Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1920 — All in a Lifetime [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

All in a Lifetime

By VINCENT G. PERRY

<CopyrUbt, 1»1», br th* McClur* N*w»paper Syndicate.) It is a most horribti sensation to bo in a big city, a stranger, with not a friend among the thousands that throng the streets, battle In the business world, take In the amusements or sit around the hearthstone of some city home. Who hasn’t been home--sick —that gnawing feeling at the heart that Is worse than any other sickness under the sun? That is just what was ailing Leo Colbert as he sat before a smoldering grate fire in his newly acquired suite at the largest hotel in the city. It was the first time he had had a breathing spell from the new work that had given him such a great opportunity and carried with it a salary

that a year before would have looked like a fortune. Oh, yes, he had won success, he was fast on the road to fame and fortune. Somehow as he sat thinking it over the glamour of it ail palled. What was success after all? Wasn't he much happier among his friends in his own home city at a salary half the size of his present one? he asked himself. Then the germs of homesickness got in their real work. For half an hour he battled with them. Why not give It all up and go back to his old position? The doors were wide open for him. There is where the malady reached the crisis. He was too strong for it, the fighting Colbert blood won out. He would make the best of it, he would stick it out, you bet he would I Surely in that big city there was some one he knew, some one with a cheery word of welcome and an outstretched hand of friendship. He located the telephone directory and turned the aimlessly. What would he have given to go to the telephone and call Main 9678 and hear his sister’s voice answer!

out that Main 9678 was In another city many miles awly; too far to get a speedy long-distance message through. Was there a Main 9678 in that city? For the lack of something else to do he went to the telephone and tried the number on the operator. He waited for a second and then became excited. The operator had rung a Une, the buzz had been quite audible. “Hello!” It was not his sister’s voice bitt it was almost as sweet.

“Is that you, Jessie?” He khew it was not, but he could not hang up the receiver wlthoui making a bluff at “wrong number.” “Yes; who Is speaking?" came the surprising answer in an Inviting tone. “Leo Colbert, from back home,” he half gasped. “From Wishright?” This time her voice pitched to delighted surprise. “You bet,” he replied, although he had never heard of Wishright before. “How are you, Leo, and how is everybody? I am just dying to hear news of home." “I’m great and everybody’s fine." He seemed just as eager to tell her the pews as she was to hear It. “Is Tiny alive, and how Is Mnrtha Laster’s rheumatism? Oh, Leo, tell he quickly." "No, poor Tiny is dead and Martha is no So on. right on down the Ust. she

asked questions about people he haa never heard of before, and he an-, swered them as If they were all life-1 long friends of hfs. Of course, she thought he was some Ae else, but he was not going to mlsy talking to her because of a dlttle thing like that. “Can’t I come up and seo you?” he chimed In during a short hill in the questioning. “We can talk things over so much better then. Certainly, come. Where are you?’ He told her the name of his hotel. Strangely enough It was only a short distance from her boarding house. It was just an easy walk, and he would be there In time to take her to the theatre. As Leo stood at the door of the address she had given him his heart sank a trifle. This Jessie would know at once that he was a stranger to her, mid would have nothing further to do with him. Perhaps he had been foolish to spoil It all by calling personally. That voltfe had attracted him, however, and be made up his mind right there that it would take some rebuffing to squelch his aspirations for its owner’s friendship. “You have changed almost as much as I have,” she told him, as she unburdened smile after smile. “I would hardly have known you." “You have changed too,” he smiled back, “but I would have known you anywhere. Oh, Jessis, you are too wonderful for anything!” Right there he learned something —this Leo Colbert that slie had known was the first lover she had ever had —her blush told him that, and somehow he liked the thought of it. Cleverly he avoided topics that might unmask him. She was interested in other things besides the old folks at home, though, and so they had a most enjoyable evening, and he left with an invitation to come back the next night. It was a strange courtship they launched out on. After he had been calling on Jessfc for three months Leo realized that he was very much in love with her, and he hai guessed correctly that her feelings coincided very much with his. Her friendship had filled so much of his life he had not had chance to think over the deception he had been playing, but now that he had reached the point where tje was going to ask her to become his wife the thought troubled him. After all, was it .he Jessie loved, If she did love? Was it not this other Leo he had masqueraded as who had won her afltectlpns? The thought of a rival frightened him. * If the other fellow won out he would go back to loneliness, back to his life of drudgery—to what he. had been pleased to call fame and fortune. Oh, no, he would not I He could not stand it. If Jessie loved this other man, theft-it was back to the old home city for him—back to his little two-by-four job, with nothing but hard work and little pay to look forward to. There was only one thing to do—confess to Jessie and leave his fate in her hands. Jessie listened calmly while he poured out his tale like a repentant schoolboy. He was almost on his knees to her, too, but she brought him to his feet In time. “I have known it all along,” she smiled. “I was bluffing, too. My namq isn’t Jessie, and I never beard of a Leo Colbert uatil you told me your name over the telephone. Wishrlght* does, not exist, and those people I asked you about and you knew so much about never lived as far as I know, I was homesick and lonely, too, that night, so I was ready to listen to any voice that had a friendly note In it. It was all in a lifetime, I thought, so I let you come. I was terribly afraid at first, but now I know-it was all for the best." “And there isn’t a Leo Colbert that you love?” he asked, hardly iible to bellevp his ears. “Oh; yes there is,” she smiled into his face. “I ain in his arms now.”

His Heart Sank a Trifle.