ee ye
Bellefonte, Pa., October 1, 1926.
TO-DAY.
Be swift to love your own, dears,
Your own who need you so;
Say to the speeding hours, dears,
“I will not let him go
Except thou give a blessing ;”
Force it to bide and stay.
Love has no sure to-morrow;
It only has to-day.
Oh, hasten to be kind, dears,
Before the time shall come
‘When you are left behind, dears,
In a lonely home;
Before in late contrition
Vainly you weep and pray,
Love has no sure to-morrow;
It only has to-day.
Swifter than sun and shade, dears,
Move the fleet wings of pain;
The chance we have had to-day, dears,
May never come again.
Joy is a fickle rover,
He brooketh no delay.
Love has no sure to-morrow;
It only has to-day.
Too late to plead or grieve, dears
Too late to grieve or sigh,
‘When death has set his seal, dears,
On the cold lip and eye.
Too late our gifts to lavish
Upon the burial clay;
Life has no sure to-morrow; :
It only has to-day.
INDEPENDENCE.
The Reverend Stephen Hopkins
Chaplin was passing through the
kitchen. It seemed to his wife that he
was always passing through the kitch-
en and stopping to make suggestions
on the way.
To-day he noted the confusion of
utensils on the table, the two sweet-
smelling brown layers of cooling cake,
the gas stove burning full-head and
the moist beads on his wife’s forehead
as she stepped quickly around in the
pantry.
“I should think,” he commented,
you would plan to get your cooking
done in the forenoon when it is cooler
and not bake in the very hottest part
of the day.”
“I do plan, but what do you suppose
happens to a plan when old Mrs.
Whipple comes and stays an hour and
a half? She wanted to see you, but
I told her you were preparing your
‘prayer-meeting topic, so she stayed
on with me. Then that agent came
and talked and talked and the tele-
phone has rung every five minutes all
day with somebody asking a question
about the church sale.”
© “Of course everyone is liable to
have interruptions; you have to al-
low for them when you plan your
work.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to
retort, “You don’t have them because
I save you,” but she kept the words
back. She did not want to say any-
thing that might upset him, because
Aunt Libby was coming the next day,
Thursday, to stay over Sunday, which
was also the Fourth, and she wanted
Aunt Libby to have a pleasant visit.
So she quietly dodged around him
as he stood in her path to the oven,
wiped her fair flushed face and only
answered placatingly, “I'll be through
here in a little while,” hoping he
would move on.
The Reverend Chaplin held his
ground in the middle of the floor. He
was unusually tall, a slender grace-
full figure topped by a sleek black
head a trifle too small for his height.
His face was always white and his
regular features were dominated by
large dark blue eyes which ran the
whole gamut of expression from
vague vacuity, when he was dreaming
out some theory, to the hardness of
agate when he was opposed. Opposi-
tion rarely occurred because he had
an almost hypnotic way of making
people believe that he was right.
However, the effects of hypnotism are
not permanent and after eleven years
of married life Isabel Chaplin “was
pretty well out from under the spell.
She knew that quite frequently Steph-
en was wrong, but she kept the knowl-
edge to herself.
“The trouble with you,” went on
Stephen, the omniscient, “is that you
lack system. If you worked with more
system you would not get so far be-
hind.”
Her mind leaped to his own sys-
tem, which he never seemed to get
perfected. When he first came to
Rockton he had made a complete card
catalogue of his parishioners, their
families and addresses, so that in the
matter of calls he might deal with all
exact impartiality, but unfortunately
the A’s had not grouped themselves
into one neighborhood; they were
scattered all over the village. When
he went to see Mrs. Adams it seemed
very foolish not to call upon Murs.
Minot, who lived next door. Besides,
Mrs. Minot might feel hurt. The sen-
sible thing was to call on both but it
worked havoc with the system. Some
day he was going to do the whole
thing over by districts and try that,
but he had not got around to jt yet.
“Housework is different every day,”
argued Isabel. “It doesn’t seem to
fit into a system. You see, you are
baking on one day and mending on the
next and the interruptions are never
twice alike; some take more time and
some less.”
She stopped, realizing that she had
tried, quite futilely, to explain this to
him at least once a week for a long
time. She might as well save her
breath.
She might, indeed, for he was not
half listening.
“It would help some,” he continued,
“if you would always put things back
into their right places as soon as you
have finished with them. Now this
pan is dry,” he lifted it from the stove
and put it up on a shelf, “it ought to
be put back and if all the handles were
placed one way each one would be
easier to pick up. You ought to have
separate places for spoons and knives.
As it is, you are likely to cut your-
self with a knife trying to find a
spoon.”
-_
“lI was going to use that pan for
frosting, Then I'll be through here
and I am due at the Women’s League
meeting, the last for the summer.
Perhaps I'll stop a minute at Mrs.
Spicer’s on the way home. She has
a book for me to read.”
He had started toward the hall, but
that arrested him.
“If I were you I wouldn’t go to Mrs.
Spicer’s to-day,” he called back. “You
are going there pretty often and you
don’t want to run one place into the
ground.”
Sudden hot tears sprang to Isabel’s
eyes, partly from indignation and
partly from disappointment. She had
been looking forward to the refresh-
ment of a few minutes with Julie
Spicer. She loved Julie; they were
warm, congenial friends and she cogid
drop in at any time, sure of a welcome,
a good laugh or an understanding
which included, as a matter of course,
absolute loyalty to any confidence.
“The next time I wish to go any-
where I will keep the idea to myself
and just go,” she thought, but she im-
mediately yielded all intention of the
Spicer visit that day. It would be
wildly imprudent in the face of Aunt
Libby’s coming. Stephen would be
provoked if his wife deliberately
ignored his expressed opinion. With
Stephen, “If I were you” was just as
effective as “Thou shalt not.” He de-
clared his views with apparent mild-
ness but if Isabel did not promptly
act in accordance with them it arous-
ed his anger. His temper was not of
the flashing variety, quick and crash-
ing and soon over; it was still and
cold and unyielding. Perhaps a more
vhlegmatic temperament than Isabel’s
could have battled it out on the same
lines, but to her, lively, loving and
companionable, an impregnable si-
lence was a torturing thing.
To do him justice, Stephen Chap-
lin did not realize that he was afflict-
ed with a temper of any kind. He was
simply right and when his wife de-
liberately ignored that rightness he
was astonished, grieved, hurt, and he
managed to convey the impression to
the culprit across the table. There
was unconscious histrionic ability in
the Reverend Mr. Chaplin. He could
put his feelings “across” beautifully.
Perhaps that was why he was a good
preacher. He was no hypocrite; he al-
ways meant what he said but any
thoughts that happened to lie too deep
for words could be expressed wonder-
fully with a gesture, a shrug or a sigh.
Isabel had tried to harden herself
against his disapproval and to learn
not to care when these times came but
she did not seem to make much pro-
gress at that. The best she could do
was to avoid trouble, to guard her
tongue and watch her step, but even
there shé was not too brilliant a suc-
cess. There was a good deal of spon-
taneity left in her yet.
Isabel was an attractive little wo-
man as she trudged off to her meet-
ing. She was rather short and pretti-
ly rounded, with crinkly brown hair
and a pink skin which flushed easily
under excitement or pleasure. She
had a nice taste in dress and always
managed to have a stylish and becom-
ing hat. This afternoon its summery
brim shaded a tiny pucker in her
brow, a pucker which was growing to
be a more and more frequent occur-
rence. At first it had merely indicat-
ed perplexity; now it spelled rebellion.
“I have had just about enough of
this dictation,” she mused, as she
. walked down the elm-lined street.
| “Here I am, thirty-six years old, and
i cannot say my soul is my own! I can-
' not even do the work in my own house
(in my own way! I cannot go where
i I like or see whom I like nor do what
{I like and I am sick to death of it!”
It seemed to her that she would
gladly exchange several years of her
life for a taste of freedom. As Belle
Pike, she had been of a large family
and had had a delightfully carefree
| girlhood. Where there are five girls
| and two boys coming and going, all
{ about of an age and all full of liveli-
ness and sociable habits, there is
bound to be considerable latitude for
each one.
| Perhaps it was the law of opposites
‘ which had attracted her to the ser-
ious, conscientious young preacher.
i She was proud of his ability and he
was proud of her gay charm. Then,
i after their marriage, with apparent
unconsciousness, he had gathered the
. reins into his own hands and guided
; both his affairs and hers undisturbed
by any doubts as to his own compet-
ency.
It left Isabel bewildered. It was as
‘ though a gay yellow butterfly, accus-
: tomed to sunlight and warm caressing
,airy breezes, had flown through an
open window into a room and could
{not find its way out. The butterfly
1 was not broken; it still flew around in
evident activity but always within
walls and now it seemed as though
the walls were closing in, like those
in a nightmare.
“I am getting older and older and
there is nothing different ahead of
me,” thought Isabel, wildly, as she
mounted the steps of the Community
House.
The speaker of the day had already
begun her address, “Sociological Prob-
lems in America.” It seemed a big
subject to be handled that warm
afternoon, just as they were about to
adjourn for July and August and
could not attempt much in problems
before fall anyhow, and Isabel did not
give full heed to the earnest lady who
had come from out of town to start
them untying sociological knots.
After a while, however, she realized
that they had arrived at point three,
which was Marriage, and she sudden-
ly sat up. :
“Statistics show,” declared the earn-
est one, “that more separations occur
after eleven years of married life than
at any other period either before or
after. When a man and a woman
have been married eleven years the
first illusions have worn away, the
first romance has passed, charm is
likely to have been buried in routine
and life begins to seem like a tread-
mill. This truth is most vividly por-
trayed in Pinero’s ‘Mid-Channel,’ that
realistic drama of married life. The
fact that so many separations take
place during this vital period would
seem to indicate—" :
She paused for emphasis and Isa-
bel fiercely finished the sentence for
herself:
“It would seem to indicate that
after eleven years women have had
about all they can bear and they can’t
stand it a minute longer! I am an
eleven-year woman and I know!”
She slipped out before the program
was over. On the way home she stop-
ped at the library and took out “Mid-
Channel” and so far had her desper-
ate defiance advanced that when the
hour came for mid-week prayer meet-
ing she announced that she was not
equal to going. Then, when her hus-
band was safely on his way, she sat
up in bed and read realistic drama of
modern life.
Her sympathies were all with the
poor heroine. To be sure, it seemed
foolish to quarrel so fatally over
which hotel they should patronize on
their pleasure trip but with sisterly
insight Isabel realized that with mat-
ters at such high tension it would
have been something else if it had not
been the hotel.
“Now if I should leave Stephen,”
she reflected, “it would not be on ac-
count of the knives or spoons but
simply the accumulation of nag-
gings.”
She could not understand how Zoe,
once free, could be crazy enough—she
did not say unprincipled but down-
right crazy enough—to become en-
tangled with another man. All she
herself would ask would be never to
have anything to do with any. of them!
Intoxicating independence! Yes, poor
Zoe had certainly blundered there. Al-
so it seemed more sensible to walk
out the door than to jump out the win-
dow but that only went to show that
it was better to get away when one
could, before one was so thoroughly
Srirrped that any exit was impossi-
e
thought again, “this would be the
time to do it, before we are both too
old to be able to make the adjust-
ments.”
Adjustments would be harder for
Stephen than for herself, she realized.
To be deserted would be humiliating
for him but, on the other hand, he
would have some compensation in
public opinion. Opinion would be en-
tirely on his side, of course. She
would be sorry to be misunderstood
because she liked Rockton and its peo-
ple and she knew that they liked her.
Really, her popularity was one of
Stephen’s assets but she could not
hope to keep anyone’s approval after
doing such a wild, inexplicable thing
as to run way and leave a good faith-
ful husband and one with a promis-
ing future, at that.
Thursday morning was always a
busy one in the parsonage, for it was
then that Mr. Chaplin retired to his
study to prepare his sermon for Sun-
day morning and it was then that Isa-
bel breathlessly hurried through any
especial performance upon which she
wished to avoid comment. It was as-
tonishing how many of them accumu-
lated during the week.
She was briskly stirring up some of
the spiced cookies which Aunt Libby
loved when Stephen appeared in the
doorway. "
“I had to come down for a drink of
water,” he explained, sauntering
about, tumbler in hand. “This is a
fearfully hot day.
oven?”
Absorbed in measuring baking
powder in the pantry, Isabel absent-
ly murmured, “Not now,” without
turning.
Mr. Chaplin stepped over to the
stove and turned off the gas.
“lI am going to take for my text
Paul’s statement, ‘But I was free
born.” Of course, the Fourth falling
on Sunday, they will expect a patri-
otic and historical sermon and that
makes a good starting place to review
the incidents which led up to the Dec-
laration of Independence. I shall
point out that it was not so much any
one act as a succession of petty tyran-
nies. We owe a great debt to our
ancestors for throwing off the yoke
and allowing us to be free born.”
“There is one thing I wouldn't say,”
cautioned Isabel, over her shoulder..
“I wouldn’t tell them that Stephen
Hopkins signed the Declaration of In-
dependence.”
Anything in the
“You think it wouldn’t be modest?” |
“I think they can remember it from
last year,” returned Isabel, a trifle
dryly.
“Well, perhaps.” He started slow-
ly toward the front hall. He always
left the kitchen with apparent reluct-
ance, as though he felt that he ought
to stay to regulate the dampers and
point Isabel to more efficient methods.
“You'd better put the milk away as
soon as it comes,” he added. “This
heat will be likely to sour it.”
Isabel, beating eggs, caught only
a part of his speech. She had to stop
beating to ask, “What did you say
about milk?”
It annoyed him to have to repeat.
He spoke very distinctly now, as one
might to a child or a deaf person.
“I —said —you’d —better —put—
the— milk— away.”
“But it hasn’t come!”
“I— said— when— it— does—
come.” He nobly controlled his ex-
asperation at her density and passed
from her sight.
Isabel gave a hysterical little laugh,
then she came out of the pantry with
her cookies ready for baking and dis-
covered the cooling oven. She stared
gt it and her pretty mouth took a grim
ine.
“Now it is settled. I'm through. I
shall go back with Aunt Libby Sun-
day night. That is the way I shall
celebrate the glorious Fourth! I was
free born!” 4
As she struck a match and began
again on her oven, she realized per-
fectly why women left their husbands.
They had simply reached the limit of
human endurance. Well, soon she
would be one of them, one of the vast
army of sufferers nagged into separa-
tions. It only remained to tell Aunt
Libby. ‘To-morrow would do for that.
Aunt Libby should have her first even-
ing undisturbed.
Fortunately Stephen had an errand
which took him across town the next
morning, so the two women settled
themselves in the cool, shaded front
“If 1 should leave Stephen,” she
bedroom for an uninterrupted visit.
Even then it was not easy for Isa-
bel to break the news. She put it off
and was glad to listen to all the bits
of gossip which Aunt Libby had
brought from the home town.
Aunt Libby was built on ample
lines. Her face was full, her figure
was full and her skirts were full. She
was well over seventy, an aunt of Isa-
bel’s father, and she surveyed the
world with the same steady, keen out-
look that her forbears had turned up-
on the seas they sailed.
“Yes, you’d hardly know Broad
street. The new post office looks real
well now it’s finished and the Riggs
boys have put up a gasoline place that
looks for all the world like the pic-
tures of one of those summer houses
that French kings used to play hide
and seek in. But it’s nice and white
and has vines running up it and the
boys are making money. Elsie Riggs,
though, hasn’t turned out very well.”
“Why, what about Elsie ?”
“Well, you know she married young
Milbrook and now she’s gone off and
left him.”
Isabel’s heart leaped. Another sis-
ter!
“Tell me about it.
! trouble ?”
i “There didn’t seem to be any trou-
ble, as far as I heard. She just said
that he’d been irritable ever since the
war. He certainly came home wild
1 enough looking. She said he wasn’t
what she expected when she married
him, so she cleared out.”
Isabel was silent for a minute.
Paul Milbrook’s thin face and haunt-
ed expression, as she had last seen
them, came vividly back but she hard-
ened herself against their appeal.
“He probably nagged her,” she
frowned.
“I wouldn’t wonder,” agreed Aunt
Libby, placidly sticking her needle in-
to some sewing she had brought along.
“Then why do you say that Elsie
hasn’t turned out well?” Two pink
spots began to burn in Isabel’s cheeks.
“A woman must have some freedom,
{ Aunt Libby. Occasionally she has to
do what she wants.”
What was the
’
“To be sure she has,” concurred
Aunt Libby. “The only thing she has
to decide is what she wants the most.
It’s just a matter of choice. Now the
Pikes—I can’t speak for the Riggses,
we all know that the Riggses came
from pretty poor stock and land
Pikes always wanted to do as they’d
agreed. As far as I know, there nev-
er was a Pike whose word wasn’t as
good as his bond.”
Isabel picked up a fan and waved it
before her face.
“Aunt Libby, did you ever hear
that statistics show that more women
leave their husbands after being mar-
ried eleven years than at any other
time 7”
“Why, no, Belle. I don’t know as I
ever did happen to hear that.” Aunt
Libby waxed her thread and snipped
it off.
“Well, it is true. You see, after
eleven years the first illusions have
worn away and the first romance has
passed and life has begun to seem like
a treadmill. Then if you happen to
have a husband who doesn’t let you
say your soul is your own, you can’t
stand it any longer.”
“Oh, I see,” said Aunt Libby, look-
ing up over her spectacles. “Well,
Elsie Riggs was married about nine
years ago but I expect the war may
have given her an extra h’ist. I was
just wondering how the men begin to
feel after about ten years. Got any
figures on them ?”
“They seem to feel :.s though they
owned the earth!”
{ “Hm,” said Aunt Libby again.
“Well, maybe all this eleven-year
! pressure was too much for Elsie
i Riggs, but if twas I, I'd try to have
i more independence.”
| “Independence?” Isabel’s voice rose
|on the word.
i “Why, yes. You wouldn’t catch me
i leaving a comfortable home and say-
ring I had to do it because a whole
| parcel of other women had. But I
‘never was one to run with the herd.”
| “Auntie,” Isabel began, slowly, “did
you ever happen to read a play called
| ‘Mid-Channel ?”
“I guess not, Belle. Is it something
about boats?”
: “In a way. It seems that in cross-
ing the English Channel—” she was
, very earnest—*“there is a place about
| halfway over where boats have a hard
i time. They are apt to hit on the rocks
| —or is it a sand bar- —anyway, they
'are apt to hit something and be
wrecked. It is meant for an illustra-
tion of married life. After you have
gone about so far, you cannot seem
to go any farther,” she ended sadly.
Aunt Libby stopped rocking and sat
gravely thinking.
“Belle,” she announced, finally,
“that isn’t any mid-channel, that’s the
doldrums.”
“The doldrums? What are they?”
“Isabel! And you a Pike! I'm glad
your grandfather isn’t here to listen
to you. The doldrums is a place down
by the equator where there isn’t any
wind and if a sailing vessel once got
in there it was all up with it for no-
body knew how long. Every sailing
master used to know about the dol-
drums; that was one of the things
they used to call to him when he start-
ed around the Horn. ‘Don’t forget the
doldrums!” Why, when a boat got in
the doldrums it might have to stay
for weeks! Sometimes there were
little squalls, but the winds would be
light and not strong enough to move
the boat.
“The doldrums is just where the
married people are that you describe.
They've got into a place where noth-
ing seems to be moving or else they
are tossed around and don’t get any-
where or have a worthless, torment-
ing little squall. The trouble with
them is that they expect to sail com-
fortably along and then when they
get to a bad spot they haven't got life
enough, or spunk enough, or courage
enough to face the situation and begin
whistling for the wind! There is
something sort of poetic and nobody-
could-help-it about going on a rock
that you don’t get in talking about the
doldrums; but the doldrums is where
most of these people are and the next
thing for them to do is to get them-
knows what they’d want—but the |
selves out as soon as they can.”
ve HY Aunt Libby,” hesitated Isa-
“Now, there's all this talk we hear
about personal liberty. There isn’t
any such thing on this earth and there
never will be! That is, not for decent
people. We are all mixed up togeth-
er and we might as well admit it and
do as well as we can under the cir-
cumstances. But your own freedom,
that’s another thing! Why, Belle, no-
body in the world can take that away
from you. There's nobody can keep
you from being just as fine and true
and kind as you're a mind to be. You
inay not like what you give in about,
but what you give out, that’s your
own affair. Now, there was my own
father. He wasn’t any too agreeable
to live with after he got beyond going
out with his boat. He wasn’t used to
being around home and instead of
settling down and making the best of
it he fretted and took it out on every-
body else. But Ma always managed
to keep calm. You see, she thought
it out like this: if she let herself get
stirred up it might spread to the next
one and so on, with no end to it. So
she decided that the only thing to do
was to put a period right after Pa and
stop it there. She always could seem
to look at things from a distance. I’ve
often thought that Pa, who had been
all over the seven seas, ended by be-
ing land-locked; but Ma, who never
wi foot outside the country, Ma sail-
e 2
In such homely language did Aunt
Libby picture the freedom of a soul. :
To Isabel, listening, it seemed as if
a strong, fresh breeze had blown
through the room, Sweeping out
everything little, everything petty,
and leaving only large vistas and gen-
erous breathing places. It was as
though the yellow butterfly, a little
tired of beating its frail wings against
the walls, turned at last and saw the
open window and began to fly toward
the light.
Stephen’s step sounded below. It
was time to return to the familiar
routine, but on her way to the door
Isabel stopped to throw her arms
around Aunt Libby and silently press
her young cheek to the older one.
Aunt Libby gave her a loving pat and
then called after her, a twinkle in her
kind, keen eyes: “Don’t forget to sing
a little, Belle. You know when Paul
and Silas sang in prison their chains
fell off.”
Isabel laughed and skipped down
the stairs. She could not do much
| singing or thinking that afternoon be-
cause they were all going to the an-
nual fair that was the big summer
event of the ladies’ society, but she
lay awake a long time after all was
quiet for the night.
The next morning she viewed her
“husband across the table with a singu-
lar new detachment.
| “I am free inside,” she thought,
happily, and watched Stephen helping
‘Aunt Libby to omelet.
| “What nice manners he has and
how good he is to her,” she noticed
I gratefully. A wave of tolerance and
i renewed affection swept over her.
When they rose from the table
Stephen followed her into the kitchen.
“I ‘am not, at all satisfied with my
i sermon for to-morrow,” he confessed,
i pacing uneasily up and down. “All I
could get from that text was exactly
i what I said last year. I do not seem
to have any new ideas.”
“Well, now, let’s think a minute.”
said Isabel, kindly. “Did you want it
to be on the order of a national ora-
tion 7”
i
! “I don’t care so much for that.
Of course it ought to be about inde-
. pendence, but I want something more
i than politics—I want it to help peo-
ple’ What is the use of preaching.’
i he ended wistfully, “if you don’t help
i people do right?”
Isabel looked over at his tall figure |
window and suddenly she seemed to
‘see him in a new light. Had she, per-
i haps, overlooked an important key to
Stephen’s dominating character? Was
his imperiousness, his dictation, just
{his own queer way of trying to help
| People do right? It made her want
to help him too.
She hesitated, wondering -if she
i could share with him the ideas that
had come to her during the wakeful
hours of the night.
“Stephen,” she began timidly—it
was hard to bring out the new, tend-
er little thoughts not yet a day old—
“I was thinking last “night that the |
most independent person that ever |
was in the world was the Lord Jesus.
Don’t you remember what He said !
about life, ‘I have power to lay it
down and I have power to take it’
again.” Why, he could do anything he
wanted to and he chose, he preferred, |
to lay it down because he saw some- !
thing so much bigger, so much finer.”
Stephen’s face was full of light.
“Why, that’s a wonderful text,” he
cried. “That ought to make a beau-
tiful sermon, Ill go right now and :
think it out.”
At the door he stopped. :
“Isabel,” he said, gratefully, “per-
haps you don’t realize what a help
you are to me. I don’t know what I'd
ever do without you.”
Isabel’s eyes shone.
“Then isn’t it lucky you have me!”
she cried in her old gay way.
When he was nearly at the top of
the flight, he turned. i
“If 1 were you,” he called, “I
wouldn’t make any dessert to-day.
You have a nice time with your aunt
and when the time comes I'll step
down to the store and get some ice
cream.”
Isabel stood where he had left her.
She could hear Aunt Libby stepping
briskly around upstairs. As she work-
ed she was singing in a deep full tone,
steady and true except for an occa-
sional elderly quaver, and what she
sang was the age-old hymn of eman-
cipation.
Isabel listened a minute, then her
young soprano joined gladly in the
emphasized chorus and retarded end:
‘The year of jubilee has come,
The year of jubilee has come,
Re-turn ye ran-somed sin-ners—
home!”—Sarah Fletcher Milligan.
| as he stood staring anxiously out the
—If you want quality job work it
can be had at this office.
.2“The Miracle”
! “THE MIRACLE” AT THE SESQUI.
Presentation of the Morris Gest
Max Reinhardt production of “The
Miracle” at the Metropolitan opera
house, Philadelphia, beginning Octo-
ber 4, promises to be the most out-
standing art gesture of the theatre
that Philadelphia has ever known.
Mr. Gest is taking “The Miracle”
to Philadelphia at the bequest of a.
committee composed of Philadelphia’s
leading citizens and promoters and
lovers of art.
“The Miracle,” sought, nation-wide,.
by countless spectators, described and
debated through numberless columns:
and ever endless pages, is the out-
come of three passions, each held in-
dividually by one of “The Miracle”
trinity.
Cultivating through a lifetime every
art of the producing stage, Max Rein~-
hardt may reasonably have wished
to drain them for once to the full:
Vowing a lifetime to adventure in the
theatre, Morris Gest may plausibly
have resolved to undertake the vastest
exploit of them all. Ambitious to
prove himself inventive master of"
scenic amplitude and exaltation, Nor-
man-Bel Geddes may eagerly have
i set to the designing of settings spa-
‘ cious beyond imagination, and of cos-
tumes and appurtenances beyond reck-
oning. Each of the three, in their
respective departments, has suecceed-
ed in the American production of “The
Miracle.”
| The preparation and the construc-
tion of “The Miracle” cost a vast sum
‘of money. The performance of “The
Miracle” employs hordes on the stage,
before it and behind it, and the ex-
"pense is tremendous. Hundreds of
| thousands have seen “The Miracle.”
Showings in New York, Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Boston, Chicago and St.
Louis, always in the largest available
building suited to the purpose, have
broken all records for a dramatic at-
traction. Mr. Gest hopes to make the
Philadelphia production the grandest
of all. He estimates the cost of the
i showing there at more than $400,000.
It required many years of negotia-
ting before Mr. Gest succeeded in in-
ducing Max Reinhardt, creater of
“The Miracle” to come to America
for the first time in order to stage the
music-drama-pantomime spectacle im
this country. This brought about the
epoch-making production of “The
Miracle” at the Century Theatre, New
York, nearly three years ago.
Not within the memory has the
auditorium as well as the stage of a
theatre been transformed to a partic-
ular purpose and illusion. Not with-
in recollection has an American pub-
lic sat under three hours of pantomime’
with only music of an orchestra, the
occasional intervention of a chorus
and the recital of the Lord’s Prayer
by a single personage, to break the
silence.
| The same principals in the cast of
during its showing
"elsewhere will be seen when the pro-
; duction is offered at the Metropolitan
| opera house, including Lady Diana
: Manners.
Lady Diana is England’s most
famous and loveliest titled woman.
| She will appear in the role of the
i Madonna, which she created in Amer-
iica, and she also will appear as the
| Nun, alternating with Elinor Patter-
i son, Chicago beauty and heiress; Iris
Tree, daurhter of the late Sir Her-
bert Beerhohm-Tree; and Madame
Elizabeth Schirmer.
Grand opera is the music side of
“The Miracle,” for its musical score
has been pronounced by leading music
critics throughout the world as the
finest composition of the late Engel-
bert Humperdinck, composer of the
grand operas, “Haensel and Gretel”
and the “Kienigskinder.” Additional
_music was composed by the late
: Friedrich Schirmer.
| The Philadelphia Sesqui-Centennial
production of “The Miracle” will be
the only presentation of the spectacle
in the east this season, and the only
one, so far, with the exception of the
one in Boston, without a guarantee
fund. In Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chi-
cago and St. Louis, the showings were
in the nature of civic enterprises.
! For those of Centre county who will
visit the Sesqui during October to
miss “The Miracle” would be unfor-
tunate. It will be the one outstand-
ing feature to carry in the memory
for years to come as the artistic tri-
umph of the Sesqui.
Increase in August Milk Prices.
Announcement by the Dairymen’s
League Co-Operative Association,
Inc., of a net pool price of $2.36 per
1100 pounds of 3.5 milk as the August
price was a substantial increase over
the pool price of the previous month
and for August of recent yeas.
This is the first pool price under
the Dairymen’s League new system
of figuring the price on a basis of 3.5
per cent. butter fat instead of 3 per
| cent, If figured on the old 8 per cent.
basis the price would be $2.16 or 20
cents less, but even that would be a
high price. In July the pool price was
$1.95, the August 1924 price was
$1.63 and a half, in 1923 $2.08 and a
half, and in 1922 $1.75.
In this substantial August pool
price many farmers see hope for
satisfactory prices during the autumn
and winter months for which they
have been asked to increase their pro-
| duction. The League has held meet-
ings throughout the territory urging
{ producers to increase the flow of milk
one pound per cow per day to assure
sufficient milk for the metropolitan
markets during the fall and winter.
While no promises of high prices have
been made by the League officials for
this increased production, some pro-
ducers think that the August price in-
dicates good prices for coming
months.
To assure adequate production the
League is about to institute another
series of meetings to be held through-
out the next four months. Feeding
for quality and breeding for produc-
tion will be subjects discussed by ex-
perts at these meetings to explain to
producers how they can feed to in-
crease quality of their milk and breed
to raise the fall and winter flow of
milk.