AND HER HUSBAND 8 3B By FANNIE HURST at all in that light, Netta would probably have thought the prob- lem of her marriage unique. AS a matter of fact, it was such a uni- versal problem that it Is not at .&ll unlikely that In the 45 identical houses, five rooms, sleeping porch, built-in washtubs, that occupied the little suburban street where she had her home and being, there was a star- tiling repetition of her self-same prob- lems. Netta had been married for six years. There were no children. Her husband was an architect, with of- fices in the city. He was junior partner in a growing but not large concern and was a nice, clean, average ex- ample of a little community of men who get the 8:10 train at the little stucco station six mornings a week. If he was a rather deadly a8 to his polities, his religion, credos, his pastimes, his home neither he nor Netta realized it. The fly that fell into the ointment of the average married life of this av- erage American couple, living the standardized routine of the hundreds of thousands of other ap- peared rather suddenly in the sixth year of what might well be called a congenial marriage. Suddenly it came over Netta, interests in her pretty little home were normal ones, whose activities in her little suburban community whose prettiness had rather Increased gince her marriage than diminished-— suddenly It ea over this energetie little wife in her snug little home, in her snug little suburban development, that she was married to a husband. It came over Netta one morning as she stood in front of her little dress- ing table, with her bare arms raised in the act of brushing her smooth coiffure of bobbed hair, that she had no lover. It was five and one-half years since the young architect, Fra- sier Maughm, to whom she was mar ried, had so much as commented on any of the personable qualities that had seemed to capture him during the period of their engagement and the brief subsequent term of the hon- eymoon. Almost immediately Frazier had committed the error that is typical of thousands of American men of his class. In the terms of his fa- ther, who had once been rebuked by his own mother for a similar defection and had replied: “After you have run for a car, you sit down,” Frazier had “sat down." He had begun the dan. gerous, the disillusioning mental hab- it of taking Netta for granted. What was taking place between Netta and her husband was taking place in practically every one of those 45 identical houses on the standard ized street of that standardized town. The women used to talk about It at their bridge parties, at their afternoon gntherings, as they rode into town on their shopping expeditions. They talked about it wistfully and vieari- ously. The patter that took place among them was of starvelings. Mo tion picture heroes who eulogized their women in pleasant superlatives across the screen fascinated them. They were ford of saying among themeelves that foreign men were so fascinating. It was wonderful to have your hand kissed. Fancy John kissing one's hand! He would explode all over with laughter. Ah me, yes, foreign men did bave that something — Bitterly, there came welling up into the little heart of Netta one day the realization that Frazier's morning kiss was a peck: that Frazier's evening kiss was a peck that sometimes ac- tually skidded and hit her on the top of her Demonstration between them had ceased, They no longer even walked the streets arm in arm. Let Netta come downstairs for a dinner party and a bridge in the neighbor- hood, radiant in a new little frock she had assembled for hérself, and not so much as a cheep out of Frazier unless in the key of, “Say. you better go up- stairs and put on a petticoat,” or, “Rub some of that circus paint off your lips.” Never a tribute to her skill, her economy, her prettinese. Just rub-a- dub-dub of routine. Just lovelessness, Bometimes It seemed to Netta that her heart was dying of starvation. More and more bitterly she withdrew into herself, and yet, so far as Frazier was eoncerned, there was never a ripple on the equanimity of his conscious ness, Thelr life together had just become routine. There was no romance, no demonstrativeness, No unexpected show of interest and appreciation. Just one day after another of placid acceptance of things as they were by Frazier. One day after another of Inereasing bitterness and resentment on Netta's part, It was Frazier's calm acceptance of things that was so maddening to Netta, Netta was therz to he pecked at when he came home evenings. That seemed to be all that he noticed. Netta was there to see to it that his dinner was hot and well served, that it consisted of the things he liked, that they were cooked to his taste, Crisp wore his shirts. His clothes in orderly array. Spotless his abode. I SHE had ever thought about it average his life, couples, whose were neighborly ones, me own nose, All things arranged as he liked them, with neatness, cleanliness and-—only he was blind to it—charm. Netta was & good housekeeper, a good home maker, a woman who Imposed her personality on her surroundings, Because of Netta, Frazier started off to work each morning with cheer fulness and a feeling of well-being thet a good breakfast gives. And Netta was there to be pecked good-by in the morning. In other words, Netta was always there. Frazier took her as much for granted as he did his morning paper spread before his plate at hreakfast, or his comfortable chair placed wher ever the weather made it most com- fortable—before a cheerful fire when the weather was raw, where it caught such breeze as there was when the evenings were warm, Curious, but as the months stalked by there crept into the festering lit- tle soul of this woman a rebellion and even a sullen hatred of this sharer of her destiny. She used to turn her cheek for him to kiss in the morning as if It were so much leather, She used to stand within a radius of the embrasure of shellacking the little two- trailing bushes up If he noticed a change afternoon, seated sedan, garden trellis, He took it all apparently as the nor. mal whose lives have Slowly there took shape In mind the determination to herself from this so-called sharer of her woes and Joys; herself: to let their alienation yearned for admiration, the adulation to her blond ness was entit She was procedure of two people become welded. Netta's estrange circumstances of She the reach a climax, which led, inished with not yet ready to be the exilir of youth, Frazier One Wis. Saturday afternoon, something happened that nipped her whole plan of procedure in A trivial incident and yet it open Netta's eves. In the end, it was to lessen her terrific disappointment in Frazler's inability to keep life a much fairer thing than he had suc- ceeded in doing that she had on superficial The estrangement which contemplated was never to happen— all because of this trifling incident. On the Saturday afternoon in ques tion, Frazier was crouching on builded sands. Netta, sullen, which she had just made for herself, reading a novel, door woman canvasser, From her win. Netta could overhear the con- She knew the A city photographer life-sized copy of a dow, versation. was an old one. would make a provided you paid the canvasser a de. posit of two dollars. Then you were to receive a twelvedollar portrait upon an additional payment of three dollars, “I am not “Surely.” is some member of “there the family whom gnid the canvasser, trait. How about wife?” “Nonsense,” your sald Frazier. Jet said “It won't cost me see a picture of your wife,” you anything to spections. size. These fers In the The intelligence, “I don't know where one a” Frazier. “You don't know where photograph of your own wife?’ “1 hate them.” Upstairs, in her pretty frock. hot, swollen tears formed in Netta's eves, “Well” said the canvasser, “that's a confession. And you don't want a picture, then, 1 take it" “No,” sald Frazier, “you're don’t, There fever was a could get her coloring or the something that's blue eyes or said right, I portrait kind of caught up in the expression around ever had but Netta, I should say there isn’t a portrait that could do her jus. tice.” After the canvasser had gone, Net- tiful cheeks, erisp and radiant, “Go upstairs,” said her husband, who was sprinkling the lawn, “and put on a petticoat” (© by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) {WNL Bervice.) Official By international agreement, all the transmitting stations have been as signed certain letters and combina- the assigned call leters are N and W, algo from KD to KZ, Japan has been assigned J; XD: Britain and the British colonies WUA to WVZ and from WXA to WZZ for army stations Military Honors” When a man is buried with military honors” it means with the honors suitable to one's rank, and de pends on the rank held by the individ. ual at the time of his connection with the service, For example: A man in private life who has formerly heen secretary of war would he buried with military honors suitable to the rank of secretary of war, Nothing Modern About Liking for “Flip-Jacks"” Mardl Gras jollification In old Eng- Shrove Tuesday when the so-called Pancake bell was rang from the parish church tower, signaling a rush for fry- village goodies, and general feasting and rejoicing of Tom, Dick, and Harry over successive batches of pancakes until far into the night. In the words of a Seventeenth cen- tury chronicler: “Shrove Tuesday there is a bell wrung, call'd the Pan- cake bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted and forgetful either of manners or hu- manitie. Then there is a thing called wheaten floure, which the cookes do imingle with water, eggs, spice, and other tragicall, magicall enchant- | ments, and then they put it by little { and little into a frying pan of boiling i suet, where it makes a confused dis- | ‘mall hissing, untill at last by the skill | of the cooke, it is transformed Into the {Iform of a flip-Jack, call'd a pancake, {which ominous Incantation the ig- norant people do devoure very greed- fille.” is nothing new under the sun, and that flapjacks are prepared and con- sumed now In much the same fashion that flip-Jacks were In the Sevens i teenth century. ‘ son “Pieces of Eight" This coin Is a Spanish plece that circulated freely In this country In Colonial and Revolutionary times and the coin to which we owe the adop- tion of the dollar as the unit of our currency. It had become the custom in many places, especially in the South, to prife goods, keep accounts and make collections In “Spanish milled | dollars,” the name under which the {old "pleces of elght"—olght renle ! were known In the Colonies, When | we came to have a currency of our | own we took the plece of cight, or | Spanish dollar, as our unit and di- vided It Into 8 hundred cents ' Modern Music Made No Hit With Lord Balfour In music Lord Balfour took a great delight and was an enthusiastic lover of the old masters, especially of Han. del. Modern music had little charm. if any, for him. “1 remember how patiently he would sit through dinner at his favorite res taurant In Paris until most of the clients had left and the noise of juzz and Jingle had ceased.” recalls Sir lan Malcolm in his personal memoir of Balfour, “and would then Kk the chef d'orchestre (a very gifted young Pol- ish violinist) to play him som Eight- eenth-century French music. Then during the nine months Lord Balfour remained In Paris for the peace conference his house was the scene of many brilllant musical eve nings. “I remember one evening,” says Sir lan, "when Charles Hendl was ging to sing, he inquired delicately whether anybody present objected to German songs. The chief (Balfour) promptly replied: “'l don't. I will take them as part of the reparations that they owe us'" ~-Kansas City Times. Boys on Parade As In the case of the college stu dent, it takes but little to start the New York street urchin off on a pa- rade. He finds a long pole. or even a discarded and dilapidated broom. which will do for a flagpole. He and his companions seize on a plle of cel ery stalks thrown out by a grocer ; these are carried as swords or mus kets, and the line of youngsters per. haps half a dozen In all, march proud- ly up the street to the badly sung tune of “The Maine Stein Song” Husbands and Wives The man who tells you that he never had an unpleasantness with hig wife Ba Har--or a dud.~American Maga: 0, Mankind Never Able to It seems that the house cat of to day behaves In much the same man- ner as it did in the bygone ages. The changed its habits in one particular, It goes about in make it take some part in the oper ations of the household have failed. The animal resents any interference with its coming and going. Miss A. 8. Firking, of Columbia university, has put the cat to an intelligence test. Sev- enty-eight cats were secured from a pet show and put through a series of tests. The first problem put before the cats was how to reach food placed inside an Inclosure. Most of the cats solved this by stepping upon a plate which opened the way. The problems were then Increased in dif culty, the hardest being one which re- quired the cats to touch seven plates, one after the other, to get the food. Only two of the contestants were smart enough to do this. One of the conclusions arrived at was that male cats are smarter than the females ——“ Bostonese She was a Boston provincial, and smacked of the Back bay. Approach. ing a clerk in one of Fifth avenue's swankiest millinery shops she sald quite patronizingly : “I'm from Boston and would like something a trifle smart without belng the least bit showy.” “1 get you, ma'am, sort of second mourning,” replied the experi: eficed saleslady, adding *I once lived in Boston myself.” Careth for Carrots When Annabel returned from Sane day school her mother asked what the text was, Promptly Annabel replied, “Eat Car rots for Me" Since then Annabel has been eating, without protest, her mother's pre geribed carrots, not knowing that the text really was, “He careth for ma” Duke's Emphatic Rebuke Chilly souls who complain of the offices during the transition days be tween empty grate and full may not feel equal to teaching the delin- lesson, after the manner of duke of Wellington, said the North China Herald, not long ago. quents a found occasion to grumble at his friend and neighbor, Lady Dorothy Nevill, because of the smallness of her grates, and one autumn day when he arrived to lunch with her he gave one glance at the fire, then turned and asked the footman to bring his oven coat. The coat being brought, he put it on and sat in It throughout his stay, No efforts could induce him to remove it. "No," said be doggediy, “I will shame you into having good fires.” Alaska’s Official Flag Designed by Schoolboy A contest was held by the American Legion, Department of Alaska. in the public, private and native schools In the territory for the purpose of select ing an official flag for Alaska. A law passed by the legislature of the De partment of Alaska on May 2, 1007, provided that the design of the official flag (the winning design) is eight gold stars In a field of blue, so selected for its simplicity, its originality and its symbolism. The blue, one of our na- tional colors, typifies the evening sky, the blue of the sea and of mountain lakes and of wild flowers that grow In Alaskan soil, the gold being significant of the wealth that les hidden In Alaska’s hills and streams, nd the law also provides that the vernor shall cause the original design to be encased properly and placed in the Alaska Historical museum, and that due credit be given to Benny Benson, aged thirteen years, a student in the seventh grade of the Mission Terrl torial school, near Seward, Alaska, the designer of the flag, herein described and adopted as the official flag of Alaska,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers