EE EE
Pemorrac dan
Bellefonte, Pa., April 23, 1926.
THE LAST LINES.
I will wake a strain with a feeble hand
To answer thy friendly tone,
For months have pass’d since I told the
last,
How the world and I went on.
Sweet May was roaming the glade and dell
And I with a footstep free,
But a change has pass’d o’er the earth
since then,
And change, would think, o’er me.
You know how I sang of the waterfalls,
And was glad of the summer near,
To race and roam through the sounding
Lalls
Of the dark old forest here.
I little dream’d that her joyous lute
To others would wake its tone,
While the fading eye and the faltering
foot,
Would be all—would be all my own.
I ween that the Autumn light no more
Will fall on my brow again—
I have breathed of the mountain's balm-
jest store,
And the summer's light in vain.
I heard her voice on the wind depart,
I watched as her bloom went by,
But her farewell died on a weary heart,
And her light on a weary eye.
I have done with visions—they’re faded all
From a fever gleaming brain,
I bade them go, and I would not call
One dream from its shroud again.
It should not lure me a single hour,
If the world at my feet were laid,
For wealth, and pleasure, and fame, and
power,
Are less than the dust we tread.
My feet were led to the Rock of Peace
When childhood was on my brow,
It has yielded all I have known of bliss,
And I rest in its shadow now.
And my rest is sweet and my heart is
calmed,
As I watch my being wane;
For I trust that the light of a better land
‘Will make it bloom again!
—By Harriet J. Meek.
re Aeneas
PRISCILLA IN SPITE OF HER-
SELF.
“You see, Granny, things are hard
for a girl with Puritan ancestors.”
Jean Adams laughed as she spoke;
but the laugh was a half-hearted af-
fair, and the old lady, against whose
knee she was leaning, reached out a
thin hand and patted the sleek bobbed
head.
“I think Great-grandfather Ezra
must be the Jinx.” The girl’s tone
expressed deep distaste for this par-
ticular ancestor. “He certainly was
the cat’s whiskers for conviction of
sin. He was always seeing the earth
yawn before him and having a vision
of Hell and flopping down on his knees
wherever he happened to be and break-
ing out into a cold sweat and wrest-
ling in a prayer. And what sort of a
forebear is that for a flapper, 1926
model? Now, I ask you, Granny!
I'm scared half to death for fear that
sometime, right in the midst of a riot,
I'll plump down on my knees and be-
gin to sweat and pray.”
“You might do worse.” The tone
was cheerfully tolerant; but the wise
old face clouded slightly. Mrs.
Worthington had a very young heart
and a robust sense of humor, but she
sometimes wished that the grand-
daughter who brightened her old age
did not so egregiously offend her
taste.
“Oh, I don’t know. That would be
pretty bad. I can’t even get any kick
out of defying old Ezra. I've got a
conscience. That's what’s the matter
with me. And it’s excess luggage
nowadays, Granny. I wish I had
come of a line of buccaneers.”
The girl sprang to her feet, stooped
to snatch a kiss from a soft, withered
cheek and pulled her rakish hat down
further over her eye.
“If mum asks about me, tell her
I've gone to Di’s for dinner.”
She breezed out of the room and
the old lady, in the chintz-covered
chair by the window, sat, smiling a
little, sighing a .ittle, thinking of her
own youth and wondering about the
youth yet unborn. It was good to
be honest and gallant and fearless;
but it was lamentable to be cheap and
vulgar and it was dangerous to be
recklessly self-confident.
“If only the right man comes along
in time,” she said to herself.
Out-of-doors, in the glow of the
setting October sun, Jean was, un-
knowingly, going to meet the wrong
man.
He was waiting for her in Di Cas-
tle’s studio. There was a hint of in-
cense in the room, the light filtered
through amber curtains, divans and
cushions of violent hues were every-
where; there were weird, ultra-mod-
ern pictures on the walls, canvases
stacked against the wainscoting, a
welter of paint—presumably an un-
finished picture—on an easel. Not a
painter’s workroom; but Di Castle
was not a painter. She was a rich
girl, well past debutante years, bored,
playing at art in the intervals of
playing at other things, and finding
a studio an amusing setting for all
sorts of play.
“There’s something about a studio,”
she explained to her friends when she
signed the lease. “People loosen up.”
People did. Not that Di’s crowd
was seriously restrained by inhibi-
tions, even in the ordinary home set-
ting; but as a point of departure and
return and for occasional wild parties,
a studio did, as Di put it, have the
home fireside looking like a solitary
confinement cell.
She liked her studio, but she wasn’t
stingy with it. Any of her friends
might use it, if they didn’t get their
dates tangled with hers; and if the
little Japanese who kept the place
tidy happened to be out, the key was
always hanging behind the lantern,
beside the door. Whether the friends
met the wrong men or the right men,
or merely kept dates with women
friends there in the studio, was all
one to Di. She had no Deacon Ezra
perched on her ancestral tree. Being
a hard-headed little person, of twen-
_—
ty-four summers, she could get along
without him. What her friends did
was their affair. That was the first
law of the modern creed.
And so, when an unexpected oppor-
tunity for a thrilling evening present-
ed itself, too late to permit telephon-
ing and breaking her dinner engage-
ment with Jean Adams, the owner of
the studio turned to a man who hap-
pened to be lounging on a divan be-
side her and blithely made over her
date with Jean to him.
“Give her a good time, Larry,” she
said. “She’s a darling—one of the
latest inventions. You'll fall for her
—hard. Of course you're a disreput-
able character; but so are we all of
of us, and you can be awfully nice; so
Jean won't bear me a grudge for
chucking her.”
She went her way; and the dis-
reputable character, after some hesi-
tation, decided to wait and see the
thing through. Looking at Jean
Adams as she came through the door-
way, he was glad that he had wait-
ed. He had forgotten that there was
anything so young in a jaded world.
The sophistication of her clothes, of
her manner, the rouge on her cheeks,
the absurd red of her lips were mere
masquerade, accentuating the quest-
ing light in her eyes, the childish line
of her chin, the sweetness of her
mouth.
For a moment she stood looking
about the room, her eyes narrowing
slightly in the effort to adjust them-
selves to the soft half-light afer the
glow of the outdoor world. Then she
saw the long, lean figure, blotted
against the black divan.
“Hulloa!” she said lightly. “Now,
who are you?”
Larry Mowbray rose to his feet as
she spoke, six feet two of bone and
muscle, with a bit of flesh to boot.
“I didn’t get up at first for fear of
startling you,” he said. “My name’s
Mowbray. Di had to go out some
where. She told me to tell you she
was sorry.”
“Meaning she had a chance of
something more amusing,” interpret-
ed Jean, without resentment. “But
why not a note pinned to the lamp-
shade? That’s the usual thing.”
“She had a kindly impulse.” Larry
Mowbray’s voice was one of the nic-
est things about him, low, slightly
drawling, friendly, yet with a char-
acterful ring in it. People remem-
bered Larry’s voice. “You see, she
was about to turn me out into a world
that is cold to Prodigal Sons; and at
the last moment it occurred to her
that you might put up with me for
the evening since she had failed you.”
Jean liked his voice. She liked his
looks. He must be all of forty, she
thought, and she was horribly fed-up
on callow youth. But she had thought
that at forty men had jowls and tum-
mies. The men in Di’s crowd had.
This man seemed made of whalebone
and rawhide; and above his alert,
sinewy body was a thin brown face
whose chin was stubborn in its lines,
whose mouth was reckless, whose
dark eyes were keen and a trifle
weary. There were streaks of gray
in the thick hair above the brown
face. eid Spe
Yes, she liked his looks; but why
“prodigal”?
“Am I taking on the role of dot-
ing parent or fatted calf ?” she asked.
A shadow flashed into the man’s
eyes and was drowned there. His
father hadn’t been doting; but the son
wished the old man were back in his
library chair, in the old house on
Washington Square, instead of lying,
as he had lain for two months, un-
der the sod of the family burying plot.
“Certainly nothing fatted,” he said,
pulling himself away from bitter
memories.
Jean glanced down at her own
straight slimness with complacement
approval.
“Yes. Nice, isn’t it? Just a hun-
dred and ten. I thought I'd never
get the last ten pounds off. Ihadn’t
a decent thing to eat for months; but
now my stomach’s proud spirit is
broken. I can eat anything, any time,
and the calories just reel back, dis-
couraged. I order potatoes and white
bread and ice-cream and cake and
don’t take on an’ electron.”
“Then,” suggested the man, “we
might go out and order potatoes and
white bread and ice-cream and cake
together. Yes?”
The girl hesitated. Di’s friends
were of all sorts and then there was
that prodigal.” Uncle Ezra stirred
and groaned. She snuffed him out.
There was nothing else on for her
evening, and one couldn’t be bored;
and this stranger looked more inter-
esting than any of the boys for whom
she might telephone.
“Why, yes,” she said cheerfully.
“Why not? Only, it’s too early for
dinner.”
“There used to be restaurants in
the country—and roads to them. I
suppose they haven’t all been closed
while I’ve been in Africa?”
Jean laughed.
“Not permanently—but often. Let’s
go out to the Laurels:” Of course,
she told herself, dad and mum dis-
approved of road-houses and country
drives; but that was archaic, per-
fectly prehistoric, and it was a hea-
venly evening for a drive.
The man stood looking at her.
Things had changed much in the
years he had been away. There had
always been road-houses and cars and
girls—but Di had said this girl was
of a fine old family and straight—
absolutely straight; and she was
young, unbelievably young for such
freedom. There was no Great-grand-
father Ezra in any complex of Larry
Mowbray’s; but he did have certain
ideas about playing the game.
“No,” he said, “not a road-house,
I think, We'll dine in town.”
“Women’s votes not counted?”
He smiled at her. There was some-
thing extraordirarily engaging about
his smile.
“Don’t be huffy, child. I'm a thou-
sand years old; and sometimes I do
aged things like denying myself
pleasure, You see, I've been in t
Africa for five years, and the children
don’t roam the jungle at night out
there. Ill have to get used to the
thing gradually.” ;
One couldn’t be angry with him
: when he smiled like that; and any-
how Jean didn’t particularly like
road-house dining. She didn’t know
exactly why but thought it had some-
thing to do with the waiters. They
always looked so frightfully discreet.
“Any objection to the young per-
son taking a walk in the jungle with
an armed guard? I suppose, of
course, you are armed?” she said.
“To the teeth,” he answered. “Do
you want to take a walk?”
She looked around the studio and
shrugged her shoulders. “One needs
a crowd and drinks to help one stand
his chamber of horrors, and it’s glor-
ious outside. Let’s sprint up through:
the Park.” i
So they sprinted. The sun sank; |
and the roofs and towers of the city
silhouetted themselves against the |
afterglow. Myriad windows changed ,
to jewels, flying against the bosom !
of the night. A cold breeze came up !
and set Jean’s face tingling, like her
heart. The man, walking beside her, |
was a good companion, talking a lit-
tle, laughing a little, listening a lit-
tle, matching silences with her, al-
ways giving her the feeling of being
companioned, understood, admired. A
technique very different from that of
the boys with whom she had been!
jazzing about. She liked it, liked it |
enormously.
And when, later, they sat opposite
each other at a table in a restaurant
and the man had ordered, in an effort-
less, efficient way, a dinner that seem-
ed perfect, Jean made him talk of
Africa and sat entranced. Othello
again! The old motive wears well;
and even the modern flapper will
thrill to tales of adventure, well told.
“It must have been gorgeous,” she
said enviously. “Men do have all the
luck. But why did you go to Africa?
Just for adventure?”
“N-no. Not exactly.” He spoke
slowly. “I wanted to get away.
Africa is a good grave but it wouldn't
bury me; and after a while I didn’t
want to be buried. By that time I'd
been fascinated by things down there.
You either love it or loathe it. There’s
no half-way house. I loved it; so I
stayed. And then I had word that my
father had died.”
He was silent for a moment. Jean
could not decide whether his face
hardened or softened.
“I was needed here,” he went on.
“Business matters. So I came back;
but I'll go out again.”
“Soon?” Her question was an odd,
breathless note. There was no rea-
son why he shouldnt go back to
Africa; but, queerly, Jean felt that
New York would seem bleak without
im.
“Yes—soon,” he answered
He looked at her across the table.
Deep in his eyes something stirred,
leaped to the surface.
A slow blush crept up through her
rouge, her lips trembled, she looked
young—absurdly young, and sweet—
unspeakably sweet. Flapper-hood
fell away from her like a husk and
the kernel was eternal girl.
“That is,” the man added, “I—
should—go.”
She did not ask why, just sat and
ate food that had no taste and won-
dered, vaguely, why the jazz had sud-
denly gone out of things.
“I made a horrible mess of things
here before I went away,” Mowbray
was saying. “That’s why I went—
and stayed. I always thought my
father would send for me. He didn't
Now there’s no one to care whether
I go or stay; and it’s a man’s life out
there.”
“It sounds terribly thrilling,” she
heard herself saying.
There was more talk after that,
more food, a cocktail or two; but
back of everything loomed Africa,
huge, black, threatening; and when,
at her own door, Jean said good night
to the new man, she felt as though
he jungle had swallowed him—or
er
“Well, what did you think of Lar-
ry?” Di Castle asked, over the tele-
phone, the next morning. “Some en-
chanter, that lad; but don’t get your
heart-strings tangled, honey. His
past is hectic and I’ve an idea he’ll go
right on making history.”
For the rest of the day Jean roam-
ed about the house, wondering about
the historic past. Late in the after-
noon a maid called her to the tele-
phone.
“Might I come up?”
He didn’t mention his name. There
was no need of it. She would have
known the voice among a thousand.
“Yes—do.” She tried to make it
gaily indifferent, tried to think of
something foolish and slangy, in her
usual line, that she might add; but
nothing came. So she let it go at that
—just “Yes—do,” with a throb in it.
After that day they spent their
idle hours together, lunched, tea-ed,
dined, walked, drove, danced togeth-
er. Africa might be waiting; but ap-
parently Larry Mowbray turned a
deaf ear to the call and Jean refused
to believe in a Dark Continent. All
the world was a light and a glory.
Once in a while she met some of her
old crowd; but they belonged to a
very remote past. Boys and girls
called her up on the telephone, tried
to make dates with her. She was
kind to the silly young things but had
no time for them. Her father and
mother noticed no difference in her.
They were busy with their own inter-
ests and she had always been a hu-
man pinwheel. They had stopped try-
ing to regulate her spinning, long be-
fore. Now ‘she was just whirling as
usual. What could a mere parent do
about it? Only Mrs. Worthington,
crocheting in her wing-chair by the
window, wondered and worried and
realized that, somehow, things were
different with the child she loved.
Larry Mowbray’s mouth was a lit-
tle more reckless than usual in those
days, yet he kept himself well in
hand. Fate had played him another
scurvy trick. He was in love—in
love with a starry-eyed child, mas-
querading as a worldly wise young
person—and it hurt, it hurt confound-
edly. This was different from the
other love-affairs. She was so sweet,
so adorably sweet. Youth called to
him, from her eyes, from her lips,
from the whole springtime loveliness
of her. At forty, one yearns toward
youth. These other women—a shiv-
er of disgust shook him. Disgust
with them, with himself.
What a
rotter he had been! And what a
price he had paid for it—was paying
for it! But at least there was today.
The devil might take yesterday and
tomorrow.
There came a time when he no long-
er kept himself in hand, when he let
himself go and told the girl how he
loved her, swept her off her feet with
the love-making of his lips, his eyes,
his arms. Jean walked transfigured
through those days, happiness cloak-
ing her like a garment, her secret
fairly’ shouting itself from her face.
But there was a waiting look in her
eyes.
Love was enough, and yet—and yet
she would be glad when everything
was settled, when he had asked her
to marry him and she had said “yes” .
and the family had been told and she
could fling her happiness to the air,
like a banner for all the world to see.
She was thinking of that one morn-
ing, curled up on the sofa in her own
room, when Di Castle was announced,
and she hated to be interrupted in her
dreaming; but she liked Di and she
had not seen her in weeks—not since
she had known Larry. They could
talk about him. Not about that
“hectic past”—he could tell her about
that after they were married, if he
cared to. She didn’t want to hear it
from ‘anyone else. Most men had
pasts. Yes; she’d see Di.
And, after they had gurgled the
usual greetings, the conversation did
drift around to Larry Mowbray.
“He’s a Pet Lamb Child,” said Di
enthusiastically, and Jean winced.
“Pet Lamb Child” had been an ex-
pression of her own; but it didn’t fit
Larry.
“They tell me you've been leading
that bold, bad man around by a blue
ribbon and feeding him out of hsnd,”
Di rambled on. “It will do him good;
but watch your step honey. That
wife of his in Paris won’t die or di-
vorce him. Too ornery. And she
won’t give him a chance to divorce
her. She just spends his money and
tells everyone how cruel he is. Cruel!
My Bob! Why, she doesn’t care tup-
pence for him—never did, if you ask
me. She was just a vamp who had to
be vamping, and he was her husband’s
best friend, so he was about the house
a lot and she made a dead set at him. ,
The husband got some sort of a hunch
and went into the bathroom ard shot
himself—tidy soul! There was a ter-
rific row and scandal.
“It all happened the year I came
out and we girls were dreadfully ex-
cited about it, because we all knew
Larry and were crazy about him. He
married the widow. I suppose there
wasn’t anything else to do. He never
talked to anyone about the affair, nev-
er put up any defense; but the two
didn’t live together. She went to
Paris and he went to Africa. Old Mr.
Mowbray had cut up awfully rough—
regular old-style melodrama—cursed
his only child and told him never to
show his face at home again and all
that sort of stuff; but in the end he
left Larry the money. Now I sup-
‘pose that human leech in Paris is glad
she keld on.”
“She was talking without looking at
the girl on the couch. Perhaps things
weren't as bad as she had feared; but
Larry had such a way with him and
Jean was such a kid and then, after
all, the two had met in her studio. |
“I suppose he'll be going out to
Africa again,” she went on. “He said ,
he’d go back and I guess it’s just as!
well. You see, he’s queered here and
he likes the life out there. I met an
Englishman from Nairobi the other |
night. He said Larry was a wizard
at managing the natives and that the
British officials had him running all
over the place with them, wherever
there was trouble. And he said Larry
was developing a big plantation out
there.”
She turned suddenly to Jean. “Is
he going soon?” she asked.
“Yes,” said the white-faced, great-
eyed girl on the couch, “I think he
will go soon,”
_He came that afternoon; but Jean
did not see him. He telephoned bus
she did not go to the telephone. He
wrote. She did not read the letters.
“Jean had better see a doctor,” Mr.
Adams said to his wife. “She looks
run down.”
But Jean wouldn’t see a doctor.
Nor would she take calomel, as her
mother urged, nor eat the invalid
food an anxious and affectionate old
cook prepared for her. She did not
go out of the house. Onceina while
she wandered into her grandmother’s
room, dropped down on the floor be-
side the wing-chair and sat there si-
lent, while the old lady crocheted,
stopping now and then to stroke the
brown head but asking no questions,
Hough her heart yearned over the
girl,
And then one day the parlor-maid
brought a note to Jean’s room.
“I am waiting in the library,” it
said. “I won’t go without a scene.
You must see me. I have a right to
that.”
She went down to see him and
stood, straight and stiff and wide-
eyed, before him, with no welcome of
voice or look.
He made a step toward her and
stopped.
“Oh, little thing, little thing! What
have you done to yourself?” he ask-
ed, in a voice that broke like a sob.
“You wanted to see me?” she said.
“Wanted to see you? I had to see
you! Don’t you understand? I can’t
live without seeing you, child. You're
my whole world, the very breath of
life to me. And you turn me off with-
out a word, without a chance to tell
my side of whatever damnable story
you’ve heard. Some one has dug up
the old scandal, with all th vicious
gossip it caused. I meant to tell you
myself, before you could hear it from
anyone else; but we were so happy
and I knew it would hurt you, and so
I waited. I'd give my right hand now
if I hadn’t.”
“It’s all true, isn’t it?” She spoke
quietly, almost indifferently.
“True? How do I know what you
have heard? Come; sit down. You
mustn’t stand. I won’t go near you.”
She sat down on the davenport by
the fire and he leaned against the
mantelpiece.
“It’s true that I got into a nasty
‘ed good?
en
scandal five years ago,” he'said. “It’s
ture my best friend killed himself be-
cause he believed that I was his wife's
lover. But it isn’t true that I was her
lover. She didn’t love her husband,
she made a fool of herself about men,
she made a fool of herself about me.
But he was my friend, I tell you—my
best friend. You don’t know what
that means to a man. No woman liv-
ing could have made me untrue to
him. But one day he saw a scene I
couldn’t prevent; and he misunder-
stood. So he wrote a note to me and
a note to her and blew his brains out.
“I couldn’t tell all this to people,
could I? Couldn’t pose as a Joseph
to her Potiphar’s wife? Nobody
would have believed me if I had.
They’d have thought I was just a
miserable rotter, trying to clear my-
self at a woman’s expense; but, be-
fore God, it’s true, child. I wasn’t
responsible. I wasn’t in love with
her. I was true to my friend. I only
made the mistake of not staying
away from the house; and, if I had
done that, after living there, it would
have hurt Dick. I couldn’t have ex-
plained to him. And then, when he
killed himself, thinking I had done
him the worst wrong one man could
do another—can you see how ghastly
it was for me?
“I’ve wished, many a time, that I
had followed his lead and put a bul-
let through my head. But there was
the woman. Scandal was raging
around her and there was no one to
stand by her. In that last note of
Dick’s he had asked me to be good to
her. I thought she loved me. Fatuous
asses men are! There was only one
thing I could do for her and that was
to marry her. So I did just that; and
then I settled what money I had on |
her. It wasn’t much. My father had
broken with me, wouldn’t see me or
hear what I had to say; but my moth-
er had left me something, It was
enough to take the woman to Paris
and keep her there. I went to Africa. |
“She won’t divorce me and she
says she’s willing to live with me at
any time, so I can’t divorce her. As
a matter of fact, I think she has, al-
ways, counted on my father’s relent-
ing and leaving me his millions.
lawyers came to me last week. I'm
a rich man now and she means to
have her share.
“I didn’t care particularly about be-
ing free. All I wanted was to get
away from her, away from the whole
. frightful business; but I always hoped
‘my father would want to see me and
send for me. He didn’t. Then he
died, and the lawyers sent for me, and
I came back—and met you.”
He was standing nearer her now,
and across the ice of her face, little
gleams of pain and pity and love were
stealing. Suddenly the ice melted in-
to tears.
“Oh, Larry! Larry!” she sobbed,
and he gathered her into his arms.
“You shall never regret it, sweet-
heart,” he said that night, before he
went away. “I can make you so
happy that you won’t miss anything,
There will be no one to blame or sit
in judgment. I'm the law and the
gospel out there, and you will be my
wife.’ You will be my wife, darling.
it. You aren’t afraid? You won't
let the old, hidebound, throttling
traditions bully your intelligence
when I'm not with you, will you?”
“No, she said, “I’m going to Africa
with you.”
She said it to herself, after the
door had closed behind him. “I'm
going with him.” What did she care
about the scandal? What did she
care about that other woman who
‘had wrecked Larry’s life and taken !
refuge behind laws that society call-
Larry’s life had been
wrecked. She would mend it. Her
father and mother would be hurt—
more shocked than hurt. They had
never kept very close to her, never
tried very hard to understand her.
Granny—she choked a bit over Gran-
ny, wished that the old lady need not
know. Granny would forgive her but
she would grieve, grieve miserably.
Still, Granny had had her life. Youth
had its rights. Larry needed her
more than the others did. She was
going with him.
She packed her dressing-case and
a bag the next morning, packed them
carefully, methodically with whag<he
would need, until Larry could buy her
more, in London. Then she went out
to meet her lover. Things seemed so
simple, so right, so inevitable when
she was with him. He was too wise
to leave her much alone that last day.
Arrangements had all been made.
The steamer would sail at four in the
morning. Passengers must positive-
ly be aboard by three-thirty.
“We will dine together at the old
place?”
They were walking down through
the Park, in the afterglow, as they
had walked that first evening, when
the world began. Again the build-
ings blackened against the light in
the west; again the jeweled clusters
of lights twinkled in the dark, hud-
dling masses and sprang with shafts
of shadow into the sky; again a night
wind blew keen against Jean’s face
and set her cheeks tingling; but this
time there was no tingling in her
heart—only a throbbing fullness that
was as much pain as joy.
“Yes; we’ll dine at the old place,”
the man said gently. He had been
very gentle with her that day and she,
who had always scoffed at gentleness,
had been grateful.
“And then we’ll go to a show and
have supper and dance for a while
somewhere. By that time everyone
will have gone to bed at your house.
I'll wait in the car, a little way down
the street, while you change your
frock and get your bags. I hate to
have you carry the heavy things
down-stairs, dearest, but I suppose
it’s better that I shouldn't go in, and
I'll be waiting at the door. We'd
have been wiser if we had planned to
have you say that you were going
away somewhere for the week-end
and then check your things at the
station.”
“YT hate lies,” said the girl, who was
ready to break the commandment on
which society lays the greatest stress.
They have a queer code, these young
worshipers of freedom.
(Continued on page 6, Col. 2.)
Her
pe ————————————————————————— HE ———— EEE ———— —————- ih
{ FARM NOTES.
! —Feed the yearling heifers two to
. three pounds of grain per day to keep
them growing.
| —“Handsome is that handsome
does” is a good motto for the dairy
farm and laying yard.
—Long warts on cow’s teats may
be removed by twisting or tying a
silk thread tightly about the base of
i the growth. The warts will eventual-
ly slough off.
—Those farmers selling whole milk
can profitably feed three to four
pounds of beet pulp per cow per day,
wet with four times its weight in wa-
ter several hours before feeding.
—Cleanliness is the one big asset
in milk and cream production. The
barn, cow, and all utensils used in
handling milk and cream should be
clean if the best cream is to be pro-
duced.
—High-producing cows need grain
even if the pasture is luxuriant, be-
cause a cow producing 50 to 60 pounds
of milk a day cannot possibly con-
sume enough feed in the form of suc-
culent pasture to produce such quan-
tities.
| —Dry cows or heifers bred to calve
in the fall are often left on pasture
too late and they calve in poor condi-
tion. Many of the best dairymen feel
(that extra feed given a cow for a
month or six weeks before calving
, will do much or more good than the
same feed given after calving. A cow
should have considerable stored up
food reserve in her body if she is
going to be able to stand up under
heavy milk production.
—Buyers of baby chicks are fre-
quently led to purchase inferior stock
as a result of the misleading adver-
!tising and promises of unreliable
hatcheries or dealers. The State De-
partment of Agriculture calls the at-
tention of poultrymen generally to
the fact that the term “certified” or
“accredited” is meaningless unless
| the buyer understands the basis for
using the term and the reliability of
“the seller.
Under the accredited hatchery plan
adopted in Pennsylvania this year,
nine hatcheries are selling “Pensyl-
vaia Certified Chicks,” and one
| hatchery is marketing a limited
, quantity of “Pennsylvania Accredit-
,ed Chicks.” All of these hatcheries
{are operating under the supervision
of the Department of Agriculture,
'and are securing eggs from flocks
{ which have been culled by a Depart-
ment inspector. Because of the re-
' quirement of two consecutive annual
clean tests, the number of “Pennsyl-
vaia Accredited Chicks” will be small
this season, as the work was only car-
i ried on in an experimental way dur-
ing last season.
Other States have similar plans
i which vary slightly from that in ef-
fect in Pennsylvania. The chicks,
however, can be readily recognized
as they are sold under similar grade
terms with the name of the State at-
tached. A list of all such hatcheries
1in Pennsylvania will be forwarded to
{anyone making inquiry to the Bu-
Silly, man-made laws can’t prevent: reau of Markets, Department of Ag-
‘ riculture, Harrisburg.
—Separating butterfat from the
, rest of the milk in a cream separator
{is a delicate process and lack of atten-
| tion to details, which may seem unim-
portant, often causes considerable fat
to be left in the skim milk, it is point-
ed out by A. L. Young of the Univer-
sity of Illinois. The manufacturer
has done a commendable job in mak-
ing a machine that will skim as ac-
curately as does the modern separator
when it is properly handled, and it
should be given the sort of care that
a high-class product deserves, he said.
In the operation of such a machine
the little things count for more than
when a machine of less refinement is
being used. Consequently the experi-
enced user will insist that the separa-
tor be kept level and fastened secure-
ly to a solid foundation, that all the
bearings are lubricated with good
separator oil, that all the old dirt and
oil be cleaned out occasionally with
gasoline or kerosene, that the ma-
chine be operated at the proper speed
with the milk at the proper tempera-
ture, that the machine be washed
thoroughly each time it is used and
that it be protected from the dust and
kept dry when it is not in use.
Too often the user fails to watch
these points because even when the
separator is sorely neglected it will
continue to deliver a fairly good
amount of cream at one spout and
skim milk at the other. Users some-
times fail to realize that a separator
which is even a little out of level or
which has a bowl which vibrates or
is partly clogged with dirt is very
likely to send considerable butterfat
out of the wrong spout. To do good
work a separator must be well built,
run at the correct speed and kept in
good running order.
Particular attention should be paid
to the directions furnished with the
machine. It should be remembered
that delicate bearings operating at
high speed will last a long time if
they are properly cared for but that
they are quickly ruined by dirt or lack
of good care when neglected.
FEED TAGS ARE SERIOUS MENACE TO
DAIRY STOCK.
—“The cow’s death was due to a
punctured stomach caused by a piece
of wire taken in with the feed.”
Altogether, one meets such items
in the dairy papers too often. And,
too often it is the good cows and the
bulls that die in that way. If one has
examined the contents of a cow’s
stomach, he will be surprised that
more do not die from the same cause.
Nails, wires, pieces of glass, screws
and pins are not uncommon.
Every sack of feed that is sold must
carry a license tag and in many cases
these tags are attached with a hook-
taped wire that is economical from
the feedman’s view and dangerous for
the feeder.
In opening and emptying the sacks,
it is sometimes easy for the tags to
become detached and they at once fall
into the feed where they are lost in
the mixing. The hook has a sharp
point and a round loop. This gives
it a shape that is particularly vicious
in a cow’s stomach and is often fatal.