Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1912 — Car Ahead [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Car Ahead

By Harmony Weller

(Copyright. 1912. by Associated Literary Press) George Verner entered a crowded surface car and found the last unoccupied seat. It chanced to be directly behind a very young woman and an infant. Verner attempted to become interested in his paper, but the profile of the girl ahead of him stole his glances with every turn of her head. She was very young, very new to motherhood apparently; the man behind knew this because of the frantic, strained effort she made to keep the child in one position that it might not awake. A more experienced mother would have known that the baby would rest more comfortably in the easy relaxation of her arms. Verner remembered the fearful, breathless clutch with which he had first held his sister’s baby, but gradually that feeling of holding a breakable toy had left him. There was that same fear in the eyes of the young girl ahead of him, and Verner knew that she was living in momentary dread of the child falling to pieces in her arms. He was beglniiing to sense the strain of her tense attitude when the car came to a stop. “Car ahead!” yelled the conductor. The passengers, in various stages of peevishness, gathered themselves and their belongings and prepared to follow the conductor’s bidding. Not so with the woman and the baby. She cast one startled glance at the outgoing passengers, and then her eyes met Verner’s. There was positive tragedy in their depths. Then it was that Verner saw the big suit case on the floor beside her. “How' did she manage to get on the car if she couldn’t get off w r lth a suit case and a baby?” Verner asked himself while he raised his cap and addressed her. “If you will permit me —I will carry—” ’ “Oh—if you would be so kind,” she gasped in a frightened little voice, and before Verner realized it she had

put the baby in bis arms and was about to pick up the suit case. "1 am more used to this,” she said with a half blush. “I can easily take both,” Verner told her as he swung the tiny infant against one big shoulder and took the suit case from her. "Her eyes are decidedly coquettish for a young mother,” was his Inward comment as he helped her into the car ahead. He found it within his consciousness to condemn married, flirts, even though they had shaded gray eyes and one elusive dimple. When he had put her comfortably into another seat in the car ahead she made room for him beside her and sent up a smile into Verner’s eyes. Although he felt himself to be treading on dangerous ground, he accepted the offered seat. His destination was a few blocks beyond and he felt that his heart could not be hopelessly damaged in so short a time. He sighed as he wondered who the man might be who called this little beauty his own.

“You seem perfectly at home with babies,” the girl remarked by way of breaking a more or less awkward silence. "I have three of my own,” Verner 1 told her In a half Jesting manner, and wondered afterward why he wanted to convey that impression. “Oh,” was all the girl said, but her tone was noticeably colder, her attitude more aloof. The girl’s frigidity spurred on the man’s imagination. He talked glibly of a beautiful wife and children whom he had never seen, of a home he had never known. i An Inscrutable smile, not unlike that of the Mona Lisa, hovered over the young woman’s eyes and lips. Verner wondered whether or not she was believing him. A sense of irritation stole over him at the mockery in her eyes, and when his destination drew near he was half glad, half sorry.

"I regret I cannot go on with you and help you when you get off the car,” he said by way of leave taking. “I have a business engagement.” “Thank you very much,” she replied sweetly, “but baby’s father will meet us at the end of the line.” Verner bowed formally and received a cool little nod in response. Nor did he give way to his desire to turn and watch the car as it whizzed off toward the end of the suburban line. The young woman looked regretfully after him; then she sighed as she gazed down at the sleeping baby and drew him with greater tenderness into her arms.

"He is too good looking even for dreams,” she murmured, and whether she referred to the small man in her arms or the big man on the street no one, perhaps not even the girl herself, knew. Another meeting did not occur until some three months later. It was at a dance given by the suburban yacht club. Verner entered the ball room with a stately beauty on his arm. Before they had made one turn of the room he knew that the little mother was among the guests and that she was popular with a number of cavaliers. The stately beauty felt Verner’s arms stiffen around her waist and wondered at his sudden lack of interest in her breezy conversation. She might be a widow, was the thought uppermost in Verner’s mind, but the brilliance of her costume and the existence of the tiny infant practically denied this. Together with his condemnation of married flirts Verner felt Irritated and jealous because of the men who dangled over the girl's dance order. He avoided catching her eye as long as he could, but when she danced so close to him that he saw the mockery in her expression and her nod to him he could only return her greeting. After that Verner found that he was being introduced to her. “The ninth and seventeenth dances are leap year w r altzes, Mr. Verner,” she said, looking laughingly into his eyes. “May I please have both, of them?”

“You may if I may have two others,” he put in quickly. ' She blushed swiftly and handed Verner her card. “Have you a dance left. Miss Gregory?” another moth about the candle questioned the girl. Verner’s startled, interrogative eyes searched the girl’s face, and she laughed. “You are not married—then?” he questioned without regard for the amused listeners. “Not any more than you are, Mr. Verner.” She glanced at him from beneath her lashes? “You know—l didn’t believe, even for a moment, that you had three kiddies.” Verner had the grace to blush. “Just the same,” he told her laughingly, “you deliberately tried to palm that baby off as'yours.” “I did not,” she retorted quickly. “You took it entirely for granted. I was merely carrying my brother’s baby over to my home and somebody helped me both on and off the car. Of course —” she paused and glanced shyly at Verner —“none of us even dreamed of my having to change cars.” “And yet,” he looked deep into her eyes, “it was fortunate —in this case, wasn’t it?” He waited with laughter in his eyes but a compelling note in his voice. Alice Gregory looked up and the dimple came into play. “Perhaps it was,” she said.

If You Will Permit Me, I Will Carry-