Show 1 uil A THANKSGIVING STORY e f We sat before the fire and talked of our Thanksgiving vacation We were both students far from home and boarding at the same place but Lena was a senior and I only an ignorant freshman From the first day I had admired the studious little girl with the serious eyes and after a time we became excellent friends It was the last night we should spend together before Thanksgiving The thought of going home in the morning made me say “It will be the happiest Thanksgiving I have ever had” Lena smiled to herself at my words I demanded the reason V8It reminds me of a Thanksgiving I had sev- -' era! years ago” “A story! Wait till I lock the door so no one can disturb us” I cried eagerly “Now Lena please tell me a little story about your life I have given you my whole history” “There is not much to my history It was wash dishes and sew for work and read for pleasure before I came to school The first year at college I look stenography and typewriting There was a position promised me for the next winter but I started to school again in the fall to learn what I could before my work began “It was very pleasant to walk through the halls and feel at home to register in a brisk business-lik- e way while the new students looked on with a respectful admiration Yes the second year of college is a glorious year You never knew so much before you never will know as much again I sincerely pitied the poor freshmen One tall boy looked so bewildered with his appl cation card that I asked if I could not help him A moment afterward I was abashed at my boldness but he looked so grateful that I forgot my shyness and we soon I $ n X While he soberly had the card finished thanked me for my trouble I noticed that his face was not handsome and his eyes were of an unnameable color yet kind and honest Heze-kia- h Smith was the name on the card “Lessons began and I almost forgot the incident till one stormy afternoon Mr Smith and I left the building at the same time He asked me to walk under his umbrella Grateful for the salvation of my hat I pretended an interest in his studies We talked about the mud and the rain and the chapel exercises After that it happened very often that we left the halls together and our range of subjects grew a little wider but no higher lie never told me anything about himself except that his mother was dead “At last after the tall boy had taken me to several parties it began to creep into my mind that this ought to be romantic Now 1 had known only a few bojs but from my books I understood exactly how they ought to act especially in a love affair and Mr Smith did not at all fit my idea of a hero Whoever read of a hero with such a name as Ilezekiah Smith? Add to this his plain face and entire lack of sentiment and you will see why I was dissatisSometimes I watched him furtive! and wondered if he had ever tried to write a sonnet One night after he had gone I sat down and cried— actually cried Why couldn’t he be a little more poetic? Why I might as well have had a visit from the tax assessor “Matters stood so when the call came for me to leave school and go to the typewriter it was but the week before Thanksgiving Mr Smith said he hoped I should like my work and thought it would do me even more good than would school He forgot to mention whether it gave him personally any particular pain to fied |