Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1917 — MAKING TIME FLY [ARTICLE]

MAKING TIME FLY

By JANE OSBORN.

JJII had just finished washing dishes and setting things to right in the kitchen and the living room when the clock struck eleven. “Eleven o’clock already I” she exclaimed, looking reproachfully from her work in the kitchen toward the offending timepiece. “Only eleven o’clock,” sighed Jack, who was arranging fishing tackle on the kitchen table. “Goodness! -It does seem as if mealtimes never come here. I think it’s in the air—the air and your good cooking.” 1 Jill placed two watersoaked, small hands squarely in the pockets of her bungalow apron. “Jack Nast, I’m just ashamed of you. Why, you had enough pancakes and sausages for breakfast to feed a large family. Home you wouldn’t think of eating anything but eggs and toast.” Jack looked self-reproach and guilt. “I’m sorry, honey, but Tm as-hungry as a bear. This mountain air is- immense. Maybe in a day or so I wont* 'eat so much. “I’m glad you like my first cooking,” sighed Jill with a weary smile, as she • hurried to the cupboard for flour and sugar for the muffins for luncheon. Jack and Jill Nast were on their first vacation together—that is, excepting the wedding trip of a week or so a few months before, when there had been no thought of anything so rustic as a trip to Jack’s little cabin in the mountains, or anything so mundane as the cultivation of a large appetite. After luncheon they planned a short walk through the woods. While Jill was changing her bungalow working frock for a short khaki costume, Jack carried out the plan that had been brewing in his mind since daybreak. The .clock pointed to five minutes of three. Jack reached up, opened the glass face, and, carefully listening for Jill’s approach, turned the hands ahead to five minutes of four.

’ It was not hard to get the conversation around to the subject of watches. “Qf course there are no tramps or burglars around the shack, but I was thinking that you ought not to leave that watch of yours around,” commented Jack. “Suppose I take it and put it in a safe place foe you.” Jill looked up with a little surprise, and then: “I was thinking exactly the same thing myself—about your watcji. You left it in the bedroom the other day when you went fishing. And, anyway, now that we are away from civilization, why should we keep track of time?” “Yes, why should we?” echoed Jack, delighted that Jill had fallen in so readily with his schemes. “Let’s both put our watches away.” “I’ll take them both right now,” suggested Jill easily. So at the outset of the ramble the watches were rolled into Jill’s handkerchief and slipped into the cartridge pocket on her khaki suit. “Funny how time flies in the woods,” he remarked by five. “I can tell by the shadows that it is about six—almost time for dinner.”

“Oh, you silly man,” squealed Jill. “I’m sure we haven’t been gone an hour. I’m sure I can’t tell anything from the shadows, and I don’t believe you can, either. You’re just trying tc bluff the new wife and make her think you are a regular Indian.” They both smiled, and with one accord started to retrace their steps toward the cabin. Jack stopped to gather some wild strawberries at Jill’s request. He wondered whether she would be surprised when she saw the clock pointing an hour nearer supper time than she supposed. Of course there was this difficulty that had occurred to Jack when he first formulated his scheme for making time fly. By leaving the clock an hour faster it would mean an hour earlier rising time, and In order to hasten meals any more the next day there would have to be another abridgement of the time, which would, of course, be rather difficult in the long run. That was why he made an excuse about going to see the ’possum traps that night after dinner. So Jack walked around the cabin three times in the starlight, and then noiselessly went toward the living room with designs on the clock. But as he was about to turn the knob he saw through the window a figure in white—Jill, to be sure. She heard him and, stopped, and then lighted a candle. “Hello, you up?” he asked, casting a guilty look toward the clock. Jill also looked at the clock. He had noticed it when he went out* It said nine o’clock then, and now it said tefi.

He started in alarm. Then he heard Jill’s nervous laugh. He looked at her and to his surprise she laughed again nervously and whispered. “I’m sorry. Jack. I’ll have to confess. I thought it would take longer for you to fix those traps. That’s why you caught me. You see—you see, I set the clock an hour back when you were gathering berries, so I’d have more time to get supper. It didn’t really seem to help at all, though. I had to set it forward again so we could get up at the right time in the morning.” They stood and looked at each other in the candlelight. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Jack. “We’ll cook the meals together—like good campmates. Then you’ll have time enough in the woods, and you’ll have less cooking to do. Apd we won't fib to each other any more, will we?" And of course Jill promised "No” most emphatically. (Copyright, »17, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) , a. ■ ■ i . .'. -