DemortalitA atc, Bellefonte, Pa., November 6, 1914. TO A MAPLE LEAF IN AUTUMN. (“We all do fade as aleaf’’) How like to Man art thou! Canst thou thy change foresee— What leaf upon the bough, What bough upon the tree? It was but yestere’en Thou wert a loyal part Of Summer’s solid green That stirred the grateful heart. But Night upon thee blew With pale and frosty breath, And left thy natural hue Aflame in glorious death. Or was there from thy birth An ichor in thy blood, . Transmuting the dull earth To Autumns’ golden flood? Thy going is not grief: Thy splendor shall but make Soil for another leaf That follows in thy wake. 1in my Autumn hour Do envy thee in thine: Thy joy-diffusing power, The year’s consummate wine. The light of yonder tree My keenest hurt doth salve; Better the gold we see . Than all the gold we have. When my green strength be stayed, And frost shall summon me, If like a leaf I fade, 0, let me fade like thee! —Robert Underwood Johnson, in the Outlook. THE HOME COMING. Margaret Demming looked around the familiar, shabby little parlor which she had left so willingly almost a year be- fore, when a benevolent “providence” had lifted her from a dreary teacher’s desk in the small home town into the larger life of a big Eastern city. It seemed so queer to be back again, back for a whole week among the oldpeople, the old things and old memories that she had almost forgotten in the excitement and interest of the new life. “Everything looks just the same,” she said, with a sigh that might have been either disappointment or satisfaction. “I: col almost believe I'd never been away at all.” Her mother, with fingers that trembled a little at the unaccustomed happiness, took Margaret’s veil and scarf and hung them on 2a chair. “Maybe you’d better go up-stairs and lay your things off,” she said. “You'll want to wash up a bit after the journey. I've made the back room ready, and you'll find some clean towels laid out.” “Yes, I'll go up,” said Margaret. “But where's father? And isn’t Ted home yet?” “They’ll be in after a while,” her moth- er answered. “You know Ted doesn’t leave the shop till six; and he’s had to work overtime lately; one of the men was sick.” Margaret glanced at the tall, thin woman at her side. The year seemed to have wrought little change. Her face was a trifle thinner, perhaps, a trifle paler, with a few more lines, but there was the same quick, nervous energy when she moved and spoke, the same tired patience in repose. It was the face of a woman of whom life had exacted much and given little in return. “You look so nice in your new things,” Mrs. Demming said, admiringly. *I wish now I'd taken time to change; but there'didn’t seem to bé a chance, some. how.” “Never mind,” said Margaret. “It doesn’t matter. And, besides, every- thing looks so homey. It's all just the way it used to be,” she repeated. There was a moment’s silence. “We had the hall-stand mended,” said Mrs. Demming, “and there’s a new carpet in the hall. But otherwise guess it’s pretty much the same.” Then, “I've got to look * at the oven,” she added. “Do you mind going up-stairs alone?” “Why, of course not,” said Margaret, and her mother hurried back to the kitchen. How young and fresh and capable her little Maggie looked; how good it was to have her home again! Margaret gathered up her things and looked once more around the room—at the ebony piano, the worn chairs, the old-fashioned mirror, the bunch of ever- lasting flowers on the corner table. She missed something, though, from the man- tlepiece. What was it? And there was a patch of paper on the opposite wall that had not faded like the rest, evident- ly where a picture had hung. How she had hated that paper! The landlord, in a perverse fit of generosity, had put it on during her vacation two years ago, and on her return she had found festoons of pink and purple roses staring at her all around the room. “What on earth possessed you to let them do it?” she had asked her mother in dismay. “We can’t possibly live with that pattern. It kills everything in the house.” Mrs. Demming had excused herself, . nervously. “It needed doing so badly,” she had said, “and I thought you'd like to come and find it all nice and fresh. It will tone down, you know.” Margaret had answered nothing. What was the use? No one would understand her artistic agony. She remembered how ashamed she had felt the next day when a kindly visitor remarked how cheerful the colors looked. “Fortunately I'm not responsible for the choice,” Margaret had replied, coldly. That was merely one instance among many. What battles she had fought in the name of: “taste” and “art!” How many times she had tried to bring order out of chaos, to enforce her own ideals, to banish exasperating family relics to the oblivion they deserved, and put in their place things which embodied her ideas of beauty and harmony. But no one seemed to realize what such things meant to her. “You're always finding fault with something, Maggie,” her brother would remark. “I wish you wouldn’t call me Maggie,” she would say. “It’s so common.” She had tried to make it “Marguerite.” There was a flavor of medieval romance about the word; it reminded her of a pale Tennyson poem or a ballad of William Morris. But her mother said she could never remember how to spell it; she always got the “u” in the wrong place. So this touch of pre-Raphaelitism was never attained. But why bother about that now? After | all, it really didn’t matter. up nothing, really, for she was only And she going to remain a week. - She would went up-stairs into the little back bed- | never tolerate them if her stay were to room, with its clean white linen and | be permanent. And, besides—her prob- freshly laundered curtains—the room where she used to sleep. - She hung up | her wraps, washed off the dust of the! journey, gave her hair a few needed | touches, and then made a tour of in-. spection through the rooms. She paused | in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom. | Just the same—only the rug a little more ! worn and the paper a trifle more faded. | “Ah, they've mended the knob at last,” | she thought as her eyes fell on the lower | bureau drawer. She stooped and pulled it out mechanically. Yes, the broken ! knob had been taken off and a new one; put on. It didn’t quite match, but never had she to refuse this sacrifice? Would | mind; at least one could pull the drawer | it not be far wiser to accept it as a vol- | : i untary step in the older woman’s intel- | was a pile of small stones ready for fix- lectual progress? What right had she to | assume her mother was incapable of | out straight. | She was pushing it back again when | something caught her eye—a bit of china, white with a brown spot. She took it out. How funny! It was the! little old china dog that used to sit on | the corner of the parlor mantelpiece, the | dog with the broken ear and the patient, | perpetual grin. How often she had tried | to persuade them to throw him away! | He was so ugly, so useless, so absurd. | He wasn’t heavy enough for a paper- | weight, he didn’t even hold matches; there was absolutely no excuse for his existence. i “But it would be so unfeeling,” her! mother had often said. “Your dear aunt Emily gave him to me justa week be- fore she died. She said he always used | to cheer her up.” And so they had to let him stay. But! now—what was he doing in the bottom ! bureau drawer? And what was that piece of silk he had been wrapped in? She drew it out; ah, yes, it was another of her artistic nightmares, a yellow hand- painted scarf, the one that used to hang over the corner of the mantelpiece, to Margaret’s resigned disgust. It had been a wedding present of her mother’s, made by an old school friend, and in its day had been considered “quite a work of: art.” And in the drawer, beneath it, was a faded frame of plush and gilt, with a portrait of ‘dear Aunt Emily” dressed in the forbidding garb of forty years ago— respectability personified. n= Margaret understood now that odd patch of bright- ness on the parlor wall. Of course, why had she not remembered sooner? That was where Aunt Emily used to hang. But why—what were they all doing here? Then suddenly the meaning of it dawn- ed upon her. This was part of her mother’s welcome; this was her way of sparing Margaret's feelings, of making home a little nearer what she had al- ways longed for by putting out of sight the things she had disliked. A lump rose in Margaret’s throat and the out-lines of the china dog grew blur- red. A wave of tenderness and gratitude swept over her, and for a moment she struggled to choke back the tears. There was something so touching, so mutely pathetic in this belated acquiescence in her wishes, this silent self-effacement of middle age before the ideals of a younger generation. By this one simple action of atonement all the past offenses against her love of beauty, all the wounds to her artistic feelings, were somehow healed. For it had always been her feelings— argaret’s feelings—that had counted. In fact, until this moment it had hardly occurred to her, except in the vaguest way, to consider the matter from any other point of view. She had talked of individualism, of the sacredness of self- |. expression, of the stunting influence of old traditions, old prejudices, old beliefs. But it had been her own individuality, her own need of expression that had cen- tered all her thoughts. Of the others— well, she had simply not thought about it from their standpoint; that was all. She looked down at the old china dog with his brown patch and his broken ear, at the painted flowers on the yellow scarf, and the portrait cf Aunt Emily staring out of its plush-and-gilt frame. Would she have done this? Had she ever hidden her own likes and dislikes in def- erence to another’s opinion? She might have abdicated for a moment, unwilling- ly, ungraciously, but she could recall no instance when she had done so with vol- untary self-denial. What if her sense of values had been distorted? What if she had laid too much stress on the outward symbol, too little on the meaning behind it? What if simple kindness were bigger than art? Besides, thirty years from now perhaps her modernism would have become old- fashioned. Her children, in turn, might try to convert her to fresh doctrines of life and art, smile indulgently upon her ‘‘queer” notions, speak slightingly of things she had held in reverence, things that had been part and parcel of her own life. And she would try to readjust her vision, to give up the old faded treasures that once meant so much, and keep pace with the intellectual procession of anoth- er day. Butit would be like tearing out a part of herself, being traitor to her own youth, and she would still cling secretly to the old gods and the old altars, while striving outwardly to adapt herself to the new. And by and by, as the years crept past, her children’s chil- dren would grow up with still newer convictions, still more “advanced” ideals. And they in turn. . . . So: would the wheel spin on. : “Have you got everything you want, dear?” called her mother from below. Margaret started guiltily and closed the drawer. “It’s all right; I'll be down directly,” she answered. 5 She rose slowly and stood there a min- ute or two, thinking. Just in that brief space things had changed so. Her whole outlook seemed different. She seemed somehow to have got away from herself, outside the narrow hedge of her own “individualism,” off where she could see things—people—life—from an impersonal point of view. Before—ah, yes, she knew it now—they had been warped and con- fused, distorted by the colored glass of her imagination—or, perhaps, lack of it; but now she could see clearly, as though through a clean pane. Some invisible hand had washed a window in her soul. She had got “perspective.” ° Margaret stooped and opened the bu- reau drawer again. She looked at the china dog, and the portrait in the plush- and-gilt frame, and the faded scarf. An impulse of generosity swelled in her heart. She would take them down-stairs and put them back in their old places! She would reward her mother’s sacrifice by one of her own. : But as she lifted the scarf out of the drawer, Margaret paused. After all, she reflected, the impulse was not really a generous one. It was only superficial— another of her “poses.” (She was begin- ning to see through herself by the light of a new self-criticism.) Even if she did put the things back, she would be giving ing thoughts went deeper—would such an action be quite fair to her mother? It would be condescension, a gift spoiled by the giver’s sense of superiority, the sort of concession which the other would re- sent: Instead of healing, it would widen the breach between their sympathies. Moreover—she realized slowly—dear as these old treasures might be, neither they nor the memories stood for could ever mean quite so much as a daughter’s love and happiness. Today is always greater than yesterday, and tomorrow bigger than either. After all, what right readjusting her viewpoint? Age has as much right to self-development as youth; : why not accept the sign of it framkly | and with gladness, as a sweet and normal thing? And since the outgrown symbols had been put away, let them find togeth- er new and better ones to take the old places. Yes, that was the sollution—that was the right and beautiful way. As Margaret rose to her feet the door opened and her mother came into the room, her thin face flushed from the heat of the oyen, her blue-check apron dusty with flour. She started to say something—then stopped and looked down at the open drawer. Her hot | cheeks flushed deeper and a troubled look came into her eyes. “Why, Margaret! How did you find them?” she exclaimed with a note of dis- may in her voice. *I put them away... . I remembered you never liked to see them around. I wanted youshould have things the way you liked when you came home. And now...” She hesitated. In her eyes there was a strange embar- rassment, a mixture of disappointment and surprise, as though ashamed by the ! discovery and failure of “her simple ruse. ! But something in the girl's face reached her—vaguely at first, then with a wave of sudden comprehension. “Maggie!” There was a little break in ; her voice, like a half-sob, and a mist rose in her eyes. Margaret tried to say something light and playful, to treat it all as a matter of course. But somehow her voice wouldn’t work, and she achieved only incoherence. For a moment they looked at each other silently, timidly almost, and with a little cry the elder woman stretched out her arms. For a second or two she held the young figure closely, with a world of tenderness; then, at a sudden recollec- tion, released her with a quick movement of self-reproach. Margaret had always hated so to be “petted.” How could she have let herself forget! The two stood there. broke the silence. “I want to show you something I brought home,” she said. “It’s only a Then Margaret very little picture, but I think you'll love | it. It’s a copy of a Whistler etching that I had framed specially for you. If you like it, we'll hang it up where Aunt Emily used to be. And can’t we find something beautiful for the mantelpiece —a little jar or a bowl to hold some flow- ers?” Mrs. Demming hesitated. “There's that blue jar the old potter gave us years ago.” : “Why, of course!” cried Margaret, eagerly. “That's the very thing!” “Yes, we'll find it now,” repeated Mrs. Demming, with an odd quaver of happi- ness in her voice. “And while we're down there,” she added, “you must see the strawberry jam I’ve put up for you to take back.”—By Ella M. Ware, in Harper’s Bazar. Annual Convention American Civic As- sociation. The tenth annual convention of the American Civic Association will be held at Washington, D. C., Wednesday, Thurs- day and Friday, December 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It will be a most important meet- ing, from which will go out inspiration to all parts of the United States for ad- vanced effort for the making of beauti- ful and healthful community life and for the preservation of great national scenic wonders such as Niagara Falls and the national parks. The American Civic Association was formed at St. Louis in June, 1904, by the consolidation of the American Park and Outdoor Art Association and the Ameri- can League for Civic Improvement. The Washington convention will, therefore, be an anniversary occasion and distin- | guished, it is expected, by the presence of many of the charter members of the Association and by a program of unusual excellence, relating to city and town planning, city and county parks, neigh- borhood improvement, the abatement of the billboard and smoke nuisances, Niag- ara Falls preservation and national parks. Distinguished speakers who are recogniz- ed authorities on these subjects will be present, not only from the United States, but from Canada and some other foreign countries. The year 1914 has been a no- table one for the American Civic Asso- ciation in respect to the work that it has done to arouse and assist hundreds of towns and cities to important work for their physical improvement. It has also been a notable year in that the Associa- tion has cleared itself of a deficit cf long standing which it incurred in its notable crusade for the saving of Niagara Falls against commercial incursions. An- nouncements will be made at the Wash- ington convention looking toward a larger service to American communities by the Association during the years to come than has ever before been possible. Delegates representing civic leagues, women’s clubs, commercial organizations and many other societies, from all parts of the United States and Canada, all di- recting their efforts for a more beautiful America, will be present. The colored preacher who remarked “Brethren, there is one place to which we can turn and always find sympathy— the dictionary,” probably meant more than he said. Certain it is that about the only place to which some women could turn for the sympathy they need, would be the dictionary. The husband doesn’t sympathize. The family whisper “Mother has one of her nervous spells again.” Everybody seems to feel ag- grieved that their liberty to slam doors and romp around the house should be curtailed by the requirements of “Moth- er’s nerves.” Help is better than sym- pathy, and help for every nervous wom- an is found in Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Pre- scription. It heals diseases of the wom- anly organs which cause nervousness, and it nourishes the nerves themselves into strength. It does away with the “nervous spells” of women. FROM INDIA. By One on Medical Duty in that Far Eastern Country. Getting Ready for a Trip to the Mountains. Color-Washing Rooms. Etc. : JHANSI, SEPTEMBER 12th, 1913. Dear Home Folk: How can I write letters when my whole thought is, “what shall I need in Kash- mir.” On my way to see a sick woman the other day, I chuckled to myself as I ‘saw lying by the roadside a young man dressed in mighty thin garments, rest- ing, seemingly, in great content, hands behind his head and his back support ing the road and I said to myself, “anoth- er tired individual.” I won't select a pile of stones to rest on but I will do all the loafing that I know about after next | week. We will leave here early Monday morning and from that time on I only intend to do necessary things. Tell father to get out his atlas and come along; I'll supply dandy fishing streams and country as wild and bezuti- ful as even his tree-loving soul could want. Rawl-Pindi will be the end of the railway, then Baramulla, and on to Srina- gar by Landau. From there we will go on to the Liddar valley where we camp for a short time and visit beautiful native gardens and see queer, small villages. It is up this valley we are hoping to have our first snow storm. We then go back to Srinagar and Gulmery- and Wular Lake; and then we’ll have to come home: Truly, I reckon it will all be over in al- this. I hope all our plans carry and we'll have a nice time, without having to walk home, for it’s a fairish step this jaunt to the mountains—twenty-eight hours by rail and nearly two hundred i miles of driving. I bought myself such a nice little tin trunk (box) to carry my wardrobe in and when I arrive in San Francisco I | sure will be considered an immigrant; never saw its like except with the newly- arrived—at Ellis Island, American (?) It not only more nearly suits my ward- hence costing little for transportation. | The American trunks are a delusion and a snare in this extra-luggage-pay-coun- try; one almost pays their ticket over again if using a big box, but my new box surely does look ridiculous when Iglance at it. Ones clothes and heavy things go in the “hold-all” that, of course, will be carried right along in our compartment and is passed free by the railway; what light clothes and things that are left go in the box. Heigho! Cheating the rail- ways, for there is but little to weigh. The whole bungalow is upset as it is the time of the year for color-washing (colored white-wash) and all the rooms must be done once in two years, so that between my packing and the house- cleaning my room looks as though it had been struck by a cyclone. I'll straighten it all out before I leave but just now one can only wade in. This color-washing, like everything else, is a slow, slow job and instead of lasting but a few days it will likely take months, and in the mean- time we'll sleep under the beds and eat, no doubt, on the floor. bad as that, but pretty nearly. Good morning? I went off to bed and had a good night’s sleep and am feeling ready to do any amount of work, so asl haven’t much to tell you about, will truly try next week to tell you of my journey and will try to make it as interesting as this is stupid. There was a nice rain yesterday and today this is a good world to live in, even if we are eating in our reception room. Have I ever slept on a spring bed, I won- der. For some timel have been sleep- ing on a “newar” bed, a frame filled in with broad woven tape, cool but hard, until today I begin to think ‘had I ever slept on springs.” If I keep on I will be in prime condition to go camping; won’t need cots, merely a blanket to wrap my- self in and that will be all. You see I am preparing to “tramp it” home from Frisco, know I'll be “stony broke” as these English say, so at least I can get on that way. I can’t say whether you will receive letters regularly from me for the next few weeks, as we will be days away from Srinagar, the capital of Cashmir, but I will try to send them each week. (Continued next week.) Rockaby, Baby. There are few girls in this country who have not heard the nursery rhyme sung by mother: Rockaby, baby, in the treetop; When the wind blows, the cradle will rock; When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, And down will come cradle, baby and all. But how many know the origin of these lines? Shortly after our forefath- ers landed at Plymouth, Mass., a party were out in the field, where these Indian women, or squaws, as they are called, had papooses—that is, babies—and, hav- ing no cradles, they had tied them up in Indian fashion, hung from the limbs of the surrounding trees. When the wind blew, these cradles would rock. A young man of the party, observing this, peeled off a piece of bark and wrote the above lines. Itis believed that this was the first poetry written in America. —Girls’ Companion. Time's Changes. “Before we were married you sald you'd lay down your life for me,” she sobbed. “I know it,” he returned sol- emnly; “but this confounded flat is so tiny there’s no place to lay any- thing down.” most as short time as it takes me to write | robe of the present day but also is light | and will be easily carried by a coolie, | Oh, really, not so | ESKIMO WHALE DANCE. When Arctic Natives Feast and Pick Their Life Mates. A very primitive custom ot the na-. tives ot the Bering and arctic coasts of Siberni. a custom that has come down froin generations of savage ao- cestors, is the annual celebration of the whale dance, when the Eskimos select taeir wives. f LR RGRTE RER, THREE TOASTS. Giant Strides In Fixing the Boundaries of Our Country. At a dinner party given by Ameri- ! cans residing in Paris some years ago When the sun moves southward at | the end of the short suminer season and the ice closes up the northern seas the whales come down to open water, Then. in celebration ot the season's catch, the ice dwellers assem- ble for the whale dance. which lasts twenty-one days. The great dance circle is prepared, and in the center the dancers. both male and female, perform the most savage of evolutions and motions to the accompaniment of rhythmless beating c¢f the tomtomms and weird chanting. The dance songs tell of the prowess of the hunters and of the history of the tribe.