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b e o i 1 7 Tk AN RN S\ IRZI A AN N R 27 AT B iR M AN A
LA »'é‘ s § E 4 Efx (!I LS G !""‘X‘i ) A AN LITANIE A o 3 20
!Revelations of a Wifel
A New Story of Married Life.
. You Can Start It at Any Time.
3 By Adele Garrison. |
HOW MRS. UNDERWOOD’'S STORY
ENDED AND MADGE RE
MAINED FOR LUNCHEON,
66 UT was there no other way
except to give up your
baby?"
1 did not recognize my own voice,
it was so hoarse with emotion. It
really was not very tong, but it
seemed to me hours that T had sat
tense, horror-stricken, while ILil
lian Underwood told me of the
erucifixion that had been hers at ‘
the time of her divorce from Will
Morton. In order to save Dicky
from being branded for life un- |
justly she had given up her only |
child to the custody of its father.
“None,” she responded wearily.
“He had been too clever for me. I
was in his power completely. I
had to choose between giving up
the child to his custody or face the
cetrainty of his winning the sult
for divorce, with its terrible conse
quences to Dicky and its brand on
me,
“80 T agreed to his terms. T gave
up the baby, he withdrew Dicky’s
name, and the suit went to trial
with other charges, which my hus
band knew heforehand could not be
proved. That was a part of the
agreement. The case was dis
missed, but my cross-bill was
granted. This also was by secret
agreement with Will Morton. The
judge gave the custody of the baby
six months to each of us.”
‘“Well, then,” I excratmed, “why
don't you take her for half the
year?”
“Why! T had given my word,
made any bargain!” she said, open
ing her eyes in amazement, and I
felt rebuked.
“There is only one possibility”
she said. “I told Marion's father
that if she ever was ill treated or
unhappy I should exercise the legal
right 1 had and take her for six
months. I would not be afraid to
take her before any judge at the
end of that time and let her choose
between lher father and me.”
“But how will you know?" I
asked.
Mrs. Underwood smiled faintly.
A “SPY” SYSTEM.
There never has been a moment
since 1 kissed Marion and gave her
into the arms of her grandmother
that I have not known exactly how
she was treated,” she said. “I have
made it iy business to know, and
1 have paid liberally for the knowl
edge, You see, about the time of
the divorce Mr. Morton had a leg
acy left to him, so that life has
been easv for him financially. His
mother had always kept a maid.
Every servant she has had has been
in my employ. There has been
gearcely a day since 1 lost my baby
that from some unobserved place
1 have not seen her im her walks.
I know every line of her face, every
curve of her body, every trick of
movement and expression.. lishall
know how to win her love when the
timeé comes, never fear.”
Her voice was dauntiess, but her
face mirrored the angulsh that
must be her dally companion. To
see her little daughter, yet ve
barred from speaking to her, from
embracing her, to know that the
child would not know her mother if
she met her face to face, 1 could
imagine no torture mare racking.
WHY MADGE CAPITULATED.
One thing about her recital jarred
upon me. This paying of servants,
this Turtive espionage was not in
keeping with the high resolve that
had led the mother to “keep her
word” to the man who had ruined
Her life. And yet—and yet—l dared
not judge her. In her place I could
not imagine what I would have
done.
One thing I knew. Never again
TheNeglect of theNation’s
Waterways
(By GARRETT P. SERVISS)
OW small seems to be our
H appreciation of our many
beautiful and convenient
waterways. We hardly seem to
use even those that we have arti
ficially, and at great evpense, con
astructed. 1 have traveled for
hours this summer alongside of
New York's great and costly com
bination of canal and canalized
river, the Mohawk-Erie system,
and I have hardly seen a boat of
fny kind upon this new waterway,
part of which cost the State, I
_ believe, something like a million
~dollars a mile.
. I 4o not assert that there are
.Mo boats there, or that no use is
_made of these dear-bought waters;
1 only give the testimony of my
- OWn eyes, which assure me that,
for some cause of which I know
- nothing, the utilization of the re
- consiructed, deepened, straight
~ened. dammed and leveled river of
the Mohawks has been practically
mlulhle too me. Are we waiting
‘ & future age, or has it been
found, after all, that water travel
i 8 oo slow cven for slow freight
in this era of swiftness, or is there
;’bapu a railroad explanation
ing behind? Anvhow, 1 am
forced to wonder what New York
Btate spent its hundred or hun
drad and twenty million dollars for.
g~ 7 find the same state of as-
Tairs on a great waterway which
was furnished by nature almost
complete —Lake Champlain. Here,
for mnety or @& hundred miles
straightaway, extends a long, deep,
relatively narrow navigable lake
—a lake on whose waters decisive
naval battles have been fought,
‘along whose shores fleets were
built when we were an infant na
tion, and on the opposite sldes of
‘which two rich States now con
front one another with flourishing
towns and cities.
I have sat for days on the west
ern banks of this lake, in one of
its most historic and beautiful
‘gections, and, not contenting my
#elf with naked-eye views, have
with binoculars searched distant
‘bays, reaches and openings, and I
Jestify that or aii ihic 50Ny square
‘miles g water within view the
el WS o
. would I doubt Idlllan Underwood.
The ghost of the past romance be
tween my husband and the woman
before me was laid for all time,
never to trouble me again, Re
membering the sacrifice she had
made for Dicky, considering the
gallant fight against circumstances
she had waged since her girlhood, I
felt suddenly unworthy of the
frienship she had so warmly of
fered me.
I turned to her, .trymg to find
words which should fittingly ex
press my sentiments, but she fore
stalled me with a Xaleidoscopic
change of manner that bewildered
me. .
“Enough of horrors,” she sald,
springing up and giving a little ex
pressive shake of her shoulders as
if she were throwing a weight from
them. “I'm going to give you some
luncheon.”
“Oh, please!” 1 put up a pro
testing hand, but Mrs. Underwood
was across the room and pressing
a bell before 1 could stop her.
I thcught I understnod. The
grave® of her past life was closed
again. She had opened it because
she wished me to know the truth
concerning the old garbled stories
about herself and Dicky. Having
told me everything, she had pushed
the grisly thing back into its sep
ulcher again and had sealed it. She
would not refer to it again.
One thing puzzled me, a:‘nethlng
to which she had not referred—
why had she married Harry Un-!
derwood? Why, after .the terriple
experience of her first marriage,
had she risked linking ler life with
an unstable creature like the man
who was now her husband?
I put all questioning aside, how
ever, and tried to meet her brave,
gay mood.
“I believe you are in a conspiracy
with Katie to fatten me,” I said.
“She insisted upon my eating just
twice the amount of breakfast I
needed, and here you are planning
to tempt me again.”
‘““Thank your stars you don’t have
to want,” she returned. “Ah, here's
Betty now,” as a knoek sounded
upon the door.
She crossed to the door with a
swift, graceful movement, drew
back the heavy velvet curtains, un
locked and drew open the door.
“Strikes me yoh all's mighty se
cret wif yohr locked doors ana cur
tains,” boomed Betty. There was a
smile on her broad face, but her
resentful eves betrayed the fact
that she had been listening behina
the barred doors, and had been un
able to hear anything.
“Better luck next time, Betty”
Lillian answered carelessly, flash
ing a mischievous glance at me. “I
sent for you to tell you I would
like luncheon served up here by
the fire.”
“Yoh'd better think again, Miss
Lillian.” Betty's tone neld imper
tinence, but excitement and anxiety
as well, “Yoh knows dat smothered
chicken and creamed caulfflower ob
mine needs to come straight from
the fire to the table. It wouldn't
be fit for a cat by the time I'd get
it clar up here. Besides, I got the
table in the dining room all set |
and ready. I ain't goin' to tear
eberyting up and bring it up here.”
“Oh, have it your own way, Bet
ty,” Lillian returned, wearily. “How
long before luncheon?”
“Jes about fifteen minutes,”
Betty vanished, and I tried to
conceal my amazement at the atti
tude Lillian allowed the woman, I
knew Betty was a privileged char
acter, but this weak yielding of
Mrs. Underwood to “her whims
seemd to me to be the extreme
of indulgence.
(Continued in Sunday’s American.)
sight of a vessel is almost as in
frequent & phenomenon as the
passing of a sail in the middle of
the ocean. The lake and its sur
rounding mountains, some near
and rugged, some distant and blue,
would be pronounced beautiful in
any part of the world, ‘
It is dotted with wooded and
rocky islets and islands, bordered
with a variegated coast,” full of
coves and little bays, and fringed
with promontories—just the scenic,
attractions that make sailing an
ideal pleasure, but nobody sails.
A few, and they are wery few in
deed, occasionally quit the golf
links and tennis courts long
enough to go chugging and scoot
ing a little way over the water in
motor boats, but the poetry of
sailing here, where nature has
spread a glorious page for it and
furnished. just the winds and
breezes needed for its rhythm, re
mainsg unwritten now, The Indians
did better with their canoes,
As for traffic, it exists in so
slight a degree as to astonish any
one who has witnessed the way
in which that marvelous, always
solvent people, the French, who
have mustered both Yhe art and
the science of human life better
than anybody else, utilize their
waterways of all kinds, for pleas
ure, as well as for business, and
multiply them as much as they
can. They take advantage of the
riches of nature as eagerly as we
do, but they do not neglect her
offered economies,
They are as desirous as we are
to go fast and make quick trips
when true mecessity demands
speed, but they are not speed
crazed; they do not wish to short
en the play of life by eliminating
all the interacts, cutting out the
soloquies, speeding up the actors
and actresses 1o a racing cinema
tograph pace and Dbringing one
curtailed scene in upon the heels
of another with a jolt and crasn
like the coupling of the cars when
a railroad train is "made up.”
A Feminine Metaphor
I 27 —————
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Good Night Stories
PEGGY AND THE MAGIC UM
BRELLA.
NE evening as Peggy was out
walking, holding Mama's
umbrella above her head to
keep the sun from making her se
warm, she kicked a tiny white
stone which was lying in the road
before her and hurt her toe. Quick
as a wink Peggy kissed her thumb
and picked up the stone.
“A wishing stone, as sure as I'm
alive,” she laughed. “Mama al
ways says if you'll laugh and kiss
your thumb every time you stub
your toe on a stone it will turp
out to be a wishing stone, and if
you keep the stone and make a
wish your wish will come true. Of
course, I don’t believe that, but. |
wish this old umbrella was a magle
umbrella and—" i
Peggy got no farther, for the
wind filled the urmbrella above her
head and before she knew it she
was whisked off her feet and was
sa{’linx through the clouds.
he sailed right up toward the
sun and when the umbrella caught
on a cloud nearby Peggy found
it wasn't the sun at all, but a great
big. beautiful, golden castle with
tall, golden spires that rosa high
into the clouds. Merry little elfins
hopped around on three legs, all
carrying tiny buckets bubbling over
with beautiful eolors .
“What in the world are vou go
ing to do with that bucket of puyr
ple paint?” asked Peggy of one Yt
tle elfin whose bucket was over
flogmg with purple raint.
“Going to tint up those hills in
the distance,” he replied whipping
out his big brush which he car
ried in his pocket. “Deon't the hills
in the distance always ook purple
in the evening?™
“Sure, they d 9,” laughed Peggy,
“but 1 never RKhew==-'*
“Sure you diidn’'t know or vof'a
never have ueen here,” laughed the
tiny elfir “Folks that know never
take the time to wonder,” and with
a merry laugh he flew away.
“And is that how the evening
sky comes to have such wonder
ful color in it?" asked Peggy. “Yon
paint it*” §
“Certainly,” veplied an elfin
standing nearest Peggy. "nox
would it gets it color if we dida
paint it, I'd like to know?” With
a great blg brush he dabbed the
clouds nearest the sun with patehes
of red and gold.
“1 wish——" but Peggy got no
farther, for the myeat golden gate
of the san castle opened, and what
do vou think? Why," the magio
umbrella lifted from the cloud
where it had been resting and
floated right in carrying Pegry
with it, and there on a soft bed
of fleecy clouds lay the Lady Moon
fast asleep.
Peggy gave a tiny saqueal and up
Jamped Lady Moon and rolled right
off her couch, and guick as a wink
out tumbled the bright stars that
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PR Bty
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SHE SAILED RIGHT UP.
ee et e
fell around Peggy.
‘Dear me, little girl, I'm certain
ly glad you awakened me,” said
TLady Moon patting Peggy's curls,
“1 would have over slept if yeu
hadn’t come in. And Mr. Sun-man
doesn't like lazy folks. He wants
my stars and me to be ready to
shine the very second he drops
behind the hills, He says it's very
iill-manncred to keep folks wait
ing. "
“Oh, that just makes me think."
exclaimed Peggy. “Mama said not
to stay long,” and away she sailed
right down Jnto her back yard just
in time to hear her Mama calling
her to dirner.
The Rhyming Optimist
By Aline Michaelis.
HE'S just a bit of glad sun
shine, a little gleam of light;
for him the days are always
fine and everything seéms bright.
He smiles at every one he sees, with
laughing lips and eyes; he knows
all life's philosophies, though he
can't theorize. There are but few
who can deny his pint and white
appeal. To fail to note his baby
cry would take a heart of steel.
His charms quite frankly he ex
pends without athought of gulle,
and - toddling to his. well-loved
friends he tries each baby .wile.
And some are won by azure eyes
and some by rosy toes and some by
sleepy baby sighs and Some by baby
woes. And there are some who
can't resist his cuirling golden hair,
and some there are he even kissed
to get them in his spare. Oh, well
he knows love's laughing ways,
The Story of Three Boys
ALL SAVED BY AN UNDERSTANDING JUDGE
By Dr. William A. McKeever. -
¥ Y ERE san illuminating exam-
H ple of the good that can be
accomplished by an under
atandlng‘r;jan. ead the stories of
these boys: i i LY
No. I—Fifteen years old, stole a
beautiful horse. Kept him hidden
in the woods for ‘a week, but fed
him, fondled him, loved him.
Caught, convicted, sentenced to a
reformatory, but immediately pa- /
roled to & thrifty fattorly farmer.
No. 2—Fourteen --ears old, stole a
motorcyele, rode it to the next town
and wrecked it. Father paid for
the machine and put up a heavy
bond for the son’s good behavior in
the future. Boy sent to a strange
and distant school, where none
knew him or ever heard of his
wrong.
No. 3—Fifteen years old. ?tole a
large quantity of paint, carried it
to a back shed to be used in dec
orating his playthings and work
shop. Cauvght a:d pleaded guilty.
The case was settled by a morals
court with the boy, the judge, the
father and the owner of the paint
all contributing a willing part in
the trial.
These three boys all rose to the
rank of captain in the big war and
accredited themselves in eevry way.
They may suffer a tinge of regret
for what ‘they did during their days
of folly, but that is all; for they
are now all far beyond the danger
point of any such thing as thievery
and are making good as young men
of their age should do. ¢
The }irst interesting fact here to
_love's sweet yet willful artse and he
filis all his baby days with winning
faithful hearts. Just let some
snippy, eross old maid along his
pathway come. She'll find his heart
is unafraid, alghough she looks so
glum, He sees in her new worlds
to win, he wants her for his play,
and that old maid would best give
In; she'll never break away, Or if
some‘bache!or he'll find as crusty
as can be, that fellow’d better be
resigned, for he's no longer free.
The baby'll try his every art, use
every cunning way: -he loves to
storm a hard old heart, to see there
its dismay. Oh, some he wins
with azure eyes and some with
rosy toes, and some with sleepy
baby sighs and some with baby
woes. But when these other things
won't o, he feels your heart js
hard, why, he .Lust smiles and smiles
at you and makes another pard!
Drawn by
C. D. BATCHELOR
be considered is that the three
young miscreants were all rescued
by the ‘same man, a wise and sym
pathetic probation officer, who has
many more such cases to his credit.
The second important fact to be
considered is that each boy stole in
order to indulge nis genius—No. 1,
a genius for the care and manage
ment of horses; No. 2, a genius in
the matter of understanding an en
gine; No. 3, a genius in respect to
the mixing and using of paints.
And, with the exception of No. 1,
the genius which led to the theft
has pointed the way to a successful
civilian life.
The third lesson for us all ‘is
the pathetic fact that not 1 per
cent of the young evil doers who
are sent to the city workhouse and
the reformatory have the advice and
persistent guardianship of such a
friend as Judge C——, who rescued
the three. 8o they go over the road
to the lock-up in great throngs, and
from there, step by step, a life of
confirmed crime.
Just new the country is literally
overrun with young automobile
thieves, many of them mere youths
scarcely out of the unmoral age of
daring and reckless adventure.
These boys do not desire a car for
its mere possession or for its cash
value so much as for the keen
pleasure of making it spin away
over the road. In this they cer
tainly have my sympathy.
Finally, 1 want to ask the “gen
eral public” one difficult question:
Why is it that laws are being
passed by all the States, ordinances
are being enacted by every city,
and otherwise the expensive ma
chinery of vigilance is being put
into service, all for the purpose of
catching or hindering the young
thief ? e ‘
And yet, npt a line is being writ
ten, nor a theory advanced, and not
a cent expended for the purpose of
teaching and vrestraining - youths
against their God-given impulse to
make away with that which their
most passionate genius craves? I
insist that society must meet this
persistent and perplexing weakness
in boys at its source and apply a
remedy there before the general
Qifticulty will be cured.
. e e e ———
Legitimate Sport.
An anxious sportsman, hisigun under
his arm, was wandering down a coun
try lane when he wmet a small boy
making for sghool. *“I say, my boy."”
he remarked. “ig there anything to shoet
down there?” The boy looked around
for a moment and then answered with
engerness, ‘Ay, there's the skule maister
comin’ over the hill!"”
-
Very Vague.
Two men were discussing the elo
auence of an M. P. “You ought to
hear him!” said one. I did hear him.,”
replied the other. “1 listened to him
for two hours' "“What was he talking
about?™ “I don't know; he didn't say!"
The Greatest Gift
IS AMBITION PLUS PERSISTENCE.
Beatrice Fairfax Tells Girls That Success Can Be Aftained if
Sought Seriously and Intelligently. !
'By Beatrice Fairfax. '
GET many letters—hundreds of
I them, in fact—from girls who
say they “have nothing to live
for” And I can only tell them
that they make me thjink of the
Sindbad story about the man who
walked through the valley strewn
with diamonds, rubies and precious
stones, but saw no way of getting
past the high mountain that shut in
the valley.
If you've read the story, you
know he did find a way out. And
if you haven't read it I am not
going to spoil the tale by telling it
to you. Go to a public library, bor
row the book and apply the moral
to vour.own difficulties. Every one
walks through the ‘valley of
precious stones, but few have the
ingenuity to get away with any of
them, £
[ In the first place, youth is the.
- greatest gift of all gifts. Youth' no
matter where it may be cast—ln
~ the tenements, in the slums, even
i in the “moated grange.” Given
~ youth,” plus intelligence and ambi
~ tion, and the result is bound to be
~ —Success. ~
i But the result is bound to be
failure, if you persist in wasting
vouth grieving for something you
haven’t” got, something very likely
you would be miserable if you did
get.
LITTLE OPPORTUNITY !N PAST.
In your mother’'s day opportuni
tles for girls were fewer than they
are today. In your grandmother’'s
day opportunity for women were
restricted to getting married. And
a girl had to take whatever came
along, poor thing. . There was very
little choice open to her. She mar
ried the widower with eight -chil
dren; she married the snuffy old
bachelor who needed a nurse, oy she
married the scapegrace whose wild
oat crop had become a proverb.
Or, if she missed any of these
doubtful blessings, she went to live
as an unpaid helper in the house of
some murried relative. And no
matter how hard she worked and
how much goed she accomplished.
she was regarded ag a failure be
cause she had not married a man.
But today any girl who isn’t too
» impatient to gather in all the bless~
ings of life by the time she is 17
or 18 has a very good chance of
making a successful career for her
self and marrying well in the bar
gain. Young women who are will
ing to fit fhemselves for the posi
tions of importance may easily earn
$2,500 to $3,000 a year.
Some time ago I told in this col
umn of a correspendent of mine—
a telephone operator—who scraped
together enough French to take a
position “overseas” during the war.
And who later went to South
America, after the armistice was
signed, for a big importing firm.
She sent me her wedding card from
Buenos Airgs the other day. Little
Cinderella had just married a junior
partner of the firm, \
She was 28 years old and she was
born in a tenement house not far
from Norfolk street, New York—a
very unattractive tenement house,
too.
But this East Side Cinderella who
The Good Angel Role
THE UNEXPECTED PEOPLE OFTEN PLAY IT -
RETA is a. white-haired old
“accommodator” who; goes
out by the day to help folks
who can’t afford a regular maid.
She is apple-cheeked and has a fig
ure that would do for Mrs. Sant:
Claus. She wears a calico dresg
that looks perpetual,r or at least
as if it mus% be an open-stock
pattern.
Greta, with her two-fifty a day
earning capacity and her roly-poly
figure and her illiteracy, doesn’t
suggest fairy godmothers or god
desses out of the machine. And yet
that's just what she turned out to
be in the life of Molena Pomeroy.
Melora is 25, and undeg quite
another name she has builded for
herself a reputation as one of our
foremost illustrators, She gets a
hundred ang fifty dollars for four
black and whites ang twice as much
for a color cover. And she can do
both so well that the big fellows in
the magazine world keep her busy.
Molera lives in “THE Big City” in
order to be near her: work. Her
people have a tiny cottage in a far
suburb of ‘a town that has just
worked its way into the class where
it can be called a city at all. And
once a week all year round Greta
comes to do the washing and iron
ing and help with the heavy work.
The Pomeroy home is kept up by
the ceaseless toil of Carrie, Molera’'s
step-sister, a gaunt scare-cfow of
a woman who was an “old maid”
when Molera was the belle of the
high school. There isn't any glow
ing tragedy about Carrie Pomeroy;
she never was attractive enough to
have a romance in her life. To
Molera she is just a predestined
grub, a dear old sister, ggntent to
lead a drab and coroless life of
the sort to which Greta was prob
ably also destined by a wise and
disceriminating fate.
For two weeks every summer
Melora goes home. She spends her
vacation at the old homestead.
Thus she gladdens the heart of her
father and the invalid brother
whose horizon has a radius cen
tering at his invalid chair.
And because she spends a yearly
fortnight radiating sunshine all
about the environs of her drab
home, and sends home a weekly
part of her earnings, Melora feels
that as a daughter, a woman and
a human being she is a complete
compendium of the virtues and
crowned with leaves of bay and
laurel and maybe gold and dia
monds.
One day last summer Melora was
standing in the kitchen waiting
for Greta to do a hurry-up job on
a frilly white waist the daughter-
haé found her prince had ambition§ °
and knew how to make every edg@
cut to her advantage. She did no:g’:
fritter away her time and energy
in foolish love affairs that brought
her nothing more profitable than
heart aches and wasted time.
She had only two years in the
high school, then had to go to work
to help support the family. But she
was far-sighted "enough to go to
night school to finish the course
and she took every advantage that
the girls’ clubs and settlemgnt
houses ha#d to offer. She became a
telephone operator and pieKed up
enough French to get her a govern- 3
~ment appointment overseas, and
then came the big chance—the job
with the importing firm in South
America. At last Cinderella of the
East Side has met and married her *
prince.
“But what can I do?” a hund_redi
incompetents will wail, and then
follow innumerable reasons why
they can’t continue their education
to the point of commanding a real
ly firstsrate job. They ¢o not ac
tually fail in life, yet they do mot
succeed; they drift with circum
stances.
They never laarn the great les
son that success consists in turn
ing obstacles into advantaggs. Of
eourse, it is easier to go to, the
movies after.a day’s work than it
is to go to. night schocl. Even
though the night classes offer dis
tinct advantages -in the way of
making desirable friends. ’ 3
*EXCUSES NOT LACKING. sk
- For night schoodls and night
classes are places to meet worth
while people—drones, 7 idlers and
coffee coolers do not frequent them. .
Line-of-least-resistance gentry are
conspicuously absent. It takes
worth-while people to study after a
day’'s work, people who have: bacl_;‘,-
bone and moral muscle. |
But the excuse artist always has
some good reason for not going
ahead with the game. She is tired,
or she must have diversion, or there
is some silly flirtation on hand that
must be fed with heart’s blood and
watered with tears. Or the money
must be spent for a new blue hat,
or a pair of high-heeled shoes, or
there are a dozen other reasons
why she can’t settle down and gen
tinely impreve herself and her
chances in life.
‘Very well, tha hig job, the fairy
prince and real success in life are
not for her.
These excuse makers are the girls
who walk through the valley of
rubies and diamonds—Youth—and
come away without one precrous
stone, They take what fate has to
offer, and fate’s gratuitous offer
ing is frequently a young man as
ambitionless as themselves. 3
They will never know the wild
joy ‘of “hitching their wagon to a
star’—no, _they hitch it to the:
nearest hokey-pokey cart, or the
first cheap movie house thgt glit
ters down the block. Then, after
one or two discouraging experiences
they writ: me: “Dear Miss Fairfax,
¥ have nothing to live for.” r
Turn over a new leaf, find some
thing to live for, make up your
mind to succeed! 7' A
g‘hest of the house of Pomeroy was
planning to wear on a motor trip
with the home city’s most eligible
bachelor.
“I have a right to be scrubbing
‘the front steps,” complained Greta.
#So I don’t, your beau thinks mayhbe
we keep no a clean house. So [
don't maybe Miss Carrie she goes
and does.”
“Well, if the steps aren't clean,
I don’t mind,” replied Molera in
differently.
“But Miss Carrie she do. She
mind, and she scrub. And it'se no
her work,” protesfed Greta. “She’s
a Jady, Miss Carrie-is. She no should.
work.”
“Well, T don't want her scruh
bing the front steps on my account,”
said Melora amiably. “I'll tell you.
I'll iron my own waist, and you run
out and do the steps.”
“All right,” agreed Greta. “Just
s 0 Miss Carrie she no scrub the
steps. She hasn’t right to he work
ing so hard. Miss Carrie a lady.
&he has a right to be waited on.
She got it too hard. She has right
to_be waited on.” She a lady.”
Melora smiled, divideq between
delight that old Greta appreciated
sister Carrie, and amusement that
the old woman didn’'t appreciate
that she—Melora Pomeroy—work -
ing all through the year at the beck
angd call of editors, labored twice
as hard as Carrie.
Presently Greta returned from
doing the steps, and Melora, hot and
agitated from her efforts with the
waist, held it up for the old wo
man's inspection.
“See, I worked and it didn't
hurt me,” she said with subtlety
which amused her,
“Sure. That's right, agreed
Greta. ‘“You're a working person.
You used to work. You know how
it is. Miss Carrie a laay.”
Of course Melora thought it de
licious that the scrub lady, as she
called Greta to herself, considere”
Carrie an aristorcat and helself s
toiler — “working person.” She
thought it would make a fine story
to tell when she got back to town.
But. somehow she has decided
against amusing studio parties with
it, and she has found that she can
double the amount she sends home
to Carrie each week, ¥
And now Carrie has Greta in
thrice weekly to help and the town
seamstress makes the dresses she
was wont laboriously to construet.
Queer, isn't it, what influences
sway us toward the right and de
cent things? = Strange, isn't it, the
unimportant looking, unmarked
people who give us our big cues on
life's stage? ¢ .