Bellefonte, Pa., July 25, 1924.
AE TSA ES,
IF YOU'VE ANYTHING GOOD TO
SAY.
If you've anything good to say of a man,
Don’t wait till he’s laid to rest,
For the eulogy spoken when hearts are
broken
Is an empty thing at best.
Ah! the blighted flower now drooping
lonely
Would perfume the mountain side,
If the sun’s glad ray had but shone today’
And the pretty bud espied.
If you've any alms to give to the poor,
Don’t wait till you hear the cry
Of wan distress in the wilderness,
Lest the one forsaken die.
Oh! hearken to poverty’s sad lament!
Be swift her wants to allay;
Don’t spurn God's poor from the favored
door,
As you hope for mercy one day.
Don’t wait for another to bear the burden
Of sorrow’s irksome load;
Let your hand extend to a stricken friend
As he totters down life’s road.
And if you’ve anything good to say to a
man,
Don’t wait till he’s laid to rest;
For the eulogy spoken when hearts are
broken
Is an empty thing at best.
—Front Rank.
DOT AND WILL’S RADIO SET-TO.
I suppose there comes a time in the
life of every married woman when she
suddenly realizes that she is the one
who is making all the sacrifices—
there is a lot of kick in making large
sacrifices—but just the little, dinky,
irritating ones.
The other day I happened to read a
page or so in the diary I was keeping
when Will and I got married, and I
came across this paragraph:
Mother was talking about being married,
today, and she said how you had to bear
and forbear—all that old stuff, Thank
goodness, I wasn’t born back in her gen-
eration. Will is perfectly crazy about me,
and wants me to have everything I want.
It’s not likely that this sort of thing will
come up much in our lives.
Honestly, it seems strange that a
person can know what I know now at
twenty, and have been as dumb as
that at nineteen! Will and I did talk
things over once or twice and say that
of course we knew we wern’t perfect,
and we’d have to overlook each other’s
faults, That seemed to settle the
whole question. It makes you feel
awfully broad-minded and tolerant
and everything, when you say you're
going to overlook your husband’s pe-
culiarities. But the first time you find
that he wants tea with his dinner, it’s
just as great a shock as though you
hadn’t already admitted that he was
less than perfect.
As a matter of fact it was on this
little thing of tea that I first began
being self-sacrificing. As every
housekeeper appreciates, it’s a nui-
sance to have to make tea while you
are getting a dinner. Goodness knows,
there are enough things to be attend-
ed to on the stove at the last minute
without adding tea. But it wasn’t re-
ally the bother that shocked me; it
was the old-fashionedness of Will's
wanting tea with dinner. At first, I
tried to put him off.
“Qh, if you don’t have it a few
times,” I told him, “you’ll soon forget
all about it and stop wanting it.”
“But I don’t want to stop wanting
it!” Will protested. “I like tea, and
I like to like it. I’ll make it myself,
if it’s a nuisance to you.” : ;
I suppose if I'd been married ten
months then, instead of ten days, I
might have realized that, small and
reasonable as this sounded, it would
be the Opening Wedge. I might have
taken warning right out of my own
old home, too. Mother has gone all
through her married life having to
have doughnuts for breakfast, just
because Father used to have them
when he was a boy. Yet, when Will
put his arm around me and brushed his
cheek against my hair kind of coax-
ingly, I said, “Oh, all right, Grandpa,
tea for yours,” to conceal the thrill
that swept all over me at the idea of
being actually married to Will and
living in the same house.
For a long time I didn’t notice oth-
er little things, as they came along,
one by one. You don’t at first. I'm
sure that is the way most people get
to being unselfish. Surely no sensi-
ble person, seeing the way unselfish
people get handed things in this
world, would ever set out deliberately
with her eyes open to be unselfish. It
just creeps up on you like some slow,
insidious sickness. The first time you
ever really think of it at all, you've
already got it. I kept making one
little sacrifice after another without
thinking much about it. And then,
one day, I suddenly woke up to the
fact that I was making them all!
There was bridge, for instance. I'm
crazy about bridge, but it’s Will’s idea
of just nothing at all. And, little by
little, I'd practically given it up, ex-
cept to play once in a while in the
afternoon with just the girls.
Then there was the matter of my
photograph albums. I have four, one
for each year since I was sixteen.
The first time I got them out to show
to somebody after we were married,
1 had a kind of feeling that Will was
not in sympathy. And after the peo-
ple had gone he hemmed and hawed
around and finally came out and said
he did wish I wouldn’t show my al-
bums to people.
“Not show them!” I gasped. “Why
on earth not?” :
“Well—of course they're interesting
to you to save—and everything—but
for other people to look at—I don’t—
The fellows in the frat house always
used to kid about them-—all albums
are so much alike—black pages writ-
ten on with white ink; there’s always
pictures of the crowd out camping
and a flashlight of the party at some-
body’s house, and one picture that you
have to say, ‘Oh, no, that isn’t me,
that’s Helen,” and—"
“My albums are not like anybody
else’s,” I interrupted hotly. “Every-
body says they're very original, and
everybody likes to see them!”
I was awfully taken aback. Of
course, there was a picture of our|
bunch up at Lake Winneposocket, nat-
urally, and one flashlight of the party
Madge gave for Will and me when
we got engaged. And there was even
one picture of me in front of Rose-
mary’s that people always thought
was Rosemary, just because it wasn’t
awfully clear and they could just rec-
ognize her house. = st
But what earthly fun would there
be in keeping an album if you never
showed it to anybody? :
“Especially the last book,” Will was
going on. “I— Honestly it just
makes me squirm to have you show
that to people.”
The last one was the really clever
one. I called it “My Him Book,” and
it was just pictures of Will. Every-
body who had ever seen it said how-
cute it was. Having known Will all
my life, I had snapshots that went
clear back to when he was a baby.
“T could take out the baby one of
you without any clothes on in the
bathtub, if that’s the one you don’t
like,” 1 offered generously.
Just mentioning this seemed to ir-
ritate Will in the strangest way. We
had almost a quarrel about it before
we got through, and it ended by Will’s
apologizing for hurting my feelings.
But apologizing couldn’t stop my
knowing how he felt about my albums, |
and I just naturally stopped showing
them to people.
Oh, there were dozens of other
things, like a perfectly
brown dress that I practically stopped
wearing because he didn’t like it; and
advice that I'd listen to politely from
Mother Horton just because she was
Will’s mother, whereas if my own
mother had pulled it I'd just have
said, “Oh, come off, Mother, times
have changed since the burning of the
Iriquois.” And there were things I
liked to eat and that I'd stopped cook-
ing, just because Will didn’t like them.
Sometimes I have made up my mind
to do something I simply hated, just
to please Will, and then I’ve been so
everlastingly tactful about it that he’d
believe I really wanted to do it, and
sometimes actully wind up by believ-
ing that he was doing the whole thing
himself, just to please me.
Like spending our Christmas mon-
ey, for instance.
Each of our fathers had given us
twenty-five dollars for Christmas, and
we had a little “luxury money” in our
budget box, so we decided to pool it
all, and get something big and im-
pressive that we’d both enjoy. I had
practically decided on a really good
Mah Jong set with a table and all the
expensive things to go with it. Mah
Jong parties are all the rage now in
Montrose and some of the girls have
perfectly beautiful sets. I wasn’t sure
Will would care for the idea, so I be-
gan cautiously, sort of preparing the
ground.
“I think it would be nice to get
something snappy and new, don’t!
you?”
“You bet,” Will agreed. “No use
getting a horse and buggy instead of |
a roadster.”
“Or a pack of cards instead of a
Mah Jong set,” I said suggestively.
I dropped the subject at that, think-
ing I'd leave the suggestion to work :
away by itself for a while, like a seed
in the'spring. It worked like a seed :
all right! But what came up wasn’t
what I planted. I got back from
staying two days with Margie Collins
in Verblen, and found that Will had
bought a radio!
“I tried all yesterday and last even-
ing to get you by phone to ask you
about buying the radio,” Will explain-
ed. “I had to a:t quick, because as
soon as Van got transferred to the
Chicago office and said he guessed he |
would sell his set, half a dozen fel-
lows were after it. It’s a wonderful
bargain, you know. Of course I
wouldn’t have got it if I hadn’t been
sure you wanted one; but I remember-
ed what you said about keeping up to
the minute and everything.”
My breath was taken away. I
didn’t know whether I wanted a radio
or not. I'd never even thought about
getting one. I was terribly disap-
pointed about the Mah Jong set, but—
and this is the way selfsacrificing gets
to be a habit—I didn’t say a word |
about that.
“Merciful heavens!” I gasped when
Will led me proudly into our living-
room. The whole end of it looked ex-
actly like the physics lab. in high
school—dials and lights and wires and
batteries and goodness knows what
all, and a wire loop as big as a Fer-
ris wheel.
“This is the slick kind of set,” Will
was explaining proudly. “No aerials
or ground wire sor anything outside
the house at all.”
“Wouldn’t it make the living-room
a little more—homelike,” I faltered
doubtfully, “if you could leave some-
thing outdoors?”
“Not with this set,” Will declared.
“Sit down now and I’m going to get
KYW.”
He pushed me onto the davenport
without giving me a chance to take
off my coat, and began fooling with
the dials. A bulb lighted and there
came a strange whimpering, ghostly
noise from the set. This lasted for
some time, while Will twisted away
at the dials and looked more and more
worried,
“Thirty-two, forty-six,” he kept
murmuring. “That’s funny, I got
them easy, just before you came.”
A few more wails and then, sudden-
ly, a human voice. coming over your
own radio. I felt it myself, though I
doubt it hit me quite as hard as it did
Will. His face was simply ecstatic.
“The formal call,” a woman’s voice
was saying, “should not last over fif-
teen minutes, though an informal call
may last as long as an hour and a
half.”
“It seems to be an etiquette talk,”
said Will in an undertone. B
At first, you see, you're very polite
to the performers, almost whispering
among yourselves if there’s anything
you don’t like.
The first evening, of course, we
spent working the radio, and I really
enjoyed it. We got the Bunny Rabbit
Story, then a Review of the Interde-
nominational Sunday school Lesson
and Radio Bible Class, then some dan-
dy jazz from a Chicago hotel orches-
tra, and an aria from “Aida,” then a
speech on the Economics of Chain
rocery stores, and an appeal .for
funds for the Children’s Health and
Toothbrush Club of America. |
It was really ‘quite interesting. It
stunning |
wasn’t in fact, till the third night
after we had got it that it occurred to
me that the radio might possibly get
to be something of a nuisance. I had
been painting a bedroom set and had
not been out all day. Naturally, at a
time like that, you look forward to a
little sociability when your husband
gets home at night. And, believe me,
I didn’t get much. Will hustled right
up from the supper table and began
fooling with the dials, and from that
moment on there was no conversation
except pertaining to the radio.
“It’s a shame we didn’t have it so
you could have heard the President’s
speech,” he said. “You were envying
Mariana having been in Washing-
ton. gw 4 }
When we were first married I might
have tried to tell him that there was
no occasion for intense regret; but
after nearly a year of married life you
learn that there are fine points the
masculine mind simply doesn’t get.
Any woman would understand, of
course, that there would be a lot of
kick in being the only person from
Montrose in Washington at the time
home and telling w
Longworth had on, and how President
Coolidge really looked, close to, and
how terribly interesting his message
| was. But just to listen to the mes-
sage over the radio, that was some-
thing practically anybody could do!
“The Burrises got it so plain,” Will
said, “that they could hear him turn-
ing the pages.”
Even that left me cold. I can hear
plenty of paper rattle here in Mon-
trose.
The evenings were really not very
sociable. Will would spend a half-
hour trying to get a good jazz orches-
tra and I'd roll up the rug. But we
would have danced about ten steps
i when Will would say he thought there
was too much static, and he’d leave
me high and dry in the middle of the
floor while he twiddled with the knobs
and dials.
him, we’d dance a few steps more, and
then he’d think we weren’t getting the
music loud enough, or were getting it
too loud, or something, and he’d go
and fool with the set again. By the
time he’d got everything just to suit
him, the music would have stopped,
and the announcer would be saying
that the next number on the program
would be a talk on Restricted Immi-
gration by the Honorable Somebody-
or-other.
By the fourth evening I was begin-
ning to get kind of sick of hearing
one orchestra after another play “Lin-
ger Awhile” and was glad it was the
night that our crowd always goes to
the movies together. Dulcie invited
us all back to their house afterward
for oyster stew and to dance a while,
which turned it into a regular party.
Imagine my horrified amazement to
| find that Will didn’t want to go. He
would rather stay home and try to get
Davenport, Iowa.
“Merciful heavens, Will,” I gasped,
“we might as well have twins like the
Mertons, if we've got to stay home
‘ every single night and sit up with the
radio!”
We did go with the bunch, but any-
body could see that Will’s heart was
not in it. In fact, it was so plain that
he wanted to get home before all the
broadcasting stopped that it almost
spoiled the party for me. And then,
i just as we were leaving, if I didn’t
hear him say to Dud Farrell, in the
most complacent, indulgent tone:
“Yes; I got Dot a radio.”
From that minute I began actually
disliking the thing. I would have
liked it all right if Will had acted
like a sensible person about it. But
Will is one of those enthusiastic souls
who, if they once get interested in a
thing, are perfect bugs about it.
And he was interested in this ali
right. You couldn’t get him to do or
think or talk about anything else. He
was forever bringing home new parts
and trying new “hook-ups”’—whatever
they are!—and talking about “radio
frequency.” He had always been very
handy and willing about doing little
i jobs around the house, but now I
i couldn’t get him to so much as put a
| washer on a kitchen faucet. He'd say
' he would, but he’d never find the time.
| ‘It was during these long, lonely
| evenings that I began to realize I was
| the one who was making all the sac-
' rifices. For, despite Will’s taking
great credit to himself for staying at
i heme every night, the evenings were
i lonely. He was about as much com-
! pany as a man in a delirium. And I
i absolutely gave up trying to get any
| pleasure out of the radio myself. He’d
i tune in at Chicago, and maybe a love-
!ly singer’s voice would come into the
room. But right in the midst of an
exquisite tone Will would snap her off
and begin trying to get Davenport,
Iowa. I never heard anything through
from Davenport either. It might be
a really interesting speaker, but Will
wouldn’t let him finish a sentence.
Just as soon as he’d get Davenport
loud and clear, he’d begin working for
St. Louis.
Once, after the local stations had
stopped broadcasting at eleven and
there was no interference, he got
Portland, Oregon, and from that time
on he was worse than ever. He ad-
ded an aerial to the set and got to be
a regular night-blooming cereus. I'd
get discouraged and go to bed; and
after it seemed to me I'd be asleep
for hours Id hear him come prowling
up the stairs—I suppose there is a
time when it’s too late even to try to
get Los Angeles!
Sometimes he’d bring in queer-
looking men in shabby old caps, men
I'd never seen. Will said they were
wonders at tuning, Democratic as he
is, he’d never introduce them to me.
They’d come in without a word, sit
down, strap on the ear ’phones, and
sit the whole evening in dead silence,
twisting the knobs and dials. Then
they’d put on their shabby old caps,
and, like the Arabs, silently steal
away.
During my long, lonely evenings I
came to realize what a mistake I had
made in giving up everything I liked
myself in order to make our marriage
go ‘smoothly. Self-sacrifice is all
right, but it ought to work both ways.
Surely a modern marriage ought to
be fifty fifty, a husband ought to want
things to be smooth and happy, too.
It oughn’t to be put up to the wife to
to furnish all the tact. I guess, as
of the President’s Sr and coming |
at Mrs. Nicholas
When he’d get that to suit |
make all the little everyday sacrifices,
evening after evening passed, I got to
feeling pretty sorry for myself; but
to everybody with any pep at all
there suddenly comes a time when you
cease to be sorry for yourself and be-
gin to get mad. That time certainly
came to me the evening I entertained
the Lodge Night Club. :
The club is composed of eight girls
whose husbands all go to lodge every
other Thursday night, and we take
turns entertaining. I was half afraid
Will wouldn’t want to go even to
lodge, which he adores, but might ac-
tually want me to put off the girls, so
that he could stay home and work the
radio. But he didn’t, and during the
evenings before, while he was silently
getting one station after another, I
| consoled myself by planning the nicest
party the club had had so far.
Everything was to be mauve and
yellow. I had some pieces of mauve
taffeta left over, and I covered the
cutest little place baskets. I used my
yellow dishes and put mauve candles
in my yellow china candlesticks. Will
was to bring home a dozen daffodils,
which he forgot, of course, arriving
instead with a dry-cell battery. But
I called up Miss Lottie, and she stop-
ped in with the flowers herself, so all
was well.
| All was, indeed, well, right up to
the climax of the evening. At hali-
past ten I prepared to serve the re-
'ireshments. I had the daffodils in a
basket with a great bow of mauve
‘tulle on the hanaie, and nothing could
have been daintier. That was the
keynote of the whole party, elegance
and daintiness. I was just lighting
the candies when I heard steps on the
porch outside and Will’s key grating
in the front door. I paused, a lighted
match in my hand, with a strange
premonition that something unpleas-
ant was about to happen.
At the first glance out into the hall,
I nearly dropped dead. There was
Will, leading into my dainty party the
rifiraff of the town: Harry Porter
and Jim Bleed and Seth the baggage
i man, who drinks, and some men I'd
never even seen before, men in queer,
shabby caps, like the silent tuners. It
seems there was a prize-fight to come
over the radio late in the evening, and
Will had gathered up all the men who
wanted to hear it, and wouldn’t get
asked anywhere else. I should say
they wouldn’t! :
I stood staring, simply pie-eyed.
And right then and there I stopped
feeling sorry for myself and began to
get mad.
I finished lighting the candles and
marshaled the girls into the dining-
room, trying to be cool and poised,
while inside me something was just
shaking with growing anger. It
wasn’t as if Will hadn’t known I was
having a party. Compared with the
radio, I was nothing.
The girls did their best, laughing
and talking as though nothing had
‘happened. But no talk and laughter
could drown out the hubbub in the
t living-room. Mauve tulle bows and
, daffodils in the dining-room; in the
| living-room, “Markee lands a swift
' uppercut—Ferguson hands back a left
hook to the jaw—"
I kept up the bluff pretty well, al-
i though it wasn’t easy. But the sec-
(ond the girls had gone I ran up the
i stairs, and with shaking hands put a
nightgown, my toothbrush, and my
' jersey dress into my over-night bag.
I was through.
I came back down-stairs very quiet-
i ly, though I needn’t have taken any
{ precautions. One glance into the liv-
| ing-room door, blue with smoke, blar-
{ing and noisy, and I rushed through
| the empty dining-room. The party
dishes stood on the table. Let them
stand there. Perhaps I would never
ome back to wash them. I was going
ome.
Will’s and my house being on a side
hill, the garage was in the basement
and warm, so we could use the flivver
all winter. As I pushed open the ga-
rage doors, still shaking so that I
could hardly do it, I saw that it had
begun to snow. Some way, that was
the final touch, just like a melodrama,
the faithful wife turned out in a
snowstorm. I threw by bag into the
back of the flivver, got into the front
seat, and stepped on the self-starter.
Nothing happened! No reassuring
‘“chuck-chuck!” Not even the sad-
sounding brrr with which it sometimes
starts on a cold night. I stepped on it
again. Up-stairs, I heard the men
going; evidently the fight was over.
There was no time to lose. I stepped
on the starter again and again, simply
bewildered. The car had never acted
like that before. Feverishly, I climb-
ed out and tried to crank it. In vain.
I went and looked out the garage
doors. The snow was just whirling
down by now. I couldn’ walk three
quarters of a mile through town alone
in a storm at midnight. Frantically I
climbed back into the ear, fairly stood
on the self-starter, and in the utter,
dead silence, the explanation tame to
me. Will had taken the batteries out
of the car to use in the radio!
It was fully fifteen minutes later
that I came back up-stairs with my
over-night bag. It was the most aw-
Sal antislima; but what else could I
0?
The house seemed very still. It was
a little cold, too. Will had evidently
aired out the smoke, and had just clos-
ed the windows, I slipped out of my
big coat silently and slid my oven-
night bag into the coat closet. I
didn’t know whether Will had gone up
stairs or not, but wherever he was I
was going to tell him that I was going
home the first thing in the morning.
And I'd tell him just what I thought
about the radio, and tea with dinner,
and my albums.
I looked into the living-room and
there sat Will all alone, =*'1l at the ra-
dio, turning the knobs ar” dials, try-
ing to get Honolulu or Tc¢i-in, I sup-
pose. He looked up as I came in, just
smiled at me without saying a word.
I didn’t say a word for a m-ment,
either. I had enough words tc -av,
but I hadn’t decided which to say first,
and for a moment I stood silent.
Into that silent moment suddenly
came distant music, so faint and far
away it was fairylike. Will’s face
lighted up and he fell to turning the
knobs and dials as carefully as though
his life depended on.it. But he could
not make the sound any louder. It
was clear and sweet, but so faint, just
music floating through the air from
nowhere.
For a moment I forgot my anger in
| trying to think what the tune was. It
| was familiar, yet I couldn’t quite place
it. Some one was singing, but I
| couldnt catch the words, just as the
! haunting, familiar tune that, some-
how, brought back something from
long ago. I couldn't say anything
while that music was playing.
After a few minutes, Will gave up
trying to get it louder and came over
| suddenly and put his arm around me.
1 should have shaken him off angrily
except for that queer, lonesome tune
| that seemed to be coming from no-
where. Then I remembered what it
was: Grandma used to sing it long
before she died.” I remembered sit-
ting in her lap in the rocker in our
bay window. at home and she would
rock me and sing. I could hear her
now, singing the words to the far-
away music:
“The green grove is gone from the hill,
Maggie,
Where first the daisies sprung;
The creaking old mill is still, Maggie,
Since you and I were young.”
It always made me feel queer and
lonesome, I remember, even when I
(was just a tiny girl. Sometimes
Grandma would stop singing, and.
| when I'd ask her why she stopped,
she’d say she was thinking about
Grandpa. Then, maybe, she'd clear
| her throat and go on: |
“They say we are aged and gray, Maggie,
As sprays from the white breakers flung,
Let us sing of the days that are gone,
Maggie,
When you and I were young.”
The voice that was singing in the
; alr now was so faint and far away, it :
, might have been anybody’s—it might |
{have been Grandma's, come back to |
remind me that some day I might be |
old and lonesome, sitting in a bay win- |
j dow with a little girl on my lap, and |
|
|
|
|
1
‘having to stop singing because the |
song made me think o' Will; some-
time when I wouldn’t have Will ever
any more—even to be mad at!
“The days that are gone—”
Will’s arm tightened around me and
I caught his hand and held it tight, as |
| though just holding fast could make
time and chance stand still.
“Oh, Will,” I said, “I do love you,
anyway.”
“That goes double, Dot,” said Will.
And his voice was husky, too.
. I'll never know why I asked, hang-
ing on Hei 4) oa hand, “Do you
ever find anything about being mar-
ried kind of hard 2 ?
At first, Will said he didn’t.
“No, honestly,” I insisted; “isn’t
there sometimes something ?”
“Nothing,” he said, “except once in
a while some silly little thing, you
know, that doesn’t amount to any-
thing.”
“What kind of silly little thing 2”
“Oh, never anything to speak of,
hon. Just some dinky think like—oh,
like hardly ever getting out hunting
or fishing any more.”
Well, that just staggered me. 1I|
suddenly realized that Will hadn't
gone off hunting or fishing with the '
boys for weeks and weeks and weeks. :
And I remembered how he always |
used to go before we were married, |
every single Saturday, sometimes to
stay over the week-end. I hadn’t re-
alized that he’d practically given up
going now. Maybe I was too busy
feeling sorry for myself for having
practically given up bridge.
“What other little things?” I in-
sisted; and when he didn’t want to tell
me, I just kept at him and made him.
And I finally got all sorts of funny,
dinky little things out of him, how it
annoys him almost to death being po-
lite and respectful when my father
says that the Verblen land we’re buy-
ing will never be worth the taxes—as
though Will, being right in the real
estate business, wouldn’t have some
judgment of his own!—and how he
likes steak rarer than I cook it, and
how he is bored almost to death by
the Sparrows, that I'm always inviting
to dinner. .And so on. The same sort
of dinky, irritating little things that
I’d thought I had all of.
And then I told him how I was get-
ting simply to hate the radio because
he runs it into the ground so, and how
mad I was tonight, and even about the
brown dress.
Well, before I finished, the whole |
thing began to seem like a joke. Both
of us thinking we were making all the
sacrifices—Will had really thought he
was, too. And both of us taking
everything the other one did for
granted and—well, we got to laugh-
ing till we got simply hysterical there
in our cold living-room at one o’clock
in the morning!
We decided on a lot of compromises
we can make, too. Will isn’t going to
play with the radio all the time, and
I'm going to make him go fishing or
hunting at least once a month. And
I'll take the steak out rare and then
cut off my piece and put it baek to
cook longer, and— ;
But it isn’t just because we figur-
ed out a lot of silly problems that I'll
always remember that night. It’s be-
cause of those sweet, ghostly, awe-
some minutes when the mysterious
voice sang Grandma’s song, and Will
and I held fast together against the
cold and the chancy future, and both
knew—as you only stop to think in
rare, awesome moments—that being
young and having the person you love
best in all the world love you best,
too, isn’t anything to be taken for
granted.—By Fannie Kilbourne, in
The American Magazine.
Making Insulation.
Old rope and the refuse of oil re-
fineries are used to make the insula-
tion that covers the thousands of
miles of underground cables in city
streets.
From the old rope is made a heavy
manila paper. With the paper is com-
bined petrolatum, the refuse remain-
ing after crude oil is refined, and the
two furnish an excellent insulation
that is subsequently covered with
molten lead.
Saving Money.
“Jim, lend me a five spot for a mo-
ment—only for a moment.”
“Quite sure you only want it for a
moment ?”
“Quite sure—only for a moment.”
“All right. Wait a moment and
then you won't want it.”—The Pro-
gressive Grocer. 2
Youthful Prodigy Has
Temperament of Genius
Nini “Rota Rinaldi of Milan is
twelve years old. He is a sort of
three-in-one prodigy—musician, comx
poser and conductor.
When eleven, Nini composed an ora-
torio—*“The Childhood of Saint John
the Baptist”—which has been pro-
nounced by those who know a very
excellent thing. Be that as it may,
the youthful composer came sorhething
of a cropper recently at Tourcoing,
France, when he attempted to lead
an orchestra of 250 musicians In the
rendition of his composition. The
musicians, at least some of them, did
not measure up to Nini's conception
of what a musician should be. Per-
haps the musicians themselves did not
take kindly to the idea that “a little
child shall lead them.” In any event
a false note or two from some care-
less member of the 250 brought Nini’s
artistic temperament into play.
He criticised and protested, stormed
and perhaps cursed. No one knew just
what anathemas he was calling down
upon the erring orchestra. He quit In
a fury after less than five minutes and
could not be persuaded to try again.
He did finally come before the audi-
ence and complain that the orchestra
lacked soul.
This boy’s mother wants him to be
a real boy, not a prodigy. Since
| mother seems to be having her own
way at present, it will, in all proba-
bility, be some time before the young-
ster again faces an audience.~—New
| York Times,
' Increase Capacity by
Variation of Labor
The working capacity of persons em
| gaged in dexterous physical work may
be greatly Increased by varying their
work from day to day, says Dr. J. P.
Baumburger of Leland Stanford uni-
versity as the result of a recent study
of the problem of human efficiency.
In work where there is a slight
change in the task from time to time it
was discovered that the actual work-
ing capacity was about 7.7 per cent
below the maximum capacity, while in
other tasks which were continuous and
uniform there was from 36.8 to 39.4 per
cent loss from the maximum working
capacity.
The findings indicate to Doctor
Baumberger “that men working at al-
ternating occupations have an output
more closely approaching their max-
imum work capacity than do men in
processes studied in which the same
occupation was continued throughout
the day.”
“Many industries could easily apply
this finding,” Doctor Baumberger says.
“Workers could be trained to operate
two machines and exchange places at
regular intervals of time. I feel con-
vinced that this plan would lead to in-
crease of output and decrease in fa-
tigue on the part of the men.”
Concerning Gossip
The right sort of gossip is a charm
ing and stimulating thing. Men are
generally understood to be less given
to this amusement than women, and
the most ardent lover of her sex must
own that no ordinary husband would
go home and tell his wife that he had
met Brown wearing a fourth new suit
since Christmas. The more restricted
interests of the vast majority of wom-
en do oblige them to seek distraction
where they can find it, which is very
often next door or down the street;
but nobody can see a man devouring
the evening paper without suspecting
that this taste in him has only found
a different outlet, because every news-
paper is Interesting to the ordinary
reader In proportion as it is salted
| with gossip.—From “What I Have
Gathered,” by J. E. Buckrose.
Unexpected Casualties
Phosphorus bombs and grenades
ased in practice by the army at the
proving grounds at Aberdeen, Md,
caused heavy mortality in an unex-
pected source. After the tests large
numbers of dead ducks were found in
the neighboring waters of Chesapeake
bay. Examination showed that the
ducks had eaten fragments of uncon-
sumed phosphorus which had fallen
in the water of thelr feeding grounds.
Now they are using devices to frighten
the birds away before the tests are
meade, and the bombs are being ex-
ploded either over the land or over
water so deep that the ducks do not
feed In it. Casualties so far are esti-
mated at 500, and it is feared they
may be much greater before all the
poison is dissipated.
Formed Ages Ago
On view at the American Museum ot
Natural History, New York, are three
blocks of limestone from the slopes of
Mount Lebanon, near Beirut, Syria.
Theis age is estimated at a million
years. They were taken from lime-
stone which formed the bed of an
ocean which once covered that area.
They contain the remains of shellfish
end other marine organisms which
lived at that time, and which were en-
tombed in the mud at the bottom as
they died, thus being preserved as the
mud hardened into limestone.
Holds Absence Record
Annie Albano, eight years old and a
pupil in the East Boston schools, has
been absent from school more than
100 sessions since the opening of the
school term, which was little more
than half over when the record for tru-
ancy was announced. Her truancy
was not voluntary, however, as she
was kept home to care for other chil-
dren or by illness due to tonsil trouble,