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Show 8 IMAGINATION 1 1 By ALICE KNIGHT. Ned Barnes and his classmates were holding an indignation meeting, at which Ned seemed to have by far the greatest grievance. They had just left .their English classroom where the professor had startled them by announcing the fact that they must write a short story for the next day. "He has no right to do it," said Ned. "This is a course in critical writing and not narration." "You're right, old chap," said his friend Dick, "and it sure is harder to write a love story than to toss off a criticism, but I suppose we'll have to do it." "Thank goodness, he didn't specify i it had to be a love story." "No, but that's about the easiest, link's you write a thrilling adventure story." "Well, It's all right to write about adventures if you ever had any, but I'm not going to write a lot of ridiculous ridicu-lous lies. I couldn't do it anyway, I tell you. Everybody always said I had no more imagination than a cat." The next morning in the English class, instead of seeing a frowning and gloomy Ned Barnes, his friends saw a beaming countenance which still remained beaming when the professor pro-fessor said "We will begin by reading Barnes' story. And to an eagerly interested in-terested audience he read the following: fol-lowing: "The train from New Hampshire has just drawn into Boston as it has a thousand times before. But today it is all different for there is one little passenger who has never seen Boston, or indeed any other city. Her expression expres-sion of eager curiosity and childish delight attracts us at once. To look at her sweet and innocent face, one would never suspect that she was deceiving her poor old aunt in the belief that she was spending the day with a friend in the next town in order that she might slip away to the magic city of Boston for a few hours. Just a few short hours, that was the only cloud on her horizon ; just a few short hours, but she dare not stay longer. But perhaps that would be long enough, and she clutched her little hand still more closely over something that she had held in the palm of her hand ever since she left home. We would love to see what it is, but it is evidently very precious, for she is not willing to let go for a minute. We will follow her through the station and listen to her timid request for information. The mysteries myster-ies of the elevated and subway seeming seem-ing to be unfathomable, she decides to walk, and 15 minutes later she is standing before a millinery window, -wide-eyed and breathless. Surely she must be dreaming. Such wonderful creations never existed outside of Fairyland. One in particular took her fancy. It was large and droopy and fluffy, with the dearest little forget-me-nots. Did I tell you her eyes were as blue as the heavens above and her cheeks as pink as the roses in an old New England garden. Surely it would be becoming. With a little flutter of her heart and a tighter clasp of her little hand on her imprisoned secret, she entered the shop. If Boston was new to iter, certainly she was new to Boston. Her fresh beauty and simplicity aroused the jaded interests of even the shop girls and they vied with each other in waiting on her. First she tried on the forget-me-not hat in the window. It was all that her heart craved for, but true to the eternal feminine, she must try on every other hat she saw just to make sure. Finally, after gloating over all the wonders she decided on her first choice. When it was presented pre-sented to her in a box so big she could scarcely carry it, she thanked the clerk for her kindness and started to go away. "Wait a minute, my dear. You have not paid for it yet." "Paid for it! Oh, I thought " A look of embarrassment and then a deep flush spread over her face. "Oh, T must be in the wrong store." Slowly, almost regretfully, she opened open-ed her hand and gave the clerk the crumpled paper she had carried for hours in her hand. "Will you tell me where that store is, please?" The clerk, at first amused, and just as quickly ashamed of her amusement, amuse-ment, read their own last Sunday's advertisement, HATS GIVEN AWAY, Bewilderingly beautiful. Charmingly simple. Daringly dashing. Delightfully demure. All kinds to suit all tastes. In a daze the girl listened to the clerk's gentle and sympathetic explanation ex-planation of the wicked city's exaggerations, exag-gerations, but it is doubtful if she understood anything except that she had lost her hat. Completely disillusioned, disillu-sioned, she left the shop. Two big tears gathered in her eyes and blurred blur-red everything. She did not even see tile aproarhing " Just as Ibe story is reaching the iniere-ting part, th- professor is tailed away for a few minutes. A st-rm of exclamations greet Ned. siu-h as "Oh. no. You wouldn't write a love story." "Well, my description didn't do her .justice, and neiih-T does this." And he drew a snapshot shyly from his pocket, "but you'll all have a chance to judge for yourself, for if old Aunt Meiiiiable or Ilenzibah, or whatever her name is, will iriv- her consent, she will be at our dance next week." . c.iivr1;:. !?r.'. McOere N-.'u sp.iper Syn- |