Evening Star Newspaper, January 25, 1925, Page 66

L] THE SUNDAY But It's What They Didn’t Suspect That Makes the Story. T is amusing, or, at least most peo- ple find it so, to speculate, occa- sionally, about people you don’t know at all, but see, in restau- rants, for instance, or on trains. You ask yourself all sorts of questions about them, and answer them, too, and You must, at times, of course, be most absurdly wrong! For even when you know people quite well, know their cir- cumstances, know the way they talk and behave, you are, as often as not, quite in the dark about thelr real selves, their real lives. A good many of the neighbors saw the Fosters leave New York for Con- necticut. It was the sort of early Spring day when Winter has come back for semething it left behind, and it was raining—but, oh, what an inadequate word that is for what was happening! The rain was coming down in sheets; the wind drove water before it in a solld mass. But the Fosters moved, Just the same; two big, red vans backed up in front of their apartment house about half past 10, and a lot of the neighbors stood or sat in their windows and looked on Neighbors do look out dwos, even in New York, a lot, and get to kn & people with whom they never be on speaking terms. even It wasn't any surprise to the neigh- bors to the vans back ups that rainy morning, and the men begin to rry furniture and boxes out to them. They'd known the Fosters were mo: fng up to Connecticut, and the nicer ones among them were rather glad. For, you see, so far as they could possi- bly be expected to understand matters, there was nothing out of the ordinary abolt this moving, except, perhaps, the rain Here was just another nice young couple that had declded to get out of the city and go to live in the country. You can, even in New York, pick up scraps of news from butchers and ice- men and such folk. So the neighbors knew that the Fosters were going up to an old house, somewhere up New Canaan way, that young Mr. Foster's father owned. And very nice it seemed that they should be dolng so. There was a particular reason, perhaps, maybe young Mrs. Foster. ® ¢ © No one knew about that, but some of the neighbors were quite hopeful, for this was just the sort of young couple that ought to have a little family. So, about noon, the trucks got away, lumbering off in the rain, and, a little after that ng Mr. Foster came down, and his pretty wife, too, and he made her snug with blankets, and got In beside her and drove away. The ighbors couldn’t Fosters, of course, as thes in their blg roadster, with its tires strapped on behind, and its important horn. They couldn’t see the way they looked straight ahead, and never at one another, and the way they didn't smile at all, but just sat there, in a grim sort of silence.gwith sullen, brood- ing eves, and tight lips. And that just as well, for illusions are pleas things, much pleasanter, often, than facts. It wasn't Fosters of their and the: win- come to see the drove off, that the young as they did, surprising should behave though. For these two, who had been married not quite four years, never spoke to one another any more unless they bad to. They didn't quarrel much, any more, but that was simply becau they were long past the quarreling stage. And each of them wondered, rather bitterly, rather savagely, indeed, how in the world they had ever magin- ed they cared for one another enough to be married. Put it in as few words as possible—their marriage had come to an utter, a complete smash. WWELL: then, you may ask—and quite reasonably, too—why on earth were they off, together, for this house | fn the country? If they had come to grief 5o completely in town. what chance | was there for them | Connecticut ridge? to0 do better on a And the direct answer had had no choice; that g0, and go, what was more. together. | But to understand that, of course, you must know something about how the: had come to the pass in which you see them, and about what sort of young people they were, Dick Foster and Anne, who had been Anne Luray before she was Anne Foster. And you must be patient, too, while you learn a little about their families, or, at least, their parents The Fosters and the Lurays wers nice people, more or less old New York- ers, ‘not blatantly wealthy, but very comfortably off. The Fosters lived in a big house near-the park on the East Side, the Lurays in just about as big a house near Riverside Drive. They hadn’t known one another before Dick and Anne bacame engaged, but, after that, they met, naturally, and got along very well. ; were very simple, sensible peo- elder Fosters and Lurays. wondered among themselves, sometimes, in an amused sort of way, what the world was coming to. But they didn't grow hysterical about the younger generation; they remembered that they'd been young themselves. There hadn't been much excitement about Anne's bobbed hair and bare knees, or about Dick's conviction that he nceded a car at college, or about the way they went about together at all hours, before and while they were engaged And there wasn't any show of disci- pline. The older folk simply dectded to walt and see how it all turned out. They liked both Anne and Dick, and they trusted them, too. And they en- couraged them to get married at once, | and, indeed, made that possible. Mr. | Luray continued Anne’s allowance, and Mr. Foster agreed to supplement Dick's salary, which wasn't very large. And there was many gifts for the apartment from both sides. It looked, really, like an excellent mateh. There never were two young- sters more In love than Anne and Dick. is that they they'd had to| They | Dick’s of the month. when it became increas- ingly hard to pay them all. And after partles, when Dick, at first, would be nice enough, and explain that, of course, he knew It was perfectly all right, but people did talk, and Anne oughtn't to make herself conspicuous with any such blighter as Jack Deane, and Anne would turn the light protests into something ugly and bitter by coming back with remarks about Dick and his inability to see through a vamp like Kate Winston. And so on and so on. They must have decided, at just about the same time, that their mar- riage was a failure, a mistake. But, by that time, they couldn't, either one of them, go to the other and try to get things talked out; they weren't lovers any more, and they never had been friends. And each of them, probably, was a little scared, a little appalled, by the discovery. So they went on, 1iking one another less and less, and traveling a faster and faster pace, and getting more and more into debt! And just why they never hap- pened to strike the same obscure| little eating place at lunch time— when Anne was with George Vree- land and Dick was with Kate Win- ston, who was, after all, a better| sort of woman than Annie said, and did like Dick pretty well—Heaven only knows! An emotional crisis is a costly sort of luxury. Not so much directly as in an indirect way. You grow nerv- ous, you see, and restless; you take taxicabs instead of the subway or a bus. And shops have a morbid sort of fascination for you, particularly shops where you have an account. You buy all sorts of things you don’t need at all: clothes and hats, if you're a woman, and clothes, too, if you are a man, and necktles that, in your intervals of comparative sanity you know quite well you wouldn't wear. No. Affairs of this sort call for an unlimited bank account, in effect. D AN hY ARXD it was thelr bills that, with the Young Fosters, finally precipi- tated the crash. Except for them they would, quite possibly, have drifted into a more or less amicable vorce, about which thelr parents, much as they would doubtless hav disapproved, couldn't have done very much. But they had their last and most blazing row when some of Anne's creditors went to Dick with their bills—which she should have pald out of her allowance, and hadn't And she knew about some of his un- paid bllls, too, so that he didn't get very far with what he had to say. It was then that there was ‘the fir actual talk of a separation, and Dick told, her, in effect, to g0 and be hanged to her. That was, though, about the gesture he was able to make. some of his creditors were, even then, laying certain matters before Lis father, and Mr. Foster took these under advisement, and had lunch with Mr. Luray, and they went uptown to- gether, later, and brought thelr wives into the conference—at the Fosters’ as it happened. “When the Lurays went home for dinner they found Anne there. St had, she explained, left Dick; she was going to Reno to get a divorce. She continued to believe that for nearly an hour. She had always had her own way; it took quite a long time for her to realize that this time she couldn’t. But she had to realize it; had to realize it, too. only a little more gradually, the ghastly thing her parents meant to do to her—the humiliation to which she was to be subjected. There was, first and last, a good deal of straight talk that night, and unpleasant it was to hear, too. Her | father told Anne that she couldn’t go to Reno unless she had some way of financing the trip herself; she was to get no more money from him. Nor could she come home to stay; she wasn't wanted, to put it plainly.”And | there was more. Upon conditions, her bills were to be paid But had to give up their apartment and | go and live in a house th ers owned, up New Canaan way—it had | been thelr Summer home before they bought the new place at Greenwich. And all the money they'd have would be Dick’'s salary—since there was to be no more allowance for elther of them until the amount required to pay their bills had been worked out, 50 to speak, and. quite possibly, not then. They fought as hard as they could, of course, both of them; they were, for the first time in months, united against a common foe. But they| didn’t have a chance. And what they did long after mlidnight, dong after Anne .had been carried over to the Fosters for the continuance of the brawl there, was to go back to their apartment, dismally, by various sub- ways and street cars, and face hard facts. “Look here—I'm sorry, Anne,” said Dick. “I dom't mean—oh, hang it, lots of people make a mess of mar- riage, and I s'pose we've both helped about that. But, I mean—I'm sorry I can’t ship you off to Reno and let you have a chance to break away. I'll work like the devil, though—it mayn't have to be for so darned long—" But Anne was much too bitter and angry to meet him half way, which might have made some difference. last For and | they And so far as money went, Dick was doing well, even if his earnings weren't | large. He was with Landsdowne & | Beale, the architects, which would | give him & certain standing when he | as ready to start for himself, and he ad, it was understood, marked talent And, of course, both he and Anne had definite _expectations. Mr. Foster was the vice president | and the actual head of a corporation that made incredible numbers of player- Manos and phonographs, and Mr. Luray was one of those inconspicuous | lawyers whose professional income averages well along in five figures, vear after year. JFOR the frst went w | | * ok : vear, too, everything Anne and Dick had a marvelous time. After that—well after | that, they fust didn't, and it isn't at| all easy to put your fingers on the rea- | on why. There wasn't any one reason, | probably. They spent too much money. | They gave—and went on—tco many | parties. Parties of the sort where there | are two extremely dangerous elements Dprohibition liquor and sullen and dis- contented men and women on the look- out for something to restore zest to their jaded ltve: Thote first few quarrels didn’t seem o be serlous at all; they were easily and quickly made up: Dick and Anne| oved one another more than ever after s were over. But the trouble with (uarrels is that they have a cumulative effect, like—arsenic, isn’t it? And when quarrels become sompething of a habit, unpleasant talk becomes a_hahit, too, They quarreled about all sorts of things. About bills, around the first | taking any you will!” she jeered. “You'll make any money! I wish I'd dled before I ever saw you!” ¥ i T'S been made perfectly plain al- ready, hasn't it, that Dick was no hero of romance, but just a perfectly decent, human chap, with an average sort of temper? He didn't try any soft answer to that; he flamed up again and was just as angry as she. “Well, anyway—we've got to go," he said. “No two ways about that. I thought we might try to be decent to one another. But have It your own wa: So they went away together, in the rain, In the car that was one of the principal reasons for their unpaid Dbills, and the nelghbors watched them, sentimentally, and waved handkerchiefs and wished them luck. Well, they needed good wishes, cer- tainly! Now, between Dick and Kate Win- ston—who, as has been said, wasn't a bad sort of woman at all—there really hadn’t been anything at all serious. He'd liked to be with her, and talk to her. But he wasn't thinking about her at all as he drove off. He'd had his jolt, and a pretty stiff one, and he was looking to the future. 'He had to make good now. and he knew it, and knew, too, that it wasn't going to be easy. He was going to hate commuting, for one thing, and it was going to be lonely as the deuce. For, of course, Anne would get around her people pretty soon, and clear out. He was mak- ing his plans already. He'd sell this car and get a fiivver. And—oh, well, his mind ran on, as one’s mind does. Anne was a lot worse off than he, really. She'd taken George Vreeland and his technique a lot more serfously than she should have done, or, than George—who, after all, was getting along, and beginning to like peace— had intended her to do. And she'd seen him, a couple of days ago, and told him everything, and practically put it up to him to do something about it, and he—uwell, she'd realized, suddenly, that he was trying to let her down easily, and that he didn't care a bit, and—she'd had a pretty bad time, for that sort of thing, while it may, ultimately, be very gbod for one's soul, is about as rotten | to go through as anvthing that can happen to one. But Dick didn't know this; knowing George Vreeland, he hadn't, really, ever taken tha business at all seriously. One of the reasons Anne scowled €0, and looked ahead of her so grimly, was that it was all she could do, as they drove uptown and out toward White Plains, to keep from breaking down and howling and telling Dick all about it. There hadn’t been a soul she could tell; that was the very worst of it! It was a miserable trip. There was a flat tire, just below Port- chester, and the old rim was almost frozen to the wheel, so that it took ages to get it off. And they had to stop and eat some lunmch, and the service was abominably slow, and they were supposed to overhaul the trucks, somewhere on the way, and lead them to the house. But they needn’t have worried about that be- cause they passed them below Darlen, and had to waft half an hour, after all, at the turn for New Canaan, which, for a time, was their road “Gosh!” sald Dick, when the trucks did come. “I don't like the looks of those side roads! Those trucks are pretty heavy.” Silence from Anne. So he drove on, liking the looks of the dirt roads that came straying down to the concrete less and less. Some of them didn’t look like roads at all any more, but like young rivers in flood. And how it rained! He stopped, after a while, and got out and put chains on all four wheels, because he had a feeling that his car was going to need all the traction it could get before long. * % x ¥ THEY turned off the concrets pres- ently and took to a road tha as it hggl been macadamized once, a long time ago, was still wholly passable. And all the time Anne Just sat there, not’saying a word, but lighting a cigarette now and then. That hurt Dick, too, in the oddest way, because, in the old days, when liked one another, she'd always lighted his cigarettes for him when he was driving. He didn’t see why the deuce she couldn’t be half way decent mow. They were up against this thing; it was their own fault, pretty much, that they were; why not make the best of it? Still he wasn't more chances of having his face slapped, verbally. But he wished she'd glve him a cigarette— though he'd have died before he asked for one! They'd begun to climb now, and THOSE FIRST QUARRELS DIDN'T SEEM TO BE SERIOUS AT ALL. THEY WERE EASILY AND QUICKLY MADE UP, STAR, WASHINGTON, What the Neighbors Knew ! BY WILLIAM ALMON WOLFF. D. C, JANUARY 25, 1925—PART 5 THEY WERE, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS, UNITED AGAINST A COMMON FOE. BUT THEY DIDN'T HAVE A CHANCE. they could hear the trucks lumbering along behind them and making heavy going of it Dick looked ahead anx- fously for the road to their house. He was relleved to see when he reached it that it hadn't washed out as badly as some of the others. His car took it easily, and in its stride and behind them the trucks were still moving. But the real trouble was coming. Heaven only knew what the road up to_the house itself would be like! They came to it at last. They could see the old, rambling white house. It looked cheerful, even in the rain. In a week or so it would be lovely. The apple trees would be in blossom. Even now there was a mass of forsythia, gleaming yellow in the rain. And the woods beyond orchard were full of violets knew. Lord, how often he'd come up here in the Spring! But it was no time for mooning and being senti- mental. He shifted down and rushed the road. It climbed sharply up the hill to the house, but his car took it well, kicking out the gravel. though, as it went. At the top he sprang out and held out the keys to Anne “Better get in out of the rain,” he “I'll come in as soon as I can and start a fire. Hope there's some dry stuff in the wood box.” Then he turned back to the trucks. They'd stopped on the lower road, and he went down the hill. Both drivers were out, inspecting the gravel driveway to the house. They didn’t llke its looks, and Dick didn't blame them. Btill, there was stone below the gravel. It ought to hold. The first truck made the hill. It died near the top and had to be held by rocks behitnd the rear wheels while it got golng again, but did flnally get up. The second one. though, got Into trouble. Its driver just for a second swerved. In that instant @ rear wheel went down. And that, on such a day, was that! Five men had come with the trucks Dick got into some old clothes and went down to help them. Neighbors came, hearing the din. A tractor turned up presently, spitting and coughing, shooting blue flame from its exhaust in the gathering dusk. Boards and sacks were brought. Tractor and truck together worked to get out of the hols, and every ef- fort seemed just to deepen the hole and let more water in. L AT last they did what really they had known all the time they would n the end have to do. In the driving rain, in the teeth of the gale, they began to carry that truck's load up the hill to the house. And, of course, that was the truck the piano was in and most of the big uphol- stered pieces of furniture—all the heaviest and most awkward things. And still, as he worked with the men, taking whatever came to his hand and joining the steady proces- sion up the dripping road, Dick found himself laughing most of the time. They all laughed—nelighbors, movers, every one. The storm couldn't beat them. There was something vastly comforting about that to Dick— something healing to his spirit Nothing, it seemed to him, could have carried him farther from New York and the life of the last year or two— the parties; the silly, alcohollc quar- rels and maudlin reconcillations; the ('11(17!!. cramped, stuffy smallness of it an. He didn’t go into the house at all for quite & long time; one man had stayed there, to get stuff in, so that the others, wet and muddy, shouldn’t make too much of a mess. And so he had just carried a load up to the door, and turned around, after dropping it, to get another. And then, on one trip, he found himself, to his surprise, alone. He shouldered a box of books and went on up, and when he dropped it he heard Anne’s volce. “Come on in and get some coffee,” she said. “It's hot, anyway— ¥Oh, I guess I'll keep at it till we get through,” he said. “Don’t be silly, come i 8o-he went into the kitchen, where he found all the rest, steaming from the heat of the fire, and just beginning to recover from the tongue-tied embarrass- ment that the sight of Anne, in an apron, pouring coffee and passing sand- wiches around, had caused in them. She Dick. They've all !looked quite wonderful, really; the con- trast served her well, of course, and her bobbed hair was fluffy from the dampness—she’d had & psrmanent wave just a few days before—and she was flushed from the fire. And she was, she always had been, an awfully pretty girl, even though Dick hadn't, of late, thought much about that. The men slipped out, one by one, as they finished their coffee, to go back to work. “Can they get that truck out to- night?”, Anne asked, finally, as Dick, the last to g0, was following the others. “Gosh—I don't know!"” he said. 'd hate to bet any money on it. The tractor sticks every time it tries to pull the truck and has to dig itself out. They may get out backward when all the load’s out. But I don't know—-"" “It just needed something like this—!" said Anne, with concentrated bitterness. “Well—it's not my fault! I didn’t make it rain this way! We'd have been all right in dry weather.” She didn’t pay any attention to that but begap gathering up the dishes, viclously. She'd made the fire in the kitchen range herself, and now she rolled up her sleeves with the obvious | ment of intention of washing dishes. didn’t notice. He had things to do out- side, still. 1 But Dick | domesticity. It must have been nearly mid- night when they finally gave up. Both trucks were empty by then; sverything was in the house, somehow, though there hadn’t been any particular at- tempt to arrange anything. Anne, alone in the house, had been busy, too: she'd managed to get a lot of linen and blankets unpacked. And she was stand- ing in the door when the procession came slowly and dejectedly up the hill, | for the last time that night, from the mired truck. “No good,” Dick said. “We'll have to wait for daylight. Anne—these chaps'll need a place to sleep.” *Of course!” she said the beds up alone “We don't need no beds of the drivers often as not, It w up “I couldn’t get ma'am leep In we do, on a have some here in the the truck, long-distance job. blankets, we'll roll Itving room—" But Anne wouldn't hear of that the beds were set up, and then one of the men asked Anne which was her room, and when she told him he carried the twin beds into it, and set them up. How should he know how long Dick had used the spare room in the apartment in New York? It wasn't a very big house, really, and that night it was smaller than usual, because, during the Wip there’'d been some trouble in on wing, and the rooms in that were soaked and uninhabitable. And it| So of the room suppose out the “what's t said alwa the He to think he in a moment | warm soft | witn came to this—that Dick discovered, suddenly, when the men had turned in, that there wasn't any place for him—except with Anne, or in the living room, where three of the men were already asleep. moment; He stared for a And then from one then he laughed he stripped the blankets twin beds. od night, Anne,” he said. “You must be dead “Where are you going?” “There'’s a couch in the living back here, Dick I'm going to have vith those men?" He stared “0 Lord, ome Do you you go Anne,” he sald wearily, difference?” ou're not going, anyway,” she And she picked up the bag she traveled with, and went into bathroom. He sat down on his iismartled bed and looked after her was t00 tired to argue; too tired He just sat there, and as ped over sldeways, and he was asleep. * ok ox % sat he slu B, was still asicep when she came back he'd undressed in bathroom, and she was in a and lovely robe she had, and fluffy white fleece, trimmed vellow. It was so big somehow, she looked very it small the | very | of t in|kissing her hair, and her neck indeed, and litke a little girl. And she stood and looked &t him, as he lay there, asleep. He stirred, at last, and sald something, In his sleep, and she moved, and he awoke, slowly, and not very completely, and looked at her. ‘ He hadn't seen her so for a long| time, you must remember. And he| was still more then half asleep,| really, and he'd been dreaming, per- | haps. And when he spoke to her | volce was tender. “Hello " he said dear— The sound of his own voice fin waking him, and he started up. “I'm sorr he sald. “I forgot —asleep, 1 guess- o She didn’t say anything at all. She just stood and looked at him for a time “You're so tired.” she said at last. And he started at the sound of her| because he could s re- w like “Oh, Dick, Dick, when now—when you were h you hadn't finished “Hello, Anne 1ed member n it had sounded asleep—I waking u But he had, been more wide-awake in all than he was in that moment as he| jumped up and went to her. And| then she was in hix arms, crying as if | her heart would break, and he was and incohe- | vou know. He'd never his life | | | | ber cheeks, and saying wild Women Should Study Politics, "~ Says Mrs. Ferguson, Governor BY MIRIAM FERGUSON! Governor of Texa HE new woman, with her 1 independence and privileges, has created for herself a new question: Must she seclude herself at home In the dedi tion of her life to her family, or must she answer the summons of innumer- able opportunities that call her away from the cook book into the commercial world and into the field of politics? Can she successfully combine a ca- reer of motherhood with business or | politics? There is the question of her right| as a possible commercial or political | success, and of her obligation to so- ciety. Standing at the open door of a new era of opportunity, the new woman ponders these questions as soon as she reaches maturity. FHer natural heart’s desires lead her toward a home of her own; but if she is at all gifted or well trained, the lure of possible fame and fortune asserts it- self. As & mother and a political of- ficeholder, I believe that women can combine homes and ‘“careers’ suc- cesstully, if they use the good judg- ment to retain a reasonable balance. The bix essential in combining do- mestic and political or business ef- fort is simply to do both sanely and | without negleoting or overdoing | either. Too often women fail because they have lost their sense of balance. The home becomes a self-made pri on from which the housewife, en- slaved to dreary routine, will not e cape; or the career becomes an all- absorbing passlon that leaves no thought of bedtime stories. | Elther case is pitiful. When a life | becomes absorbed in ene thing to the | exclusion of all else it becomes nar- row and cramped—dwarfed into a misshapen thing, that is neither nor- mal nor happy. I believe that a mother's place is necessarily at home while her chil- dren are small. I do not mean that a woman must seclude herself from | outside pleasures and diversions—on | the contrary, I belle@e that diversi- fled interests are good for any wom- an's wellbeing and usefulness— but I do thipk that babies are en- titled to the first consideration when they are toddling into the characters and tendencies that will make them good, bad or indifferent men and women. The influence of training and of physical care in_ childhood is a fac- tor that demands a mother’s strict attention, at least during the period of adolescence. After all, babies are a woman's greatest caresr—no high business triumph or professional success or political victory can eclipse the glory of motherhood. But when a mother's duty bas been done, and household cares no longer demand urgent con- tinual attentlon, I can see no reason why a woman should not use her natural ability, fostered as it has| been by experlence, for the further- ance of her own happiness and effi- clency, and for the benefit of others. Cut off from the cares that were, after all, her life, no woman who has been a busy housewife can be content and happy unless she is actually achleving something that will make her usefulness carry on. * ¥ % % ARRIAGE imposes duties that naturally demand first consid- eration. Yet there is no benefit to be gained by sacrificing every mo- life to the routine of No matter how many are a woman's household cares, the fact remains that if she i{s to become - GOV. FERGUSON WORE THIS DRESS WHEN SHE LED THE GRAND MARCH AT THE BALL GIVEN ON HER INAUGURA- TION DAY, LAST TUESDAY. a good mother she must first be a good all:around ecitizen. Neglect of any faculty or function causes decay. As surely as a woman secludes herself too long within her kitchen her alertness will be injured. The brain needs constant food if it is to grow with progress. Single- tracked it becomes a one-way brain. One of the great tragedies of life is the fact that so many capable women bury themselves during the best part of their lives in domestic monotony. Then, when the children are grown and there is less work to' do, these wornout women try to pick up the lost threads of an old life of varied interest. They have been mentally asleep—have rusted, decay- ed—and while they stood still the world moved on. These pitiful Rip Van women always find, to thelr utter unhappiness, that their mneglect of themselves has left them far behind those who grew normally mentally with the times. Life has no more pitiful wreck: than this, because in nearly every case, except where Winkle | vaders played no small part extreme poverty tias th woman to a washtub, the tragedy could be averted. There are very few women who cannot find time to read the newspapers, to mingle with inte ligent people or to keep mentally abreast of the progress going on about them. If every mother realized that the| political strength of this country de- pends on its homes, there would be more self-training and thought among women who are too easily led into unselffish but stifi monoton in the method of performing household duties. 1 am the mother of two daughters. Fate hurled me a challenge, after my children were reared, to become a po- litical candidate. My life has been| associated with politics, - for | during my husband’s entire political | career 1 studled his problems in order to be of help to him. Perhaps that was why I tried to equip my daugh- ters to become good citizens long be- fore I had the right to vote or thought of office for myself. * VWWHEN duty pressed me into a po- litical career I felt that, unfet- tered, I could turn my attention to something that would not injure my household happiness, but that would merely serve to make me of greater use to my children, who were then in- dependent of the care I had given them when they were tiny. I tried to under- stand my suffrage duty before I had the right of ballot. I believe that every woman should train herself in the Quties and detalls of politics be- fore she becomes a candidate or a voter. Must women become officials in order to have political careers? I be- lieve not. To vote conscientiously, to rent things and calling himeelf names. The hours that they talked t night! The things that got said & told finally with the rain still beati down outside! The way they laughed the their laughter rang o sometimes, so that even the beat driving ™ was silenced by it “I'd like to punch his Stiff!” said Dick, wh heard about George Vreeland at last “I never did—I never cared a hoot about her!” sald Dick of Kate Wi ston. “Oh, ghe was all right to tal to when you weren't around, but be side you——" And that's all, ¥ is to be told. They knew, even tha night, that there were hard times ahead. But what of that? They eve n pead—the b u know—all ther | knew thers would, quite possibly, be { more quarrels some time. But, aga w And so—but, ves, there's one thing more to tell. Something Anne said late, when it h stopped at last and thes could the window a watery moon “Oh, Dick, aid, “this morn- ing—yesterd henever it was w started out—I looked back, just we got started, and there was woman across the street waving h handkerchief to us for luck. I ke to go back and find her 4 train children intellige: her uence better standards is a brilliant po rear for any woman Office the reward of the people for servics in citizenship, and every individual can serve. Old-fashion. mothers who trained to found liberal free government had glorious polit cal careers, even though they couldn't vote. In the modern power of suf frage, a woman can really have a Iitlcal career without office or c didacy. I believe that with a safe balance maintained any woman can serve both home and state and de bot well. She must not neglect her chil for politics, nor forget her ballot f her dishtowel. Women have demo strated their political intelligence and it takes only common sense 1t guide them in the art of safe uniting home and politics. The home should be woman's sweetest and mos sacred duty and politics should be 2 interesting study, a mental diversic and a glorious self-imposed obliga tion. A woman's household is her wor and her family‘is her life. But toda more than before the gaining of suf frage, a woman’'s political career her political understanding, her of fice or her vote—means the very life of her government. For no matter how many kings rule in palaces, nc matter how many presidents and go\ ernors exercise authority, an age-old truth—trae when despots sat oy feudal thrones and true today, when sovereign citi S rule themselves are the words of a seer who said “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” (Copyright, 1025, in TUnit at Britain and Sout ol American Newspaper All and the Naught Syndicate. Al rights resrved. in for sons States, M The Vampire Bat HILE members of Peruvian expedition of the National Geo- graphic Soclety and Yale University were-conducting their explorations in the heart of the “Land of the Incas” is was noticed one morning that the pack mules nearly all showed blood | blotches on their withers and backs, | where they had been attacked during the night by vampire bats which had | fed on their blood. This species of | bat is found in grgat numbers In certain forest-clad parts of Peru in altitudes below 10,000 feet. Early ex- plorers of South America tell us that cattle Introduced by the missionaries were entirely destroyed by these bats. Not a few naturalists are of the opin- fon that the vampire bats were largely | responsible for the destruction of the | horse in South and Central America | previous to the Spanish conquests.| The curiosity of the last Inca ruler| to see the horses of the Spanish in-| in his | ultimate capture and downfall. The vampire is one of the most highly speclalized species of the ex- isting bats and is a member of the Phyliostome, or leat-nosed group. It has, however, lost its leaf nose to a large extent, owing to its aban- donment of an insect diet. The lower jaw 1is decidedly undershot and the head, with its short, cropped ears and broad muzzle, has a strikingly bull dog appearance. The legs are well | developed and rather heavy, enabling | the animal to move fairly rapidly on the the ground, in which situation it is by no means a shuffing, helpless creature, llke many other bats. If L { ¢ molested when thrown to the ground it will turn and bite savagely. The teeth are a highly modified cutting apparatus for making ine sions in the skins of mammals a birds. The cheek teeth, or grinders have their crowns modified into nar row and high-cutting edges which work against their fellows of t! opposite jaw much as the blades of soissors. Possessing teeth of a strict ly cutting nature, this bat cannot crush_insects, so that it is actually forced to feed on the blood of other animal. Moreover, the gullet ts so restricted or narrow that only blood can be passed through it, and the stomach is weak-walled, Wwith thoe general appearance of an intestinal structure. On several occasions the stomachs of thess bats have been examined and have been found to contain only coagulated or coated blood. In size, the vampire is somewha larger than our common brown bat compared with which it Is a much heavier built animal. The epread be- tween the tips of the outstretched wings is 8 to 10 inches, and the length of the body from the tip of the snout to the insertion of the hind Iimbs is 33% inches. They are com- monly found living in caves or tun- nels, suspended from the ceiling in clusters often of immense size. The animals usually attacked b. he vampire bats are cattle, horses mules and donkeys. Their flight low and close to the surface of the earth and doubtless takes place lat in the evening when complete dark- ness has set in; 50 that they are, owing to such habits, seldom secs.