell him, that each had grown tired of the other. But before the note was posted there came a ring at the apartment door, and Lucille, opening, encountered John Martin himself, wearing an expression at once penitent, sheepish and absurd.

"Forgive me, Lucille,” he pleaded, taking her hands In his. The girl found her anger evaporating so rapidly that she could not keep back the tears. "I was a brute, a beast, to believe it of you,” continued John, “but the evidence was so circumstantial, and if I hadn’t received Hilda’s letter tonight—” » "What are you talking about, John?” demanded the girl. "Why, the letter Hilda wrote me, dearest. To think that she should have behaved in such a way. Why, the girl must be mad —” "John!” cried Lucille. “I don’t know what you mean about Hilda writing you letters, but why haven’t you been to see me, and why did you leave word on Wednesday night that you had gone to the theater with a party, without even telephoning me?” She was beginning to weep again. Her feelings overcame her. John clasped her in his arms and tried to comfort her.

"Don’t you know, Lucille?” he asked. "I came here on Wednesday a few minutes earlier than usual, and I —l saw what I thought was you, in the kitchen, in the arms of a stranger." “How dare you! How dare you, John!" "But you had on that blue silk with the lace, and it was impossible to mistake that dress. You know you wore it because I always said I liked it. And Hilda wrote me that she had worn it that night to get even with you for something or other, and had smuggled her young man into the apartment—" But the girl, wild with anger, ran into the kitchen, almost dragging John after her. There was no Hilda, but on the table was an open sheet of paper with writing on it Lucille snatched it up. "Dear Miss Lucille,” it ran, "I guess this evens it all up now and you can have your Martin. Tonight I leave to be-married to my beau. We have a grocery store and ask your esteem patronage. Please send wages as under. Hilda." (Copyright, 1915, by W. G. Chapman.)

“Dear Miss Lucille,” It Ran.