Evening Star Newspaper, November 8, 1925, Page 80

4 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, NOVEMBER 8, 1925—PART 5. Flivvers and Philosophies BY FANNY KILBOURNE. Mr. Horton Essays to Teach Mrs. Horton to Drive. EING marrfea Is very strange | in one way, the way it makes you feel acquainted with everybody else who is mar- ried. At first this is not so true. The first couple of months you see married women breaking away | from afternoon partles the very second refreshments are over, because their husbands like supper ready at sharp 6, or being simply insulted by their husbands because they have merely forgotten to take out the cuff links before they sent their shirts to the laundry, and think with gratitude to | heaven that you have married a man | like Will and will never have such | things to worry vou. | Then little things begin to come up. | The first one with me was about read- | thg the Sunday mosning paper. We | get the Chicago paper on Sunday | and I simply love it | “WAII you let me have the first news | section, Will>" T asked the second it | came. Will passed it over, and while I was reading it he read the funny page and the sporting page and then began | to fidget. At first I dldn't notice so much, T was 8o deep in the news of the day. I told Will bits of it from time | to time as he started to clear off the breakfast dishes—he always helps me with them Sunday morning “You can get a bridge lamp with a parchment shade for only $6.25 in Chi cago,” I said, “and Mr. Henderson is | ;harging §10 aplece for both of those ¢ as."” “Zat 0?" Will asked, politely | “They're having a special sale on| georgette at Marshall Fleld's,” T went | on. “Do you suppose I'd dare take | @ chance on the shade and just order 4 yards of rose color by mall? teve Brody took a chance,” said | Will, ftippantly. | T could see his mind wasn't on it at | all. Pretty soon he sald in a plulntive! way. “Don’t you want to see the dramatic | section as soon as you get through | with the news?" I nodded and read on. “Does it say the strike?" he asked after another | little while! What strike?” I asked, absently.|his rough shoulder, and he held me | SPite of having watched Will drive “If it takes 4 yards of stuff 40 inches | tighter as though he were thinking|for years, I sort of thought you'd when it's|the same thing, that our little clock |Just have to push something forward Fide, I should think 33 i it | “For the love of Pete!” Will's tone | was simply outraged. ‘‘Are vou sit-| ting there with the first news sec- tion reading nothing but the ads?” Well, that was the beginning of my discovering that all husbands—even | Will—are something alike. For when | I mentioned the matter to Dulcle, she | sald Roger was just the same, that | nobody would think, to hear him talk, | that it was his money she was tr: to save; and Rosemary Merton said | Howard was the same, too, only| worse. | “It makes him simply wild,” Rose:| mary said, “if I ask him to do a single thing or say hardly anything to him when he’s reading the paper. “So does it Roger,” said Dulcie. | to see if I had time to make muffins | that! “Anvbody'd think it was an hour of | silent prayer.” ! I suddenly recalled now, that same | after I had given Will the ews section, he had scarcely | glanced up from it at my occasional comments about how funny that ging- | to get a bigger car, and he gave Will | | his old one and told him that if he ham should be fashionable for cur- tains, or didn't he think it would be | a good idea to screen in our upstairs | porch and use it for a sleeping porch | this Summer? And when I asked him | to see it he could budge the window | that had been stuck for a week he did 80 with an air of forced politeness. * * ok X 'HAT, as I say, was the first matter which made me see that, in a few points, even Wil was a husband. This. and a few other simflar things, made me feel awfully well acquainted with Dulcie and Rosemary en account of their both being young and married; but T never dreamed that any experi. | ence would make me feel acquainted | —in a deep sort of way, I mean—with | people lke ald Mrs. rels so terribly with Ler husband. But | I do; I feel well acquainted with all married women, and part! larly those who don’t get along well with their husbands. I didn't use to understand to just bewilder me. Mother and| father never quarrel and Will was | alwavs so sweet to me that I couldn't| understand how Mr. and Mrs. Long | could say such terrible things to each her. 1 understand now. Mr. and Mrs. Long quarreled terri- 1y the night of our housewarming. Dulcie got up the housewarming as | a surprise on us and almos: every-. body brought us presents. Mrs. West. erly brought us a clock. Her husband | was our minister before he died and she is about the sweetest old lady I have ever known in my life. It was a_lovely little mahogany clock. and | she set it on our mantel between the polychrome candlesticks that Roger | and Dulcle gave us. Howard Merton started to wind it up, but Mrs. West- erly stopped him. “The bride always starts the clock in her new home,” she said. She had written on her card: O fortunate, O happy da: When a new household fin Among the myraid homes of earth “T think I'll wait till everybody has! Fone, to start it,” I satd. Mrs. Westerly squeezed my hand. “That's right, my dear,” she said. “You and Will start your clock alone | together. I hope it will keep time | for you many vears after I'm gone And If it does, remember that a friend of your grandmother’s and Will's has | put a wish on it.” She laid a thin, wrinkled old hand on the clock. “May you always tick in a happy home!"” she ®aid. It takes an old person to say anything like that without anybody Jaughing, but from Mrs. Westerly it seemed very sweet and solemn. Long who quar- it used| | was very | couragingly ! want to be like them. We sat up a while after everyhody had gone that mght. Wo had been staying at Will's house or mine until we got our furniture, so this was our first night in our new home. We sat talking about how nice it had been of people to give us the party, and then we got to talking about Mr. and Mrs. Long. who had been the last to g0 and who had got into a quarrel right in front of us. We joked about her saving, “I'm not asking you to be intelligent, Joe. I know that's too much to expect." And his, “Well, I'll admit there was one time in my life when I wasn't in- telligent—when 1 got married.” Suddenly Will said, “I wonder if they ever liked each other the way you and I do.” Oh, W1l I laughed. The idea of the Longs ever having been in love seemed so ridiculous. “I'll bet they did once “Most people do when ried.” “Then how did they ever get this way?" I demanded. “Can you im- magine our saying the kind of things they do to each other?" No—thank God!” said Will it isn't only the things the; haven't you ever noticed the way they look at each other? As though—as though they hated each other?” Will looked at his watch and it was after | o'clock. “Let's wind up the clock.” he said. So he wound it, with his arm around me. and I set it. It still in the house, and the sudden sound of the was queer, kind of like a home com- ing to life, just beginning to breathe. I thought of Mrs. Westerly and her saying that she hoped it would keep time for us long after she was gone, and suddenly—I don't know why—I thought of Will dying. Of coming into that room and seeing our big chair by the table, our polychrome candlesticks on the mantel, hearing our little clock ticking, everything just as it was tonight. Would I ever ," Will insisted. they get mar- thave to listen to the little tick-tick-|did the first time I found out that a tick without Will's arm around me, anything new about | knowing that I should never feel his | feet in order to play. arm around me again? “Oh, Will" I pressed my face into might still be ticking some da: we wouldn't have each other. “I'll always try to be & good hus band to you, littie Doll,” he said sud- denly in"a husky voice. I hung onto his hand tighter. “I'll always ury to be & good wite to you, Vil It was strange and solemn, it seemed much more of a pledge than the one we had made when we were married. It was like a scary prayer, standing there alone in our new home with the little elock ticking in the stiliness. * ok k% ¥ when ’I‘HE next morning everything seem- ed commonplece and natural enough. I looked at the little clock for breakfast, and Will started off to the office by it. That very night he came home all excited. And no Of course, ather Horton had it was just a flivver. at last decided anted to trade it in, and get a brand-new flivver sedan, he would pay | the difference and give it to us for | a_wedding present. If we wanted to! We did a one-step all over the living- room and sang so loud that Dulcie came out on her back porch and call- ed over to know what the riot was about. We talked about it through supper. “And I'll teach you to run it,” said will. ‘Oh, of course!” I sald. Just like that. We were both per- fectly casual about it. Through the arch into the living-room we could hear the little wedding clock ticking away, and it sounded casual, too. There was nothing in the world to indicate that at that very moment our marriage was approaching a crisis that would make me feel acquainted with all the unhappily married women in the world. Three weeks later the car arrived, looking all bright and shiny. and as nifty as a million dollars. We had early and left the dishes. so hat Will could show me how to drive before it got dark. onto the pike, me sitting on the little seat in front by him. By good for- tune, we passed Mrs, Curtis. It's seldom that you do pass just the right person when vou want to, when you've got on your new suit or vou're in a taxi, or something to your credit. ‘Wil began explaining about the engine to me, but I was bowing and emiling to people on the sidewalk, and didn’t pay much attention. It didn't make any difference, anyway. I was out to learn to drive that car, not to hear Will lecture about its inside: “You can't drive a car intelligently,’ he said, suddenly moticing that I wasn't very attentive, ‘‘unless you understand the mechanism. I've bought a little book for you to read, called ‘How to Operate a Motor Car.’ It's very simple.” ‘That book that I saw on the liv- ing-room table!” I gasped. “You didn't get that for me to read! Why. it looked like our old textbook in physics. All dlagrams about cam shafts and floatfeed carburetors—why, I couldn’t understand that stuff it I read it from now to doomsday. “Oh, yes, you could,” said “It's easy. “Well, I'm not going to,” I said firmly. “You can't tell me that all these half-witted-looking people you see driving cars know all about cam shafts and pistons and things.” ““There are too many half-wits driv- ing cars,” said WIll; “but 1 want to get little” tick-tick | He steered out | 1you so you understand the engine be- fore you ever touch the steering wheel."” ““Then I'll never get around to touch the steering wheel at all,” I said un- happily. “You're just spolling driving for me, Will It simply takes my appetite away, just as if somebody led you into a room with a wonderful dinner on the table, and said, ‘Now, we aren’t going to touch this dinner until we understand all about the digestive julces and how the human stomach works.’ Just thinking about it would make me so sick I'd never want to eat the dinner. Please, Will, just teach me to drive. Please, Will!" “All right,” said Will in a resigned tone of voice. “But I think it's the wrong way to go about it.” , We were out on the pike by that time, and Will changed seats with me and let me take the wheel. “Well, suppose I just show you how to start and stop tonight,” he said. “All right,” 1 agreed. “First you turn this key,” Will said, leaning over me to reach the dash- board. “Then you fix these two levers | ltke this and step on this. If the en- | gine doesn't start you have to prime | ker with this. As soon as you hear iyour engine starting, advance your spark like this and open up a little on the gas. like this. Then keep your | foot on the clutch and jet off your emergency brake, like this. Then give | her a little more gas and push her into {low. As soon as you're well started | race your engine a few seconds, then cut down on your gas, and let her up into high.” I turned and just stared at Will with my mouth open. “You have to do all that! T gasped incredulously, “just to get it started?” Sure," said Will. “You've seen me do it a million times,” Well, it was | the truth, I had. But he did them all | so quickly, and I had never paid any | attention. Some way, I never thought | of a driver having to do those things. | It gave me the same shock that it | pipe organist has to stretch with his I had always | thoght he wiggled around on the bench {like that to show off. Some way, in ‘l went up behind hin and kissed the pull it back to stop. * ¥ % X ;lu start and ‘SO this was starting a motor car! |2 Ana stopping it was almost as| | much more. We stayed out on the | pike till it got dark, going over and | | over it, starting and stopping, starting and stopping. When it was really | dark WIIl put on the headlights and | !:(hid, “All right. Now you can drive | | her home.” 1 certainly felt pretty classy driv- |ing along Bleeker street in our own| |car. I passed our house, on past Dulcie’s and around the corner. “Say, you can't eut a corner like | | that!” said W1l in a shocked tone. | “What if a car had been coming from | | the other way?" I hadn’t thought of | I went on clear around the | block and past our house again | “Don’t you want to call it a day, and go in?* Will asked. “We've got | wonder! We were going to have a car!| (g do the dishes before we go to bed.” | “All right,” I said uneasily. But I| went on past the house once more and around the block. “What's the idea of looping the loop jround and round and round?” Will| | asked plaintively. There was no use pretending. I had | | kept thinking it would come back to | me, but it didn't. “I—I've forgotten how to stop!"’ Will simply howled. And that wasn't the worst of it. He told every- body, said it was too good to keep, after spending the entire evening showing me how to start and stop. I believe in being a good sport about a joke on yourself, but it wasn’t fair for Will to go putting on things that | weren't so, likp saying that we rode {round and round all night till dawn | broke and the gas at last ran out. | Well, Wiil finaliy showed me the | different points about driving, till I | knew them all. | good as it sounds. Knowing all the are two entirely different matters. I could sit on the porch and tell you how to stop on a hill and start again; but when I would be in the car all was different. I'd get rattled on @ perfectly level road and push the gas the wrong way, thus leaping ahead when I'd think T was slowing down. | This, everybody says, is not unusual for a beginner, but it did make me unusually irritated at Will. Will has always been polite to me, but when he'd be teaching me to drive he changed entirely. He'd speak so quick and sharp at corners and so on that it certainly sounded cross to me, though he insisted that it wasn't. And | some way there’s something a little irritating about having your husband teach you anything. It sets you to wondering if he really knows as much as he seems to think he does. * %ok ok E afternoon, Rosemary, who drives her father’s flivver, took me out and taught me some more, and to my surprse I found that she did some things different from Will, like advancing her spark farther, and S0 on. Will admits that Rosemary is a good driver, so it set me to think- ing. That same night we went up to | the Mertons’ to play bridge, Will play- ing rottenly as usual, and I suggested that I drive coming home. I started off and Will started to say something. “Now, don't keep telling me things, Will,” 1 sald quickly. “I'l never learn unless you let me do it myself.” | #AREYOU:SITTING THERE WITH THE FIRST NEWS SECTION READING NOTHING BUT THE ADS?" But that wasn’'t as| | points, I soon found out,and doing them | | down, and to my horror that was just hat's all right” said Will, “But' you want me to do everything just your way,” I interrupted him. “Now just let me alone a minute." He subsided, and then, to my irrita- tion, I couldn’t get the engine started right. It would grind strangely as long as I had it in low, and when I tried to let it up into high it would roar a minute and then die. I couldn't think what was the matter, but I felt that I was appearing in a very un- dignfied light, and the more the engine roared and died the madder I kept feeling at Will. He was silently critl- clzing me. “You know there are different right ways of driving an automablle,” I said, along the line I had been thinking that afternoon. “You aren't the only per- son who knows how. T might drive differently from you and yet drive very well.” - vill didn’t say anything to that, which made me madder still. The engine roared, gasped, and died again unpleasantly. “I want to learn to drive my own way,” I sald deter- minedly “stepping on the self-start- er for the tenth time and pushing on the gas till I had to shout to be heard above the roar of the engine. “All right,” sald Will in the sudden silence when it had died agaln, “but | it's going to be d hard on the engine if it's your way to drive with the emergency brake on.” I looked what I was doing. I bent over and removed it. Of course, it was my fault, but I felt suddenly simply en- raged at Wil “You ought never,” I sald coldly, “to lead low from an ace.” “What?" said Will, as though he couldn’t think what I was talking about. “You did it twice tonight. your partner all off. you had the king.” ‘Wil said nothing at all to that and we drove home in cold stlence. But when we were getting ready for bed It throws | It made me think back of his neck. I couldn'd stand it to go to sleep mad. Then we laughed, and I sald I wouldn’t forget the emer- gency brake aguin, and he said he'd try to remember about the ace. e %% HEN the very next day, being Sur day, we were going on a_plenic | with the Edwardses. Will had to go down to the office for an hour, Father Harton being away, so he told me to look the car over and see that every-| thing was all right. I worked over two hours on it in the heat, washed all the windows, brushed out the cush- fons, and put two roses in the little glass vase. I was 8o proud of it when | Will got back. “It's all ready,” T sald proudly “Everything done that could be done. “She’s slick-looking _little car, sald Will appreciatively. | isn't she We stood looking at it proudly like | valedictorian ~when | parents of the she’s making her speech. The glass shone Jike diamonds in the sun, and | the little flowers made it look like a | limousine. Will was going to drive, so I just settled down to enjoy myself. | We hadn't gone father than the top of the hill on the Verblen road when Will slowed down. “Gosh, the engine’s hot" he exclatm- ed. “Wonder if the fan belt's slipped.” He stopped and got out and looked in the hood. The fan was working all right. He drove a little farther, then he stopped agatn, and locked at me accusingly. “Did u put lots of water in the radiator?” he demanded. “Oh, my soul!” I gasped. gotten all about the water. put in a drop! We just crept along to the nearest farmhouse, where Will got some water, and all the ¢ he acted so aggrieved at me. “You said you'd done everything,” he kept repeating. “I did everything but that,” I said. ‘And that’s the only thing that amounts to anything at all. You can't run an engine on & pretty vase of flowers.” I thought of how hot I had got polishing the windows and brushing out the cushions, and there Will sat saying that didn't amount to anything. It occurred to me for the first time since I was married that Will was not very understanding and appreci- ative. But that was as nothing to the next day. I was going to take the car out alone for the first time. Will got it out of the garage for me before he left in the morning and he looked it over, putting water in the radiator in a very conspicuous way, then came back into the house. Now she’s all ready to start,” he said, as though he were speaking to a child. “And don't forget to take off your brake when you start. There’s plenty of gas and water “Don't talk as though I didn't know enough not to carry packages by the string,” I said. “Just because I made a trifing mistake once.” “It's enough of those ‘trifing mis- takes’ that will ruin an engine,” sald Will. “And I 'm not going to have iy engine ruined.” “Your engine!” I repeated. “I should think it wes part mine. It was & wedding present to us both.” “Well, I'm not going to have my half of it ruined by stupid driving,” said WIIL._ “Ether you've got to learn to drive the car right of you've got to let it alone.” “Well, of all the nerve!” I gasped. But Will gave me a strange look and walked off without saying another word. I couldn’t get that look out of my head, and the more I thought of it and his saying what I had to do the more furious it made me. All the time I was making the beds and doing the breakfast dishes I was thinking of what I would say to him when he came home. I thought of different retorts, some cutting and some just coldly bitter. Finally, I thought of a dandy. It combined them all. It was cutting and inde- pendent and cold and bitter all in one remark. I kept saying it over to myself as I got dressed to go, and the more I sald it the better I liked it. I could hardly wait till Will got home! T kept thinking of it with angry satisfaction as I climbed into the car and started the engine, said it over in & whisper to myself as I took off the brake. I remembered that strange look of Will's as I threw in a lot of gas and 1 had for- I badn't Ancient Fashions. PEARLS from the Ohio mound hoards show that the ancient In- dians who built them and accumu- lated the jewels found in them were as fastidious as modern jewelers about their quality, according to Dr. Waliter Hough of the United States National Museum. They used only perfectly shaped pearls, rejecting even -the barogque that receive at least minor tavor from Europeans. —e Atmosphere Weight. ABOL'T seven-elghths (by weight) of the atmosphere lies below a| height of 10.2 miles. This is about the upper limit of water vapor and clouds in the tropics. About three-fourths (by weight) of the atmosphere les be- low a height of 6.8 miles, —— angrily pushed her into low. I guess ed that answer would look at'me like that! * ok x X HERE was a lot of gas on and the car started forward with a lurch I turned the wheel out toward the street. A cold panic of terror struck me suddenly and my heart seemed to stop beating. The car did not turn at all, the steering wheel whirled loose ly in my hand. Wil had not unlocked the thief-proof lock! The steering gear was not connected with the wheels. I twisted and turned it. T tried wildly to think how Lo stop the engine. and 1 couldn't think. The terror of it drove everything out my head. I was heading straight for an iron took foot off the pedal Suddenly the engine stopped. groped for the brake, but it was too late. The bumper hit the iron nost on the end, I felt the seat tip up and {1 slid off into the floor, crashing my head against the door. The car had gone off into the ditch and turned over. Taking my foot off the pedal just as I had happened to shut off the gas had killed the engine just in time to save my life. I sat up. unable to believe that I wasn't dead. I heard some one scream- ing. Dulcte and Mrs. Long came run- ning out of Dulcle’s house toward me. “Oh, Dot, are you killed?” I heard Dulcie's frightened voice. “Jimmie, run down quick and get Will Horton, { tell him Dot’s had a terrible accident. Run quick.” Jimmie started off on a dead scared run. Mrs. Long, shaking all over, came and opened the door that open. ed straight into the air. I climbed out, shaking pretty hard myseif. My head ached like mad, but I didn't seem to be hurt at all. The car wasn't hurt, either, except that it would have to be turned over and have W him not to | 2l I climbed up and stuck my head | | out of the upper door. i | A SHOCKED TONE. the bumper straightened. I could hardly walk: I kept shaking harder | every minute, so Dulcle and Mrs | Long got hold of my arms and helpe me into the house. I lay down on our {living-room davenport. Both mother | and Mother Horton had gone to the | Ossili picnie, so Dulcie and Mrs. Long £ot me cold cloths for my heag. | “Just lie still. honey,” Dulcie said. | “Don’t_try to talk. ~We'll stay till Will gets here ¢ still, with the cold cloth on my head. Dulcie and Mrs. Long sat across the room talking in low volces, “Oh, dear.” Mrs. Long was saying, “and to think I used to think it was dangerous to drive a horse and buggy! I remember when I was learning to harness old Dolly—Joe wouldn't let me learn to drive till I'd learned to harness her myself—and a bee stung her and she kicked me. Joe was scared to death. We'd just been | married and he was crazy about me. | He thought I'd been killed.” | I lay there, my head thumping, my | mind going over and over Mrs. Long's | words. Mrs. Long young, learned to | drive a horse and bugsy, Mr. Long fussing about the harnessing, me learning to drive a car, Will fussing { about the engine. It S queer to | have something reach down all those | years and connect up old Mrs. Long and me. Oh, there'’s mors than just | the “Mrs.” that's alike for all mar- | | riea women. | “Joe was scared to death—he was crazy about me. He thought I'd been killed.” Will would be scared, t So Mr. Long had used to be cri about Mrs. Long—I thought of the way he had looked at her that night of our housewarming, as though he hated her. A queer cold chill swept over me, the same feeling that I had had when I saw the iron post rush- ing toward me. For I suddenly recall ed the way Will had looked at me that morning. It was a faint, faint copy, but it was that same kind of look Perhaps that was the way Mr. Long first began to look at his wife. ago, when he was still crazy about her. And following instantly came the cutting, bitter, icy remark I had been saving up to say to Will. It was al most the kind of thing Mrs. Long would say to Joe. * % % % ] BEGAN to cry under the cold com- press where thev couldn’t see me T could hear the little wedding clock ticking. Oh, the idea that ever 1 might listen to the little clock tick— alone! “Here comes Wil Dulcie hurried to the door. I heard the thud of run ning feet up the path. <! isn't hurt! Don’t look like that, Will! It's all right. Don't look like that! I guess Mrs. Long and Dulcie went ht away—I don’t know. I tried sit up, but I was still shaky, and moment Will and I were both crying. We sat and talked a long time, Will's arm tight around me, my hand clinging tight to his, the little clock tick-tic the man “Doll,” said WIll solemnly, n I think what might have happened to you—to have had to remember all my | long | | life the way I went away this morn- | ing—oh, Dolli* He shuddered and helJ | me tighter. ‘ell,” 1 said, “from now on, as long as I live, no matter what hap pens, I'm golng to try always to be | polite to vou.” | “I'll always try to be polite to ¥o { too, Doll,” aid Will solemnly. ce a funny promise, but solemn as the one wea | made the night of the house warming {and, somehow, it's more practica Mar ses have I remembered it in that have followed. I would be all ready to say something and 1 would think of Mrs. Long ha nessing up her horse and buggy. the way he: 1d looks at her now, 1 would hear our little clock ticking and I'd just shut up { Wil has been the dearest thing in | the world—he feels it was his fault no? to have unlocked the steering wheel, {and he says I can smash the whole car and he won't have any kick if I just don't hurt myself. It's a heavenly scling we have for each other and | I decided n any strain T don't | have to r 1 never let Wil gis another lesson on the car, mary to teach me, and I'm a fine driver. as I said before, how ‘makes you understand women, how it makes ‘ou feel older. I have always felt | that anything you'd call a crisis, for | instance, belonged to people a million years older than us. And yet, I've | talked about Will's teaching me to | drive to lots of other married women, | and, old and young, all those who have | been taught by their own husbands | agree that we have passed one of the | crises of our married life. (Coprright. 1925.) |it was just being married other married School System Factor in D. C. Growth (Continued from First Page.) of, had drawn its loowely spread unit together into a definite organism which had functioned coherently to promote the welfare of its children. But it was not until a few months before Lincoln was elected that this| decisive step was taken. Even then, although teaching was beginning to be recognized as a profession and although the W ganized “The Columbia Association” for their own improvement, and no less a person than Josenh Henry, the first head of the Smithsonian Insti- tution and the Capital's leading intel- lectual light, accepted the presidency, the current sluggishly and often settled into con- fused back-eddies. Music_instruction for example, after having been begun, was stopped for lack of funds. Night schools were started but it was vears before there were superintendents of these classes or any but elementary instruction. There was no instruc- tion in drawing. Very few school- houses were built; classes were held in basements of churches and other buildings unsuited for use. Appro- priations never went above six per cent of the city expenditures; and while the percentage of children in school increased, it was only from twenty-five per cent to fifty-two. One result of this was the rowdyism among boys; gangs infested many localities that uctually inspired fear. Toward one class of her children Washington had not even considered she had a duty. One quarter of her population, by this time, was of color- ed people.” Part of these were slaves, part freedmen; the proportion of the free-colored was rapidly - increasing because the tax on slaves of the non- resident made it often cheaper to free them. * ok ok % 'WITH the approach of the Civil War ‘Washington began to be the great experiment station of the Aboll- tionist element. Lincoln, when he was & member of Congress in 1849, attempted the most valuable and constructive work. His plan was to remove negro slavery from the seat of government, compensating those ‘who voluntarily freed their slaves, and with sane plans for the preparation for free industry of the manumitted men. Before submitting the bill, Lincoln cnferred with Mayor Seaton, as the representative of the bhetter element among the slaveholding class. But the general opposition in the Dis- trict forced the mayor to withdraw his support, and the bill was after- ward defeated in Congress. Although an overwhelming majority of Washingtonians were Southern sympathizers, the Abolitionist element in Congress took a hand in District politics, and theirs was the whip hand. Contributions for the colored people from anti-slavery organizations all over the country began to pour into Wash- ington. Moreover, some of the free negroes had acquired property. Since the white people did net provide schools for colored children, the more advanced of their own race attempted to deal with the situation by opening classes, usually in some church or fraternal society room. The Abolitionists ran J. Sayles Bowen for mayor with a plank in his platform advocating the admission of the free colored to the public schools. This movement falled, but a short time later a school t6 teach colored girls was opened in Washington by the agency of a Northern white woman, Miss Myrtilla Minar. The founder died in 1865, but her hold on the affections of the coigred people is perpetuated in the name of the Myrtilla Minor Nor- mal School. The death of Lincoln was a tragedy [y shington teachers or- | of advance flowed but | jto the District whose vastness is only | just beginning to be appreciated. For | while Andrew Johnson held to the! very letter of Lincoln's reconstruction policy in so far as it had been formu- lated, the very rigility of his ad- herence was his undoing—and the un- doing of the South and Washington as well. Ew e HE two major elements of John- son’s stubbornly held reconstruc- tion policy were: Readmission of the seceding states to the Union without penalty as soon as there should be a loyal nucleus to request admission; each State to determine for itself whether it would admit the negroes to the sufferage. Whether, even had | Johnson not conceived it his sole duty to enforce the principle his great predecessor had lald down, his nature would bave allowed him to compro- mise as Lincoln would undoubtedly have done—yleld a small issue to gain a great one—one cannot say. But, with respect to the District as to the seceding States, his unwillingness io force’ negro suffrage on the District — which had_gone overwhelmingly against it—6,591 to 35—merely pre- cipitated the measure. The question of negro education then became the storm center. To the negro population, always large, were being added colored refugees from all over the South and Southwest, flocking as to sanctuary to the Capital, where Father Abraham had made them free. All attempts to distribute them over the country failed. While some of the more fortunate of their own race made efforts to aid them, the burden of their support and control and training was thrown upon the white people of what was still little more than a large southern town. That it was not only advisable, but essential, that these peopie should have training to fit them for citizen- ship is past discussion. Not being individually responsible for the bills for that education, Congressmen were free to grasp the loftier principles. Influenced by the negroes’ too op- timistic estimate of their own weaith, Congress demanded that the District furnish schools and instruction for colored children proportionate in cost to the taxes upon this hypothetical property. The District authorities countered with proof that the actual assessable property of the negroes was but a small fraction of the congres- sional estimate, and that it was unjust that a white population already im- poverished by the war should have this additional burden laid upon them. Congress retaliated by making an ap- propriation for bullding two negro schools, but imposing upon the Dis- trict the cost of maintaining a num- ber of teachers proportionate to the colored puplls. A second appropria- tion of ten thousand for school build- ings for colored was added later. This was the first direct appropria- tion ever made by Congress for the District schools. It is one of the constantly recurring Ironies of existence that it was in or- der to secure its own way that Con- gress at last assumed a share of the financial responsibilities of the Dis- trict schools. For this appropriation made a precedent which it would be impossible in the future to disregard. But there was no statement as to the ratio of responsibility. And just as an individual cannot be considered a responsible citizen of the community until he has so recognized and adjust- ed the relation between his just obli- gations and his resources as to be in- dependent of all save the laws of that community, so the community itself cannot be considered a city until it has organized itself upon a definitely rec- ognized balance between obligations and resources, But, again, the course of events was to force the hand of Congress in a manner extraordinarily like the di- lemma an injudicious parent some- times finds himself in. * k% THE vears immediately following the war began a period of great industrial expansion and prosperity There was a demand for big houses. A grateful Nation presented a hou; to Gen. Grant. Up to this time few of the congressional or official people owned houses in the Capital. But now the demand began to grow. What had been the outlying parts of the city were cleared and built upon. However determined to hold the ree- idents accountable for every defect Congress might be. it could not well evade the fact that L'Enfant’s plan for the city, the separation by a mile and a half of the two centers of gov- ernment, the Capitol and the White House, together with the unusual wedge of branching avenues and the recurrence of circles, made a street surface of such unusual extent that a community of the size of Washington could hardly be expected to finance the grading and resurfacing that were absolutely necessary. By this time there were 1 .y influ- ential citizens of more than local im portance interested in improving the deplorable street conditions. Thus it happened that the strongest part of the city organization, territorial that brief period, was the Board of Public Works, and of that board, vice president and executive officer, was a contractor and builder named Shep- herd—*Boss"” Shepherd, as he after- ward became known. Shepherd dominated not only the board, but the whole local government. ‘With driving power so concentrated on speed that he accomplished miracles—even though details some- times got away from him; thinking in sums so.huge that the little men almost died of fear just to hear the fi ures; Shepherd hurled the timid Di trict into deeds so vast tuat the rash- est might well have trembled. All of the central portion of the city, between the Mall and P street and New Jer- sey and New Hampshire avenues, v on the firing line; 118 miles of city streets were being dug up and paved | with asphalt or wooden blocks, and 39 miles of country road improved; uniform street levels established; sew erage and drainage installed. Digni- fled lady pedestrians with long and voluminous skirts had desperate times descending into gullles and climbing banks. No such operations have ever been undertaken at one time in any city of the known world with the possible exception of Paris in the Sec- ond Empire. And the whole campaign was practically carried through in 18 months. Not in the least did Shepherd ex- pect that residents of the District could, without bankruptcy, pay the $8,500,000, which was the cost of the enterprise. Not at a time when a million was about the largest unit in which men thought! He was a modern business man in that he be- lieved fervently in debt. He expected Congress to assume the debt. And Congress now assumed the huge obli- gation with practically no opposition. It is possible that the abolishment of the territorial government in 1874 and the substitution of the present gov- ernment by commission of three mem- bers appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, may have been as salve to the senatorial feel- ings, as also an increase in the tax rate from two to three dollars a hun- dred. Thus was the principle of Federal sharing of the expenses of Washing- ton established. While, at the mo- ment, no definite proportien was fixed a for | as the just contribution, shortly aft- erward the Federal share was placed at 40 per cent. This was a little less than the ratio of Government to pri- vate property at that time; the Gov | ernment property, with the exception of the streets, being rated at $66 7,000, while private prope: was ued at $96,000,000. But this did | not_take into account the value, as well us the enormous cost of upkeep of the streets, maintained, as all would admit, for the whole Nation quite as muchas for Washingtontans. There- | fore, in 1878, th aring of expenseq | of the Federal City on a 50-50 principle was enacted into a law. From the point where the Capital could know with some degree of cer- ainty what resources it could reckon | with, it has gone forward to a mate | vial splendor that could hardly have | been conceived even by .those early patriots who were endowed i vision; a dignity that symbolizes | fluence as yet unguessed, At all events |it can certainly at last be sald to be, leven apart from the Government | housed there, a city—a going organi | zation that its bills, protects its | citizens—in so far as any Amerlcan | city does so, and hugs to is soul the beauty in which it dwells Moreover—since what we are con- cerned with the making of man compared with whose potentiality the vastness of cities Is no more than a child's house to a child—from that {time the fusing the people hasy gone forwurd step by step. Since the anomalous position of Washing- | ton does not allow its citizens to have a voice in its own or national affairs the instinct for self-government in herent in the American strain has cen tered on the schools | Thus, the one clear thread that has {led through much that seemed irrele. vant is proved to have marked a course. 1In following it the Capital has become a city. For there is no | such tking as chance. How can we how much of the upbuilding of what the world is beginning to say |is the most beuutiful of all cities | came to pass because a group of men lin a wretched hamlet conceived the |idea of offering a free education to more than their own children? s0 Humidity Tests. | THAT the human body, in a state of rest and in stll air, cannot en dure indefinitely a temperature high er than 90 degrees Fahrenhelt with 100 per cent relative humidity has been determined by the Department of Interior investigators at the Pitts burgh experiment station of the Bu reau of Mines, co-operating with the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers. In the course of the tests it was noted that the heavier and stouter men of the experiments, when sub Jected to uncomfortably hot tempera * tures, lost more weight than the lighter and thinner men, but as a rule could endure such temperatures for a longer perfod and complained less of the exhaustion which followed Loss of weight in the subjects exper imented with gradually increased with an increase in atmospheric tempera ture. Whenever the subject drank fce water he immediately gained in weight, and in all cases the subject within 24 hours usually rogained the entire weight lost. Subjects who drank ice water freely after exposure to high temperatures feit no ill ef- fects, tending to disprove the assump- tion that such action develops severe cramps. The pulse rate rather than the rise in bodily temperature appa¥- ently determines the extent of the discomfori experienced by the subgect,