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lßevelations of a Wifj
A New Story of Married Life.
You Can Start It at Any Time.
By Adele Garrison. ‘
HOW MRS, UNDERWOOD'S STORY
ENDED AND MADGE RE
MAINED FOR LUNCHEON.
6 UT was there no other way
except to give up your
baby?”
1 did not recognize my own volce,
it was so hoarse with emotion, It
really was not very long, but it
geemed to me hours that T had sat
tense, horror-stricken, while Lil
lian Underwood told me of the
crucifixion 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, [
* 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. |
“S 0 T agreed to his terms. T gave
up the baby, he withdrew Dicky's
name, and the sult went to trial
with other charges, which my hus
band knew beforehand 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 Dy secret
agreement with Will Morton. The
Judge gave the custody of the baby
six months to each of us.”
“Well, then" I excraimed, "why
don’t you take her for half the
year?”
“Why! T had given my word,
made any bargain!” she said, open
ing her eves In amazement, and I
felt rebuked.
“There is only one possibility”
she said. “I told Marion's father
that if she ever was {ll treated or
unhappy I should exercise the legal
right T 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 Ner father and me.”
“But how will you know? I
asked.
Mrs. Underwood smiled faintly.
A “SPY” SYSTEM. ,
There never has heen a moment
gince T kissed Marion and gave her
into the arms of her grandmother
that I have not known exactly how
ghe was treated,” she said. *T have
made it my 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 easy for him financially. His
mother had always kept a malid.
Every servant she has had has been
in my employ. There has been
scarcely a day since I lost my baby
that from some unobserved place
1 have not seen her in her walks.
I know every line of her face, every
~curve of her hody, every trick of
moyement and expression. I shall
know how to win her love when the
time comes, never fear."
Her voice was dauntless, but her
face gflrmred the anguish that
must e her daily companion. To
se¢ 'her little daughter, yet vde
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, I *could
imagine no torture mgre racking.
WHY MADGE CAPITULATED.
One thing about her recital jarred
upon me. This paying of servants,
this furtive espionage was not in
ke’lng with the high resolve that
had” Jed the mother to “keep her
word” to the man who had ruined
Ter life. And yet—and yet—ll dared
not judge her. In her place I could
not imagine what I woujd have
done.
One thing I knew. Never again
TheNeglect of theNation’s
Waterways
: “’ GARRETT P. SERVISS,)
g§ OW small seems to be our
rl-{ appreciation of our many
s beautiful and convanient
waterways. We hardly seem to
use even those that we have arti
ficlally, and at great evpense, con
structed. 1 have traveled for
hours this summer alongside of
New York's great and costly com
bination of canal and ocanalized
river, the Mohawk-Erie system,
and I have hardly seen a boat of
any kind upon this new waterway,
“m of which cost the State, I
: ve, something like a million
dollars a mile.
I do not assert that there are
no boats there, or that no use is
rwe of these dear-bought waters;
1 only give the testimony of my
’g;u eyes, which assure me that,
1 some cause of which I know
nothing, the utilization of the re
eonstructed, deepened, straight
ened, dammed and leveled river of
the Mohawks has been practically
invisible to me. Are we waiting
for a future age, or has It been
bigld, after all, that water travel
18 'too slow even for slow freight
in this era of swiftness, or is there
perhaps a railroad explanation
(lyihg behind? Anyhow, I am
foreed to wonder what New York
State spent its hundred or hun
dred and twenty million dollars for.
. a 2 T find the same state of as-
Tulrs on a great waterway which
Was furnished by nature almost
complete-—Lake Champlain. Here,
for minety or a hundred miles
‘gmmwa,\', extends a long, deep,
Pelatively narrow navigable lake
= lake on whose waters decisive
‘naval battles have been fought,
‘Rlong whose shores fleets were
built when we were an Infant na
tion, and on the opposite sides of
which two rich States now con
front one another with flourishing
towns and cities,
I have sat for day® on the west.
ern banks of thls lake, in one of
its most historic and beautiful
sections, and, not contenting my
self with naked-eye views, have
with binoculars searched. distant
hays, reaciies and openings, and |
testify that on all the many square
L niles of watqr within view the
. would 1 doubt Lilllan Underwood.
The ghost of the past romance bo
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 warmiy of -
sered me. .
I turned to her, trymng to find
words which should fittingly ex
press my sentiments, but she fore
stalled me with a Xaleidoscopic
change of manner that bewildered
me. .
“Bnough of horrors” she said, |
springing up and giving a little ex
pressive shake of her shoulders as ‘
if she were throwing a weight frpm
them. “I'm going to give you some
luncheon,', f
“Oh, please!” T put up a pro
testing hand, but Mrs. Underwood
was across the room and pressing
@ bell before I could stop her,
.1 thcught T 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, something
to which she had not referred—
why had she married Harry Un
derwood? Why, after the terrible
experience of her first marriage,
had she risked linking her life with
an unstable creature like the man
who was now her husband?
I put all questioning astde, how
ever, and trled to meet her brave,
gay rhood.
“I belleve you are in a conspiracy
with Katfe 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 dan't have
to want,” she returned. "“Ah, here's
Betty now,” as a knoex 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 eyes 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 Juncheon served up here Ly
the fire." i
“Yoh'd better think agafn, Miss
Lillian.” Betty's tone neld imper
tinence, but excitement and anxiety
as well, “Yoh knows dat smothered
chicken and creamed cauliflower 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 Lilllan allowed ths 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 ds dotted with wooded and
rocky lislets and islands, bordered
with a variegated coast, full of
coves and little bays, and fringed
with promontories——just the scenic
attractions that make salling an
ideal pleagure, but nobody salls.
A few, and they are very 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 windg and
breezes needed for its rhythm, re
mains 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 the 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
mulitiply 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 mecessily demands
specd, 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 actprs
and actresses to a racing cinema
tograph pace and Dbringing one
curtailed scene in upon the heels
of anether with a joit and crasn
like the coupling of the cars when
a railroad teain is "made up.”
A Feminine Metaphor -
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Good Night Stories
PEGGY AND THE MAGIC UM
BRELLA.
VE 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. Ve
“A wishing stone, as sure as I'm
alive,” she laughed. “Mama al
ways says if you'll latgh and Kiss
Your ‘thumb every time you stub
your toe on a stone it will turn
out to be a wishing stone, and if
you keep the stone and make n
wish your wish will come true. Of
course, I don't believe that, but |
wish this old umbrella was a maglc
umbrella and-—" |
Peggy got no farther, for the
wind filled the urabrella above her
head and before she knew it she
was whisked off her feet and was
sailing through the clouds.
She 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 rose high
into the clouds. Merry little elfins
hopped around on three, legs, all
carrying tiny buckets bubfiung over
with beautifal colors .
“What in the world are.you go
ing to do with that bucket of pur
ple paint?” asked Peggy of one lit
tle elfin whose bucket was over
flowing with purple paint.
“Going to tint up those hills in
the distance,” he replied whipping
out his big brush which he car
ried in his pocket. “Don’t the hills
in the distance always look purple
in the evening?™
“Sure, they do,” laughed Peggy,
“but 1 never Knew-—-"
“Sure you didn't know or wou'd
never have ueen here,” laughedithe
tiny elfir “IFolks that know never
take the time to wonder,” and with
a merry laugh he flew a&way. *
“And is that how the evening
gky comes to have such wonder
ful color in it?" asked Peggy.'"'Yon
paint "
“Certainly,” replied an elfin
standing nearest Peggy. “How
would it gets it color if we didn’t
paint it, I'd like to kpow?" With
a great big brush he dabbed the
clouds nearest the sun with patches
of red and gold. .
“I wish-———" but Peggyv got nd
farther, for the great golden gate
of the sun castlie opened, and what
do yon think? Why, the magic
umbrella lifted from 'the cloud
where it had been resting and
floated right in carrying Peggy
with it, and there on a soft hed
of fleecy clouds lay the Lady Moon
fast asleep.
Peggy gave a tiny soueal and up
jumped Lady Moon and rolled right
off her courh, and quick as a wink
out tumbied the bright stars: that
~é\v"
)
1
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c ) )
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- oear v ;
SHE SAILED RIGHT UP.
fell around Peggy.
‘Dear me, little girl, I'm certain
ly glad . you awakened me,” =said
Lady Moon patting Peggy's curls.
“T would have over slept if yeu
hadn't comein. And Mr. Sun-man
doesn’t like lazy folks. He wants
my stars and me to be fready to
shine the weéry second he drops
behind the hills. He says it's very
til-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 into her back _vggd Just
in time to hear her Mamd"calling
her teo dinner.
The Rhyming Optimist
By Aline Michaelis.
HE'S just a bit of glad sun
shitle, a little gleam of light;
for him the days are always
fine and everything seems bright.
He smiles at every one he sees, with
laughing lips and eyes; he knows
all life's philosophies, though he
can't theorize, Where are but few
who can deny his pink and white
appeal. To fail to note his baby
ery would take a heart: of steel
His charms quite frankly he ex
pends without a thought of guile,
and toddling ‘te his well-loved
friends he tries. each” baby wile.
And some are won by azure eyes
and some by rosy toeés and some by
sleepy baby sighs and some by baby
woes., And there are some who
can't vesist his curling golden hair,
and some there are he even Kissed
to get them in his snare. Oh, well
he knows love's ‘laughing ways,
The Story of Three Boys
ALIL SAVED BY AN UNDERSTANDING JUDGE
By Dr. William A. McKeever. -
ERE is an illuminating exam-
H ple of the good that can be
accomplished by an under
standing man. Tead the stories of
these boys:
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 a thrifty fath.cerly Tarmer.
No. 2—Fourteen —ears old, stole a
motorcycle, 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. Stole a
large quantity of paint, carried it
to a back shed to be used in dec
grating his playthings and work
shop. Cauvght a:d pleaded guilty.
The cake 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 tney
are now all far beyond the danger
point of any such thing as thievery
and are making good as young mer’
of their age should do.
The first interesting fact here to
- love's sweet yet willful arts, and he
fills all his baby days with winning
faithful hearts. Just let some
| snippy, cross old maid along his
pathway come. She'll find his heart
{s unafraid, although she looks so |
glum, He sees In her .new world§
to win, he wants her for his play, ‘
and that old maid would best give }
in; she'll never break away. Or if |
some bachelor he'll find as crusty
| &s can be, that fellow'd betrer 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
“fx dismay. Oh, some he wins
with azure eyes and some with
rosy toes, and some with sleepy
baby solihs and some with baby
woes. But when these other things
won't do, he feels your heart is
hard, why. he just smiles and smiles
»t you and makes another pard!
: Drawn by
: C. D. BATCHELOR
be conslfiered 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 voung ev#t 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. So they go over the road
to the lock-up in great throngs, and
from there, step by step, a life of
confirmed crime. .
Just now the country is literally
overrun with young ~automobile
‘thieves, many of them mere youths
scarcely out of the unmoral age of
daring and reckless adyenture.
These boys do not desire a car for
its mere possession or for its cash
value so much as for the keen
pleasure .of shaking it spin away
over the road. Jn this they cer
tainly have my_ sympathy.
Finally, I want to ask the “gen
eral publie” one difficult question:
Why s 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 pu;
into service, all for the purpose o
catching or hindering the young
thief?
And yet, not a line is being writ
tem, nor a theory advanced, and not
a cent expended for thé purpose of
teaching and restraining youths
against their Ged-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
difficulty will be cured.
* Legitimate Sport.
An anxious sportsman, his gun under
his arm, was wandering down a coun
try lane whdn he met a small boy
making for school. *I say, my boy.,"”
he remarked, “is there anything to shoot
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
quence of an M. P. "You ought to
hear him!"” said one. ‘I did hear Qim,”
leplied the other 1 listenc Ito him
for two hours.’” “"What was he talking
about?” “I don’'t know; he didn't say!™
The Greatest Gift
Beatrice Fairfax Tells Girls That Success Can Be Attained 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 think of the:
Sindbad story about the man who
walked through the valley strewn
with diamonds, rubies and preclous
gtones, 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
bto you. Go to a public ltbrary, bor
row the book and apply the meoral
to vour own difficulties. Every one
walks through the valley of
precious stones, but few have the
ing@nuity 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
in the ‘“moated grange.” Given
_youth, plus intelligence and ambi
tion, and the result is bound to be
—Success. {
But the result is bound to be
failure, if you persist in wasting
youth grieving for something you
haven’'t got, something very likely
you would be miserable if you did
get.
LITTLE OPPORTUNITY IN PAST.
In your mother’s day opportuni
ties for girls were fewer than they
are today. In your grandmother’s
day opportunity for women were
restricted to gettihg married. And
a girl had to take whatever came
along, poor thing. There was very
little ¢hoice open to her. She mar
ried the widower with eight chil
dren; she married the snuffy old
bachelor who needed a nurse, or 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 ? the house of
some maurried relative. ~And no
matter how hard she wolked and
how much gocd she accomplished.
she was regarded as 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 themselves for the posi
tions of importance may easily earn
$2,500~t0 $3,000 a year.
Some time ago I told in this col
umn of a correspondent 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 Aires 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. i
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
whg can’'t afford a regular maid.
She is apple-cheeked and has a fig
ure that would do for Mrs. Santa
Claus. . She wears: a calico dress
that looks perpetdal, 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 under quite
another name she has builded for
herself a reputation as one of our
foremost illustrators. She gets a
hundred angq fifty dollars for four
black and whites and twice as much
for a color cover. And she canp do
both so well that the big fellows in
the magazine world keep her busy.
Molera lives in “THE Bmity" in
order to be near her wOfk. 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-crow 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, content to
lead a drab and coroless life of
the sort to which Gréta was prob
ably also destined by a wise and
discriminating 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, Mz‘s«;‘ra 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 Kkitchen waiting
for Greta to do a hurry-up jobr on
a frilly whiie waist the daughter
has found her prince had ambition,
and knew how to make every edge'-
cut to her advantage. She did not
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 farhily. 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 settlement
houses had to offer. She became a
telephone operator and picked up
enough French to get her a govern
fnent appointment overseas, and
then came thé big chance—the job *
with the importing firm in Seuth
America. At last Cinderella of the
East Side has met and married her
prince. .
“But what can I do?” a hundred
incompetents will wail, and thep
follow innumerable reasons why
they can’t continue their education
to the point of commanding a real
ly first-rate job. They do not ac
tually fail in life, yet they do not
succeed; they drift with circum
stances.
They never learn the great les
son that success consists im turn
ing obstacles into advantages. Of
course, it is easier to go te the
movies after a day's work than it
is to go to night school. Even
though the night classes offer dis
tinct advantages in the way of
making desirable friends. 4
EXCUSES NOT LACKING. |
For night schools and nig}l& 4
classes are places to meet wort
while people—drones, idlers and
coffee coolers do not frequent thim.
Line-of-least-resistance gentry are
conspicuously absent. It takes
worth-while people to study after a
day’s work, people who have back
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
uinely imypreve herself and her
chances in life,
Very well, tha hlig job, the fairy
prince and real success in life are
not for her, :
These excuse makers are the ginls
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. &y
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 that glit+'
ters down the block. Then, after
one or two discouraging experiences
they writ: me: “Dear Miss Fairfax,
I have nothing to live for.”
Turn over a new leaf, find some
thing to live for, make up your
mind to succeed!
~guest 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 maybeé
we keep no a clean house. So 4
don’t maybe Miss Carrie she goes
and does.” * pa
“Well, if the steps aren’t clean,
I don’'t mind,” replied Molera ina
differently. it
“But Miss Carrie she'do. She
mind, and she scrub. And it’se no
her work,” protested Greta. “She’s
a lady, Miss Carrie is. She no should
work.”
“Well, T don’t want her scrub
bing the front steps on my account,”
Waid Melora amiably. “I'll tell you.
I'll iron my own waist, and you run
out ang do the steps.” .
“All right,” agreed Greta. “Just
80 Miss Carrie she no scrub the
steps. She hasn’t right to be work
ing so hard. Miss Carrie a lady.
She has a right to be waited on.
She got it too hard. She has right
to be waited on. She a lady.”
Melora smiled, divideqd between
delight that old Greta appreciated
sister Carrie, and amusement thag
the ‘old woman didn’t appreciate
that sTMelora 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. L
“See, I worked and it didn't
hurt me,” she said with subtlety
which amused her.
“Sure. That’s right, agreed
CGreta. “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”
Carnrie an aristorcat and helself &
toiler — “working person.” She
thought it would make a fine story
to tell when she got back to town.,
But somehow she has decided
aglinst amusing studio parties with
it, and she has found that she can
double the amount she sends home
to Carrie each week,
And now Cafrie has Greta in
thrice weekly to help and the town
seamstress makes the dresses she
was wont laboriously to construect.
Queer, jsn’t it, what influences
sway us toward the right gnd de
cent things? Strange, isnf it, the
- unimportant looking. wunmarked
pe®ple who give us our big cues on
life’s stage?