Evening Star Newspaper, August 16, 1925, Page 76

| WAS SHE: It Was Her Habit to Meet Any Emergency Without Fear. HIS pet story was rom details given by a named Smith, Christian name John—a returned South African Hypnotizing me several occasions on the veranda of a South Cc hotel, he told me the o8 Iife in a ckward and or, which story was in the woman who hud made hi N Pros- perity. 1 am telling the story for the sake of the#question that forms its title, leaving the answer to vou. Mr. Smith was born at Barking of middle-class parents, and went to work at an early age as ant to a gro- ce His business was to carry out parcels, and he was happy because he 1 no ambitions, and, being of a timorous nature, kept clear of dis- turbances and all conflict with au- thority He was of the type that never rises much and rarely falls, and he might have heen carrying parcels in Barking 1o this day had not Providence inter- vened in the form of swollen glands. Prov ce has all sorts of ways In its deali h men, and one of its main sses is the alteration of types h, left to himself, would have died as he was made, only older. The swoll nds intervened. He w ordered to “live in the country,” and the orde ciding with the require. ment of boy by his mother’s the main the busir mer in Essex, | family. and she was determined that to | »m the grocery ff by rail to and blind to moving him as a unresisting it were et Amber was the name of the farmer. and his farm was situated five miles | from the first ind he took to John ind promised to make a He dealt in pigs and 1&g up scarecrows and fat 1 und faking them and sell them in Braintree market at 500 per cent profit He taught John how mysteries of scal to ride, the in sheep, the intrica cies of botts, pig lore, and how to deal with government inspectors. And so went on for five happy and un il vears, John swelling like a evolv nto a fairly good- B m of 23 years, dressed tresh that looking you came to him ising to go on living just as he at one pound ten a week, till th called him in the form of old proj mer Sunday afternoon in a s from Braintree a girl his life from a bull the field when he suddenly overed that the bull had taken a 1 A noise like the snort ymbone made him turn, n he ran. He made for the nearest hedge, where a girl in a light Summer dress and shaded a white parasol was tting enjoying the beauty of the scenery he rose up as the runners approack her, saw ¢! 1y that John would lose by 4 few yards, and intef- helping him over the gate in the hedge and leaving the bull with a white ol on his horns John was shaking, but she was al- most undisturbed. She was one of se people who seem absolutely de- void of fear or sense of danger—s mentality indicative of courage in i's highest power or simply complete we 1t of imagination. Who can tell? Faut she was distressed for her parasol. It had cost her ven and elevenpence at Blott & Blott's, and she said so John said he would buy her another, and she did not refuse the offer, being & sensible and businesslike person. And they walked back to Br atree, where he left her at her door- 7 nda te ce—with the permission to call upon her on the Sunday fo lowing with the new parasol. Her name was Mary Jane Summers. That was the beginning of John's love affair, if you can call it his * ik J© lasted two years, and then uncle dying and leaving her £500, Miss Summers came to the decision that it had lasted long er>ugh. She ined to marry John. She feared re no more thin she had the bull. She hai made her and when she exhibited them disclosed that plain common sense which is better than beauty and maybe r She had determined that thev must emigrate to South Africa Five hundred pounds was of no use in England, even in those days when the best b was a shilling a pound, cattle food procurable, and the wages of a horseman 15 shillings a week. She had worked everything out in her head—the wages he was receiving n his relation, the surety that there no prospect of their being raised ‘bevond certain Ic & level, the fact that he was worth 1 uch more than he the fict that e was it in South Africa, and that he was not likely to get it in Kugland. She had absorbed a good deal of information about the place, and she had a cousin living in Durban. She wrote to the cousin and got a satisfactory reply. John, when all these things disclosed to him, was astonished was of the pe saved crossin di: fu feared likely were He on | of face, accepting | and | Mi- | that never suspects it | is gone. He looked on Amber as a benefactor. He was worth, taking his energy, sobriety and general reliabil ity into consideration, u hundred a vear more to Amber than Amber was paying him. Yet he looked on Amber |as’a benefactor. | He was astonished to find that he | was worth more than he fancied hi | self to be worth, that England was | worked out; that the colonies were the ]nn\_\' places where a man of energy and | small means might find a certain live- | lihood and maybe a fortune. She showed him all this. He drew back at first, timid at the prospect of such a plunge, but she had no fear. Then he consented and she arranged about their marriage. They would get married without the, least show or expense, and the African ex- pedition would serve for a honeyvmoon. Her .wusseau would be of the sim. plest. She gave detalls. She had studled the climate of South Africa {and taken the conditions of life there on a farm or the veldt into her con- | sideration when thinking out the trousseau. Though money was des- | perately essential and none too plenti- | tul, she determined not to be married |at ‘a registrar's office, but ‘respect- ably” in a church. John, who cared nothing for convention, was in favor of the registrar’s, but she had an eye to the future and the foundation of a | begin~well was everything. She in tended to build high, to be wealthy some day, and to reach great levels of | respectablity, and a_hoteand-corner marriage was no foundation for that | design a pair of lavender trousers for the oc- casion—price in those days four |pounds ten—and after the marriage | she arranged a small reception at her | mother's house, 7 Miranda terrace, where a_number of highly respectable people gathered and gave them a send |off.” The result, foreseen by this Bis- {marck in petticoats, was the feeling |common to them both—that they had begun well and had already risen in | the scale of life She had arranged the marriage to | coincide with the sailing of the Triton, on which she had booked their pa sage, second clars, and they left Brain- tree the same day for Southampton, where they spent the night at the best hotel, embarking next morning and sailing the same evening for a new world She was very seasick, for, though | seasickness 1s mostly a malady of the | mind, even common sense eannot pre- | He was | vent it. She was {ll for a weel and |during that week John, who s a | born saflor, was left to drift alone |among the passengers. When she came on deck she found John in a corner with several evil-looking yegg- men, secretly playing cards. he pounced. “How much have she. “I haven't lost,” replied John. “I've won two pounds ten.” “Then put it In your pocket and come along with me,” she replied The yeggmen showed fight. She faced them fearlessly. just as she had faced the bull, threatened them with the “‘captain,” and took John off just as she might have taken a purse. Then she extracted the two pounds ten from him and put it in her pocket He played cards no more on that ship, for the very good reason that she kept on eye on him; also no one would play with a man with such a wife. Other wives with husbands on board respected her, and she made sev- eral friends of returning South Afri- cans, who turned up useful enough when they got to Durban and were on the lookout for cheap rooms. ok ox you lost?” said T Durban she accompanied John to the office of Mr. Goldberg, to whom she had been recommended by her cousin. Goldberg was a land agent, and knew all about South African farming that was to be known.» He sat in an office with maps behind him on the wal His hair was as black as ebony shavings and as ol tan's palm He wore gold pincenez and had a thick voice, also a big diamond ring. Mrs. Smith sat and looked at Gold- his requirements, and she picked up quite a lot of information while Gold- berg talked; also she came to the con- clusion that she did not trust him and that his fine office and diamond ring were indicative of a wealth to which she did not care to add her contribu- tion. She was absolutely ignorant of the South African world, of any world, indeed, beyond the world contained in five miles radius of Braintree, but her common sense warned her and she took John off. promising to think things ‘over and call another day. Next morning they left for Johan- nesburg, following the lead given to her by one of the friends she had | picked up on the Triton, and here, [with the help of a hotelkeeper and without paying agents' fees, they picked up some land away north, near a place called Rupertsburg, if 1 re member the name properly. These were the days before the Boer She made John buy a frock coat and | berg and listened while John told of | then, fincluding big beasts, to say nothing of pythons. But Mrs. Smith had no fear of danger, and five miles northwest of the little town pertsburg they took up their quarters in an old farmhouse set in an infinity of sunshine and silence, and no sconer had they settled down than Mrs Smith discovered they had made a mis. take. It had not been her deal. John had insisted on being master for once and had closed on the place. I think it was ostriches he intended to grow At all events, the place was not suit- months, moving back south and ma ing a small fortune in a way that has nothing %o do with this story, which is_entirely concerned with the char acter of Mrs. Smith Having discovered communications difficult, labor unsatisfactory. locusts frequent, droughts a matter of course and @ python in possession of the stable, she did not complain, never once said “I told you so,” but just settled down to make the best of it. The python, sitting like a demon on |its clutch of eggs—it was hatching— 1di) 2ot daunt her. She supervised the | shooting of it, had the eggs destroyed |and ordered the place to be cleaned | Acting on the advice of female friends, |she always went about with a re | volver strapped to her belt, and the Kaflirs, after one week of her manage. ment, were different Kaffirs from what | they "had been, and called her baas mentally if not vocally. She was sun burned, she wore a short skirt, her sleeves rolled up and a revolver at her belt, vet she was just the same indi- vidual as the girl who had sat be- neath the hedge that Summer Sun | day afternoon in the field near Brain tree, just as womanly, as decided, s brave and common-sensical * % % % I~ a fortnight, working the unfortu |+ nate Kaffir: her: penters, £ she had the place in order and fit to be lived in. Sometimes she would go to the little town, five miles away, to purchase things at the store run by a German |named Bloom-—a German of the old type, spectacles and all complete; a | philosophical man, who came to have |a high respect for this customer, a | respect based on the wisdom exhibited |by her orders. The Boer farmers’ [ wives used to buy in small quantitles either from niggardliness or a dislike |of spending too much money at one |time or some more recondite reason, but Mrs. Smith bought in bulk, and |50 saved journeys and the risk of dis- |appointment, and paid on the nail | setting a discount. o things went on, the monotony | varied by the coming of a flight of locusts and by a thunderstorm that sounded exactly like the end of the world, in the middle of which, while John ‘was remembering past sins and putting up silent prayers, Mrs. Smith was putting eut tubs to catch the rainwater. The next incident after that was the saving of John's life from an ostrich. Now, ostrich farming sounds safe and easy work, but in reality it is equivalent to the tending of Buff Orpingtons by a man seven inches high—it is sometimes free from dan ger and sometimes it isn’t. Hailed from the house by the cry of “Bass, bass!" she rushed out to find John on the ground, an ostrich danc- ing on him and the Kaffirs looking on. She saved the situation by her pluck and with the revolver. “You have the pluck,” said John one day when he was convalescing He jvas about right. Nothing could | frighten this woman. And vet one {day it came about that she was fright. ened—badly frightened—and it hap. pened in this wise: * ¥ x ¥ NE morning John saddled his horse and rode off to the little town on some business, leaving her alone. The Kaffirs were away on some other busi- ness, and she was alone in the house in the middle of that burning and | windless solitude stretching from where you please to Bechuanaland She was engaged in dusting and in an irritable mood. There was one in- soluble problem always being set for | Mrs. Smith by this old farmhouse—the problem of “Where does the dust come from?” It seemed to blow in when there was no wind, and when there was a wind it blew in worse. It set tled on evervthing in an equitgble manner—on the kitchen table and the crockery dogs—wedding presents con- veyed unsmashed 7,000 miles—on the ple in course of construction and when cooked, on the plateg on the dresser, on the dresser, on ¥he milk- pan and the milk in the pan. Dust had always been her enemy. It was one of the few things that could put her out, and this morning as was put out and she could not swear ‘When women learn to swear, men and other animals will undoubtedly have an easler time and spring cleanings be robbed of much of their misery. Swearing being impossible, she went on with her work with increased en ergy, and was just finishing off the left-hand crockery dog when a sound from outside told her that some one of Ru- able, and they only staved there six | as she dusted the crockery dogs she | constructed by [is being swindled till its pocketbook | War, and there was more game about | L8 D. C, AUGUST 1 SHE HIT THE FACE WITH HER DUSTER AND SAID, “SC AT.” 1925—PART was at the back door. She thought It was one of the Kaffirs, and cried, “Come in!" got no response, left her dusting, crossed the kitchen, and, {duster in hand, opened the door. Standing full fronting her was a lion. The African lions, says an old nat ural historian, are of two races—one vellowish, the other brown—while the Dutch colonists speak of the blue and black kinds. This was neither a blue nor a black lion, neither exactly yellow nor brown: sandy colored, perhaps a male and very large; dusty, too, from its travels, and never perhaps had the essential male and the essential female met so squarely face to face and so suddenly as when they stood now facing one another across the doorsill But Mrs. Smith knew nothing of es- sential males or female and little of lions. She had seen pictures of them in her school books, and on a visit to London she had seen the lions in Trafalgar Square. She had a vague idea that lions eat people, and that constituted her whole knowledge of the most formidable of the species felidae What she saw now recalled nothing of all that. She saw before her a large, honest-looking and rather fool- ish face, fuzzy and bearded, amber- eved, dusty, and completing, as only an intruding male could complete, the sum of her irritation that had been growing all the morning. She hit the face with her duster and said “Scat!" | Then, as it ambled off, she saw the | tufted tail, and the whole figure called | up in her mind the word “lion.” She closed the door and bolted it and went on with her work with a better heart. Her irritation was some- how relieved. She had almost sworn, for one thing, and the lion had given her something to think about other {than dust and pie-making. She thought quite a lot about lions | as she put the duster aside and began the preparations for dinner. She re- | people, and came to the swift conclu- sion, leaving out man-eaters, that lions are harmless. The thing had inspired no fear in her mind, that logical mind which de- rived perhaps half its inspiration from [ instinct. She was not frightened by | the business, but she was still to be | badly frightened. In what way? Wait. John that morning, having ridden into the town, called at Bloom's store and found the German in his shirt- sleeves undoing parcels that had just arrived by ox-wagon. John had been commissioned to buy pepper and tin tacks, and Bloom, the universal provider, looking at the piece of paper on which Mrs. Smith had | written her requirements, noted the amount of pepper required—one pound. “She says she doesn’t always want o be sending in for things,” sald John, |“and it's better to have enough to start with.” “She's a sensible woman,” said Bloom. “These Dutch fraus dey break a plate and send to me for one plate, break another and send to me for an. {other, and zo dey go on journeys all the time and waste of time, and zo it goes on, as if they lift ‘round the cor- ner to send and not miles away. Now, what I say is a woman’s house ought to be her store—everyding to hand and enough of it. These Dutch fraus, they send to me for haff a paund of washing soda, please, Mr. Bloom. Mrs. Smith, she orders a stone. Well, now, dis pepper; I haff only a pound in the establishment, but she is welcome to haff. Dese are the tin tacks. Vill you not join me in a glass of Vanderhum?" John did, and with the parcels in his pocket and the Vanderhum in his \;\\\) i) a ¢ SHE INTERVENE:{, HELPING HIM OVER THE GATE IN TRE HEDGE AND LEAVING THE BULL WITH THE WHITE PARASOL ON HIS HORNS. membered the tales about their eating | veins, mounted his horse and started back for home in an optimistic mood | that included himself and the world and the awful desolation of the sun- smitten landscape. *E % * ARRIVED at the farm, he stabled his horse and rubbed it down Then he entered the house, where Mrs. Smith was taking the pie from lhe\ |oven. The dinner table was laid, and | | they sat down, John putting the pep- | | per and tacks on the dresser and giv- ing details of his journey, voluble for ! once in his life—owing to the Van derhum. Toward the close of the meal Mrs. Smith, remembering the lion and man. aging to get in a word, said: “Oh, 1 forgot to tell you—a has been.” .John dropped his knife and fork. “Great Scott, Mary, what are you lion A lion has been? When?" ® ame to the back door and I| opened it.” ' “You did? Opened it? A lion What did vou do?" | Nothing." | Nothing!" | didn’t_know what it was for i minute, and I hit it with the duster and it went off | it it with the duster—a lio Oh, go on with your dinner! I'm in a hurry to clear up. There was no | harm in the thing. [ could tell that at a glance.” “But_where did it go to? you look?" “Lord bless the man! What do you | think my time's worth with all the | things I have to do? It went around the corner of the house and I shut the | door. It's far enough by this, I ex-| pect.” “There's Didn't no knowing,” said John.! | “It's ten to one it will come back—at | picture from, night He fin| the stable, on hand He had been working and was putting down h his brow when a scr hous de him fling and rush to the door It was his wife's voice screaming for help. | The door of the house was open— he had left it open. The lion had come back and it had got her. For one terrible al and went off to | > had some work | 5 | an hour or so | saw to wipe | S m n from the the saw aside and she was instant John stood paralyzed—Ilove on one side of him, death on the other. He was a timo ous man, and to enter that house and | front a lion one had to be as brave as a lion In the beat of a pendulum and : past comes to the drownir whole life stood before him i she had saved him Then, just as character and jected into his sprang to the though courag mind by house door. The room in th rushed to th m was empty, the bed en. He picked up his anding by the wall and = bedroom door. wide-eyed and pale of anding on the bed, and in he room, opposi » enemy, bright-eyed iled and evidently prepar later John, on a per drew up at Bloom's ing the horse tethered to the post, entered wants six mouse traps: said John. *Six?" said Bloom. “Zo? she’s a sensible woman! (Copyright Ah, wel BY STERLING HEILIG. ] PARIS, August 6. 6 HE President of the repub- | | lic ought to have a Sum- i mer white house,” say H the French people. *Plain citizens desire to see their chosen chief magistrate in a residence | of honor and beauty all the year| round. Let the French President | pass his vacations in one of the royal | chateaux of the old kings!" As a fact, the French people have | given their Presidents two of the| beautiful historic chateaux—Fontaine- bleau and Ramboulllet. Both have been fitted up in modern manner for | the Presidents, apart from the grand | old showrooms full of gilded furni- ture. President Carnot used Fontaine bleau as a real Summer residence. Fellx Fauro entertained there, almokt royally. Loubet spent two Summers | at Fontainebleau, then switched to Ramboutllet. Up to Loubet, Ramboutllet had been | used only for the presidential hunts, when thousands of pheasants, etc., | are shot by guests of mark. But for Loubet Rambouillet was entirely reno- vated. As “Autumn residence” (re- visited for the shooting), Fallleres, Poincare and Millerand preferred | Ramboulllet to Fontainebleau, as less spectacular, less “royal.” And now comes a French President who wants no royal surroundings at all for his Summer white house. President Doumergue has picked his Swampscott. But before he picked it the. French | people gave the new place to him. From this year on the French Re- public has three vacation residences | for its Presidents to choose among. The third Summer white house, the newly acquired one, is Vizille— | grand old republican chateau on the highroad of the Alps, from Grenoble up to the Meige Glacier and Briancon, beyond Vizille is surrounded by snow-tipped peaks. It is the very type of a health place. It has its own farm, in a val- ley noted for vegetables and dairy products. Its mountain air is ozone- charged, free from microbes, from the third greatest glacier of Europe. Vizelle is accessible, quickly and easlly, although so close to romantic peaks and precipices. The highest national road of France runs past it, 8o close that it touches—a road in itself, a wonder of engineering. It is protected throughout by massive masonry parapets and is everywhere wide enough for three cars fo pass abreast. * ok ok K HERE is the greatest stretch of the famous route of the Alps. Every season it becomes more famous, more frequented by tourists and trippers. And Vizille, being situated directly, plumply, squarely on this most pop- ular of all the Alpine roads—"a road more frequented in July and August than the high road to St. Germain’— its inhabitants are honked and gassed by crowds of touring cars, whose con- tinual passage raises a continual dust cloud. Trippers by the trolley from Gren- oble overrun the little square of Vizille town, on which the great main doors of the chateau open. Traffic stops for refreshment. It is the mild publicity of Swamp- scott raised to the “nth” power. Dust, honk and clang of trolley! The square is sprinkled during the President's residence, but every trol- ley dumps down trippers. Tourists’ motor cars are brought from America to honk beneath the President’s bed- room windows! President Doumergue knew it all before he picked Vizille for August. To his mind the mountain air, the valley food products and the glorious Alpine scene, all easily acessible, counterbalance the annoyance of the public's noisy enjoyment. “If you want selfish peace,” says | place in the Chateau of Vizille There is a massive around the great property, whose height, extent and heavy masonry are pointed out to tourists. “The devil built it for the Constable Lesdi- | guleres!” So runs the legend. | Around 1580 the Constable Lesdi- | guleres, great man around Grenoble, built the Chateau of Vizille. The King, in granting him “high, middle and low justice,” stipulated for the chateau proper “as much land as he | could wall" by a certain date. The constable, a hard man, a driver and | very capable, got busy with his peas. ants, soldjers and every man, woman and boy he could press into the work. | Undoubtedly, the devil helped | | | stone wall o KIP 200 years. Claude Perier, linen manufacturer, was the rich- | est and most influential man arcund Grenoble, in 1780. The Lesdiguieres family was petering out. Claude| Perier bought Vizille from Lesdi-| guieres. | Claude Perier was restless, far-see- ing and bent on developing his region. | Some think that the modern system | began with the taking of the Bastille. It did not. It started with Bunker | Hill. But its European birth took The land was full of rumors of lib- erty, equality, fraternity and America. The powers of king and nobles must be clipped, as in America. So, Claude Perier said to the thinking men of Dauphiny: “Meet at my Chateau of Vizille.” They met on July 21, 1788—the | meeting of the deputies of Dauphiny first to vote the meeting of the State General. So, French children are taught to call the Vizille conference “the Prelude of the Revolution.’ After the Terror, Claude Perier | was sent to Paris as_a member of the legislative body. He lived to see the republic merge into the dawn of Napoleonic_prosperity; but before he died, in 1801, he did another thing the mild President, “the price is sol- itude. I prefer accessibility. Let the tourists honk past Vigelle and get the good of it!"” | They to make started the Ba Father to himself vorld-famous—he | k of F ance! | rich nkers and great statesmen, the Periers held Vizille. The first Casimir, Louis Phillippe’s minister after 1830, invent- ed the dispersing of mobs with the are ho: His son Casimir, life sen tor and cabinet minister, received | letters patent to be “Casimir-Perier” with a4 hyphen. | In turn, his own son became presi- | dent of the republic, as you know Great families dwindle or smash | tragically. The president’s son, Claude Ca Perier, was killed in the w; issue. ' Vizille had alrea the late president’s br known as “the Ca ] THINK that 1k valley of as any Americ Summers dow For a time Vizille was ¢ Then it fafled as a very high-class chateau: | hotel for rich Americans and English. | showed guests a magnificent | baccarat table, at which, they affirmed, | “the Captain lost Vizille in a single night!” | {But who can believe such stories!) Later, Vizille was held by a million- | aire vermouth gistiller, an Italian Having foreign Troubles of his own, he sold it, after the war, to patriotic French citizens as a national monu- ment of the revolutionary history which created modern France. ! The French are good at this sort thing. ! They honor their history by pre-| serving Vizille, and they honor the President by giving it to him for a Summer white house. And_President Doumergue, in re- turn, honors them and the republic | most of all! Vizille, as really, from popularly le and the ! manche as well living. 1 spent nine | npty of chateau-hotel, tourists’ gas failed, under the! | have to French President Now Has Choice Of Three Official Summer Homes bedroom windows. and the clang of the Grenoble trolley. President Doumergue goes to them with eyes open! What price Swampscott? Swampscott isn’t in it, for racket and odor! Steam and Gasoline. T is all wrong to imagine that the steam age is passing and the fu ture belongs entirely to oil and inter. nal combustion engines. It is the oil age which is passing and steam which is to be the motive power of the future, according to two of gland’s most distinguished sci entists, Dr. John §. Haldane and § John Cadman, in addresses at the Ir stitute of Mining Engineers at Cardiff Dr. Haldane predicted a time when the steam engine will be used in air planes and automobiles, and con emned the internal combustion en ine for its inefficiency “Theoretically efficiency of any heat engine is put at 50 per cent of the heat units applied to it,” he said, “but we all know that no engine actually has ever given greater efficlency than 30 per cent. In the steam engine we jacket every part to retain heat, but in the internal combustion engine we have to adopt methods of getting rid of heat, otherwise the steel will not stand the high tempera ture to which it is subjected. That is waste in heat energy “The future dévelopment of the steam engine will be along lines of increased steam pressure with smaller and lighter engines ““The complete engine and boiler wil be much smaller and lighter than its equivalent in an internal combustion engine and will be more suitable, even much superior, for airplanes and auto- mobiles.” THE “SUMMER WHITE HOUSE” OF THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE. IT IS THE VIZILLE CHATEAU, ON THE HIGHROAD OF THE ALPS, BUILT IN 1580, AND IT IS SOMETIMES CALLED “THE CRADLE OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.”