Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, September 01, 1913, Image 5
A Girl s Fear of
“Old-Maidism”
i The Last Day “*■ By nell brinkley ^ j
The Manicure
i i •
, = Z /£2s
Lady
By BEATRICE FAIRFAX.
Dear Miss Fairfax:
I am 25 years old, a trained
nurse. I have been nursing a
woman for six months, and her
son has fallen in love with me.
He wants to marry me; he is very
rich and would give me every
thing. I am not in love with him,
but feel kindly toward him. Ought
I to let this chance go? I may
never have another one like it,
and what if I never fall really in
love? Won’t I be sorry that I did
not'grasp this chance before it
was too late? I don’t want to be
an old maid. • PERPLEXED.
O H, for goodness sake, “Per
plexed,’’ w T here do you live and
what sort of people do you
know—to talk about hating to be an
old maid? Why, there aren’t any sucn
things any more, didn’t you know
that?
Old maids went out of existence
when the bachelor girls came in—look
around you a little, use your eyes
and ears. Think for yourself; don t
keep repeating over some silly phrase
you’ve let someoro else get into your
head.
You’ve seen a bit of the ♦world, or
ought to have see j some of it, in your
business. Who’s the woman you are
sorriest for on earth—a woman you
know, I mean, not one you’ve reaj
about or seen in some play? Is it an
“old maid” making her own living,
Idling her own peaceful, happy life,
or \ er married sister, with an indif-
fere\( husband, three children and
not a day in 'the year or an hour to
call her own?
Come right down to common sense
now—who looks the youngest, the
married women you know or the “old
maids,” as you call them?
Which has the most money to
spend, which travels the most, which
bas the best time altogether? Lo >k
fv4 yourself now and see what you
shall see.
Little Mrs. Somebody there, in the
flat above yours—her husband drinks
a little. Mrs. Nobody there in the
flat across the hall, her husband is
pleasant to you when you meet him
on the stairs: you can hear him
growling at his wife the minute he
gets inside the door. Little Mrs.
What of It down the hall, her hus
band is too good lo king, he spends
all his money on clothes and lets his
wife look like a rag bag; you look
younger and happier this very minute
than any of these ordinary everyday
■women. Why don’t you have sense
enough to realize it and be grateful?
Marriage is the finest, happiest,
best thing in the world, when it is
the right marriage. When it is the
. wrong one or the merely halfway'
right one, the old maid has the best
of the bargain every day in the year.
Love is the one thing that makes
marriage possible, not respect, not
Admiration not tolerance not grat
itude—just old-fashioned foolish,
blind, unreasonable love. If you
haven’t got that stay an old maid
as long as you live and be glad you
had sense enough to do it. Why
haven’t you waked up to the fact
that the majority of the old maids
spend half of their time pitying the
married women and the other half
lending them money to make up back
payments on the grocery bills so they
can get new hats and things? Who
goes to the seaside in August; who
has little runs down to Coney or
over to Manhattan Beach? Who has
the latest hat and the newest things
in gloves? Who wears the neatest
boots and goes to the best' restau
rants? Sister Sallie, the old maid
with her own bank account and
her own friends and her own good
times.
Who stays at home with the sick
baby? Who cooks the dinner over
a hot gas plate? Who turns last
year’s frock and mends up her old
gloves because “John is feeling poor
this month?” Sister Mary, the mar
ried woman.
If Sister Mary loves her husband
and Sister Mary’s husband loves her,
she’s better off than all the old maids
on earth: but if Sister Mary just
married Brother John to “get a home”
and stop being an old maid, she’s so
much worse off than Sistbr Sallie
that it almost makes me cry to think
$bout her at all.
Bid the young man good-by. “Per
plexed.” pa ok your little valise, tie on
your little bonnet and go on. down
the road alone, till you meet the right
man: then you won’t need anybody’s
Aflvice about what to do and when to
do it.
"■’■"Vi’
“All the long vacation days together are not so sweet as this—the LAST winged day.”
Nell Brinkley Says
A UTUMN, red leaves in her sultry hair, is leaning to the
Earth. Already the “quaking asr>” in the far West is
turning to thin, fine gold—the oak in the soberer East
is changing from green to dusky red—under the magic of
her hand.
Women-folk are dreaming of their Winter frocks—
“haus-fraus” of their coal and hickory logs-—the first smoke
of Fall-leaf burnings will curl §oon and spread in fragrant
haze through the woods and suburban streets. Little kids
will soon be kicking a big, brown ball instead of pitching a
little white one—lovers of the sea are lingering long and
swimming hard in his keen arms, knowing that soon they
will be ice—and the city, the great core, is reaching a thou
sand hands and grabbing back her workers who have spread
wide and far.
For vacation days are going!
Already at country station, sad brown boys are climbing
aboard trains, with sad, brown girls (girls are the lucky
things—however it is they usually can stay longer than the
fellows) on the platform. The sad, brown boy has his city
clothes on—with a tight white collar that looks pallid against
the bronze of his neck—his duck hat is in his trunk, and his
stiff town hat torments his sunburnt forehead.
The sad, brown girl is still in her heelless sneakers—
and middv and naked head. Pretty soon she, too, will be in
patent-kids with silver buckles tailored and covered of head
with her browned cheeks turned to the city. Every Summer
hotel—the shores of the gray sea here, and the shores of the
raw-blue sea in the West; piney woods in the Rockies; lakes
in New England; country towns in North and South and East
and West are GOOD-BY places now.
On the sand-dune thev have their last day. There are a
million things to say—and they say nothing! The sea is very
still, and a land wind blows her hair in little, ripply banners,
whips his tie and lifts the tawnv coat of her collie. The
gulls scream and sail against the keen blue of the sky. And
all the time the sea lisps in a little line of lather on the sunny
sand. The dog’s brown eyes are miserable. The man’s gray
ones are blank with despair. The girl’s are misty and absent.
The hours go like swift-sliding w’ater. And, oddly enough
—this their last day to laugh and love and fill with all the de
lights they find in one another—is singularly empty.
They touch hands little, their tongues are tied, his gavety and
clever tongue that she adores go suddenly back on him. He
is very dull! Her tenderness—her alert little brain—are
quite gone aw'ay. She is very stupid!
And pretty soon the wine-like light of the sunset dyes all
the world in claret—the girl shivers a little and the man
clears his throat and says in a stranger’s voice, “Had we bet
ter go?”
And the last day is over.
By WILLIAM F. KIRK.
T 7II, FRED Is In pretty soft tip
VV home now, George," said
* * the Manicure Lady. "He
has wrote a new song success, and
that maker'two daisies he has put
over the plate. Tou remember I was
telling you about the other ballad.
Gone Reyond Recall?* Well, he has
wrote a new ballad that he thinks Is
going to make him a small fortune,
and I wouldn’t be surprised If it did.
The name of it Is 'Her Name Is Sel
dom Mentioned, If at All,’ and the
gink that Is publishing It told my
brother yesterday that It ought to go
grand. The old gont is getting so he
even pats Wilfred on the back, which
a sure treat for my poor brother,
who was never used to no gentler
voice from father than the voice of a
skipper on the Great I,akes."
“What makes you so sure he la
going to make money on a song with
a name like that’.”’ asked the Head
Barber
"Oh. I Just can't explain It,” re
plied the Manicure Lady, "but I have
a kind of a preposition that It will,
one of them hunches that comes to
us sometimes. I think that's what
you call it—'preposition' or 'admoni
tion,' or something like that. Any
how. I told Wilfred not to sell the
song for no small figure.
The music sounds kind of like the
wailing of the winds in some of them
tall trees that grows near a lake, arid
It fits the words grand. If you want
to listen, George, I will sing the first
verse and choru „ kind of low, before
some fresh customer horns In and
spoils It. How do you like this:
"A handsome young attorney was a-
settlng on a chair
Within his sweetheart's homo one
winter night.
His love for that young lady he
wanted to declare.
While all them lights was shining
gay and bright.
"I’ll tell to you a secret first," the
maiden fair did say:
"This picture of my sister we keep
hid;
And ere I'll be your bride, I think I
shall decide
To tell you what my sister dear has
did:
. K.'s'.S'.ifcj
Choruat
"Her name Is seldom mentioned, If at
all:
She ran away from home one win
ter day.
She had Intended leaving In the fall,
But waited till her love could draw
his pa*y.
They're married, but they didn’t ask
the folks,
And so on us they never, never call.
She should not have went away, upon
that winter day;
Her name Is seldom mentioned. If
at all."
“It sounds like a lot of other mush
songs about broken hearts," said the
Head Barber. "But I wouldn’t be sur
prised If It sold big. It ain't the good
stuff that goes nowadays ’’
"I like your nerve,” said the Mani
cure Lady. "If Wilfred heard that
you said them words, he would come
down here and mop the floor with
your map. That's the last poetry 1
am ever going to recite to a mutt like
you."
"Good." declared the Head Barber.
"I'll remember that promise on
Thanksgiving Day."
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
C&I
By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
One of the Greatest Mystery Stories Ever Written
Love's Young Dream
T HERE are many hot spots in love
letters when love is new, but
after a time—Just before the
marriage—there are only two: At the
beginning, and Just before the signa
ture.
No girl should allow a young man
to call on her oftener than three
times a week, even though she is en
gaged to him. Men get tired of the
same kind of pie if they have it too
often, and a man’s heart is cut out
en the same plan as his stomach, only
smaller.
If lovers do anything that is amus
ing. don't restrain a desire to laugh
through fear of hurting their feel-
ngs. Though you laugh so loud you
awaken the baby in the next block,
the lovers sitting cn the same bench
with you will not hear you.
It often happens that after mar
riage the word “love” has the same
effect as a whiff of cooking after one
has had too much breakfast.
There was a time when a girl who
was disappointed in love pined away
for at least six months, and felt
momentary twinges for six months
longer, hut of late years an empty
heart is as easily relieved of its dis
tress as an empty stomach
All married women look as if they
had resolved: That love is pne thing
and matrimony another.
Before a girl marries she worries
that folks may be saying shg is so
unattractive she can't get a husband,
and after she is married she worries
that they may be thinking she Jumped
at the first chance.
The girl in love with the office boy
has a greater opinion of his business
ability than the wife of the manager
has of her husband’s. The girl is
NUT married to the office boy!
(Copyright, 1913. by Anna Katharine
Green.)
TO-DAY’S INSTALLMENT.
“With all my efforts I have but suc
ceeded in gaining but the barest out
line of these days, which must have
been so full of emotion for this broken-
down but still loving and unsatisfied
woman. That she did see her more than
once at this time is evident from words
she let fall in the letters she wrote to
this friend of whom I have before
spoken. But that she broke her oath
by speaking to the child we have no
proof, nor is it to be presumed she did,
though the temptation must have been
great at times, especially when sha
came upon her alone, as she must have
done more than once. We have even
the record of a day when, after a walk
of miles, she came to the house where
Mrs. Gretorex was living, only to ob
serve her daughter driving away from
the door in a carriage. Though she had
no right to be disappointed, and though
she had often taken the same journey
without any other row f ard than a sight
of the windows behind which her child
was supposed to be setting, she felt
herself strangely unnerved by this in
cident, and only realized what a spec
tacle she was making of herself, when
she beheld the passersby turn and look
at her as she stood there wringing her
hands and moaning feebly to herself.
Then she was frightened and, turning
fled away, only to come back again in
the evening, or when her expectations
being less, her disappointment could be
more easily hidden. Meanwhile, with
out special pride or satisfaction, she saw
Mildred advance in mind and improve
in a thousand ways.
“She loved her and leaned on her, and
in time profited by her earnings to
the extent of owing her very sustenance
to her; but her deepest thoughts, her
deepest longings, were for the proud and
dainty Genevieve, who, like as not*,
passed her with a stare of haughty in
quiry, or that worse aspect of utter in
difference, which would be most natu
ral under the circumstances. To see
her at her side, to hear her speak the
word mother, was w r orth the sacrifice
of her existence: and when both girls
reached the estate of womanho y, and
she beheld one toiling with uncomplain
ing affection to supply her failing health
with the comforts she needed, it was
not on her account she summoned up
strength for those long walks through
the city streets, but to catch a glimpse
of that other one, riding by in her
carriage in an atmosphere of wealth
and fashion that must have almost
overwhelmed the poor woman. The ex
treme likeness between the sisters add
ed to this effect and was the reason
perhaps why she never took Mildred
with her on these expeditions, even after
she grew so feeble that she often tottered
in the streets and had to sit down on
stoops to rest herself. And did Mildred
know the secret of her mother’s con
duct and frequent despairs? Though no
account is given of when or where the
revelation was made, there are words
scattered through these same letters
which show that the less favored child
had moments of rebellion against the
sp! -*dor and love which surrounded her
more fortunate sister, though she never
allowed her feelings to interfere with
her labors or the ever increasing care
with which she surrounded her mother.
“And so the days went by, and the
moment came which changed all their
lives and led. in some strange and as
yet uncomprehended way to the tragedy
in which we are specially interested. I
allude to the instant when Mrs. Far
ley broke her oath and the silence of
years and informed Miss Gretorex of
the falsity of her relationship to the
woman she called mother, and her true
relationship to herself and the girl who
had solicited her custom and demanded
her patronage. It took place through
Mildred, and I am disposed to think in
Miss Gretorex’s room. But my details
on this subject are very meager, ow
ing to the fact that Mrs. Farley wrote
but one letter after this period and that
a very disjointed and unsatisfactory
one. Her end was near, and beyond
wild expressions of thankfulness that
she had been at last allowed to clasp her
darling Genevieve in her arms, there is
little to enlighten the recipient or us.
But we can surmise that in connection
with what Mrs. Cameron has told us of
her first meeting with the youthful
dressmaker, came that dressmaker’s
startling revelation of their relation
ship, followed by an appeal which final
ly brought the wealthy young lady to
the poor widow's bedside.
“For more than one person at Mrs
Olney’s boarding house remembers the
day when a private carriage drove up
to the house and an elegant lady,
closely veiled, descended and made her
way without inquiry to Mrs. Farley’s
room, with the ostensible purpose of
having a dress fitted. But her stay
lengthened intb hours, and much won
derment was created. Nor was this
the only time she came. More than once
during Mrs. Farley's illness her carriage
was seen in front of the house, and
once after Mrs. Farley died. But she
never again remained beyond proper
limits, and the gossip which her first
visit had created soon died out for the
want of fuel to feed it.”
There was silence. Mr Gryce had
evidently finished his story. With an ef
fort the doctor roused himself, eyed the
narrator and asked In a strange tone
that of itself awakened anew the de
tective’s interest:
“Do you know if she ever met Dr.
Molesworth in any of these visits she
paid her mother?”
It was a new note sounded. Mr.
Gryce recognized* the fact, and for a
moment looked not only thoughtful, but
inquisitive. Then he shook his head
and somewhat equivocally replied:
“We have not got to the end of our
inquiries yet.”
“Then,” was the doctor’s grim con
clusion, “this discovery that my wife
was sister to the girl who died In her
room has not satisfied you that she
was innocent of her death?’’
“It has made the theory of suicide
seem less improbable. While it is hard
to imagine that a seamstress would be
initiated into the secrets of Miss Gre
torex’s jewel case, a sister might.
Yet ”
“You are not perfectly satisfied,” fin
ished the doctor, “difficult as it is to
discover a motive for murder, and sim
ple as it is to see that of suicide.”
“I am ready to be made so,” the de
tective suggested. “I ask nothing bet
ter than to have my mind cleared of
every doubt concerning one whose sit
uation is so pitiful, and who holds so
close a relationship to yourself. As
proof of it, I am willing to talk over
probabilities with you for another half
hour For instance, do you think her
dread of having you learn her true
parentage was enough to account for
the extreme suffering which blanched
her hair in a night and laid her in a
state of insensibility at our feet?”
The doctor was silent.
Mr. Gryce’s look and tone became al
most fatherly.
“I have seen much of life,” he pur
sued, “and much of women. Forced
by my business Into scenes trying to
every faculty of their mind and emo
tional nature, it has been my lot to be
hold them in their love, their hate,
their triumph and their despair; and I
have found that, though they can feign
much, conceal much, bear much, they
succumb only when they own a fright
ful secret and can see no way of hiding
it any longer. Such a secret I believe
your wife to hold, and till you name it
by some other name than that of mur
der, I must continue to think she was
the occasion, intentionally or uninten
tionally, of Mildred Farley’s death.”
If this language and the whole gen
eral conduct shown by the detective
at this crisis was a scheme on his part
to get at a truth he otherwise feared to
miss, he was certainly successful: for
no sooner had these words passed his
lips than the doctor’s face lost tive pe
culiar look it had hitherto worn, and
with a start he vehemently cried:
“Well, I will give it a name. At the
sacrifice of every particle of pride left
me after the scourging process to which
I have been subjected, I will tell you
what that secret is. To save her I
could scarcely do more, and yet to her
I would willingly give my life.”
“Let me hear it,” answered the de
tective. “If it is a secret that can be
kept without violation of our duty, be
assured that no one beside the inspector
and myself shall ever know it.”
Dr. Cameron looked at the detective,
and said slowly:
“Do you know why the woman we
saw thorugh the curtain at the C-
Hotel, looked so astoundingly like my
wife that we found it Impossible to
suppose her to be any one else?”
Mr. Gryce smiled.
“Why, I have Just told you.” said he.
“She was Mildred Farley, your wife’s
twin sister, and as like her ”
“You mistake,” was the dry Interrup
tion. “She whom we saw that day was
not Mildred Farley but Genevieve Gre
torex: in other words my wife herself,
or she who afterwards became so.”
Heart of Genevieve Gretorex.
r W"> HIS revelation so far beyond Mr.
i Gryce’s expectations woke with-
A in him a peculiar excitement; the
pupil of his eye diminished rather than
enlarged, and the hand which toyed
with the penwiper, whose leaves held
so many of his secrets, trembled, or
seemed to do so.
“Is that so?” he muttered.
“Genevieve Cameron,” continued the
doctor, in a dry, hard tone, as if he felt
that only by the suppression of all emo
tion would he be enabled to get
through the relation he had before him.
“suffers the consequences of Genevieve
Gretorex’s folly but she is no longer
swayed by it. She loves her husband
an<i only dreads his discovery of the
waywardness of her early affections.
For the motive which drew her away
from home and kept her lingering in
that hotel up to almost the hour of her
promised marriage with me was a
strong, senseless and mistaken fancy
for Julius Molesworth.”
It was out, and Mr. Gryce as well as
Dr. Cameron himself, looked relieved.
It only remained now to explain mat
ters.
“Your story,” the doctor went on,
“was a fitting prelude to mine, for my
it we understand how this elegant and
reserved woman came to meet this
man It was in Mrs. Olney’s house
and at the bedside of Mrs. Farley, whom
I now recognize for her real mother.
Though engaged to me, she was moved
by something in his manner and speech,
and this susceptibility, incomprehensi
ble to me I assure you, strengthened
into passion as she saw him again and
again at the same place, till she was
ready to forget honor, duty, and her
plighted word; the very remoteness of
the world in which he lived, so differ
ent from that with which she daily
j came in contact, lending a glamour of
romance to tl# situation which was cer
tainly not in it to any other eyes and
not in it to her when she came to the
final hour anA realized all she must
give up and all she must take on, the
be the fitting wife for the hard-natured.
poverty-stricken man she had chosen.”
To Be Continued To-morrow.
Called to Memory.
“Herbie, it says here another octo
genarian is dead.”
“What is an octogenarian?”
“Well, I don’t quite know what they
are, but they must he sickly creatures.
You never hear of them but they’re
dying.”
Suspense.
One of the ushers approached a
man who appeared to be annoying
those about him.
“Don’t*you like the show?”
“Yes, indeed!”
“Then why do you persist In hiss
ing the performers?”
“Why, m-man alive, I w-wqjsn’t
h-hissing! I w-waa s-e-slmply
s-s-s-saying to S-s-s-sammie that
the s-s-s-slnglng is s-»-s-superb.”
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While on the Pacific
Coast read the
San Francisco Examiner
Agnes Scott College
DECATUR ( 6 M A,1Ln* om ) GEORGIA
Session Opens Sept. 17th
For Catalogue and Bulletin of
^* ews Address the President,
F. H. GAINES, D. D., LL D.