Bellefonte, Pa., May 28, 1926.
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WISHES.
I asked a little child one day, -
A child intent on joyous play,
“My little one, pray tell to me
Your dearest wish; what may it be?
The little one thought for a while,
Then answered with a wistful smile,
“The thing that I wish most of all
Is to be big, like you, and tall.”
I asked a maiden sweet and fair,
Of dreamy eyes and wavy hair,
“What would you wish, pray tell me true,
That kindly fate should bring to you?’
With timid mien and downeast eyes
And blushes deep and gentle sighs,
Her answer came, “All else above,
I'd wish some faithful heart to love.”
I asked a mother, tried and blest,
With babe asleep upon her breast,
“0 mother fond, so proud and fair.
What is thy inmost secret prayer?”
She raised her calm and peaceful eyes,
Madonnalike, up to the skies,
“My dearest wish is this,” said she,
“That God may spare my child to me.”
Again, I asked a woman old,
To whom the world seemed hard and cold,
“Pray tell me, O thou blest in years,
What are thy hopes, what are thy fears?”
With folded hands and head bent low
She answer made, in accents slow,
“For me remains but one request—
It is that God may give me rest.”
—By L’Mile Pickhardt.
LAST APPEARANCE.
The stage doorkeeper kept issuing
from his cell and looking up and
down the street, then at his watch,
then up and down the street. Some-
body on the program was evidently
missing. The Saturday night throngs
that had packed the walks were thin-
ned; it was nine o’clock; nearly every-
body was safely housed in a theater
of some kind.
In the lonely office where I had
waited a weary while for a man who
neither kept his late engagement nor
telephoned why, I could see the stage
door of the vaudeville house and I had
nothing to read but the book of life
beneath a window as badly neglected
as I was.
The stage doorkeeper grew more
and more restive as if he would be
ruined should anything go wrong.
A pair of acrobats who had doubt-
less opened the show in the usual
Greek poses came out in shabby cloth-
ing bulging with muscles. They car-
ried suitcases and bade the stage
doorkeeper good-by. He bore their
loss bravely, but not so well his own
uneasiness. I could not hear a word
but I could guess who was late from
the angry thumb he jerked toward a
three-sheet representing “Tonio and
Elena, world-famous dauncers.” In
this gaudy lithograph, a magnificent
Apollo upheld on one hand a beauti-
ful girl poised like a great flying
white swan—though wearing scanter
plumage.
The acrobats lugged their baggage
away with much less ease than they
had tossed connon-balls on the stage.
The doorkeeper fumed a while, then
made gestures of angry relief toward
a shabby man who hurried up. He
bore a faint resemblance to Tonio, the
counterfeit Apollo, but Elena was not
with him. I imagined from his shoul-
der-shruggings and from the way he
joined the doorkeeper in further
glances up and down the street, that
he could not understand why she had
not already arrived.
Distance was a kind of deafness
that turned everything into panto-
mine, leaving me only masks and ges-
tures as the basis of my own guesses.
But the guessing was a sport in it-
self—the only diversion I had.
Eventually the disgusted doorkeep-
er shoved Tonio into the theater and
returned to a long vigil on the walk
before he gave up and withdrew.
Thump! Thump! Thump thump
thumpity thump! The Salvation
Army! A little squad of soul-savers
came along the street and paused to
at the very stage en-
all sergeant, a short cor-
ines joined ‘the drum in an outburst
of hymn. =
I smiled to think of the sorry count-
erpoint that hymn must have made
with the soul-déstugilie music going
on inside the theater; and was not
surprised when the doorkeeper bounc-
ed out like an infuriated tarantaula to
wave the band away.
But his anger beceme amazement;
then rage; then, to my stupefaction,
he laid violent hands upon one of the
women, the littlest bonneted creature,
and tried to hale her through the
stage door.
Was this kidnaping? a forcible
conversion? a counter-attack on the
powers of good? or what? One of
the Salvation Army men, the tall ser-
geant, seized the little woman’s arm
and dragged her back; the doorkeep-
er dragged her forward. As now and
then she flung up her head I made
out that the face in the poke was
Elena’s. The name was evidently a
stage name, for she had the look rath-
er of a little Irish beauty than an
Italian. But what was she doing in
that company? Had the lithe white
nymph turned saint? If so, she must
have made an abrupt decision after
the mantinee to forswear forever the
evil theater. But the doorkeeper evi-
dently believed that her contract with
the management was prior to any
other. He would not let her go.
Before she was quite torn in two,
Tonio appeared at the stage door. He
was dressed now, or undressed, in his
stage costume; no tights, just trunks,
a scarf, and a garland in his hair, He
stared at the battle a moment, then
dashed into the argument and added
his weight to the doorkeeper’s side
of the tug of war. Whereupon the
cornetist added his weight to the ser-
geant’s.
~ Tt was an unexpected treat to have
this allegory in an alley, this bur-
lesque wrestle of angels and devils for
a soul played right in front of my
window, and no admittance charged.
The old paunchy man in shirt-
sleeves, a fantastic wild man half-na-
ked with a garland askew, a tall man
in a shabby uniform, a short man in
a shabbier uniform with a most incon-
venient cornet in his way; all of these
in a shindy over a big rag doll, while
the other Salvationists and a few by-
standers stood gaping, as wooden as
Noah’s ark figures.
There was probably much dialogue,
in half a dozen dialects, but I could
not hear a word.
Suddenly, for variety, the dancer
ceased tugging and made a swoop at
the sergeant, only to be knocked back
against his own lithograph. :
The bystanders shook with inaudi-
ble laughter but Tonio gave the farce
a moment’s seriousness, for he whip-
ped from a sheath at his belt the thin
brief blade of stiletto and crouched
for a spring.
Elena turned the tragedy into a
comical-tragical-pastoral, for she ran
to Tonio and clung to his right arm,
pleading hysterically. I had an in-
tuition that her words were dirceted
to persuading Tonio to abstain from
crime for his own sake, but I judged
from the glances she cast up at the
sergeant that she really thought of
him.
The big sergeant was not afraid of
the dagger as long as Elena held
Tonio’s arm, and he blustered for-
ward. But Elena motioned him off.
Finally, I judged that Tonio was of-
fering to spare the sergeant’s life if
Elena would keep her contract, for he
pointed to the billboard where his
name and hers stood out in head-lines.
She shook her head stubbornly. He
drew her attention to a yellow strip
pasted bias across the bill-board and
announcing: “Last Appearance Sat.
Nite.” Still she shook her head, and
Tonio brandished the knife again.
Then she gave up, dolefully, march-
ed through the stage door. She could
not have been more bowed with shame
if she had been entering jail. The
sergeant advanced a foot. Tonio ad-
vanced his knife. The sergeant fell
back. Tonio leaped through the door.
And now the almost maniac door-
keeper managed to persuade the dis-
pirited sergeant to go along about his
business. The troops marched off, but
not so far that the clump of the drum,
the wail of the cornet, the tootle of
the clarinet, and the ague of the tam-
bourines did not still trouble the air.
The street and the alley grew stu-
pid again and I had drearily assumed
that the shoddy knock-about was over,
when the sergeant reappeared. Some
impulse of suspicion or of love must
have overpowered him, for he went
boldly into the devil’s den, only to re-
appear at once followed by the wrath-
ful guardian. The sergeant, after a
bit of angry gesticulation, flung tre
doorkeeper back into the alley and
disappeared, followed so hotly by the
doorkeeper that I decided to break my
already broken engagement and see
the rest of the fun. Hoping that the
hot-headed sergeant might be lured
by his anger into a first appearance
on the stage, I rushed to the theater.
The Saturday night house was sold
out and the ticket seller could find me
only a place in the back of a crowded
proscenium box. I had to sit against
a wall, where I had a better view of
the wings than of the scene.
As I squeezed in I caused a mo-
ment’s embarrassment to a homely
woman and a stodgy man in front of
me. They let go their hand-clasp, but
resumed it soon.
Tonio was on the stage alone, en-
acting the capers of an hilarious faun
with extraordinarily high leaps and
whirls that seemed to make six men
of him. His limbs were lyrical with
an organic joy, but Tonio himself was
solemn and anxious. He kept glanc-
ing into the wings, where he could see
the Salvation Army sergeant stub-
bornly resisting eviction and looking
vainly for Elena. His presence was
sacrilege to the doorkeeper, who
wanted to drag him out, but the stage
manager nervously motioned for quiet
at any cost to avoid disturbing the
audience. He knew how easy it is to
throw such a mob into panic.
Suddenly the absent spirit of Tonio
was quickened with the mood appro-
priate to the dance and the sergeant
grew more restive. Elena appeared
in the wings. The change in her was
amazing. From the bundled-up re-
sepctability of the Salvation Army
convert she had emerged all but nude
in the animal beauty of a young
maenad—her hair quickset with fiow-
ers; her bare shoulders blooming from
a tight, scant bodice; a flurry of down
about her loins, then slim bare legs
with rouged knees.
She was so manifest and so pagan
that she terrified the sergeant with
this first glimpse of bacchic art. He
stared down at her devouringly, then
remembered and turned his back on
her lamian allure. Devastated by this
rebuke, Elena cringed into herself
with shame, huddled her arms about
her for covering and waited like a
Christian martyr stripped for the tig-
ers.
To Tonio, however, she was now in
full uniform, and the sight of her in-
spired him to finish his dance with a
fire that brought unusual applause
from an audience more fond of jazz
than of classic posture.
The orchestra struck up at once an-
other air, an amorous, luscious love-
tune. Tonio, looking toward the tor-
mentor entrance, extended his hand
for Elena. She could not budge. The
stage-manager gave her a shove that
propelled her into the blaze of the
lights. Seeing the audience banked
behind the flare of radiance, she shook
off her qualms and began her work,
spinning, finging her four shapely
limbs in air with an abandonment that
could only have been achieved by cruel
years of training; for nothing could
have been less spontaneous or sincere.
Her soul was still benneted and heavy-
skirted. As Tonio watched her do-
ing a pas seul before she joined him,
his eyes were anxious. He was disap-
pointed. She was not doing her
duty by the gods who paid her. Still,
his resentment was tempered with
more than the formal admiration
called for in the silly plot of the
dance. His eyes revered her as if she
Wats an abbess fulfilling a sacred rit-
ual, :
When his cue came along in the
music, he lifted the scene with his
authority, coerced her to his will and
the dance became a duet.
He embraced Elena, whirled her,
whirled with her, circling the stage.
They parted, met again, drew pat-
terns of beautiful motion. Lifting
her, he hurled her into the air with
an astounding ease; tossed her aloft
as if she were a feather; caught her
by the hips and dipped her head till
the audience gasped lest her pretty
skull should be cracked. But he
checked her and swung her up aloft
where she poised with one leg
straight, one knee high, with its toe
resting on the other knee. Then he
spun her round and round; cast her
high again; wrapped her round his
shoulders in a long pink boa, and re-
volved till they were but a blur.
I glanced at the sergeant and saw
that Tonio’s handling of Elena was
very poison to him—infamy! He
would surely have come striding forth
to denounce the heathenish exhibition,
but the stage-manager braced him-
self in front of him and gripped the
curtain wire. Two black-face come-
dians were waiting there now for
their turn, and they also guarded the
Salvation Army man.
The audience was not indifferent to
the rhapsody and the music gradual-
ly seduced Elena’s now ascetic soul,
subdued it to the carnival and raised
Tonio to an ecstacy of possession.
Squat and peasant off the scene,
once he danced he was exalted; while
the music lasted, he was superb. This
was indeed his one religion. And,
like a high priest of Moloch, he hated
the stern high priest of the hostile
faith, who stood aloof and glared.
By and by I felt that a quarrel was
being surreptitiously waged between
Tonio and Elena. They still smiled
their professional smirks, but I could
tell that he was pleading with her in
brief and fervent asides. His eyes
burned with fervor but Elena kept
shaking her head. Once I could read
on her lips the words—“No, No! This
is the last time forever! You prom-
ised!” Tonio ceased to implore; he
commanded. Still she whispered
with stubborn anger, “No! No!” Yet
her face and body mimicked a volup-
tuous surrender to his slightest
whim.
There came at last into Tonio’s des-
perate eyes a look of defeat and its
despair; then a look of resolution.
The dance was building now to a ser-
ies of feats whose difficulty was
masked by Elena’s grace and Tonio’s
power. She danced away from him to
increasing distances with teasing
coquetry, then turned, ran, dived
through the air and alighted in his
arms. Frail as she was, the shock of
her arrival would have knocked down
a feebler man; but Tonio caught her
without a tremor.
Through space she came with a
rush of a vast bird. Delicate she was
for a girl, but heavy for a swan. Yet,
as if she were as airy as she looked,
Tonio’s cupped right arm received her
breast; his left caught her arched,
joined thighs. When she had rest&l
a moment he would release her, she
would pirouette away and soar to him
again in longer and longer flights.
At last the climax of the dance was
plainly near, for the orchestra check-
ed its erotic clamor, and only the
snare-drum rolled ominously, shaking
up the heart of the audience for a
supreme thrill. The silence, except for
that muttering agitation, grew so
tense that from the street outside the
thump thump thumpity thump of the
Salvation Army drum invaded the
theater again; faintly the tambour-
ines shimmered and banged.
This music checked Elena a mo-
ment, but Tonio snapped his fingers
and she shook off the spell. She cir-
cled the stage once, and once more to
prolong the suspense, while Tonio
stamped his feet and beckoned her
to him. I had the feeling that she
herself was deferring the final air-
dive so that her sweet, wild beauty
might drain to the lees this last draft
of the forbidden ambrosia. So beau-
tiful, so pitifully beautiful she was
that even the prosaic audience felt a
poetic regret. It was enhanced by
an eagar anxiety lest she might fall
and break her bones—and lest she
might not.
Now she was at the post whence
she would achieve her farewell ad-
venture. The Salvationists outside
broke into song, a lugubrious call to
repentance and redemption in the
blood of the Lamb. Elena knew the
words of the hymn but the audience
caught only the shudder of disson-
ance. The cornet, the clarinet, the
bass drum and the shrill singers mud-
dled the fierce snarl of the theater's
trap-drum.
The whole house became one drum
beaten upon, shaken with throbs, with
a quick pulse of many hearts making
one vast heart.
Brrr—thump! —brr—thump! —brr
thumpity—brrrr—thump! —brrrr—
washed in the blood—brrrr——
Elena was bewildered out of all
rhythm. She paused with her arms
limp, her face troubled, her eyes
shuttling from resolution to irresold-
tion. She made a false start out of
step, stumbled, froze once more with
arms disspread.
Tonio recalled her with a sharp cry,
“Ola!” She fell back, made herself
ready; the audience watched to fol-
low her across the air. I glanced at
Tonio. There was a look in his eyes!
In his right hand there was a gleam
quenched at once in his palm. It re-
minded me of the very needle-point-
stiletto he had flashed in the alley.
Yet in his eyes there was no murder;
only heart-break, only pity.
Brrrr—thumpity! —brr—blood of
brrrr!
Amid the ruffle and blunder of all
the drums, Elena darted forward,
made a perfect take-off from the
ground, traced a long rainbow
through the air, and sank to rest in
the arms of Tonio.
A fanfare of brass-wind, wood-
wind, shivering strings acclaimed ‘the
climax. Elena’s head drooped, her
arms fell.
The woman in front of me mur-
mured to her escort: “See! ’At’s the
dyin’ swan she just done!” I
The idea was evident to everybody.
4 gas * ! i
The applause was prompt and plen-
tiful.
I alone, from my post against the
proscenium wall, had seen that as
Elena swooped into the nest of Tonio’s
arms, a dagger blade came up from
the palm of his right hand, met her !
panting bosom and slipped deep into
her left breast, softly, softly as if it
buried itself in snow. Blood oozed
red about the handle of the stiletto
and trickled across Tonio’s right arm,
but the audience saw only the exult-
ant look of victory on his face.
Elena never moved. Perhaps she
had known no more pain than a wild
swallow that flies at night into a
lightning-rod on a lighthouse, impal- |
ing itself there. lena made no
sound; neither writhed nor struggled '
with death.
The music rose again as the ap-
plause ended, and Tonio began to
wheel in a frenzy, clenching Elena to
his breast and circling the stage with
such velocity that he seemed to be
many men and Elena all the spokes
of a wheel. |
Stupefied by the loneliness of my
knowledge, and gagged by a cowar-
dice of conspicuousness. I sat dumb,
aghast. Somehow I understood that
this was Tonio’s way of mourning for
Elena; this was her funeral rite, all
the vocabulary he had for her praise
or his grief. To him it was not
slaughter but salvation, not murder
but sacrifice, the slaying of a dove
upon an altar in the holy name of
loveliness redeemed from ugliness.
At length he danced to the tormen-
tor entrance where the Salvation
Army man stood, spellbound, breath-
ing hard with the irresistible music
and the unexperienced beauty of the
dance. |
When Tonio held out to him the’
slain Elena, turning her in his arms,
he and all the audience saw for the
first time the handle of the knife erect
in her heart. The orchestra stopped,
stunned. A sough of horror whis-
pered through the audience. The
sergeant gave one cry, one mad, braz-
en cry of agony. The cornet wailing
in the street seemed but its echo in
flight. Now the sergeant received
Elena for the first time into his arms.
He tried to recall her, sobbing: |
“Molly! Molly!” |
He was too benumbed to know when
Tonio retrieved his stiletto from the
breast of his idol, lifted one trailing
hand of hers, clenched it against his |
lips and retreated to the stage. |
For a moment the multitude was so
quelled that the drum-thuds of the |
Salvation Army, the tootle of the
clarinet, the whining of the tambour-
ines and the crude song of the sinners
washed in-the blood of Jesus filled the
theater. |
Then a wolf howl of the pack!
Afraid of they knew not what, wo-
men shrieked and plunged toward the
doors, men roared and fought.
The stage-manager was shouting,
“Ring down! Curtain! Curtain!” He
knew how fatal a stampede might be.
He tried to reach the signal button,
but the sergeant was in the way.
moaning over the burden in his arms,
sobbing, “Molly, Molly!”
The conductor of the orchestra, hop- |
ing to allay the frenzy, made a quick |
rat-tat-tat- on his desk with his ba- |
ton, then flogged his musicians into a '
stormy outburst of the ludicrous en-
trance music for the Darktown
Clowns. The Darktown Clowns came
out, but not for song—for revenge |
upon Tonio. {
From all the wings, stage-hands, |
acrobats, jazz-dancers, songsters, a |
fireman, the doorkeeper poured forth |
to capture the assassin.
Tonio laughed. He began to dance !
again, to the burlesque music of the i
Darktown Clowns. In a fury of leaps |
with an unearthly resilience he whip-
ped away from the out-stretched
hands. He slashed at the too zealous
pursuers as they closed in upon ‘him
warily and fell back when he lunged.
The musicians stood up in their pit
and peered across the footlights, but
Tonio danced on to some diabolic
music in his own heart. The audience
froze in all imaginable attitudes while
Tonio circled the whole stage, spent
his strength, drained out his soul.
Melodrama was as natural to Tonio
as prayer to the followers of other
gods than his. So he ran down into
the apron of the stage, paused theat-
rically at the brink of the foot-lights
and screamed: “Addio!”
Then he hid in his broken heart the
blade still red with Elena's life. His
knees sagged, his hands fell, his head
drooped. He sank in a heap. The
doorkeeper and the fireman dragged
him out of sight as the curtain slid
down.
The only music now was from the
worshipers in the outside temple of
the street.
The audience’s one huge heart beat
in tune with the drum dominating the
hymn with its thump! thump! thump
—thumpity thump!
The woman in front of me whis-
pered to her fellow: “Gawd, how aw-
ful! We gotta be sure and read about
it in the mornin’ paper.”
The baton of the conductor beat on
the rim of his desk a faint rat-tat-tat
again. The orchestra began to play
as if exhausted with profound fa-
tigue. But their languid music quench-
ed the Army without. The curtain
went up and the Darktown Clowns
hobbled in comically, bravely yam-
mering an idiotic lyric exploiting a
new kind of blues.
I did not wait to hear about their
melodious woes, but slipped out of the
theater.
When I passed the alley, the stage
doorkeeper was motioning furiously
to an approaching ambulance driver
to silence his gong. And a drowsy
bill poster was smoothing down a
new lithograph over the vanishing ad-
vertisement of “Tonio and Elena.”
The new bill prematurely proclaimed:
‘Sassy Susie, the world’s champion
dancing fool. This week only.”—From
Hearst’s International—Cosmopolitan
One resort in New Jersey will
make no rules this year regarding reg-
ulation bathing suits but will tell vis-
itors ‘to depend upon their conscience.
The trouble with that is that many of
them may not have enough conscience
to cover them decently.
FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN.
LITTLE THINGS.
I gave a child a tiny sprout,
A bit of plant I had thrown out,
And though it was without a flower
It grew into a garden bower.
fhe child gave me a fleeting smile
That made me happy for a while—
For just a while, I thought, and yet
It was a smile I won't forget.
—By Grace Hyatt
A three-pocket holder of oilcloth,
which is hung in the cleaning closet,
is a very simple and economical way
of keeping the dust-cloths always
ready for use. _
A particularly useful -clothes-pin
bag is made over a coat-hanger. Any
durable cloth may be used. One side
of the bag should be six or eight in-
ches longer than the other and this
longer end fitted over the hanger. The
bag is the width of the clothes-hanger.
Since sulphur is the chief cause of
the discoloring of silver, any contain-
er which helps to keep out the air
which may contain sulphur is a great
aid. If you have two large glass-top
candy jars, place a pad of flannel in
the bottom of each and, after clean- '
ing the silverware, pack it in the con-
tainer. The.candy jar is high enough
so that the silver can be placed on
end.
Every housekeeper knows how diffi-
cult it is to keep vinegar bottles clear
and free of the cloudy substance
known as “mother.” Adding half a
teaspoon of salt to your vinegar
cruet each time you fill it with vine-
gar will remedy the difficulty.
If, when washing children’s little
waists or when washing other gar-
ments on which there are buttons, the
garments are turned so the buttons
are inside and protected when putting
them through the wringer, they will :
not be torn off.
After pressing the sleeve of a coat,
the difficulty in obtaining a smooth
shoulder can be overcome by the use
of an ordinary small-size bowl. Hold
the bowl in the left hand, cover it
with a small piece of Turkish towe}-
ing, and insert the covered bowl in
the shoulder of the coat. Then using
a dampened pressing cloth, go over
the shoulder with the iron.
A delicious emergency candy may
be made quickly from peanut butter
and powdered sugar. Use one heap-
ing tablespoon of the butter to a cup
of sugar, adding a little vanilla or
maple flavoring. Add a tiny bit of
water or milk to work the mixture
to the proper consistency; roll into
| balls or otherwise shape and let set
in a cool place for a few moments and
you have a unique and delightful
tasting candy. It is also used for a
cake filling.
A survey of the models women
have accepted show that plaited skirts
have met with enormous success.
Flares have almost departed, but
there is some fullness in thin tissues
| usually arrived at by slightly cir-
cular cuts and shirring. Skirts re- |
main very short and except for actual
sport, sleeves are long. Light pastel
shades some navy, red, and much
black, are the favored colors.
Up to now there have been a ge
many plain woolen jumpers a
frocks, and crepe de chine dres
jumper tailored lines, but showing in-
tricate cuts and clever insets. As the
nice weather appears, however, the
printed tissues begin to show their
gay colors. The races are being treat-
ed to these cheerful silks with their
tiny. designs.
‘course, over the patterned dress
| a coat, caped-coat or cape of
~ color.
~~ The little Parisienne wears a but-
toniere, and here I must tell you that
‘these ornamentations are invariably
of real flowers these days. Especial-
ly iis this noticable in the morning,
when suits—double-breasted models of
light woolens or black smoking jack-
et with plain and checked skirts—are
worn. Mademoiselle must be as much
a connoisseur over her posey as the
Victorian dandy was over his, and so
we often catch sight of her in the
florists, trying this or that blossom
against her lapel.
Speaking of embroidery, too, let us
not forget the part which English
eyelet work plays in many a fashion-
able toilette. Then there are numer-
ous ruffles and flounces, aprons and
panels, to say nothing of the innum-
erable exploitations of jabot and rev-
er. As to plaits, these are utilized
quite as frequently in the afternoon
dress as they are in the sports genre
The combination of black and white
is one of the smartest things to take
with your tea, and this pertains not
only to frocks but to wraps as well.
One cannot overrate the importance
of this classic alliance and, whether it
be carried out in taffeta, chiffon, or
crepe, the frock of this type will not
suffer in any comparison with other
tones. Plain gray is another favorite
in coats and gowns for the spring af-
ternoon and if any one has been de-
luded into thinking that we have over-
come the beige habit she will have to
reconstruct her point of view the mo-
ment she steps into a fashionable tea
haunt.
An example of the clientele of beige
was seen recently teaing at the Ritz
in a beige kasha coat of slender lines
which was trimmed with summer er-
mine, mated with a matching felt hat
and worn over a crepe frock of red-
dish brown. And, by and by, these
reddish browns are awfully good for
the afternoon crepe or chiffon.
. Navy blue is a tone perhaps more
esteemed for street wear than for the
more formal afternoon occasions. Yet
it gets no recess even here, and es-
pecially is it found in the coat accom-
panying a frock of colored crepe.
Smart women wear these blue coats—
or capes—over bois de rose and red
and powder blue gowns. In consider-
ing navy blue as a whole we may say
that the latest edict from Paris con-
cerning its most congenial tints are
powder blue and pink, and it is one
of these confederacies often repre-
sented in more formal type of navy
frock.
FARM NOTES.
—It is well occasionally to stir up
| the mulch applied to tender plants.
i This generally loses its value if it be-
| comes too compact.
—Most farming machinery goes to
i
|
i
i
{
only 80 to 100 days, while railroads
use a locomotive 25 years or more.
—Two decades ago the question
was how to make two blades grow
- where one grew before; today the
Pople is what to do with the extra
e.
—Having success with and obtain-
ing good results from the use of ex-
plosives on the farm for various pur-
poses depend to a large extent on the
i good judgment of the user and care-
fully following the directions for its
use, just as it is true in performing
any other operation on the farm.
—Now is the time to find the fath-
‘ers for your next years chicks, say
Pennsylvania State College poultry
i specialists. These potential parents
| should be selected from fairly early
hatches. Do not disgrace the poultry
yard by saving weak, late-hatched
males. Pick out twice as many “ear-
ly birds ” as you think you will need,
"so that a heavy culling can be made
‘late in the fall.
—In the farm garden there is noth-
{ing finer to be worked for than qual-
ity melons. It is difficult to produce
muskmelons except on the lighter
. soils and in the warmer section of the
i State. Even with favorable soil,
| Weather conditions that are unfavor-
able may cause the melons to taste
like cucumbers. In Pennsylvania
quickly maturing varieties should be
‘used. The Emerald Gem is one of the
most popular sorts grown although
! then Bender’s Surprise and the Gold-
en Heart have been widely used re-
cently.
—It has been found by the New
Hampshire experiment station that
acid phosphate speeds up the tomate
crop materially, and makes it possi-
ble to beat the frost. They have used
from five hundred pounds to fifteen
hundred pounds of acid phosphate to
the acre, in addition to twenty tons
of manure, and the acid phosphate
has advanced the peak of the crop
better than manure alone, or other
chemical fertilizers. According to the
reports the bulk of the crop has ma-
tured from one to two weeks earlier
on the acid phosphate plot.
Apparently the acid phosphate
causes rapid early growth, and as a
result of this a much larger number
of blossom clusters, blossoms, and
fruit is produced early. There is ap-
parently no difference in the rapidity
of the development of the fruit from
the time the blossoms are formed un-
til ripening occurs, but the fact that
i there is blossoms in abundance from a
| week to two weeks earlier is sufficient
to enable the grower to get the ma-
jority of the tomatoes off the vines
; before frost.
| It will not cost much to treat some
"of your tomatoes with the acid phos-
, phate, and it might work out to great
advantage.
| —Dandelions, plantain and buck-
horn may be destroyed by the use of
gasoline injected into the center or
rown of leaves with a sharp-pointed
can or by touching them with a
drops of sulphuric acid. Dande-
‘| lions also may be eradicated from the
lawn by proper spraying with iron
sulphate.
Crab grass, which does not appear
until about the middle of the summer,
is one of the most troublesome lawn
pests. It does not thrive in the shade
and may be smothered quite easily by
covering it with tar paper or boards.
If not covered too long, the crab grass
is almost entirely killed and can be re-
moved by raking with a sharp-tooth-
ed garden rake. Other quick-growing
grass as redtop should be sowed im-
mediately in order to help keep out
the crab grass during the rest of the
season. The smothering method is
unsightly and not always practical,
but at present no other method has
been effective except that of hand
weeding, which should commence as
soon as the plants are large enough
to pull.
Weeds which are matted together
in patches like ground ivy, thyme-
leaved speedwell, heal-all and yar-
row are best removed by lifting the
turf completely and reseeding the
patches with a quick-growing grass
such as redtop.
More details on the control of weeds
in lawns can be secured by writing
for circular No. 4, entitled “Care and
Preparation of Lawns,” published by
the State Department of Agriculture
Harrisburg.
—When spraying fruit trees, care
should be taken to do the work at a
time when there is the least danger of
poisoning the honeybees which visit
the blossoms and which are very nec-
essary for the pollination of the flow-
ers, says the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture. Spraying fruit
trees while in full bloom with arseni-
cals is particularly injurious to bees,
according to tests which have been
completed recently by the bureau of
entomology.
Of course the beekeeper does not
want his bees poisoned, says the de-
partment, because as a result his
honey crop is reduced. The subject
should be of even more interest, how-
ever, to fruit growers because with
the loss of the honeybees they lose
the most effective means of pollina-
tion in their orchards. In this re-
spect the beekeeper, the fruit grow-
er, and in fact everyone is benefited
by honeybees.
The effect of arsenical sprays on the
mortality of honeybees has long been
debated, but only a few systematic in-
vestigations have been made to aid in
settling the dispute. In the hope of
answering definitely some of the ques-
tions so long debated, these tests were
conducted. While they are limited in
their scope, they do enable the depart-
ment to make some recommendations.
Spraying apple trees during full
bloom is not recommended because
the codling moth can be as well con-
trolled by spraying when 90 per cent.
of the petals have fallen, and because
spraying when the trees are in bloom
is injurious to insect pollinators.
the scrap heap after it has been used