Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1916 — His Decision [ARTICLE]

His Decision

“Business must have gone very well today/’ volunteered old Mrs. Thrifty, hanging fondly over her son’s easy chair. “What —eh—oh, yea; business was splendid to —now what have you got me saying mother? Business was wretched today!’’ “But something has surely gone well with you?” “Something has gone exceedingly well, mother. I have decided to get married.” “Why have you kept it secret?’’ “I haven't kept anything secret, mother. I did not decide until today.” “Who is she?’’ “If you had said, ‘Which is she?’ I could have come nearer answering. It is to be either Florence or Alice Halstead. I would also be considering their sister, but that she is already married.” “Those Halstead girls right down there on the next block? Oh, you cannot be serious. They are so frivolous, so flighty. You’ve said it yourself.” “I wronged them. They did impress me as silly, gigling, rattle brained kids; but I saw them at the railway station today, and they changed my opinion of them. A train came in and a woman was brought from it into the station on a stretcher. A man in cheap and patched clothing walked beside the stretcher and carried in his arms a very young baby, which looked as if it might have inherited some of the illness of its mother; its little face was wrinkled and emaciated and pitiful. It looked to be a hundred years old in suffering and —” “Oh, Philip!’’ “Yes and the stretcher was no soon er at rest than out of the great indifferent throng in the station the two Halstead girl§ and their married sister sifted themselves. In spite of the richness of her close fitting skirt the married sister went down to her knees beside the stretcher and slipped her arm beneath the head of the ailing u oman, when Alice rushed away for a glass of water, and Florence took the suffering baby from the arms of its father and dug up a nursing bottle and a can of milk from somewhere In his luggage, and rushed away to goodness knows where and got the bottle sterilized and filled with nourishment —” “Did they do all that Philip! And for some one whom they did not know?” “Yes! Some country doctor had ordered the woman to the city for medical treatment and the husband and father had brought her without making a single arrangement for her reception; but we—they—the girls looked after everything; called an ambulance, arranged to have the woman taken to a sanitarium. They thought of everything except themselves, miss ed their train and most certainly bagged their skirts at the knee ’’ “And what did you do?” “Who me? Absolutely nothing except to arrange for the care of the baby during the illness of the mother.’’ “That was nothing, of course. I am all at sea, Phillip. I have always thought no girl on earth was good enough for you, and here all at once come three girls good enough for the best man that ever lived. Have you no preference?” “None at all, mother, dear; but as one of them is married, and as Florence wears an engagement ring, I may marry Alice if she’ll let me.”