Demorralic; Watchmen, Belletonte, Pa., October 6, 1916. semen _ PONCA, THE PRIDE OF THE PRAIRIE. smn BY MAY BARRETT PANTON. A vast expanse of prairie grass. That sways as the winds go sweeping past, The cry of the wolf—the song of the bird, Buffalo grazing in dusky heard, | Red men’s arrows cleaving the air Wild growth, wild life everywhere. This was the way the world had begun Before the year of ninety-one. For Ponea, the pride of the prairie. Then in eighteen ninety-three, Horses came golloping recklessly, Men rode far, and men rode fast, With a shout and a song, or a curse, as they passed. trembling earth things fled, For behold came man, to reign instead. Then down went the stake, and up went the tent In the city where nobody paid any rent, In Ponca, the pride of the prairie. The waited, the wild When Spring came gayly across the plain, With her daisies and cowslips, wind and rain, She found a cheerful company, Of houses all huddled so neighborly, A school-house, three blocks of thorough- fare. ? Where grocer and merchant might call his ware, A young tree or two and & trifle higher The brilliant gleam of a small church spire, In Ponca, the pride of the prairie. Was ever a land nore blessed then, Than this, the mecca of wide-awake men? The fruit on the tree— the game in the wold— The wheatheads and cornstalks all heavy with gold, And he who walked on the soles of his feet— In ninety-eight—in the dust of the street—- Now swings along in a touring car, No matter how fast, no matter how far, In Ponca, the pride of the prairie. And mark you, that tiny thoroughfare Is lengthened, and widened, and paved with care, From globes of crystal, electric ray, Illumes its path, a great white way, Dignity, beauty, and pride combine Our town's index, in that long bright line, ‘While eastward and westward, south and north, Progressive improvement goes marching forth, In Ponea, the pride of the prairie. Another film—while the orchestra plays— A kinetograph of our future days. Hark! To the city’s tumult and din. See the electrics go spinity spin, Crowds on the corners and thronged in the street, The cream of America’s milliohs meet— Motors and trucks and policemen polite, Traversing the city day and night, In Ponca, the pride of the prairie. If people come viewing the sights of the town rubber-neck around, Over Bodoc Bridge with its million spans Or over to Kaw. the Red:man’'s land. A trolley to Salt Fork bathing beach, Another the 101 will reach, Or Vanselous ranch or Injun mound, Or Turkey Creek pond or Robertson sound Near Ponca, the pride of the prairie. Any car will tcte them Great sculpters have dreamed in this land of the sun, American Sphinx, have we more than one, Art galleries open to one and all, And here to original work we call Attention-——The sacred canvasses were brushed The fingers of Reynolds and Rembrandt are thus, With Carreggio and Titan presented to view, Leonard da Vinei has a picture here, too, In Ponca, the pride of the prairie. This too, is the fame, For here are recorded the following names: Washington, Cromwell, Shakespeare and — Poe, : Napoleon and know. Bryan and Teddy, Woody and Brown, Even Emaline Pankhurst was born in our town. The parks alone are well worth a trip | There's the Dame's Dréam Park, begin with it In Ponca, the pride of the prairie. birthplace of many of Christy, Columbus you The plans were copied from Paradise, It’s shady, artistic, cool, and nice. The sunken gardens, the statutes grand And “II Trovatore” by the Ponca band. To women alone is this dream place due, And we wish to impress the fact upon you, That as to the wheel is the mighty hub, So is the Twentieth Century Club To Ponca, the pride of the prairie. There are dozens. of theatres all just fine, We can see Sarah Bernhardt any old time, “Frisco’s” plan is enlarged upon here, We have expositions every year. Homeward-bound, if one is a trifle belated, Take the underground or the elevated, Or, fly to those bright clouds far up in the blue, Those are wharfs, for our air-ships to tie up to, At Ponea, the pride of the prairie. THE DEEPER DIAGNOSIS. It was so still in Mrs. Brown's beautiful rcom that the snowy thor- oughfare upon which her house stood might have been miles away from New York. Young Dr. Butier had felt this room to be a very special place as soon as he entered it. He dreaded, however, meeting the lady of the house, although he was distinctly proud of having her for a patient. He pondered the never-failing remem- brance of Dr. Pentridge, who sent for him always now when his medical efforts demanded surgical co-opera- tion, but he felt that much wealth in- sulates. the sympathies, and thus, even among his patients, scorned the possessors of notorious riches, unless they could claim the rarer distinction of unusual disease. Mrs. Brown was merely known to him as a moneyed person. “The rea- son,” he said to himself, “that this particular goose of a woman is keep- | | peared while Dr. Butler ing me waiting is that her maid is hunting her a becudoir cap. The fe-! male of the plutocrat admits a doctor | swered ‘t. speak with you Billy,” she said. i Dr. Butler got up briskly, as if he | noiselessly entered her bedroom. “Good evening,” he said. “What only when she is armed, so to speak, | had not touched scissors or sutures | glorious flowers!” boudoir-cap-a-pie!” The door opened an. a footman en- | tered. 1 sepulchral sonority, meet you. He will telephcne your |. house about eight, sir.” “Thank you. Dces Mrs. Brown know | that I am here?” . “Yes, sir. She has just come in.” Dr. Butler withdrew his charge of | the boudoir cap, and a few moments later the door opened again and a small, rather heavy woman moved through it with rapid and distinguish- ed grace. Her humorous mouth and darkly tragic eyes were odd compan- ions in a lovely oval face framed in hair just turning gray above the ears it covered, ears from which two glit- tering ornaments depended. Pearls clasped her neck; her coat was of sable. In a word, she was dressed as the carelessly rich alone can dress. When she spoke her voice was a de- light—slow, solomn, caressing, with a little laughter ever behind it, as the face of a nymph at play might show between the funeral foliage of cy- presses. “I am sorry to keep you,” she said, “but you will realize that the snow makes the going Jifficult, Dr. Butler.” “Yes. Did you hear that Dr. Pent- ridge can’t get here?” “That makes no difference. Let us not bother him. I will show you my shoulder, and you will decide what is | best to do.” “Very well.” She rose and took off her heuvy coat. “I’ll ring for my maid,” she said. A slender young Irishwoman ap- conversed rapidly—praising Dr. Pentridge, al- luding to his skili, deplering the short but vivid zenith of surgical glory as evidence by the vogue of the individ- ual—just the routine chatter he knew so well how to deliver in his brisk, pleasant voice. His handseme face was keen as he helped the maid pull back a bodice of exquisite lace. “How long has this been here?” he asked in his examination. “Not long. It’s the result of an in- jury. A box fell on me.” He caught the expression of her maid’s face, and it interested him as she shot a look of admiration at her mistress. He had not seen many such glances from servants toward their emplovers. “his is nothing serious,” he said, slowly; “it will have to be cut out, though, and it will leave a scar, per- haps—not a large scar.” “When will you do it?” “The sooner the better.” “Tomcrrow at nine?” “Very well, tomorrow at nine.” She made no attempt te rearrange her bodice, but slipped her great fur coat over it. “Sometimes it hurts me,” she ob- served, ~asually. “I am sure it does,” he answered. “Could it—recur?” she asked. “No; no indeed. It’s nothing like that. You had an abrasion—a cut—it became infected and the infection was neglected—that’s all.” The maid led him away to wash his hands in a gorgeous dressing-room. His patient’s face went with him. He didn’t think about its being pretty or plain; he merely observed it as he did most things, coolly, thoroughly, be- cause they were there to be observed. He was interested in the luxury of her house, finding it an agreeable con- trast to the long. bare halls of his hospital with their numbered doors. He returned to the large and lovely room where Mrs. Brown was standing before the fire. “Dr. Pentridge said I'd not have to take ether,” she said. “No, no; cocaine.” “Good night,” she added, suddenly, “and thank you so much for your promptitude in coming.” Although she evinced no desire to detain him, she sped him with a daz- zling smile. He took her hand and gazed at her admiringly, with a mem- ory of her maid’s admiration. It was very late in the evening, and Dr. Butler, anticipating early activi- ties, had been asleep for two hours. More sncw was falling, draping dingy fences between disordered back yards in heavy coverings of perfect white. A telephone bell rang stridently, and Dr. Butler's hand was alert to snatch the receiver almost before his eyes open- ed. “Yes?” he said. “This is Mrs. Brown,” a voice re- plied. “I can’t have you tomorrow morning, after all. I have a chance to do a dear frierd a real service. A sudden—er—stress has arisen. I will call you up as soon as I've done that. I mean, when my services are com- pleted I will ask immediately for yours.” “Thank you. I'm so sorry you're in trouble,” he returned, impulsively; “but don’t delay. That abscess is painful, and I find that type of thing does not decrease of itself.” “No. I do hope you weren’t asleep. Good night.” He hung up the receiver and looked out at the hurrying downfall of white flakes. He was grievously disappoint- ed. “That’s what we human beings are,” he said, thoughtfully, “little white spots against a night of mys- tery, and—falling down on every- thing.” As he drew the blankets up about his shoulders Mrs. Brown’s face flashed on him thr ugh the darkness. “That woman was in trouble,” he muttered, sleepily; “her voice was tense.” At the end of the next day but one, after hours of continuous operation, Dr. Butler lay on his sister’s hig leather lounge, letting her beat him at piquet. “Oh,” she said, “I saw Mrs. Brown today—witty Tilly Brown. I didn’t know vou knew her.” “I don’t really. I saw her once for Pentridge.” “Why, you wild being! She told me you were to operate on her in the morning. I hope you're not forget- ting it—she’s a pretty important per- son.” The telephone rang at that moment, and Mrs. Clarkson good-naturedly an- i for the whole long day. | started away to his own house. She “Good even- | ing,” he said, stiffly. He then added, | . . Hope vou have a good night”— ! and, “Good-by.” . | Returning to his sister, he finished | said as he left her: “I hope Mrs. Brown isn’t suffering | She was charmirg to me this after- noon at the club, but every one re- | marked how badly she looked.” : “Perhaps she’ll feel better present- | ly,” he called back as he slammed the | house door. Nine o'clock of the next morning | found him already at work setting out ! various sterile objects on a little table by Mrs. Brown’s ornate bed. He was | still uttering the operator's reassur- | ing patter. Mrs. Brown, closely at- tended by her maid in black, as he by | his nurse (in white), sat back upon | pillows, without a boudeir cap, listen- ing eagerly to what he said. At the appointed time she slipped her shcul- der out of a fine but plainly fashioned | night-gown, revealing her torso en- | cased in a skintight covering of close- | knit merino. “You can,” she directed, “cut this shirt thing I have on just where the | lump is. Be quite ruthless.” He cut out a little round piece care- | fully as a beginning. “Mr. Brown,” she was saying, “left | for Jekyll Island this morning. I | he left her. “They smell like a funeral,” she an- swered, “and a funeral, in view of my ! “Dr. Pentridge,” he said, with | at intervals: “I'm sorry to hear that. | present suffering, seems a good idea.” “js unable to... Yes, I can perfectly—nine o’clock. He assuaged her very real physical pain and waited to see if she would probably have a good night, while he enjoyed the best evening of his life. | their game, kissed her good night, and | Her droll speech, her dramatic eves, | the authority of her gray hair verg- ing on a countenance of girlish fresh- ness and adolescent pink, bewitched him. He sat in silence, facing a shad- ed lamp. Inexpressible impulses swayed him. Her vital hand grew limp, her eves Yee sealed down with their white ids. choking in his throat. He rose, gamely impersonal, smiled at her maid, and tiptced from the room. And she still slept, remote, serene, conveyed to.a precinct of calm by the medical magic of his capsules while! he suffered the world’s worst exile as surviving shipwreck in a nameless and uncharteréd sea. On his way home he stopped in at the hospital and met Dr. Pentridge in the corridor. “Hello, Butler. You have made a hit with the Browns.” “I’m glad—they’re nice people.” “Samuel returns to-morrow. He he’s been away. He's had tonsilitis.” “Tough luck fcr a poor, hard-work- Many words of tenderness died | He felt more alone out- ! side her house than did the one mani “Mrs. Brown wants to i lift to the top of her house, and he : “Afterward,” he said, gently. She took it meekly away. , Doors were closed and windows ' opened. Mr. Sammy Brown was car- ried in to the operating-table, looking much more peaceful than when Dr. Butler had examined him in bed fif- teen minutes before. Mrs. Brown was kindly thrust from the room, and with a few explanatory words to his col- league the surgecn began his work. Time was no‘ in the tenseness of Dr. Butler’s effort. His patient was fearfully weak, and only quickress could save him. Hiz nurse wiped his forehead for him, dripning with the sweat of his passionate toil. He nod- ded sharply, an¢ dogged]y did the next thing. His iip quivered with the strain under his artificial calm, and he cast a glance of inquiry at the an- esthetist, who shrugged his shoulders | and said nothing. : i But at last the final ctitch was tied, the bandages placed, the long strain ' lay behind him like a hill hard climb- ed, and his patient breathed, as he did, more easily. Mrs. Brown could not speak as he passed her in the hall. She looked at him dumbly with tired eves as he ! drank his coffee in the dining-room. All the drawing-room windows were open in spite of the cold, and the servants were saying hard things about the smell that surgery leaves behind it. Quiet and pale, Dr. Butler began the day’s rounds. | All stress had died away in the { Brown household. Dr. Butler alone | writes me he’s been ill all the time |had the worn look of c¢ne who waits | in solitude, for he had decided that if : Mrs. Brown meant to he more than didn’t think this was serious enough | ing man like Brown to get sick on va- : human, he could but acquiesce in her to detain him— Oh!” ! He had pulled at the edge of the! hole he had cut, and the shirt had | torn across the shoulders like paper, revealing five frightful welts on the! firm flesh of her white back. ! cation.” Pentridge grinned, and the two sep- arated without further formality. But the next day Butler went again to Mrs. Brown’s. The housemaid had a ganglion. He smote it with a book { high resolve and magnificent conduct. | He talked pretty freely about the | snares of women in connection with | the medical career and raked over one { or two old scandals while dining with | two other physicians. And always he “Mrs. Brown!” he cried, explosive- | and it dispersed, but he gave Mrs. | felt the solemn pride of a conscious ly, “don’t those hurt terribly?” “They’ve kept me awake all night.” “How did you do it?” hours, presumably on ;zanglions. The | Brown a dessertation of at least two . principal in a noktle tragedy, and sson | his visits at the Brown’s ceased. They | day after that he read in a newspaper | had no pretext of renewal. Although she fastened her eyes on! (on the front page) that Mr. Brown | His word was law with hosts of him pleadingly, and said, “Don’t ask | had left Jekyll Island for New York, | women; they quoted it confidentially me,” adding, “I don’t want to tell,” | the impression she made on him was that she didn’t want him to tell. It was as if the plea in her dark, tragic eyes were articulate cpeech, as if he | heard their silent message. With a | great pity at his heart and a decided | moisture sheathing for an instant the | keenness of his eyes, he began to pre- | pare his operating ares. “I can give you something to help those bruises,” was what he said, qui- etly. He felt bound within a secret, speechlessly but explicitly bound. A lump rose in his throat, and he longed for opportunity to tell Mr. Brown what he thought of him. As, with a strip of plaster, he fast- ened a cushion of sterilized gauze on top of his excision, he said within himself, “Any one could call that back bruised, but the deeper diagnosis connects such an injury with its au- thor.” While his nurse cleared up he drew a wide chintz chair to the place where his folding-table had been. “I am going to sit here ten minutes to see | if your back remains comfortable,” he said. She smiled on him slowly. When he rose to go, after an hour of inti- mate, humorous talk, he felt as if her smile were still incomplete, as if its nltimate radiance still awaited him. But above the tender mobility of her lips, the egress of her quaintness and her wit, her dark eyes stood for sor- row. Like black-bordered columns in a newspaper, they gave notice of tragedy before their meaning was mastered in detail. Despite the fact that his long chat with Mrs. Brown had delayerd him all day, Dr. Butler felt particularly cheerful at nightfall. Little things she had said came sailing across the surface of his mind—Ilittle things that showed the temper of hers. He felt that he knew when her back had been so bruised, for the great black-and- purple stripes had not been there on his first examination. He recalled her voice as it crossed the wind-toss- ed wire of that blizzard-blown night, hi felt sick as he thought about it all. His sister asked about Mrs. Brown at dirner, adding that she had with- drawn from the club dancing-class that afternoon. A cryptic contortion passed over his face. “She may feel like dancing again presently,” he said. “You never can tell.” ~ “T hope she’s not suffering!” “Suffering!” he laughed rather bit- terly. “What some of the women _ in her position endure would deunt the wife of a drunken tinker. Physical suffering seems almost a relief to them—after their mental anguish. Think of the daily jarring of a refined woman by a cruel husband whose servants and lawyers and doctors screen his worst self {from the outer world.” “You talk like an envenomed femi- nist tonight, Billy,” Mrs. Clarkson said, laughing. “You usually regard woman as a waste creation. I think, bar details like minor operations, Mrs. Brown leads a perfectly satisfactory life.” The telephone rang and Dr. caught up the receiver. “Yes,” he answered, “I was afraid it might. I'll come round and spray it with a numbing solution. Yes, Ill bring something to make you sleep, at once.” He did not tell Mrs. Clarkson that it was Mrs. Brown with whom he had just talked. But his sister looked at him with deep affection as she said. “You sound so kind and dependable when vour peevish patients call you up like that.” “I've got to be to hold down my trade,” he answered. “Good night, Cecilia.” It is torturing to be acutely con- scious of a woman’s personal attrac- tion while powerless to lessen her personal griefs. Dr. Butler felt, as he hurried along Park Avenue, as if he had actually proved the dark trag- edy of five welts and an abscess, and knew it from the initial blow to the crucial excision, and beyond. He sometimes whistled with astonished admiration at Mrs. Brown’s magnifi- cent reticence. Butler Presently a fociman took him in a suffering from tonsilitis. It is to be recorded that he felt no sympathy for the indisposed traveler, but he drop- ped in to see how the housemaid’s abided by her hand progressed, and was rewarded by a happy hour with her mistress. It was very dark—the dark of the next dayv’s dawn. Dr. Butler was sleeping the prefound and restful sleep of a man who uses hands as well as head in warfare with the world. A watchman stood outside his door, a Meunier figure of the sturdy work- and-break-of-day laborer. He alter- nately pressed the electric button and bawled. “Guess the party sleeps in the back of the house,” he said at last. “You said your folks ’phored?” “That’s right,” the chauffeur roar- ed in answer. “I gotta pinch him or lose my job.” Dr. Butler's head appeared at a front window. ‘What do you want?” he demanded. “You,” the chauffeur called. “Dr. Pentridge has been trying to get vou by telephone for two hours. You're sure some sleeper.” The doctor retired swiftly to the clamor of a telephone. “Yes, Dr. Pentridge. . . here. . . . Trachea? Very glad to, of course. . Sorry to hear it. . . . About half an hour. Good-by.” He put up the receiver with a scar- ed face. Dr. Pentridge had told him Mr. Brown was choking and would die without operation. His bag for such an emergency was ready; he stopped at Boskill’s for extra tubes of divers makes and surnmoned his pet nurse before he found himself, at last in the motor. . Lights streamed out from the Browns’ great house, and a weary servant opened the hall door before he could ring. Mrs. Brown, dishevel- ed and dressed in a crumpled riding- habit, placed an icy hand in his grasp. “I was out when they brought him,” she said, despairingly, “and when I came in he couldn’t speak. I was tak- ing a last riding-lesson before he should arrive home. I’ve had no time to change, you see.” “Let me see him now,” he answer- ed, gently. “Is Dr. Pentridge with him?” “Yes; but I must speak to you one moment—in here.” She almost pushed him into a coat cupboard beneath her stone stairway. The car is [ grasping a fur cape to steady herself, as it hung richly against the bare wall. “Fer both of us,” she whispered, hoarsely, “save him. It means so much to both of us.” His heart leaped in his side and he put his hands resolutely behind his back. “Thank you, dear lady, for vour honesty. My standards would be corrupted forever if I did one whit less than my best—now.” The tears rose in her eyes before he left her, but as he entered the lift he felt a little sense ¢f disappoint- ment that she could have thought for an instant that he would be tempted to use his professional training in any interest but the preservation of life —no matter whose life. “Both of us,” he murmured, as he opened Mr. Brown’s bedroom door. He held it a second in his hand, stun- ned at the magnificence of morality. He thought with awe cf the persist- ence of the moral idea in this pamper- ed woman, whe would prefer that he put forth the honest utmost of his skill, even though it reinforced the shackle on her wedding finger. “Both of us,” reverberated its cheer withir him as he found the pulse of Sammy Brown. It raced weakly above his long, limp hand. Dr. But- ler’s eyes dwelt on the miserakle be- ing before him, and the ecstatic possi- bilities of Mrs. Brown’s phrase were eclipsed for the moment in the depths of his professional pity. When he withdrew with Dr. Pent- ridge they agreed, after a few words in the toneless calm of their profes- sional voices, that no time must be lost before an operation. They went together to perform the varied prepa- rations; the anesthetist was at hand; the operating nurse appeared casual- ly; the room next the patient’s show- ed forth the grim and white-shroud- ed order of the house surgically pre- empted. Mrs. Brown brought him a cup of coffee with her own hands. | in shops, loudly at luncheons, rever- ently in the houses of death and of birth; but none of them could have vouthful impulses through years of disappointed matri- | mony as did this inexorable and intre- I pid Tiliy Brown. He wove his work i about her life, he looked for her in { the dim streets on winter afternoons, | he expected her voice every time the | telephone rang, and his skill shone | out of his strange preoccupation. a jewel shines against a black gown. | He had passed her early in the | afternoon of the vear’s first spring day. The stream of motors going ! south at three o’clock in the long and narrow city had received her car, and i he had seen her, grave of face but | gaily dressed; remote, without kncwl- edge of his nearness, although he felt i his eyes burning at sight of her. And { throughout his busy afternoon her | face had followed him until he had finished his last visit far north on { Riverside Drive and was standing i waiting for his metor as it came i slowly toward him, passing a steep | side-street. | A heavy truck followed | hind it. A snapping sound came to his ears, and from the truck’s side he saw what looked like spray, tiny slivers of glass from a motor’s wind-shield, thrown far up into the air by collis- ion. The truck-cdriver swore vividly; each horrid phrase he used fell on the soft evening with perfect and malign distinctness. Instinctively helpful, Dr. Butler ran to the car that had rammed the truck. Mrs. Brown was alighting from it. “Are you hurt?” he said, his veice weak with fright. “No. Is Sims?” “No,” rejoined the chauffeur. “My brake wouldn't work. We can get home all right.” “You take tne car down directly in front of us. I will follow with Dr. Butler in his car,” sai¢ Mrs. Brown. Dr. Butler did not speak; he was looking at her very gravely. “Sam is so delighted that I can ride now,” she went on, happily, “and I’ve never told him about my accidents. You know that abscess thing 1 had came from my mare backing me into the stable door with the key in the lock. Why the key didn’t penetrate my lung I have yet to learn.” . “And the stripes on your back?” he asked quietiy. “The same mare put me off on a culvert shield that was lying on the grass—that hurt horribly.” “It must have,” he answered. “You were fortunate not to fare worse. Why wouldnt you tell me at the time 7” “I was afraid you might write to Sam and advise him not to let me break my neck.” : “Oh. And he is quite well now?” “Yes. I wish we ever saw you. We like you so much.” “That should comfort me just now,” he answered, “for I am strangely out of conceit with myself.” “That,” she answered calmly, “is because your patients demand too much of you. You give, give, give!” “There is a slang phrase about giv- ing yourself away,” he said, slowly. “But that is different,” she cried quickly. “Different and even less pleasant,” he rejoined. “You gave Sam back to me,” she whispered = gratefully, “and I thank you from my heart.” She reached out for his hand in the dusk and held it closely. He had often dreamed of her hand- clasp, but now, as he looked boldly at her, he hated it. “Mr. Brown,” he declared, incisive- ly,” was a stronger man than I real- ized.”—By Eleanor Stuart, in “Har- per’s Monthly Magazine.” close be- Served a Double Purpose. “I hope you are not accumulating a lot of soiled dishes for your wife to wash when she returns from her va- cation.” “Nope, I use wooden: dishes. Noth- ing to wash, and they cerve the next morning to start the fire.”—Louis- ville Courier-Journal. Twanty women in every hundred have dark eyes. SH a FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN. DAILY THOUGHT To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.—Robert Louis »tevenson. There is a new sort of sport middy this year. It is the Russian sport blouse, a cousin to last season’s smock, but a much daintier affair. It clips on over the head and is belted at the waist line, the part that falls over the hips having slashes at either side like a man’s shirt. Sometimes there is smocking at the shculders, or the fullness may be added by box plaits. The deep collar tapers in front to a long slash which is closed over a but- toned flap. Slot seams are seen once more on some of the season’s favored models. Several years ago when they were in fashion they were so popular that almost every dress had a slot seam somewhere on it, but with the passing of tucks and plaits the slot seam went out. On a plain suit or dress this style of seam makes something of a trimming. It is used on one of the new suits where the only trimming is collar and cuffs of plaid. The coal is considered very smart, is on the box style, is four or five inches below the waist line and hangs away from the body. The ease and freedom of modern dress rather inclines some people to think that the ccrset is of smail im- portance, but as a fact the corset is of the most serious importance. It should steady the whole structure; it should keep the line good, and correct certain imperfections. The mere fact of ease and freedom of movement be- ing the main points of modern dress makes the corset necessary as a cor- rective measure. It is like self-disci- pline, it prevents the abuse of liberty. It is also a health measure, and many doctors advise their patients to have well-made corsets from: that point of view. To be sure of getting a satis- factory suit when the new models are disclosed it is wise to begin by buying new corsets, and no article of dress so well repays the buyer. It is econom- ical and it promotes good deportment that essential to good dressing, which is so often left out of the program of the modern girl. Are you puzzled about a suitable gift for the little girl who has just graduated from the nursery and is the proud possessor of a room all her own? Well, if you are, just get a pair of plain wocden shoe-trees and decorate them. First paint them both a flat even coat of white and then with a glorious disregard for the claims of artistic anatomy make funny little faces on the top nobs, buttons or wriggles down the shaft and put two black dabs for shees standing on the gaily decorated ends. Then get whatever colored worst- eds or wools appeal to your own taste and give them both nice warm muf- flers for the winter so as to keep from taking cold. It would be a ter- rible thing if they communicated a chill to the shoes and gave the wearer cold feet! The question of shees and stock- ings comes under consideration in the autumn, and this autumn we shal’ find them more expensive than ever It is wise to buy good ones, wise be- cause economical and productive of good effect. Good leather, well seasoned, does not lose its shape, and stands the wear and tear of modern life. To have a neat foet with a heel that does not dip on one side means constant attention, and the old proverb of “A stitch in time saving nine” cannot be better applied than in always remem- bering it where one’s shoes are con- cerned. A shoe or boot kent on 2 good tree, with neat laces, buckles, or buttons, and the heel always perfect- ly straight, adds great'y to the gen- eral effect of a costume when put on a well-stockinged foot. The question of stockings is ancth- er one we have to face frequently Some women buy good stockings and have them darned, others buy chean stockings and put them away when they have a hole. The old-fashioned mind prefers the good stocking and the good shoe. They look better, they encourage carefulness, and they last much longer. A big shop in Paris which is now rather old fashioned does a very big trade in good silk stockings; another does a big trade in cheap ones. It is merely a question of taste. The very fantastic shoe is often seen in Paris and heels are higher. In these particulars, but both as a matter of taste and health, sim- plicity and moderation are move to be recommended. Nothing looks better than a neat black leg and a neat black shoe or boot for ordinary wear in the practical walks of life, and fantasy, and color are more in keeping within the house, where a woman’s shoe may be allowed as much caprice as the mind of its owner chooses. Over 9,000 waitresses are employed in New York city. Women now want to be represent- ed at the Hague conference. Department store clerks, stenogra- phers and other working women of New York city have organized a co- operative employment bureau and are contributing to the fund for paying wages to out-of-work girls working on Red Cross shirts while they look for new positions. England and Wales has a total of 4,830,734 women engaged in gainful occupations. The greater part of these, 1,260,673, are domestic ser- vants, the cotton industry providing the next highest number of working women with 378,834, while 331,129 are engaged in dressmaking. eta LAE YY Chocolate Popcorn. Two tea cups white sugar, one-half cup of corn syruy, two ounces choco- late, one cup water. Put these ingre- dients into a kettle and cook them until the syrup hardens, then put into cold water. Pour over four quarts of crisp, freshly popped corn, and stir well to insure the uniform coating of the kernels.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers