Evening Star Newspaper, November 15, 1925, Page 104

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. ANNA MARTIN BY BERTHE K. MELLETT After Ten Years of Alaskan Hardships, She Had Saved the Money to Fpllow Her Dream to Athens, Paris and Rome. HERE was nothing pretty about Anna Martin except her hands 1nd they were not pretty, they were heautiful. The man who had arrived on the hoat which anly that morning came to anchor In the roadstead of Nome saw her hands as they lay upon the ledge of an onen window in the schoolhouse sand-pit, and caught his breath Firm across the palms, long and strong in the fingers, unmarred by ten Alaskan Winters, they were the white hands of a woman who has recelved no niggardly gifts from Na- ture. As he looked from the hands the: woman, some of their beauty seemed to run through the tall, slim hody which held itself rigidly in the window opening and to suffuse the of her fine, pinched features. it was not the man’s seru tiny which warmed and almost beauti fied the face of Anna Martin. She had not noticed (he eager searching f his aves toward her. Her whole at rtion on the her whole mind was filled wita the thopzhr that the Aezean. and not Bering, would dance and flash before her when an other Sprinz arrived. Had she looked from an opposite window in the corrugated iron temple of Jearning over which she presided, she could have seen the tundra. But Anna did not look at the tundra. She hated it. Winter and Summer for 10 ears she had hated ft. Up to that norning she had hated everything wut the north. including the sea. Then suddenly. interrupting a strug 2le to teach the voung Eskimo idea spell. she_had heard = hoat histle in the roadstead—ihe first hoat of the vear. No longer was the universe of ‘glass piled hetween nd the things she meant to have path toward those, things—a her to travel. The product of 10 vears' school-teaching in the north and of 10 vears' judicious in- vestment in the residue of gold left on the hedrock of placer-worked creeks lay in the bank. September would bring the new teacher from the States. October would mean for Anna Martin the Pacific, Seattle. hotels and trains. After that, Rome, Athens, Parix, a2 pension somewhere—the full fruits of spinsterhood after lean and vears. SHE had the les: than 10 when the door at the far end of the building opened amd little Waluk Johannsen came in. Turninz back to her desk, she sat down and watched rather grimly as this morsel of native humanity stumbled up the aisle, despair writ- ten all over his dark little pie of a face, the while he fumbled in the folds of his tentlike garment and finally brought forth a crescent of carven walrus ivory—a treasure, as she knew well. “The cribbage-board of my uncle,” he blubbered, “for Ticher if she will say over the white puppy the medicine of seven times." Miss Martin recognized the ivory as representing the past Winter's work of a certain crafty Eskimo. However short she might fall on ths side of sentimentality over her pupils, Miss Martin gave full measure in moral discipline. She issued an order for Waluk to return the cribbage-board to its manufacturer. A wail resulted. The cribbage-board of his uncle was rightful indemnity to him. Walu Having all but laid hold on the incred- ible sum of $10 offered for -the puppy by a tourist lady from the steamer, “the thrice undesirable rela- tive had interposed with a demand for twenty, and thus lost all. For during the argument which ensued a wander- 2 malamute leaped upon the small puppy. damaging it so materfally that even'the original offer was withdrawn! If the unwanted uncle had minded his own business, would not the $10 have been Waluk's? So, if “Ticher” would Dlease begin at once with the medicine of seven—. “You will return the cribbage-board diately.” interrupted Miss Martin. for asking me to make some hedhen exorcism— But it was only icher had said a medicine with glib- ness to amaze even Waluk, * ‘Seven times one are seven,’ she had sald. ‘Seven times two are—'" A laugh ran through the narrow metal building, and Miss Martin, look- inz up to freeze it at its source, felt an unexplainable glow come over her. A man stood in the door, his broad, stooped shoulders making a silhouette, at once young and weary against the light “There is gray lauzhs like a Doy, the ansterity However path for heen at window minutes vesterday that in his hair, but he Miss Martin caught herself thinking. And so oddly import- ant did the facts of his hair and his laughter seem that it was not until he came down the aisle, -bestowed $10 npon Waluk and conducted the aston- ished young man through the door, that she remembered her original in tention toward him “You shouldn’t have done that,” she began, sharply, but her tongue faltered into a new and gentle note. tions do the Eskimos no good. The man slid into a chair beside her desk. “I didn’t want to do him sood.” he said. “I wanted him to be happy— and 1o zet out. I saw vou, standing at the window, and it came to me sud denly that school teachers were like priests—you could talk to them. I've Tieen looking all over the world for a woman 1 could talk to. Your hands— there’s something that makes me re member the cverlasting merey, in vour hands, and I need—I need—-" He leaned forward with his head 1pon his arms on the desk, like a child who, after unchildish wandering and vigil, finds hom> and comforting. Above him Anna Martin's face was as Deautiful as her hands. * Kok ¥ [* was not untl the Queen safled \in for the States that Anna Jnew Wandell Phelps was staving in Nome. She had heard the boat whis- tlinz belated passengers aboard, and i zone to a pindow in the school which looked er the tundra. She had chosen that window because she could mot bear to see the ship's de- artu 3ut_she heard the las lizhter leave the beach, heard voices calling, heard the engines in tie boat it got under way—heard the lighter veturning. Then, when everything was over, she looked behind her—and saw him standing in the door, looking at her wistfully I didn't go,” he said as he came toward her. She got to her desk, and he slipped again into the chair heside it. : “I didn't go.” he repeated agai. “T didn’t go.” She sorted some papers, and evened up a pile of books that stood before her. “I-—""-he be aver “That first day T said I wanted to talk to vou. But I didn't talk ta you. If.you knew me better, vou'd understand. You'd understand ihat although I always want to do the | for 10 ve right thing—and 1 always do .the wrong thing. 1 ought to have been married, years ago, to some clear- thinking virago who could handle a rolling-pin_intelligently. And I shouldn’t have had the money I've had. The fact that the money Is gone now is of no conseul\;n nl!‘:el.d damage has been done. If all 1'd ever ad In the world had been some back- breaking job and about seventeen kids. I'd have been as good a citizen as the on| | eves. next one. - And and—and now I—I—I—am He looked up and for just a she saw him as he was. She saw passionate, weak mouth. the line of cheek and jaw too near beauty for a man. Then the revelation was with. drawn and its memory effaced. He touched her clasped hand: Anna,” he said. “marry me. me and hold me with those wonderful hands. Make me go A woman with hands like yours has a thousand strengths to hold and guide a man. Use those strengths for me. Marry me—-" Trembling, she got up and went to the little mirror in the cloakroom Warmth lay over every feature of the face reflected there. 1t was as though # lamp. once dark and forbidding. had heen lighted and rendered lovely. A thousand strengths—he said 1 woman like her had a thousand strengths But had she? And if she had. would she know how to use them? The har ren years.behind her, the grim and lonely and unlovely years, rose like zhosts zibbering disaster. * ko * €] CAN'T,” she said when she came back to him. “I can’t—until I'm sure. “But, Anna,” he pleaded, “it's the only way you'll ever be sure. A mo- ment azo I said I should have married a virago. I meant it. 1 mean it now. It's because 1 see strength and straight thinking in you. and even a latent shrewishness, that I'm begging you to marry me. “l can’t she repeated I couldn’t take happiness, and then zive it up sracefully. 1'd he afraid of myself of what T would do He went to a window inz out for a moment back * his manner had think I'll leave Nome.” he id. b think I'll go on to the new strike at Copper Entrance up near the Cana- dian’border.” Jealously of the distance to Copper Intrance suddenly assailed her with bitterness. “Why?" she asked, sharply. He studied her face for a moment. “My dear girl,” he “for the sume reason that people once stampeded to Dawson, and later to Nome. Gold Having spe.t my patgimony—" “Nome is still a safe investment. The wildcat days are over here. e liable people hold all the property—— “They certainly do. All of it. nditions were the same when I came 10 aRo. But 1 found op- portunities.to buy in, and now I have money enough to keep me for the rest of my life. This Fall another teacher is coming to take mv place, and then I am going——" She hesitated with the familiar catalogue—Rome, Athens, Paris, a pension some place, on her lips. “And in the repetition of four words she reconstructed her future. “—and then I am going to use my influence to make Nome more profit- able for you than Copper Entrance could ever have been.” “Anna.” he said, “you are making a mistake. If vou'd marry me, it would be 'different. T—I should be afraid of your rollingpin.” e laughed a short, nervous. tormented laugh, and once more the laok of trouble and appeal shot from his eyes to hers. “You could use the thousand strengths you have to hold me and keep me straight until I learned to g0 right of my own accord. A woman like you won't use those strengths un- less she's married to a man. Another kind of woman might—but you—vyou never would. However, if you want me—if vou want me here—" He stooped to kiss her hands, and she' drew one of them away and laid it upon his head. Once she had read of a mother who after long vears knew the child she had lost. It must have been by some such aching of the heart. by some such searching, enveloping pain and joy. * ox ok ox now I've seen you, flash and stood look When he came changed. 1 NNA did not recognize selfishness in Wandell's demands upon_her. To her his selfishness was not selfish ness. It was as the insistent and rightful claim of a child upon its mother. The only reason for her re- fusal was that the ghosts of unloved and unlovely vears stood behind her, croaking that the demand would not last, could not last, and that the claim would be withdrawn. Standing at her mirror and seeing the bloom of beauty which love -had grafted upon the austere stem of her slenderness and health and regularity of feature, gave her only hope and not assurance. Caution and self-preservation were lifelong habits. She had to know the permanence of the gift which had brought her love before she accepted the love irrevocably. Wandell spent the long, light eve nings of the summer in her cabin on the beach, appropriating her time, her wing-back chair and her attention with equal complacency. He made boxes to set on her window ledges and planted lettuce in them—and came and ate the salad they produced. He took charge of her appearance, and dictated her clothes. Rummaging through the HE BESTOWED TEN DOLLARS UPO! WALUK. general stores of Nome, he found a phasize the blackness of her hair and When Winter came again, at his suggestion, she gave away the hard. conventional garments which ars she had worn as a chal- lenge and example to the Arctic world, and clad herself in mottled deerskin, softened at face and wrists with wolverine. But it was not until she brought the white puppy of Waluk Johannsen into the cabin that her metamorphosis was complete. For 10 The | years she had waged unrelenting war upon the dogs of Nome, shooing them from school and cabin. “It's the puppy you paid for that day—grown up,’ the | Wandell when he came to help her get the animal over the sill. “I made Waluk give her up.” | Wandell dropped gn' his knee: side the dd “shfs a heauty prononnced appreciatively. “T thought maybe we'd team.” “There’s a mey’s place that Tomorrow I'll run can make a deal.” It did not occur to her to ask when he had been at Helmey's disreputable roadhouse. And after Helmey's husky was obtained, it did not occur to her to question why the team grew slowly, dog by dog. one at a time, after trips that took him away without her. in stead of in u lot which would have co-ordinated their training * * x late in_ February the team had rown to fifteen, and when Wan- dell " sngzested two more, she ac quiesced. It was morning when he left with the fifteen dogs to find the others, nd by evening he had not returned. Anna stood at her window looking out. The Winter had not long to live now. Already the sun, spin- ning over the crystal horizon, threw itself nearer to the zenith with every effort. In March would come a smell Into the air, as of the earth emerging from the snow. It would be Spring and she would marry Wandell. She wi ure now In the morning when he came she would tell him that she was sure. be- he make up a white dog out at Hel I think will match. out and see if I Next morning when the phone rang she flew to tell Wandell this incon testable festimony of the passing of Winter RBut it was not Wandell call ing It was Svensrud, sheriff and director of the bank: Svensrud who, ont of all Nome, would admit no change in Anna. She had always been the hest-looking woman in Nome, next to Helga, his wife, he insisted Now his phone message was character- istically blunit. “Phelps’ company’s by he said, “and he's copped what was loose and th our stenographer at the Evvie Holt. They left yester- dog team Anna heard no more. she hung up the phone, strangling vensrud's voice with a click. De liberately she crossed the room and sat down. The red slow in the stove darkened. the phone rang—rang again. The door opened and a drift of snow blew in. It was Svensrud. “Either your phone’s gone blooey, or vou're deaf,” he began. “I've been calling all morning. Phelps has flew the coop, and I'm hit bad. I loaned the money at the bank to buy in with Walstad. . Walstad was a fool. of course, to hike out and leave a new man to run his show all Winter. But that don't help now. The company's done. Where the money's gone, heaven knows. But it's gone—" “You loaned Phelps that money on my recommendation. I didn’t even sign_the note." “Now, look here, Anna, don't shouldering the load. I was taken in. He looked all right and when I cabled Frisco they said his family was good and his credit was still 0. K “You're honest. nd now vou pected to pay for his dishonesty.’ “I'm not squealing—not for myself. But—well, you sce, Helga and me, we've saved for vears. gHelgza's had a woman’s notion about a little orange nch down in Pasadena County some day. We've got about enough to buy that—or to meet the loss on Phelps to the bank. And if T know Helza, she'll empty the old poke—" x down Deliberately e ex * suddenly on the “I've been up all night over his books,” he said in explanation of his weaknes And I hate to tell Helga that her little ranch——" “I've got some money.” Anna said sat couch. in a dull hard voice. “I've worked and saved. I wanted to see Rome, and Athens and Paris. Then—then 1 chanzed my mind for a while. Now I've changed it again. I'll take up that note. Helga sha'n't lose—" “Not on your eternal tin-type! Svensrud roared. “Helga's got me. 1 earned enough to buy a ranch once I can do it again. But you're a wom. an alone. That’s why I didn’t get you on that note before. It looked good, but I wasn’t taking chances with a lone woman's money. And by cracky, you're not going to lose it now.” “I know where he's gone,” Ann: “That's no good.” Svensrud sat down again and pulled his face through his hands. “He won't have any of the money left. Evvie's a daisy at salting down.” “They've got the white puppy for leader,” Anna went on. “But if vour dog team—of course it would eliminate you from the sweepstakes—" “Sweepstake But what's the good of lighting out after spent money? Cvvie'll never give up a cent, and he won't have any to give up—not in her company.” ) “Are you going to let Wandell said | Phelps get away with what he's trying can, halted and started |soft scarf of the shade of red to em-to do?" . | “T'll broadcast a description— **And warn him he's wanted! Every prospector’s dugout in Alaska and Canada has a radio set in it, and he's no fool. He’'ll be listening in.” She rose from the floor where she had been coaxing a flame into the fire. “He is on his way to Copper Entrance. He's had the place in mind for nearly a year. And now, with the rush open- ing up there, he's gone.” “I'll get word to the sheriff there.” “Dog_ trains have been established | between Copper Entrance and the Canadian side, and old timers are stampeding from every direction. No | going to be able to pick him out. 1f Phelps lands in Copper Entrance and | finds they're after him he'll simply take one of the returning teams and | drop over the border.” Svensrud went to the window. “I'm | not sending men out at this season of I'the vear,” he said doggedly. *It will start thawing at any time. 1t Nome thought T was the kind of sheriff that'd deputize men wholesale to go chasing off and get buried under ava lanches, or step into spring holes and die alone on the trail of frozen Yeet, It guessed wrong, that's all. I don't hate any man bad enough for that.” “I'm not asking you to send men I'm asking you to send me.” “You!" “Then 1'll 20 without heing se settle my score ontside the i He started at her. Then suddenly his jaw sagged. “All right,” he sald Svensrud was heaten. He swore Ann in as a deputy that morning and gave her a warrant When the team was hitched he said good-bye and stood back, listening as she called to her leader and swung her whip. He saw the sledge jerk from the rut into which it had settled, saw her fall into the trot of the mush. er beside it—saw her fade into the 08. - 4 Land * % x % the road-house reached that tor’s .wife palr who hours before. "Me him™ jerked quent thumb towards the of which Anna night, the proprie- voluble concerning gone was a had on twenty-four and <he an elo partner loneliness her hadn® figured on no rush to the new strike starting hefore the river opened.” She took a pitcher from many wrappings behind the stove and poured white. sour batter in spots upon a griddle. “Guess vou're headed there. though. eh? Yesterday, two more went by. T'll bet if there's money at Copper Entrance or any- where else, that woman is headed for it. You can tell women like that by one look. The man was qulet, though. Of course you ain't sald you was going to Copper Entrance—"" “I'll make an early start tomorrow,’ said Anna, disregarding the invitation to confide. “I'll get my own break fast if you'll leave things ready.” Light snow fell in the night, and the wind sweeping over it obliterated any tracks which might have been left on’ the trail. Traveling by"map and compass over the old mail route Anna reached Jensen's store at the junction of the Yukon and the Koyokuk. Ole was away on his round of traps, but the door was unlocked and spruce was piled behind his stove. Anna afe, opening tins of Jensen’s salmon for her dogs: slept, rolled in the wolverine rug on the floor: and departed three hours after midnight, leaving money, to cover damage done, in the till. Another gold piece was alreatly there. Aside from that there were no signs of previous visitors. Out from the flats of Nome and through the light timber back of the sea-coast, traveling had been swift and easy. Now the forest thickened. and the barrier of the river threatened her. To cross the river she unloaded the sled and drove it empty over the wilderness of jammed and tumbled ice. Then, returning, she recrossed again with her goods upon her back. Reloading again. she faced the moun- tains. The untracked trail lifted it self in angles, ittered itself Into abysses. As the days passed and the wind left its work undone, she saw the cut of sledze runners, the mingled prints of dogs, the outline of hoot-soles. Fear that Phelps had eluded her on the road gave way to fear that she should overtake him before she reached the sistance necessary to enforce her 1l and the law's upon him. It be came necessary to hold her dogs back. Her nerves began to shriek. Food nauseated her. Her hand shook so that she upset the melted snow for tea upon the fire she had buflt, and after that she took to nibbling the dry leaves of the herb, and to eating the frozen moisture around her as did the dogs. By map and chronom- eter she computed the time she had yet to spend upon the road. The journey was almost done. Sitting upon her sledge in the darkness she pulled at the neck band of her parka to ease the pressure outward that throbbed in her throat. A wind was rising, but her mind, intent upon her pain, failed to notice it. Then a spruce swayed—and she saw a light ahead. It was a camp fire, not more than two miles distant. She had all but come upon her quarry. A chinook wind was blowing. The thawer, the looser of avalanches, the breaker of ice and destrover of trails had come! By dawn, travelers would sink to their knees in slush, dogs would strain against immovable weights. Roused by presence of dis- aster, Anna gathered twigs for a flare and studied the map. The trail she followed had fallen into a narrow canyon for the final step to Copper Entrance in the mountains. On the margin of the paper Svensrud had drawn an elongated arrow, and at the head of the arrow he had written, “Dangerous. Snow Slides. Keep Away." ok ¥ MUDGING the black letters that she might not read them, Anna called the dogs. Taking the last few fish from the end of the sledge, she threw them out. The team leaped and ate and stood. She got the harness on and started. F Either the pain of Anna's body was gone, or it had mounted beyond the register of her nerves, like heat which a thermometer can no longer record. Her mind began to perform tricks. Wandell seemed to walk with her, laughing because the color in her cheeks was brighter than the red of the scarf she wore. There was'a vast, sharp moaning in the alr. Loosing one hand from Its mitten, she thrust it into her pocket for tea leaves, and ate them greedily out of her palm. The acrid taste was good. Brushing the herb-dust from her hand, she looked at the long, strong fingers. Some one had said that a woman with such hands must have a thousand strengths. What good was strength? There was a girl named Evvie Holt and she was weak. Her hands, her body, her heart—pale and weak. Yet she had taken Helga's little ranch and—what was it Svensrud had saild —salted it down. And she had taken too, the soul of a woman with a thou- sand strengths, and flicked it out of her path. Weakness and not strength {spun the world. Weakness— Then suddenly the mind of Anna { Martin cleared. The sound in the air | was the shrieking and bellowing of the whole ice rim of the pass as it tore loose from its roots of frost and started down the sharp side of the mountain. Her consclousness righted itself and began to function. Calling to the dogs, who turned and tangled themselves in their harness, she brought them flat in the snow. Then, gauging the time left her, she straight- ened herself, filled her lungs, and screamed. Once, twice, three times she sent out a cry for help, keyed to such a shrill pitch that it rose above the thunder that filled the air. And she lauzhed toward sheriff who doesn't know a man I with a consclousness above any pro-: NOVEMBER 1 9, 1925—PART 5. HER MIND SWUNG INTO A KIND OF VOLUPTUOUS COMA, WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT HE WAS COMING—TO HER. cess of her mind, she sent it towards Wandell on the trail ahead of her. A spume of white flattened in the air above her. Flinging herself along the ice side of the sled, she gave herself to its cover.~ The snow slide came on piling & range of snow along b sides of ils course, zathering spr and rock and flinging them again The sled leaped against the hard pack of snow around it as the dogs strug gled and fought. The weight of snow above Anna increased. but it held co. hesively together as though its par ticles were interlocked. This, and the fact that she had not been carried down nor ground to death by the pass. ing fury, indicated that was the side fling, and not the slide itself which enveloped her. It was warm and silent white blanket. A temptation to cry came upon Anna. Sternly she put the temptation away, and set the accurate smooth-running machinery of her mind to work. The tugging at the sled stopped. She was going to get out Her old pride of sirength be hammer at that purpose. Calculating positions by the sled she worked in the snow until she could turn her body, and then with her hands up beyond her head she scooped and back the beginning of a tunnel. There was air to breathe, carried down from the mountain, and eaught around her in the light particles of snow. Her mittens, torn at their gut-sewn seams. tell back upon her arms like cuffs. She tunneled with her long, bare hands. A pink stain colored the snow, and thick ened to a blot of red. Her hands were failing. She brought the bleeding fingers down against her mouth and under the | to| packed | moaned upon them. Some one must come to her, bringing her succor and comfort from his greater strength And that some one must be Wandell With the first vibration that ried through the snow to her she knew that he was coming siraight in the spow. her hair about her. her bleeding fingers nndery her lips, she waited How longz she would have 1o wait she did not know nor care. Her mind swung itself into a Kind of volupiuons coma with thd knowledge that he was coming—io her. What did Evvie Holt matter But Evvie Holt did matter, Fiercely | her jealousy of Evvie Holt sprang into new and savage life. dissipating the | half-dream which had lulled her. But now it was not jealousy of Evvie for herself. it was jealousy of Evvie for Wandell. At any moment Wandell might conclude that the cry he had | heard in the air had been the scream of rending ice or spruce. might aban don the search he had begun in the snow. And to abandon that search would mean that he should not find her, and not to find her meant his ruin. Bit by bit, hour by hour. until she was done with him. Evvie would feed npon his weakness and destroy the beauties of his soul. Only Anna could save him from Evvie She bezan 1o struggle in the snow again | to sob and clamor against its muffling softness, to scoop it out and beat it back with her bleeding hands It was her lacerated hands as they {came through the snow above her head, that Wandell saw aw, and recognized and covered with his own, and drew her out of the white death which enveloped her rs Lying tangled “Anna! Pushi ed 1oward the she asked weakl She” vvie “Fvvie her she traps with Jensen’s s aging “Why the 1 traps? “Before she came north she was married to Jensen. He's hehind on his imony—and when she heard he'd it two black fox skins this Winter she saw a chance to collect If 1 lift vou carefully “But you Holt. I met her the morninz 1 started and she asked me for a lift as far as Jensen’s he whispered herself up a little ail. “Where “Anna!” she Took ix she? Holt the staring the that we. L've got an the sle Evvie Why, last 1 saw of line of was keeping some hand I can carry hoy back why was .she staring ove; left Nome with Evvie Then it was only because of the money—the money from the bank “1'd been- the usual chechako fool buying everything that was loose, and I.got into # hole. We'll talk that over Jater. Now I must get vou back to the sled. diz vour dogs out “What do you mean by getting hole? “I used what into mone, I had. and needed more. But 1 couldn’t go to the bank I felt that Svensrud backed me because vou told him to. I can't be dependent on you in any wav, Anna. When we marry, [ have to be as strong a member of the firm as my wife. Once I asked you to marry me ind you refused, You said you had o be sure | St. Vincent’s Ol:plfi;inage, at 100-Year M “But I didn’t Whatever right.. You my sc lea mean— meant wouldn't I had to climb George. I'n d, by up enough » doinz opper the hank carry ma Rut 1 Nome properties had monex. Y hai hat's why anvthing 1o 3 and your mones strength. Anna take it. and had insisted vielded to von “We'll send word back to Svensr from Copper Entrance. He'll give you all the time vou need”! Disposing of this issue, her mind flew to the one that really counted. .“Anything is right now—now that T know 1 didn't leave -me for Evvie Holt dark tangled hair be cupped her fac 1 his hands, and smiled into her eyes don’t mean that you, with all strensth. let yourself care when thought that I did that?” She smiled back. {remulously. “I've learned « lot about strength lately “I've learned that there is I mi; moothing m her brow. the vou she said. no weakness of which strength is not apable—and no strength to which weakness cannot rise. Why, with little practice I think I'll make = pretty fair wielder of the rolling-pin Kneeling forward, he lifted her zainst his breast, and, clinging 1o gether, they found themselves laugh inz Go those who have come through great tribulation to great and lasting joy (Coyrisht ark, Oldest Institution of Its Kind in City BY CORINNE FRAZIER. P VE NT’S Orphanage, the oldest institution of its kind in Washington, held a three-day celebration this past week in honor of. its 100th anniversary The ceremonies included solemn high mass each morning at 10 o'clock in the chapel, solemn benediction each evening at 7 o'clock, and a supper and bazaar conducted in the afternoc by the Ladies’ Auxiliary connected with the home. The children put or an en tertainment each night in the as- sembly hall as an ndditional feature. Mgr. C. F. Thomas, rector of St Patrick’s Church and president of the St. Vincent board of directors, was the celebrant at the opening high mass last Monday morning. Father E. L. Leonard, archdiocesan director of char- ities, assisted him as deacon und preacher. Father R. F. Froelich was subdeacon. Bishop Shahan of the Catholic Uni- versity, officiated Tuesday, assisted by Father F. X. Cavanaugh and Father James O’Connor. Wednesday was set aside me- morial day. High mass was held for the deceased relatives and friends of all who have been connected with the orphanage in any capacity during its century of existence. Rev. J. E. Graham, chaplain of St Vincent’s was the celebrbant. Father Barley, a former chaplain and one of the Augustenian fathers. Father Barley. The principal feature of the bazaar was the exhibition and sale of the work accomplished hy the children during_the past year. St. Vincent's Orphanage was estab- lished in 1825 under the order of St Vincent de Paul of i In October of that year the first plans were laid and in November it was for: mally organized in a smail dwelling as near Tenth and G streets northwest. | Several years later the orphanage was removed to the house on the cor- ner of Tenth and @ streets, where Woodward & Lothrop's store now stands. Hundreds of District children left without parents found shelter and a home in this building during a period of over half a century. In 1900 the directors secured the present site at Fourth and Channing streets. Today the big orphanage on the hill spells home to 150 girls of all ages from tots to teens. Sister Marie, superior in charge, to- | | | gether with 12 sisters: who. hend the | various school departments® in the | home, give the girls instructions through the first eight grades. When they reach high school age. they are sent to the various high schools ih the city, notably St. Patrick’s high school and the Immaculate Conception Acad- emy. ST. VINCENT'S ORPHAN ASYLUM, FOURTH AND CHANNING STREETS. THE BASKET BALL SQUAD OF ST. VINCENT'S. MISS MARG FRONT ROW, Their course .at St. Vincent's cludes instructions in dome: cooking and sewing.” With the excep tion of Prof. Howard, who teaches music, ;afd” Miss Marguerite - Holtz- bauer, the athletic coach, the sisters conduct all classes in the school. Under Miss Holtzbauer's* direction the girls have devefoped various ac: in ic science, ARET HOLTZBAUER. COACH, AT LEFT OF tivities. They have indoor work, with annual meets, Hundreds of girls who have known no other parents than these kindly ers of St. Vincent's have gone out into the world during the past cen- tury, many of them,to make their mark in musical fields, others as trained nurses, social workers, busi- ness women and successful wives. track