Show ABSENTMINDED STWANKLER One of Callipers Oldtime Friends In Storkville Centre Vt New York Sun 1 suppose said Colonel Calliper that the most absentminded man that ever lived was my old friend Stephen Storkville who formerly lived in Storkville Center Vt Stephen was a dreamy sort of a chap forever dreaming dream-ing dreams and hoping hopes and seeing see-ing romance in the most commonplace things happy in a faroff sort of way with every breath he drew but absentminded ab-sentminded very He would often forget when he started out what he had gone for and when he was bound for home it was a common thing for him to walk past his own house without realizing Its existence But after awhile It would come to him that he had I walked past it or that he was in someway I some-way out of his latitude and then hed wake up and keep awake long enough to get home and get inside the door Stephen was married but childless He and his wife were the greatest friends that ever were When he would come in after ono of these experiences in walking by he always used to ask her threequarters poking but with a little lit-tle touch of seriousness in it toi Well Martha is this where I live And Mrs Twawnkler would say very smilingly but with a little kind of flutter at her heart too Yes Stephen this is where you I live and then Mr Twawnkler would take off his hat and stay awhile Mrs I Twawnkler used to say to some of her friends that she thought if Mr Twawnkler should lay his head down somewhere hed be sure to come away and forget It but she was careful never to say anything of this sort to Stephen She was almost oversensitive in her patient thoughtful care for him and however often his absentmindedness absentminded-ness was brought to view she never joked him about i but once One day when Stephen had come in I after going by and said in his usual partjoking partserious way Well Martha is this where I live Mrs Twawnkler answered by some freak of the mind perhaps a sort of involuntary routine invol-untary protest against longcontinued No sir I dont think it is Upon that Stephen looking sort of dazed as though he had got into the wrong house by mistake turned and walked toward the door Mrs Twawnk leI stood dumb partly frightened at the thing she had unwittingly done not angry but put out too to think that Stephen could think even for a moment or in the densest fit of absent mindedness mind-edness that anything of that sort that she might say could be aught but a joke But Stephen kept going and before she knew it he was outside the door and when she came to herself as she did then and rushed to the door to call him he was not to be seen anywhere any-where And do you know he never came back for thirty years Never lr Twawnkler stayed right there in the house waiting for him and grew old there that Is old as far as gray hair could make an old woman of her but otherwise she kept her youth remarkably remark-ably well She said she must wait for Stephen so he would know her when he came back And he did come back They had never heard a word of him where he went or what he did or anything about him at all but one day thirty years after he had gone away absentminded Stephen Twawnkler walked down the streetand on past his house He was a grayhaired gray bearded man now but he was just the same absentminded Stephen Twawnk leI He turned in the old way and walked back to his house and walked in and saw somebody waiting for him Well Martha he said as he advanced ad-vanced toward her quite in his usual way is this where I live Yes Stephen said this grayhaired woman her face as calm and smiling as ever this is where you liveS |