The Storyteller.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2230, 24 October 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Storyteller.

THE TRI-STATE MEET.

(By Martha Wheeler.) When Gloria Kane, only child of the political boss of a Western State, decided to go to college, she selected Woodbridge partly because it was so far from home. At home she suffering from the notoriety attaching to her father’s name. Not that she believed what his enemies said about him. She knew that Abraham Lincoln had been misrepresented, and she thought that Timothy Kane’s public services put him into Lincoln’s class. Her mother had died at Gloria’s birth, and the girl lavished all her love and worship on her father. It was a Presidential year. AtWoodbridge, on the morning after election day, Jessica Radnor, looking up from a newspaper whose headlines slio was skimming, laughingly in-

quired : “By the way, Gloria, is this Boss Kane any relation of yours? He s from the same Stale, I see?” “Mv father is Mr. Timothy Kane.” Gloria spoke the name with the air of a patriot hinging a banner to the breeze.

“Oh!” murmured Jessica. The door opened and Susy Pratt rushed in.

“Say, Gloria,” she began, “when your speaking of that disreputable character it’s just as well to put on the soft pedal. Out in the hall just now one of the boys heard your voice, and asked me how Boss Kane managed to get solid with the coeds. I told him w r e wouldn’t have a man like that on the premises, and—” Jessica shot a warning glance -atSusy Pratt. “You don’t understand. It’s her father Gloria was referring to.” The warning glance was lost.

“And her father has the same name as that Democrat that’s mixed up with every crooked deal out West? Well, Gloria, you have my sympathy! Can’t you make your father appeal to the Legislature to change his name ? The complication must he awful, and with that other man at large and the newspapers; full of him.” She laid her hand caressingly on Gloria’s shoulder. Gloria, her head raised high and the color flaming in her cheeks, flung off Susy’s hand and faced her like a queen. “You leave my father alone! He s the best man on earth. These vile

newspapers—” Her voice broke on the word and she fled from the room. In.consternation the girls gazed alter her, and then stared at one 'another helplessly. For a moment no one spoke. Susy sank down on a divan and buried her .face in lier hands; suddenly she looked up and solemnly declared: “The next time I come to earth I’m going to be deaf and dumb!” This broke the spell. One or two ol the girls giggled nervously at the picture Susy’s words called up, and then all of them tried to comfort lier. “You didn’t mean to, they reiterated, till Susy turned on them. “Of course, I didn’t mean to! I wouldn’t have done it for anything in the world, but it’s done, all the same. I have broken Gloria’s heart. That girl just idolises her father. Kano isn’t an unusual name, you know. From what she said I took it for granted that lie ivas a philanthropist, and never once suspected him for that natorious Boss Kane.”

“But you can apologise,” insisted somebody. Susy slowly shook her head. “I! I had copied her best gown I could apologise, but in a case like this She flung out her hands in a dispairdng gesture. Thereafter Gloria avoided the girls as much as possible and devoted herself to her college work but in declamation she was exceptional. When she stepped upon the stage at the Saturday morning rhetorical exercises, she left behind the shyness that ordinarily affected her. She was perfect at home, her presence commending, and with the first words she spoke listeners recognised that here was a born orator.

Woodbridge stood much in need of timber of this sort. One hundred years before, the university had inaugurated the Tri-State Meet, which remained the foremost oratorical event of northern New England, but Woodbridge herself, the oldest as well as the smallest of the six universities in the group, and never since antebellum days carried off a prize. Now, academic wiseacres predicted that in the tall young coed from the Pacific slope she had, at last, a champion to win new laurels for her brow. By unanimous vote of the committee, Gloria Kane was chosen to represent Woodbrodge at the approaching meet. For weeks before the contest the whole college watched Gloria with the anxious scrutiny that in other communities is bent upon the football team. Here there was no squad of stalwart giants to share the responsibility, here thereafter® no substitutes ■who, mayhap at the eleventh hour, might turn defeat into victory; everything depended on one girl. Coeducation had never been popular ttt Woodbridge, but whatever chagrin

the male students may have felt in the committee’s choice was, for the moment, sunk in the larger claim ol college spirit, while to the girls the honor conferred upon them for. the first time, was a triumph in itself.

‘Oh, Gloria, win, win!” cried Susy .Pratt. “Win, if its only to beat the boys!”

“I have a better reason than ti.ac,” said Gloria. .“My father is coming to hear me speak.”

The day set for the Tri-Stale Meet was ushered in by the worst storm of tlio winter. Fortunately, the contestants had arrived the day before; but no no all the guests’, and anxiety prevailed leet those - from a distance should not be in time. This anxiety changed into something graver when, early in the afternoon, news came of an accident to the Montreal express. Details were meagre, hut it was said that many lives were lost. Later the rumor was verified, but by this time the blizzard had cut down the wires, and no list of the dead and wounded was obtainable. Gloria’s father was due in Woodbridge by this train.

As soon as Susy heard the news she went straight to Gloria. The Western girl was strangely tranquil and dry-eyed, but one look at her face told Susy that she knew. With a cry Susy threw her arms around Gloria, and, stumbling in the darkness, led her to a seat. “Oh, if we could only do something!” moaned Susy. “There’s nothing to do but wait,” said Gloria.

Susy nodded mutely, and there fell between them a sudden, conscious silence that was eloquent. At last the visitor plucked up all her courage: “I told my father about what I said the day after the election, and he declared that I was an ignorant girl who read nothing but the headlines of partisan newspapers. Public men, he said, were often unfaily attacked, and people who really knew your father’s character .admired and honored him. I wanted to tell you this before, but I was afraid tio bring up the matter after wounding you so cruelly. I did explain to all the other girls, and they understand.” She paused a moment and then pleaded: '‘Mayn’t I sit here with you this evening, Gloria?” Gloria lifted her white face. “Do you think I am going to desert ” she asked very quietly. “Mv father was never a quitter. He wa-s always at the front, fighting for what he believed was right, and his daughter must not shirk. Tlow long this suspense will last no one can tell, but the best way to meet”—there was a treacherous throb in Gloria’s voice—“what is coming is to do my best tonight for Woodbridge, as my father expected me to do.” A log in the fireplace fell gently; the room was very still, in contrast to the storm outside. Susy rose to go, for she divined that Gloria wished to be alone.

In the intermission of the evening exercises, when three of the- six speakers had been heard, the hall buzzed with talk. Gloria’s place was fifth on the programme. Unmindful of the voices all around her, she sat staring straight ahead, when someone tapped her on the shoulder and she heard the words:

“Miss Kane, you're wanted right

away.” The messenger was a stranger to Gloria; she could not see liis face, and his tone gave no clue as to what the message meant. As in a dream she followed hint through the crowded hall; the door seemed miles away, and receded further with every step she took. At last she reached it, and, just outside she gave a little lurch and fell into her-father’s arms.

Of the fourth speech Gloria did not hear a word. She was laughing and crying over her father in the anteroom, and getting peacemeal the story of his miraculous escape from death. Timathy Kane had not escaped unharmed. His back was badly wrenched, but against tlie doctor’s orders, with injuries unattended to, he had insisted on continuing the journey to Woodbridge. Presently the messenger stuck his head inside the door. •

“They’re waiting for you now, Miss Kano,” he said. The girl looked at her father. “I am ready!” That Gloria Kane’s father was a passenger by the ill-fated train was known to many in the audience when the exercises began. The news of his arrival spread in her absence from the hall, and when she returned, her father limping by her side, the Woodbridge sympathisers burst into- a cheer. The presiding officer advanced to the front of the platform and raised, a warning hand.

‘‘There must be no demonstration,” he declared.

Gloria’s natural gift of eloquence was to-night enriched by the experiences- through which she had just passed. In her voice was something that went home' to every, heart. She was the representative of Woodbridge 'university but in the last ■analysis she was speaking to her father, speaking for him alone who had always beep her aijd who

had so narrowly escaped death on his way to her. It was intoxicating—this intense stillness that waited on her words, this rapt- gaze from the sea of faces in which only one stood out distinctly, this consciousness that she dominated the vast audience; but it made her humble, too, and when her work was done and the thunder, of applause had ied away sin;- slipped her hand into her father’s and two big tears trickled down her cheeks.

The pent-up feeling of the audience burst forth when the chairman announced the verdict that the prize in the contest had been won by Woodbridge University. Through the excited throng Susy Pratt at last made her way to Gloria.

“Won’t you introduce mo to your lather?” The slow color suffused Susy’s face. “The girls delegated me to tell him how glad we are that he is here.”

“Thank you, Susy,” said Gloria “That’s tliei best of all!”