Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 238, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1918 — Playing Truant [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Playing Truant

By HILDA MORRIS

•(Copyright, 1818, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) Doria hated Elmville, hated it only as a city-bred girl can hate a country town where she is lonely, overworked and discouraged. She taught the sixth grade in the Elmville school, a very unruly and wearisome sixth grade, and she spent her evenings alone in a little furnished room at the home of the local grocer. There was no one in the whole town whom she could call a friend, a really truly friend with - whom to discuss such things as books and thoughts and longings. Sometimes Doris thought she would burst with the accumulation of .thoughts which needed to be talked over with some one. Once she tried them on the fifth grade teacher, a nice girl fond of crocheting “mile a minute,” but the results were discouraging. As spring came on, touching the hills about Elmville with a mist of green, a bridal veil of dog-wood and flowering “red-bud,” Doris grew almost desperate. She was so- lonely! All those lovely woods and hills and •no one to talk with, no one to help her discover violet patches down by the river, no one to help her hunt for four-leaved clovers — There came a day when Doris did an unprecedented thing. It. was Monday, and a schoolday, but she did not go to school. One hears often enough of little boys and girls playing truant, but teachers —never! Very few people there are who have not some time experienced the desire to do some unprecedented thing, some sensational forbidden like crying out In church or sticking pins into the backs of perfectly respectable people who sit In front of them. Most, of us resist these lmpulses, that is, we grown people do. Children more frequently follow them up with action because of an earnest desire to see what will happen. It was exactly such an impulse that impelled Doris to turn down the road towards the woods Instead of the street that led to the schoolhouse. She had wished to do so a great many other mornings, but now, quite suddenly, she felt an overwhelming desire to know what would happen If she “skipped” school, also a desire to be alone in the woods. It was a beautiful morning. Having cast care aside with a recklessness that was wholly delightful, Doris en-

Joyed It to the utmost. Little birds sang at her as if they understood and approached, flowers bloomed in her path as if they had known she was coming. Overhead the sky was cloudless, blue, the breeze was freighted with fragrance. For an hour or more she wandered there, entirely happy. Then, wearied, she sat down to rest beneath a great oak whose freshly green leaves furnished shelter. Now inaction is always a time for thought, and as Doris sat there a cloud began to gather in the sky above her, also a cloud of misgiving began to darken her mood. What had she done? Here It was half-past ten o’clock, the morning’s school half over, and the sixth grade was without a teacher! She pictured to herself the confusion that must be reigning, the worried principal, the distraction of the other teachers. They would never forgive her. Never. More than that, they would never understand. Why, she might even be dismissed, at once, without that two months more of pay which she sorely needed. She must go back and offer some excuse. Thus the penalty for being grown up. One cannot enjoy stolen pleasures. Would a schoolboy have been overcome with remorse, midway of his happy morning? However, the day’s enjoyment, for Doris was at an end. Already the sky was darkening for an April shower, •nd she started back along the path that she had trod so happily, hurrying.

stumbling, filled with fear of conseBy the time she had reached the road the storm broke, a silver shower which treated her as though she, too, were a thirsty flower. She was quite drenched, and trudged along hopelessly bedraggled, her light mood ended In sodden despair. Oh, why did things always have to end this way? Why did happiness so seldom come to her? Why— The sudden jump of a motor made her jump hastily to the side of the road, her face burning with shame at her sad appearance. Indeed there was cause for her to look ashamed; the motor belonged, to Alden Powers, the richest and most influential young man in Elmville, the only Elmville man who had been to college, and the president of the school board which had hired her. How he would wonder what she was doing here at this hour! Apparently he did wonder, for he stopped. “Why, Miss Evans! You are drenched through ! Surely you are not going to walk Into town In this shower. Let me drive you In.” His tone was quite Imperative, and almost before she knew It Doris fourid herself seated beside him, feeling like the miserable truant she was. But strangely enough he did not ask her about school, he only looked at her a little curiously, with a quizzical smile in his brown eyes. He had known more of Doris than she thought, for daily she had passed his office window on her way to work and he had grown used to watching for her. And this morning she had not come — “This shower will soon be over,” he said cheerfully. “Too bad to have such a beautiful morning spoiled. You are fond of the woods, aren’t you, Miss Evans?” / “Yes.” And almost before she knew it Doris had poured out the whole miserable story to him. It was strange that she should tell Alden Powers, but there was something about him that made her want to fell —something that made her feel that he would understand. “I guess I know how you felt,” he mused when she had finished. “Been there myself. In fact, this very minute I ought to be at work, but something made me—come after you. You see, Doris, I have been lonely, too, and somehow I thought that you would understand; I’ve been wanting a chance to talk with you for so long! Somehow I felt —” What he felt was interrupted, just then, by the fact that the car stopped dead, indeed, it stopped for an hour or more, a precious hour during which they had time to talk over a great many things, things such as loneliness versus love, and the way one could fall In love with people before one knew them at all, and just how each one of them had felt on first beholding the other. At the end of the hour the storm had cleared away, blue skies smiled again, and Alden felt that he could spare a few moments for fussing with his engine. And so, about noon they drove back into town. The sight of the brick schoolhouse on the hill sent a chill of misgiving through Doris, despite her new-found happiness. “Whatever will they say? What can I tell them?” she said. “They’ll never understand. No one but you could understand!" “I’ll fix it up,” he promised easily. “I’ll drive you right around there, and we’ll see the principal.” Just what Alden Powers said to the principal Doris never knew. Doubtless it was something about a stalled car, or a storm which had detained them. At any rate, no word of blame came to her, and strangely enough Doris found that she was treated with greater deference during the remaining two months of the teaching. But perhaps It was not so strange, either, since everyone knew that she was very soon to be Mrs. Alden Powers.

She Wandered There.