Mrs. Judson
Mrs. Judson was a fine looking woman.
Her maiden name was Clucas.
Her father was a druggist.
She married a man named Sabin when she was about eighteen.
He traveled for a candy manufacturing concern.
She loved Simon Sabin very dearly. He was 5 feet 1/2 inches tall, and weighed 160 pounds. He wore a black mustache.
They seemed to get along together all right. He was on the road a lot.
One day Simon Sabin went away on a trip, and did not came back. He did not even write his wife a letter. She liked to get letters, too.
There were various rumors about Simon Sabin. He was reported seen from time to time in this city and that. But the years went on and no definite word came from him, and many people decided that Simon Sabin must have met with foul play.
They sympathized deeply with his poor wife.
She bore up as well as could be expected.
After a lapse of twenty years, Mrs. Sabin became Mrs. Judson. She married Jeremiah Judson, the principal of the East Side High School. He was a fine man, quiet, and studious, and he often took Mrs. Judson to the movies.
They were extremely happy. Mrs. Judson loved the movies.
One day Simon Sabin came back to Our Town. He had gray hair, and his mustache was now gray, and his teeth were bad. He looked seedy.
He said he had been away on an unusually long trip, but that he was glad to get back home. The candy manufacturing company had failed during his absence, and not many people remembered Simon Sabin, but he did not mind.
He hurried to Mrs. Judson’s house. She was greatly surprised to see him, especially as she had been going along thinking Simon Sabin was dead. She recalled that she had not bothered to get a divorce from Simon Sabin before marrying Jeremiah Judson.
This complicated the situation, and everybody wondered what Mrs. Judson would do.
She listened a few minutes to Simon Sabin telling her how glad he was to be home, then she picked up a broom, and struck him over the head with it, and continued striking him until Simon Sabin broke into a run.
Mrs. Judson followed him as far as her gate, and got in a few extra good belts at Simon Sabin with the broom handle, and he kept running until he was out of the city limits. He has never since returned.
Most people said that Mrs. Judson did exactly right, although some of the ladies in Our Town said that she should have at least invited Simon Sabin in for a cup of tea, if only to find out where he had been all this time.