ILLUSTRATIONS
BY CLARK AGNEW,
Copyright by
Doubleday, Page & Co.
WNU Service,
(Continued from last week.)
SYNOPSIS
and planted flower beds in Pervus’
dingy front yard. It was too late for
tulips now. Pervus had brought her
some seeds from town. They ranged
SHAFTER L—Introducing “So Big” 'all the way from poppies to asters;
(Dirk
DeJong) in his infancy. And his
Fiothel, Selina DeJong, daughter of
imeon Peake, gambler and gentleman
f fortune, Her life, to young woman-
ood in Chicago in 1888, has been un-
conventional, somewhat sgeamy, but
generally efjoyable. At school her
chum is Julle Hempel, daughter of
{ugust Hempel, butcher. Simeon is
illed in a quarrel that is not his own,
and Selina, nineteén years old and
racticatly destitute, becomes a school-
Fras er.
CHAPTER II—Selina secures a posi-
tion as teacher at the High Prairie
hool, in the outskirts of Chicago,
fivine at the home of a truck farmer,
laas Pool. In Roelf, twelve years
old, son of Klaas, Selina perceives a
kindred spirit, a lover of beauty, like
herself.
CHAPTER IIL.—The monotonous life
of a country school-teacher at that
time, is Selina’'s, brightened somewhat
by the companionship ot the sensitive,
artistic boy Roelf.
CHAPTER IV.—Selina hears gossip
concerning the affection of the “Widow
Poarienbeiny rich and good-looking,
for Pervus DeJong, poor truck farmer,
who is insensible to the widow's at-
tractions. For a community “sociable”
Selina prepares a lunch basket, dainty,
but not of ample proportions, which is
“auctioned,” according to custom. The
emallness of the lunch box excites deri-
sion, and in a sense of fun the bidding
becomes spirited, DeJong finally secur-
ing it for $10, a ridiculously high price.
Over their lunch basket, whic elina
and DeJong share together, the school-
teacher arranges to instruct the good-
natured farmer, whose education has
been neglected.
CHAPTER V.—Propinquity, in their
ositions of “teacher” and “pupil,” and
elina’s loneliness in her uncongenial
urroundings, lead to mutual affection.
ervus DeJong wins Selina’'s ronsent
to be his wife.
i Chapter VI
They were married the following
May, just two months later. Selina
was at once bewildered and calm; re-
bellious and content. Overlaying these
emotions was something like grim
amusement. Beneath them, something
like fright. She moved with a strange
air of fatality. It was as if she were
being drawn inexorably, against her
will, her judgment, her plans, into
something sweet and terrible. When
with Pervus she was elated, gay, vol-
uble. He talked little; locked at her
dumbly, worshipingly.
There were de ys when the feeling of
unreality possessed her. She, a truck
farmer's wife, living in High Prairie
the rest of her days! Why, no! No!
Was this the great adventure that her
father had always spoken of? She,
who was going to be a happy way-
farer down the path of life—any one
of a dozen things. This High Prairie
winter was to have been only an epi-
gsode. Not her life! She looked at
Maartje. Oh, she'd never be like that,
That was stupid, unnecessary. Pink
and blue dresses in the house, for her.
Frills on the window curtains. Flow-
ers in bowls.
! Some of the pangs and terrors with
which most prospective brides are as-
wailed she confided to Mrs. Pool while
that active lady was slamming about
the kitchen.
“Did you ever feel scared and—and
sort of—scared when you thought
about marry, Mrs. Pool?”
Maaurtje Pool’'s hands were in a great
batch of bread dough which she pum-
meled and slapped and kneaded vig-
worously. She shook out a handful of
flour on the baking bqard while she
held the dough mass in the other hand,
dhen plumped it down ard again be-
gan to knead, both hands doubled into
fists. : 5 0%
She laughed a short little laugh. “I
ran away.”
* “You did! You mean you really ran
~+put why? Didn't you lo—like
Klaas?’
: Maartje Pool kneaded briskly, the
color high in her cheeks, what with
the vigorous pummeling and rolling,
and something else that made her look
strangely young for the moment—girl-
ish, almost. “Sure I liked him. I liked
him.”
“But you ran away?’
“Not far. IF came back. Nobody
ever knew I ran, even. But I ran. I
knew.”
“Why did you come back?”
Maartje elucidated her philosophy
without being in the least aware that
it could be called by any such high-
sounding name. “You can’t run away
far enough. Except you stop living
you can’t run away from life.”
The girlish look had fled. She was
world-old. Her strong arms ceased
their pounding and thumping for a mo-
ment. On the steps outside Klaas and
Jakob were scanning the weekly re-
ports preparatory to going into the city
late that afternoon.
Selina had the difficult task of win-
ning Roelf to her all over again. He
was like a trusting little animal, who,
wounded by the hand he has trusted,
is shy of it. Still, he could not with-
stand her long. Together they dug
' grew quickly.
marigolds,
from purple iris to morning glories.
The last named were to form the back-
porch vine, of course, because they
Selina, city-bred, was
ignorant of varieties, but insisted she
wanted an old-fashioned garden—
pinks, mignonette, phlox.
She and Roelf dug, spaded, planted.
Her trousseau was of the scantiest.
Pervus’ household was already
equipped with such linens as they
would need. The question of a wed-
ding gown troubled her until Maartje
suggested that she be married in the
old Dutch wedding dress that lay in
the bride's chest in Selina’s bedroom.
“A real Dutch bride,” Maartje said.
“Your man will think that is fine.”
Pervus was delighted. Selina basked
in his love like a kitten in the sun.
She was, after all, a very lonely little
bride with only two photographs on
the shelf in her bedroom to give her
courage and counsel. The old Dutch
wedding gown was many Inches too
large for her. The skirt-band over-
lapped her slim waist; her slender lit-
tle bosom did not fill out the generous
width of the bodice; but the effect of
the whole was amazingly quaint as
well as pathetic.
They were married at the Pools’.
Klaas and Maartje had insisted on
furnishing the wedding supper—ham,
chickens, sausages, cakes, pickles, beer.
The Reverend Dekker married them,
and all through .the ceremony Selina
chided herself because she could not
keep her mind on.his words in the
fascination of watching
his short, !
a
stubby beard as it waggled with every |
motion of his jaw. Pervus looked
stiff, solemn and uncomfortable in his
wedding blacks—not at all the hand- '
some giant of the everyday corduroys
and ‘blue shirt. In the midst of the
ceremony Selina had her moment of
panic when she actually saw herself
running shrieking from this company,
this man, this house, down the road,
on, on toward—toward what? The
feeling was so strong that she was
surprised to find herself still standing
there in the Dutch wedding gown an-
swering “I do” in the proper place.
After the wedding they went
straight to DeJong’s house. In May
the vegetable farmer cannot neglect
his garden even for a day. The house
had been made ready for them.
Throughout the supper Selina had
had thoughts which were so foolish
and detached as almost to alarm her.
“Now I am married. I am Mrs. Per-
vus DeJong. That’s a pretty name. It
would look quite distinguished on a
calling card, very spidery and fine:
“MRS. PERVUS DE JONG
At Home Fridays.”
She recalled this later, grimly, when
she was Mrs. Pervus DeJong, at home
not only Fridays, but Saturdays, Sun-
days, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednes-
days and Thursdays.
They drove down the road to De
Jong’s place. Selina thought, “Now I
am driving home with my husband.
I feel his shoulder against mine. I
wish he would talk. I wish he would
say something. Still, I am not
frightened.”
Perwus’ market wagon was standing
in the yard, shafts down. He should
have gone to market today; would cer-
tainly have to go tomorrow, starting
early in the afternoon so as to get a
good stand in the Haymarket. By the
light of his lantern the wagon seemed
to Selina to be a symbol. She had
often seen it before, but now that it
was to be a part of her life—this the
DeJong market wagon and she Mrs.
DeJong—she saw clearly what a crazy,
disreputable and poverty-proclaiming
old vehicle it was, in contrast with the
neat strong wagon in Klaas Pools
yard, smart with green paint and red
lettering that announced, “Klaas Pool,
Garden Produce.” With the two sleek
farm horses the turnout looked as
prosperous and comfortable as Klaas
himself,
Pervus swung her down from the
seat of the buggy, his hand about her
waist, and held her so for a moment,
close. Selina sald: “You must have
that wagon painted, Pervus. And the
seat-springs fixed and the sideboard
mended.”
He stared. “Wagon!”
“Yes. It looks a sight.” :
The house was tidy enough, but none
too clean. Pervus lighted the lamps.
There was a fire in the kitchen stove.
It made the house seem stuffy on this
mild May night. Selina thought that
her own little bedroom .at the Pools’,
no longer hers, must be deliciously cool
and still with the breeze fanning fresh
from the west. Pervus was putting
the horse into the barn. The bedroom
———
|
|
«came draggled gray specters
ll RL RSET AOR
was off the sitting room. The window
was shut. This last year had taught
Selina to prepare the night before for
next morning’s rising, so as to lose the
least possible tinte. She did this now,
unconsciously. She brushed her hair,
laid out tomorrow's garments, put on
her high-necked, long-sleeved “night-
gown and got into this strange bed.
She heard Pervus DeJong shut the
kitchen door; the latch clicked, the
lock turned. Heavy quick footsteps
across the bare kitchen floor. This
man was coming into her room, . . .
“You can’t run far enough,” Maartje ;
Pool had said. “Except you stop liv-
ing you can’t run away from life.”
Next morning it was dark when he
awakened her at four. She started up
with a little cry and sat up, straining
her ears, her eyes. “Is that you,
father?” She was little Selina Peake
again, and Simeon Peake liad come in,
gay, debonair, from a night's gaming.
Pervus DeJong was already padding
about the room in stocking feet. “What
—what time is it? What's the matter,
father? Why are you up? Haven't
you gone to bed. . . .” Then she re-
membered.
Pervus DeJong laughed and came
toward her. “Get up, little lazy bones.
It’s after four. All yesterday's work
I've got to do, and all today’s. Break-
fast, little Lina, breakfast. You are a
farmer's wife now.”
% *® * * *® #® ®
Dirk DeJong was born in the bed-
room off the sitting room on the fif-
teenth day of March, of a bewildered, |
somewbat resentful, but deeply inter- '
ested mother; and a proud, foolish,
and vainglorious father whose air of ;
achievement, considering the really
slight part he had played in the long,
tedious, and rackihg business, was dis-
proportionate. The name Dirk had
sounded to Selina like something tall,
straight, and slim. Pervus had chosen
had been his grandfather's
name,
Sometimes, during those months,
Selina would look back on her first win- |
ter in High Prairie—that winter of
the icy bedroom, the chill black
drum, the schoolhouse fire, the chil-
blains, the Pool pork—and it seemed
a lovely dream; a time of ease, of free-
dom, of careless happiness.
Pervus DeJong loved his pretty
young wife, and she him. But young
love thrives on color, warmth, beauty.
It becomes prosaic and inarticulate
when forced to begin its day at four
in the morning by reaching blindly,
dazedly, for limp and obscure garments
dangling from bedpost or chair, and to
end that day at nine, numb and sodden
with weariness, after seventeen hours
of physical labor.
It was a wet summer. Pervus |
choice tomato plants, so carefully set |
out fn the hope of a dry season, be-
in a
waste of mire. Of fruit the field bore |
one tomato the size of a marble.
For the rest, the crops were moder-
ately successful on the DeJong place.
But the work necessary to make this so
was heartbreaking, Selina had known,
during her winter at the Pools’, that !
Klaas, Roelf, and old Jakob worked
early and late, but her months there
had encompassed what is really the
truck farmer’s leisure period. She had
arrived in November. She had mar-
ried in May. From May until October
it was necessary to tend the fields with
a concentration amounting to fury.
Selina had never dreamed that human
beings toiled like that for sustenance.
Toil wag a thing she had never en-
countered until coming to High Prairie.
Now she saw her husband wrenching a
living out of the earth by sheer mus-
cle, sweat, and pain. During June,
July, August, and September the good
black prairie soll for miles around was
teeming, a hotbed of plenty. There
was born jn Selina at this time a feel-
ing for the land that she was never to :
lose. Perhaps the child within her
had something to do with this. She
was aware of a feeling of kinship with
the earth; an illusion of splendor, of
fulfillment.
As cabbages had been cabbages, and
no more, to Klaas Pool, so, to Pervus,
these carrots, beets, onions, turnips.
and radishes were just 80 much prod-
uce, to be planted, tended, gathered,
marketed. But to Selina, during that
summer, they became a vital part in
the vast mechanism of a living world.
Pervus, earth, sun, rain, all elemental
Farm Work Is
Slave Work.”
forces that labored to produce the food
for millions of humans. She thought
of Chicago's children, If they had red
- Tama
, more comfortable than the w
. tender and good, but
cheeks, clear eyes, nimble brains it
was because Pervus brought them the
food that made them so. Something
of this she tried to convey to Pervus.
He only stared, his blue eyes wide and
unresponsive.
“Farm work grand! Farm work is
slave work. Yesterday, from the load
of carrots in town I didn’t make
enough to bring you the goods for the
child so when it comes you should have
clothes for it. It's better I feed them
10 the live stock.”
Pervus drove into the Chicago mar-
ket every other day. During July and
August he sometimes did not have his
clothes off for a week. Together he
and Jan Steen would load the wagon
with the day’s garnering. At four he
would start on the tedious trip into
town. The historic old Haymarket on
West Randolph street had become the
stand for market gardeners for miles
around Chicago. Here they stationed
their wagons in preparation for the
next day’s selling. The early comer
got the advantageous stand. There
was no regular allotment of space.
Pervus tried to reach the Haymarket
by nine at night. Often bad roads
made a detour necessary and he was
late. That usually meant bad business
next day. The men, for the most
part, slept on their wagons, curled up
on the wagon seat or stretched out on
the sacks. Their horses were stabled
' and: fed: in near-by. sheds, with more
actual comfort than the men them-
selves. One could get a room for
twenty-five cents in one of the ram-
shackle rooming houses that faced the
street. But the rooms were small,
stuffy, none too clean; the beds little
ons. Be-
sides, twenty-five cents! You®ot twen-
ty-five cents for half a barrel of toma-
toes. You got twenty-five cents for a
suck of potatoes. Onions brought
seventy-five cents a sack. Cabbages
~ went a hundred heads for two dollars.
¢ and they were five-pound heads. If you
drove home with ten dollars in your
pocket it represented a profit of ex-
actly zero. The sum must go above
that. No; one did not pay out twenty-
five cents for the mere privilege of
sleeping in a bed.
One June day, a month or more after
their marriage, Selina drove into Chi-
cago with Pervus, an incongruous little
figure in her bride’s finery perched on
the seat of the vegetable wagon piled
high with early garden stuff. It was,
in a way, their wedding trip, for Selina
had not been away from the farm since
her marriage.
As they jogged along now she re-
vealed magnificent plans that had been
forming in her imagination during the
past four weeks. It had not taken her
four weeks—or days—to discover that
this great broad-shouldered man she
had married was a kindly creature,
lacking any
vestige of Initiative, of spirit. She
marveled, sometimes, at the memory
of hig boldness in bidding for her lunch
box that evening of the raffle. It
seemed: incredible now, though he fre-
. quently referred to it, wagging his
head doggishly and. grinning the broad:
ly. complacent grin.of the conquering
male. But he was, after all, a dull
fellow, and there was In Selina a dash
‘of fire, of wholesome wickedness, of
adventure, that he never quite under-
stood. For her flashes of flame he
had a mingled feeling of uneasiness
and pride.
In the manner of all young brides,
Selina started bravely out to make her
husband over. He was handsome,
strong, gentle; slow, conservative, mo-
rose. She would make him keen, dar-
ing, successful, buoyant. Now, bump-
ing down the Halsted road, she
sketched some of her plans In large
dashing strokes.
“Pervus, we must paint the house In
October, before the frost sets in, and
after the summer work is over. Then
that west sixteen. We'll drain it.”
“Yeh, drain,” Pervus muttered. “It’s
clay land. Drain and you have got yet
clay. Hard clay soil.”
Selina had the answer to that. “I
know it. You've got to use tile drain-
age. And—wait a minute—humus. I
know what humus is. It's decayed
vegetables. There's always a pile by
the side of the barn; and you've been
using it on the quick land. All the
west sixteen isn’t clay. Part of it's
muckland. All it needs is draining
and manure. With potash, too, dnd
phosphoric acid.”
Pervus laughed a great hearty laugh
that Selina found surprisingly infuriat-
ing. “Well, well, well! School teacher
is a farmer now, huh? I bet even
Widow Paarlenberg don’t know as
much as my little farmer about”—he
exploded again—*about this, now, pot-
ash and—what kind of acid? Tell me,
little Lina, from where did you learn
all this about truck farming?”
“Out of a book,” Selina said, almost
snappishly. “I sent to Chicago for it.”
“A book! A book!” He slapped his
knee. “A vegetable farmer out of a
book.”
“Why not! The man who wrote it
knows more about vegetable farming
than anybody in all High Prairie. He
knows about new ways. You're run-
ning the farm just the way your father
ran it.”
“What was good enough for my fa-
ther is good enough for me.”
“It isn’t!” cried Selina, “It isn't!
The book says clay loam is all right
for cabbages, peas, and beans. It tells
you how. It tells you how!” She was
like a frantic little fly darting and
pricking him on to accelerate the stolid
sluggishness of his slow plodding gait.
Pervus stared straight ahead down
the road between his horse's ears much
as Klaas Pool had done so maddeningly
on Selina's first ride on the Halsted
road. “Fine talk. Fine talk.”
“It isn’t talk. It's plans. You've got
to plan.”
“Fine talk. Fine talk.”
“Oh!” Selina beat her knee with an
impotent fist.
It was the nearest they had ever
come to quarreling. It would seem
that Pervus had the best of the argu-
ment, for when two years had passed
the west sixteen was still a boggy clay
mass, and unprolific; and the old
house stared out shabby and paintless,
at the dense willows by the roadside.
They slept that right in one of the
twenty-five-cent rooming houses. Rath-
er, Pervus slept. The woman lay
awake, wept a little, perhaps. But in
the morzing Pervus might hevs soted
(If he had been a man given to noting)
that the fine jaw-line was set as de-
terminedly as ever with an angle that
spelled inevitably paint, drainage, hu-
mus, potash, phosphoric acid, and a
horse team. :
She rose before four with Pervus,
glad to be out of the stuffy little room
with its spotted and scaly green wall
paper, it8 rickety bed and chair. They
had a cup of coffee and a slice of bread
in the eating house on the first floor.
Selina waited while he tended the
horse. It was scarcely dawn when the
trading began. «= Selina, watching it
from the wagon seat, thought that this
was a ridiculously haphazard and peril-
ous method of distributing the food for
whose fruition Pervus had toiled with
aching back and tired arms. But she
said nothing,
She kept, perforce, to the house that
first year, and the second. Pervus de-
clared that ‘his: woman, shonld never
work ‘in the fields us did many, of the
High. Prairie wives and daughters.
Selina learned much that first year,
and the second, but she said little. She
kept the house in order—rough work,
and endless—and she managed, mirac-
ulously, to keep herself looking fresh
and neat. She understood now
Maartje Pool’s drab garments, harassed
face, heavily swift feet, never at rest.
The idea of flowers in bowls was aban-
doned by July. Had it not been for
Roelf’s faithful tending, the flower
beds themselves, planted with such
hopes, would have perished for lack of
care,
Roelf came often to the house. He
found there a tranquillity and peace
never known jn the Pool place, with
its hubbub and clatter. In order to
make her house attractive Selina had
actually rifled her precious little bank
hoard—the four hundred and ninety-
seven dollars left her by her father.
She still had one of the clear white
diamonds. She kept it sewed in the
hem of an old flannel petticoat.
The can of white paint and the
brush actually did materialize. For
weeks It was dangerous to sit, lean, or
tread upon any paintable thing in the
DeJong farmhouse without eliciting a
cry of warning from Selina. She
would actually have tried her hand at
the outside of the house with a quart
can and a three-inch brush if Pervus
hadn't intervened. She hemmed dimity
curtains, made slip-covers for the hid-
eous parlor sofa and the ugliest of the
chairs. Subscribed for a magazine
called House and Garden. ‘Together
she and Roelf used to pore .over this
fascinating periodical. If High Prairie
had ever overheard one" of these “con-
versations between the farm woman
who would always be a girl and the
farm boy who had never been quite a
child, It would have raised palms high
in an “Og heden!” of horror. But
High Prairie never heard, and wouldn't
have understood if it had.
Selina was up daily at four. Dress-
ing was a swift and mechanical cover-
ing of the body. Breakfast must be
ready for Pervus and Jan when they
came in from the barn. The house to
clean, the chickens to tend, sewing,
washing, ironing, cooking. She con-
trived ways of minimizing her steps, of
lightening her labor. And she saw
clearly how the little farm was mis-
managed through lack of foresight,
imagination, and—she faced it square-
Iy—through stupidity. She was fond
of this great, kindly, blundering, stub-
born boy who was her husband. But
she saw him with amazing clearness
through the mists of her love. There
was something prophetic about the
way she began to absorb knowledge of
the farm work, of vegetable culture, of
marketing. Listening, seeing, she
learned about soil, planting, weather,
selling.
and fields was of nothing else. About
this little twenty-five-acre garden
patch there was nothing of the majes-
ty of the Iowa, Illinois and Kansas
grain farms, with their endless billows
of wheat and corn, rye, alfalfa and
barley rolling away to the horizon.
Everything was done in diminutive
here. Selina sensed that every inch
of soil should have been made to yield
to the utmost. Yet there lay the west
sixteen, useless during most of the
year; reliable never. And there was
no money to drain it or enrich it; no
ready cash for the purchase of profit-
able neighboring acreage. She did not
know the term intensive farming, but
this was what she meant.
(Continued next week.)
en se—— ee ————
Old Spirit of the Sabbath is Being
Revived.
The old spirit of the Sabbath, be-
fore the day of movies, motoring, golf
and other complex recreations, will be
revived in Oak Park, a suburb of Chi-
cago of 50,000 population, in a mid-
May festival of cherry blossoms and
church going in which citizens will
walk to worship and wear frock coats
and silk hats in the manner of years
gone by.
The plan was originated by a news-
paper editor, after Oak Park, the
worid’s largest village, had voted
down a proposal to permit operation
of Sunday movies, and was taken up
by several organizations, which began
distribution of thousands of Sherry
trees. On the Sunday of the festival,
churches, homes and all public build-
ings will be decorated with the fra-
grant blossoms.
which exactly matches the tie,
The dally talk of the house
FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN.
DAILY THOUGHT.
«Taking it altogether, {
This world is hard to beat!
There's a thorn with every rose—
But aren’t the roses sweet ?
—J. Whitcomb Riley..
One notes that most of the crepe de
chine frocks are two-piece. If one
chooses, the chiffon dance frock may
be of a vivid print.
Printed crepe frocks button in a
long line straight down the front.
Some of the new skirts are slightly
fuller, but not a bit longer.
The pointed decolletage is generally
deeper in back than in front.
For evening there are embroidered:
and beaded coats of intricate cut.
Sometimes whole skirts are of the
fine pleating which is so very popular.
Russian embroidery is effective on a
child’s two piece frock of jersey.
At Palm Beach the younger set fan-
cy the gayly printed bathing suits.
Very charming are the new rain
coats of thin, flowered, rubberized silk.
A formal frock for afternoon has a.
tunic of eyelet embroidery on batiste.
Although the vogue for college:
striped neckwear shows no abatement
it is said in London that for general
wear the checked, diced and plaided
efiects are the patterns of the mo-
ment. And in colors there is a ten-
dency to feature shades of beetroot,
beige, tan, china blue, gray, maroon
and burnt cork, as the predominating:
ground colors, according to a leading"
authority.
A new style note is the handkerchief
This:
has been brought about by the fact
that the handkerchief pocket adorning"
the single and double-breasted jackets
calls for decoration. Foulards and
crepe de chines are the favgrite ma-
terials for this type of handkerchief.
There is every indication that foul-
ard neckwear will be even more popu-
lar this summer than it was last and
as evidence of this there is cited the
demand by men who lead the styles in
London for foulard neckwear in shades:
of beige, lacquer, beetroot, china blue
and Quaker gray. The large floral de-
signs of other seasons have given way
to small, neat, rather conventional
patterns.
An outstanding phase of styles in
neckwear is the enormous popularity
of college colors. Te
In the painting of furniture there
are two fields for exercising your en-
deavor, New furniture you have
bought for just this purpose, and your
old shabby things at home. New fur-
niture intended for painting is either
procured unstained, if you are lucky:
enough to find it in this condition, or
inexpensive pieces of excellent line:
are nabbed up for a song, and prom-
ised a speedy new coat which will fit
them for the highest society, and cov-
er forever the unprepossessing orig--
inal finish of golden oak, or some oth-
er ugly beginning.
And as it is never wise to put the
cart before the horse, while I know
that you are on tip toe with impa-
tience to be told how to paint on flow-
ers and posies, it is really best for you
to know first how to get the proper
painted background for your effective:
decorations.
* If the furniture that is to be paint-
ed and decorated is in its natural state-
and has never before béen guilty of a
finish,*'it should first be coated with
shellac. This not only fills the open
grain of the wood and causes the first
coat of paint to go on better, but it
seals any imperfection or any resin-
ous knot that would thereafter give
endless trouble by oozing inconven-
iently when brought in contact with
heat, thus spoiling the painted sur--
face. So much for absolutely unfin--
ished furniture.
If the furniture is old and shabby,
and the former finish broken, cracked
or worn, it should be removed by
means of a paint and varnish remov-
er, or thorough sand papering. After
all the old finish has vanished, and the
surface washed and dried; the coating
of shellac should be applied as for
originally unfinished furniture. If the:
furniture is new and varnished, the
finish may be disregarded, except for
slight sand papering, and the prelim-
inary coat of paint laid on. Other-
wise, if desired, the varnished finish
may be removed, in which case one:
has at once unfinished furniture re-
quiring a coat of shellac.
The first two coats of paint requir-
ed for furniture may have their chief”
foundation of white lead with turpen-
tine and dryer, but with no oil. This:
may be freely mixed with the color:
pigment to be used for the final coats
if desired, though this is not neces-
sary. After every coat of paint is:
finished it should be allowed to dry
thoroughly; then before laying on the:
next one it should be well sand pa-
pered; every surface should be as
smooth and free from lumps, drops or
other irregularities as the finished:
coat; also it should be sufficiently
roughened to tightly hold the new:
coat.
After two coats of paint have been
applied, the furniture is ready for the:
enamel finish, This should be an egg-
shell enamel, and may consist of one
or two coats, depending on the desired’
fineness of the finished work, and the:
appearance of the first coat when dry..
After the last coat of enamel is dry,
if its color is light it should be care-
fully rubbed’ with powdered pumice
and water; if the color is dark, the
powdered pumice should be moistened
with oil instead. The furniture is then
prepared to receive what flower-like:
ministrations you feel qualified to
apply. : :
Before the subject of preparing de-
signs and stencils is gone into, and
whilz still on that of the paint medi-
um, the thought of the actuel decorat-
ing will be enhanced fourfold if you
know you may be allowed to use real
artist colors squeezed out of tubes up-
{ on a palette. Such is the delightful
case; with them you should mix a dry-
inz oil and for brushes you should se-
levt oxhair or sable, unless the surface
to be decorated is of an extremely
high polish, when the brushes should
be camel’s hair. ]
For one who has little experience
with the brush or no skill in drawing,
the cut stencil provides a means to the
end of decorating furniture which is
not to be scorned.