Evening Star Newspaper, September 23, 1928, Page 90

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. SEPTEMBER 23 MADGE’'S LAST CHANCE By Fannie Kilbourne . HEN I invited Madge Ed- wards to visit us in June all our crowd agreed that I was doing my part in snatching a brand from the burning. If ever a girl was headed straight for being an old maid it was Madge Edwards. “The trouble with Madge,” Dulcie had said, “is that she’s oo smart, | without being quite smart enough. | She’s just smart enough to help the boys with solid geometry and not smart | enough not to do it.” And Dulcie had hit the nail on the | head. All through high school, so far as I remember, Madge had never had a single beau. She was the only girl on the debating team and everybody knows | what that will do to a girl. You can't prove in front of 200 people that a boy is a lame brain about the League | of Nations and then expect to have him | holding your hand and whispering sweet nothings in your ear the next evening. There’s no use pretending that boys and men aren't afraid of a girl who knows more than they do—unless she knows enough to keep it dark. Madge went away to college and made the four-year course in three years. Her father died and her mother moved down to Peoria to be nearer her sister. That was four years ago, and Madge hadn't been back to Montrose in the meantime. Her father’s money had been tied up in the Van Ness block, and when Will finally sold that in March Madge wrote me that she| thought she'd come back as soon as she graduated and close up things for her mother. “Graduated!” Rosemary Merton re- peated. “I thought she graduated from college about the time the rest of us did from high school.” “She did,” I said, “and what do you suppose she's graduating from now?” “What on earth?” Dulcie demanded. I paused to get all the dramatic ef- fect I could. Then “medical college,” I said simply. Rosie looked at Dulcie, and Dulcie looked at Rosie. Then Rosie asked whether she was going to be a trained nurse. “You don't go through a medical college to be a trained nurse,” I said. “She’s going to be a doctor.” “A doctor!” Rosie and Dulcie looked at each other again. “Wouldn't you have both said. “Of course,” I said, “there are lots of woman doctors.” Nobody paid any attention to this. ‘We all sighed. “Well, she'll never get married now,” said Rosie. “Whoever heard of a woman doctor marrying anybody?” said Dulcie. “Mrs. Dr. Powers in Verblen is mar- ried!” I suddenly recalled. “I'll bet she married Dr. Powers be- fore she was one herself, Dulcie haz- arded. None of us denied this. Mrs. Dr. Powers’ getting married was way before our time. “That’s what Madge had better do,” said Rosie. “If she doesn’t get married before, it's sure she never will after- ward. Just imagine asking a man who he’s going to marry and have him say “‘Dr. Edwards’!” We all giggled at that. But suddenly we turned serious. “Maybe we could help Madge to do that very thing,” I said. “When she’s in Montrose this June. She says she’s going to take the Summer for a vacation and begin practicing in the Fall. This Summer is absolutely her last chance.” “I think we ought to do the best we can,” said Dulcie. “So do 1,” said Rosemary. I said I would invite Madge to stay with us while she was in Montrose. “We'll all entertain and throw her with the right young man,” said Dulcie. k¥ ¥ THERE was a little pause. Then— “But where are we going to find the right young man?” I asked. That was the sticker. There are precious few bachelors in Montrose, any- ‘way. Most of the young fellows either go to Chicago or get married just as soon as they're making enough. There were the Dower boys, of course, but we doubted that either of them was mak- ing enough to support a wife; they'd seemed to be kind of slow in taking hold. ‘Then there was Sydney Hinckle, who travels for the Butterfly Silk House, but I wouldn’t feel right in marrying any friend of mine off to him—he is said to drink and Heaven knows what, when he’s on the road. There was John Duer, but he was so homely. In fact, by the time we had the pos- sible young men talked over, we agreed that it would have to be Wells Prentice. ‘That was unfortunate, because Wells Prentice would be a hard man to get. He was the catch of Montrose and he didn't wnat to get married. He often said so. He lived in the new hotel and kept a nifty little roadster and would run over to Chicago for week ends when- ever he felt like it. He’d said plenty of little things to intimate that he was glad he wasn’t in the shoes of some of the men of our crowd, with rent and babies to worry about. He was nearly 30 and cach new crop of girls had tried their hand at him. He had become, as Will said, gun-shy. He was a wonderful catch. He had & position in the bank and an independent income that his Uncle Harvey Clay had left him, besides. He was very good Jooking, too. Madge alone, of course, wouldn’t have had a ghost of 2 chance with Wells. But Madge, with ali our young married crowd to help her! It was a challenge to all of us. I believe that is why we all got so interested. When you have been married anywhere from two to five years, as we all have, you have reached the point where you realize that you understand men. ~And you watch the single girls blundering along, making the most ridiculous. unnecessary mistakes, succeeding, when they do succeed, by ;n:;tlaeg\:ke& 'You feel sure that, if you v ' put your mind i g to it, you.could Marrying off Madge would not be easy. In fact, I don't think any one of us would have dared tackle the job alone. But the difficulty cnly made the proposition more stimulating. In fact, while it was largely necessity that made us pick Wells Prentico——there really didn't seem to be anybody else— T guess there was a certain element of pride in it, too. In Wells we had a foeman worthy of our steel. Rosemary and Duleie and I hap- pened to meet in Nat's Grocery the Monday mornig before Madge was due to arrive, and we planned our| campaign. { “The thing to do, of course” said | Rosie practically, “is to make cure that they meet casually. If Wells once got | the idea Madge was setting her cap | for him, he'd be off like a frightened doe.” | train gets In about mnoon | doesn’t it?” Dulcie asked. “Well Roger is in the bank nearly cvery cay on his way home to dinner, and he and Wells usually walk up together. I'l tell Roger to drop around by the sta- tion to see Madge. I won't even inen- tion Wells to him, because, once a man’s trying to be subtle-—good night! Wells will probably trail along though.” I shook my head. “No sale,” I said firmly. Wells see Madge till I've had a good | look at her first. Youa know how she! used to get herself up—she ought to be looking as pretty as possible on first meeting. Fimt impressions are so im- portant.” “How are you going herself up. though?” “you can’t explain how necessary it 1s, un you come right out and tell her what you have in mind.” “Oh, that wouldn't do at all,” sald known it!” they N Dulcle. “It would make any girl so self-conscious she’d be a perfect han- dicap to us, and Madge, of ali girls! It might make her mad and so stub- born that she’d cut off her nose to spite her face, and wouldn't even try You'll have to do it subtly someway Dot.” W= e decided that the best way to ar- range a meeting would be to impersonal. “And we'll fix the tallies so they'll play together,” said Rosie. | Dulcie and I merely looked at her | For a girl who's been married for five | years, Rosie seems to have learncd the | least! “We'll fix the tallies,” I said, “so they won't play together. We'll just introduce them and then see that they | don’t get together all evening.” | Rosle looked baffled. “Get him anxious to know her, and then keep him from it,” I explained patiently. “How are you going to get him anx- jous, though?” Rosie persisted. “Tell him what a peach Madge is and how attractive and_everything?” Dulcie and I exchanged glances. It was plain to be seen that Rosie wasn't much of a help. “I've been at work already.” Dulcie explained to me. “I've told him that Dot is having a girl to visit ner and that I'm so sorry it isn't Belinda Stev- ens, as I know he and Belinda would have taken to each other so.” I confess that for a minute I was dumb enough to try to think who Be- linda Stevens was, but it didn't take me a moment to realize that, of course, there wasn't any such person. “I merely told him Madge's name,” Dulcie went on, “and said I was sorry Robert Dexter had moved to New York. Said we wanted Madge to have a good time and intimated that Robert was the only man I could think of who might interest her. You know Robert Dexter is the one person Wells has ever been jealous of. I could see him pick right up at the mention of his name.” That was all the start’ we'd made ‘hen Madge arrived Friday. Will and were down to meet her. Madge looked the way I remembered her, just the way I had been afraid she would. It was a lovely warm Spring day, but Madge had on a heavy dark blue suit. She came swinging down the platform, carrying her suitcase. “Hello, Dot, you old dear! Hello, Will!” She kissed me and gave Will a handshake. “My, but it's great to see you both again!” It was great to see Madge, too. I always did like her. But to one who had taken it upon her soul to marry Madge off, Madge was enough to make your heart sink. But I didn’t know the worst till she took off her hat. Her hair was cut short, shingled right up the back, every bit of her ears rightout in the open, :\ot is::v much as one feminine softening ouch. Of course, we'd all seen that style in the movies and in the expensive fashion magazines, but nobody in Montrose had had the nerve to try it. And Madge, of all people! She cer- tainly wasn’t the one to carry it off. My first impulse was to call up the irls and tell them cur plan was off. But hope dies hard, and I just couldn't bring myself to give up without trying. Besides, as_the afternoon wore om, I found myself discovering what I'd sort of forgotten, how nice Madge really is. I began to see that it was my actual duty to do anything I possibly could for her. But how much could I do? I could just see Wells Prentice taking one look and running for shelter. Still, if you try hard enough, it is amazing what ideas will come to you. In fact, the one that came to me was little short of an inspiration. * ok Kk ¥ IT had suddenly turned very warm, and, as Madge's trunk didn’t come that afternoon, she borrowed a bunga- low apron of me to put on_for break- fast the next morning. It was an especially pretty apron, a bright, clear pink, with crisp white rick-rack braid on it. I also lent her a pair of soft black mules. And, seeing her standing in the sunshine at the kitchen window, I'suddenly realized that, dressed right, Madge wasn't half bad looking. In fact, even her hair didn’t look so bad. It was black and curly and, being so short, it did make her head look very small and attractive. Her eyes and nose and mouth weren’t anything special, but that she had such clear pink and white skin and such very white teeth that, standing there in bright pink and the sunshine, there was something very attractive about her. “My, but it feels good to get off that heavy suit!” she observed. “Thank goodness, I've a lighter one in my trunk.” “Have you any light dresses?” I asked hopefully . Madge shook her head. “Your other suit,” I began, dubious- ly, “is it about like the one you wore yesterday?” Madge nodded carelessly, as though a suit that didn’t fit right across the shoulders were a mere nothing. “About the same,” she said carelessly, “except that it's light weight.” My mind was working like lightning. Madge was almost my size. I had one or two dresses that she’d look really awfully well in. A yellow linen and a clear blue pique. If only—it was then I had my inspiration. w] ¥ the party tonight,” I said. “If you wouldn't mind staying here and keeping an eye on the babies, I'll do it before the Saturday crowd begins.” “Of course,” said Madge heartily. “I'll do up the breakfast dishes. Skip right along.” And I skipped! I stopped by for Dulcie, confided my inspiration to her, and we dashed to the railroad station. There was Madge's trunk. Just full, as Dulcie said, of plain waists and suits that didn’t fit. We hunted up Seth, the baggage man. | i | thing to Seth, just told him that we { any way that trunk could be mislaid for a week or so? Seth, at first, wouldn't have anything to do with the idea. But Dulcle swore we'd see that he didn’t get into any trouble. before any one knew where it was. H said, of course, again. Dulcie and I went home. ‘When the trunk hadn’t come by noon, Madge began to be anxious. | “Never mind I said carelessly, | “baggage gets held up at the Crossings, cnce in a while. If it doesn’t come by | it would fit you.” | By evening, of course, her trunk | hadn’t come and I got out my pink dress. That dress might have been made for Madge. pink. I lent her my best flesh-colores “Don’t let | chiffon stockings and my satin slippers. d | It left me with nothing but white linen pumps, but what would any match maker care for that? And Madge di look lovely { fairly gasped. ment. It was the truth, too. Madge didn' look like herself. She really looke lovely. And so different. i B T T B A SO & BNy have a little bridge party. That would | make asking Wells seem natural and| “T've got @ little marketing to do for | "Of course, Dulcie didn't explain any- | wanted to play a joke and wasn't there | We could feel Seth weakening, and finally he admitted | that his helper had unloaded a trunk in | the shed once, just before he went on a vacation, and it stayed there a week evening, you can wear my pink—I think i It was watermelon Dulcie, who came in early, ‘Why, Dot,” she said to me, in the to get her to fix kitchen, “Dot, you wouldn't know her!” Rosie demanded.| Which was considerable of a compli- There was secon no girl in Montrose who looked any- thing even faintly like her. She would stand out in any crowd. From the moment that Wells Pren- tice was introduced you fairly heard him click. He’s been run after so much | that he had an awfully indifferent at- titude toward all girls. I kept watch- ing him. His table was well at the other end of the living room from Madge's, and he spent the evening as near cran- ing his neck as a man who rather prides himself on being bored would allow him- self to come. AT refreshment time Dulcie and I had just slipped out to the dining room when who should come strolling out but Wells Prentice. He was evi- dentlv dummy at his table. “What's the idea of not progressing?” he asked. We usually do progress from one ta- ble to another every four hands, every- body finding it more sociable, but now and then we just pivot. Dulcie and I exchanged glances. “Oh, the room is so crowded with four tables,” I explained carelessly. “We thought it would make less con- fusion for people to stay at the same tables.” “Aren’t you going to change the tables for refreshments?” Wells asked. “I thought we wouldn't,” I said. “Well, we're going to.” said Wells in his rather masterful fashion. “I'm not going to stick through refreshments with Julia Pettingill and Irma.” “Why, I thought you were rushing Julia,” I exclaimed. “Or is it Pegi Scoggins I should have asked for you “You needn't have asked anybody ‘for me,’ " said Wells haughtily. 1 smiled sidewise at Dulcie. “Why, of course, we'll shift the tables for refreshments,” I agreed. But, when we had been all shifted. Wells was only one table nearer Madge. He didn't get to say two words to her the entire evening. And the very next evening he came to call. Our plan was working even better than we'd expected. We'd never planned on such quick action as that. In fact, I wasn’t ready for it. Although it was Sunday evening, Madge had been out in the garden with Will and had one of my old white middies on. We were sitting on the porch when Wells came strolling up. “Oh, Madge,” I gasped, “you must be cold.” And I dashed in and got my pink zephyr scarf and dropped it over her shoulders. Madge, instead of catching on as any other girl in the world would, merely looked amazed. “Cold?” she exclaimed. “I'm melt- ing.” And calmly took the scarf off. However, she did let it lie across her lap, where it was almost as becoming. ‘There was no doubt that Wells was interested. I made an excuse to go out and make some lemonade, and I asked Will to come and help me. * Kk Kk WHEN we went back to the porch, I could see at a glance that all was going better than I'd dared hope. ¥ells had got up out of his comfortable chair and was leaning against the railing, talking to Madge quite earnestly. “I was just telling Miss Edwards I'd like to drive her out by Grovelands,” Wells said to me. “She says she used to go to the old Grove on picnics when she was a little girl. I think Groveland Park would be quite a surprise to her.” “Im sure it would,” I agreed. “You'd be awfully interested, Madge.” “I'm sorry I can't take you and Will, too,” said Dells, “but my boat is a two- * % %k me. ‘Will looked up, all interest. “Why not _take our flivver?” he said “We can all get into that, all right.” T looked at Will, and if looks could kill he'd have been a very sick man. “Oh, we've seen Groveland,” I said; “ijt wouldn’t be any treat to us. Let Wells take Madge out; his car is much easier riding than the flivver.” I should have known better than to say that, but when you have to grab so quick you're likely to grab the wrong thing. Will was on the de- fensive right away. “I don’t think there’s a car in Mont- rose runs any easier than the old fiiv- ver, since I put on those new shock absorbers,” he said. “Why not get the Lanes and the Mertons and make it a good picnic?” And, while I was casting about fran- tically for some way to squelch will, without being too obvious about it, Madge chimed in in favor of the picnic. “That would be a circus,” she insist- ed. “The kind of picnic we used to have in high schooldays. Have a fire and roast potatoes.” ‘Well, there was nothing for me to do BY WILL ROGERS. ELL, all I know is just what I read in the papers, and what I see here and there. Been jumping around pretty lively lately. Left old Bever- ley and jumped back to New York to reherse a part in Dorothy Stone’s show. Its the first time I ever did reherse. In all the Follies, I just generally had my specialty and dident have to learn any lines only the ones I would read levery day in the papers. But this is | a kind of a part. Course its not much iof a part as acting goes, but I will have to learn the lines so the other Actors will know when their cue comes. Its all greek to me. I feel like a kid at his first school entertainment. Old New York looks just the same after an absence of about three years. Course I have played there every year, but only one night just like all the rest. But this will be my first stage engage- ment with a show since I left the Fol- lies three years ago. You know I believe a big city changes less than any other place, | any a year since I first went back that could happen | g ol it dont seem like there has been so many changes. You see it al- ways was so big, that it just dont seem i like 1t can get any bigger. A street can { just be so full of houses, and it was full of them when I first saw it. Course they change the house every few years, but they all look about alike. My first appearance in New York was at the old Madison Square Garden. 1t was during a horse show, Col. Zack Mulhall of Mulhell, Oklahoma, took & bunch of us boys back there to work as an attraction during the show, and I stayed and went on the stage after the rest come home. It was in 1905. Thats twenty-three years ago. I hope Tom Mix dont mind me telling that he was with us too. He has enough that he dont have to worry about how old people might think he is. Keith's old Union Square on Four- teenth Street was the one where I made 't | my first stage appearance. But it was d | at the Theatre where they sent me the d week where I made my best hit d d but to fall in, of course, as I told Dul- cle and Rosemary the next morning. “And the funny part is,” I said, “that, if Madge were clever that way and try- ing to play her cards just right, she couldn’t have done better. Wells has been run after-so much that the very fact that Madge didn't seem to appre- ciate his asking her alone was like kerosene on a slow fire.” That fact—and it was a fact, all right—changed our entire technique. “Honestly,” Rosie confessed, “I thought it was going to be just like the other night when we got a mouse in the dining room and shut the doors and all went after him and threw the cat at him. I imagined we'd have to chase Wells here and there, and cut off his retreats and just throw Madge at him. Instead, here Madge is doing it every bit herself.” Dulcie and I looked at her pityingly. “The thing's a long way from done yet, Rosie,” Dulcie explained patiently. “Moreover, Madge isn't doing it at all. Madge may be smart, but her brains don't run along that line. She just happened to like a picnic, that's all. And a man’s asking a girl to go riding in his roadster is a long way from ask- ing her to marry him. I'll admit that having Wells really interested is some- thing I never figured on, and it makes it a different problem altogether. But it keeps right on being a problem, just the samey.” “I should say it ddes” I agreed. “And it's a much more delicate prob- lem than just throwing them together would have been They've got to be thrown together just enough, and left alone together just enough, so that Wells will get worked up to the pro- posing point before Madge goes. But they can't ge left too much alone, or Madge will spoil things, as sure as any- thing. “Why, just last night” I _went on, “my blood fairly ran cold. Something was said about medical college. Wells turned to Madge and laughed and said, ‘Are you a doctor?” He just said it for a joke.. Madge laughed, too, and said, ‘Yes, a veterinary.’ Wells hasn't an idea that the whole thing was any- thing but a joke, but think what a narrow escape! Madge might just as easily have launched into a discussion of diagnostic clinics, as she did to Will and me at breakfast this morning.” “But he's going to have to find out some time that she’s a doctor,” Rose- mary said, uneasily. “T suppose so,” Dulcie and I agreed, resignedly. “But the longer we can put it off, the better. If we can only keep things just right till he's com- pletely in love—well, it's wonderful what a man who's completely in love will swallow.” Rosie is very conscientious. “You know,” she said, seem as though we're being fair to Wells. To get him to fall in love with a girl who doesn’t exist at all. Why, the girl he sees in Dot's clothes and in situations that we're all engineering for her isn't the real Madge. There isn't any such person. What an awful thing if he shouid fall in love with this person and then find himself with nobody but Madge Edwards. It doesn't seem fair to Wells.” “All's fair in love and war,” Dulcie and I assured her. ‘“Besides, who can tell? Suppose he and Madge should get married. She wouldn't be a doctor then; she would never really have been one. So where would have been the deceit?” BUT. in spite of Dulcle’s triumphant tone, Rosie insisted that it didn’t seem as though we were being quite straightforward with Wells. We didn’t pay any attention to what Rosie said, however. At best, she was of very little help. Dulcie and I had the whole thing on our shoulders. We were certainly kept busy, part of the time arranging meetings and part of the time preventing them. The first part was easy enough. Wells was so much _interested that he'd have ar- ranged the meetings for - himself all right, if just let alone. It was prevent- ing them that was enough to turn me into a jibbering maniac. For instance, the day that Will took off to paint the garage and Madge in- sisted upon putting on an old pair of his overalls and helping him. In the midst of it, they got into an argument about homeopathy and were going it hot and heavy when Wells stopped by to invite Madge to go canoeing. She looked a perfect sight, her hands and face smeared with brown paint, gesti- culating to Will with her dripping brush. Fortunately, Wells didn’t recog- nize her from the front of the house, and I took the message and speeded * ok ok K Its been a ! him on his way, all unsuspecting. Humorist Also Finds He Is Back Among Exciting Events as He Lands in New York While the Campaign Is Developing Speed. and stayed at it all Summer. That of that and all time. That was Ham- merstein’s. I stayed on the roof one whole summer. ‘We played on the roof at nights and down stairs at Matinee. We have never produced another showman like Willie Hammerstein, and the old man himself was living in those days and with what that theatre made he was able to in- dulge in presenting Opera. I used a horse on the stage then and had a Cowboy ride him across at a run and made catches on him as he run by. I had Sheriff Buck McKee with me. 1 wish I knew where Buck was. He was on a ranch in California some place the last I heard of him. Everybody in vaudeville new Buck and Teddy, the pony. I did that type of act for over three years, during which time i went to Europe twice, played at the Winter- garden, Berlin, in 1907. But wait, I am getting old and start- ing to reminence. how much better the performers were in those days than they are today if I keep on. But I must get back to my knitting, and rehersing. Think of it though! Twenty-three years on the stage and never rehersed before! Well, let’s cut out all this Old Time Hooey, and get down to present-day scandal. I am paid to tell the truth about the Politicians and not to drag in old times and tell what we used to do. Lets get back to the Comedy. Raskob just come back from the West and says, “Al has the solid South, the Mushy East, the cracked North, and has a fighting chance in the Cuckoo West.” Senator Moses says that Smith won't carry his Brown Derby, that Hoover has the whole thing sowed up, and that the only reason they are going through with the election is just be- cause they have the ballotts printed, and its a kind a holiday anyway. Now that is the way those Birds rave on from day to day. You would think that everybody in America had gone to them and placed a bond and & guarantee the very way that they were going to vote. Did you ever see such | orsagmiy “it doesn't | be. was at the greatest Vaudeville theatre T will be telling you | Matrimonial Problem Is Shared by Sympathetic Friends It was like that all the time. Be- cause, though we laughed at Rosie for being worried by it, the truth of the matter is that Wells never saw the real Madge at all. We all managed by hook and crook to keep him from it. We held off her trunk, dressing her up in whatever of our clothes we thought would be most becoming to her. When 1 saw Wells coming I hid the terribly heavy book she was reading. and dropped a popular novel in its place; I stopped her a dozen times when I could see she was on the very brink of starting some kind of discussion that would scare Wells off forever. I would be in a perfect nervous state all the time Madge was alone with him; there was no telling what she might be saying or doing. But Wells kept coming, kept inter- ested. We simply couldn’t believe our luck. When we started, we hadn’t dared really hope to put it over, but now we actually began to. “We mustn't relax one bit, though,” Dulcie cautioned me. “One false step, and it would be all over. Wells has been awfully interested in other girls before and yet it's fallen through.” Shes) was silent a moment. “I have a splen- did thought,” she said suddenly, “something that will cinch things, if anything will. Dot, you tell Wells in strict confidence that you're terribly worried, that you're afraid Will is fall- ing in love with Madge “Well, of all things!” I said indig- nantly, “I'll do nothing of the kind!" “I don't see why you won't” sald Dulcie. “It would be bound to impress Wells, it he should think that even a married man was crazy about her——" “Well, you can tell him that you're afraid Roger is, then,” I interrupted. "Rlzlzlner is just as much married as wil.” - “Oh, I shouldn't exactly like to do that,” Dulcle said hastily. “It's a little different with Roger—" So we compromised by telling Wells that we were terribly worried on Rosie’s account, that we were afraid Howard seemed more interested than he should be in Madge. As neither Howard nor Rosie ever knew of this at all, it was perfectly all right. Things were going along amazingly well, Wells actually telephoning every day and sometimes oftener than that. It was just like walking along in the dark, though, not knowing when you're coming to a step down. I never knew when Madge was going to make a false step and spill the beans altogether. When, after a week, she announced that she would have to go home next Monday 1 realized how critical it was. If she didn't become actually engaged to Wells before she left she never would * Ok K ok E redoubled our efforts. I did the best I could, but there was so much I couldn't manage. I couldn't get Wells to see Madge when she was truly at her best. For instance, she insisted on bathing the twins for me every morning, and no man could have seen her with those two babies without asking her to marry him on the spot. She wore my pink bungalow apron and she was so sweet, no more like a brainy woman doctor than Dulcie. Even the fake per- son we had built up for Wells’ benefit was no sweeter than Madge was then. And the day that she spent with an old friend of her mother’s who is going blind, told her stories of things that happen in medical colleges till Mrs. Keane was in stitches. Then spent the afternoon getting Mrs. Keane all in- terested in learning to read by the Braille method, so that she'd be pre- pared that much. And all of it done with such tact as nobody, seeing Madge arguing with a likely suitor, would have believed she could possibly have. But Wells never saw her these times. And Madge was going home Monday. It was I who had the idea of taking her and Wells up to the cottage at the lake for their last week end. The cottage is a ramshackle old place up at Winne- posockett, with nothing but kerosene lamps and a gasoline stove that's going to blow somebody up some day. But it is in the most beautiful woods, on a hill looking out over the lake, and is the loveliest place. ‘Will always loves to go up there, so I didn’t have to tell him any of my secret reasons. Our mothers would keep the twins for us. ‘As I said to the girls, that week end would be the climax of our scheme. The wild roses were in bloom, the moon was full—I Was on hand to keep Madge from doing any- thing foolish. If Wells didn't propose by Sunday—— But he would! All day Saturday I felt surer and surer of it. As evening approached I began trying | 1 i 1 FEEL LIKE A KID T A SCHOOE ENTERTAINMENT. 1928—PART T. WELLS JUST STOOD LOOKING to figure out some tactful way for Will and me to vamoose and leave Wells and Madge alone. I felt that things had reached the pass where that was all that was necessary. And then didn’t Will insist on playing five hundred? Madge agreed, too; she seemed to have no idea of the momentousness of the hour. Wells was so disappointed at having to play cards with Will and me he posi- tively sulked all evening, was actually almost rude. Not that I minded that— I knew too well what was back of it. ‘Tomorrow night! I thought trium- phantly. Not once during the evening did the famous saying, “Strike while the iron is hot,” occur to me in warning. I never even stopped to think that it might rain Sunday. It did. When we woke up it was pouring. At 10 o'clock Father Horton telephoned. He was laid up with rheu- matism in his feet, he said, and a man to see the Simmons place was to be in town. There was nothing for it; Will would have to go in that afternoon. All the afternoon it poured. At first I thought I'd take a nap and leave | Madge and Wells alone. But then I was ‘afraid to. For a mood of perverse black mischief seemed to have come over Madge. She seemed determined at this, practically the moment of triumph, to ruin everything for herself. She started to argue with Wells about religion, of all things. She and Will really like to argue, and neither of them ever gets mad, but to argue with Wells! A girl with any sense could tell that Wells is the kind of a man who can’t bear to have ‘anybody disagree with him. I could see how this was affecting him, and, by almost superhuman effort of tact, I managed to steer Madge off. And not 10 minutes later, when I happened to have left them alone a few minutes, I came back to hear Madge saying scornfully, “What great statesman ever said that Merciful powers! She was off on politics! I narrowly averted catastrophe again, but I was worried. There seemed to be something about being cooped like this that made Madge rambunctious. ‘There was no hope of its clearing off by evening, anyway, so I decided to call up Will and tell him we'd be ready to come home if he'd just drive out after us. Madge seemed more tract- able some way in Montrose. But nature, which had been playing along with me in honeysuckles and moonlight, had apparently turned against me. Though we hadn’t even noticed any lightning, the telephone was out of kilter, completely dead. I couldn’t get Will; there was nothing to do but to stay right there and wait for him to come. The afternoon dragged along, with.| me hurling my tact into one breach after another, and Madge seeming more perversely determined to kill her own chances with every slow, rainy hour. It had turned cold, along with the rain, and I barely kept Madge from putting on a disreputable old sweater of Will's over my very becoming blue pique. Seven, and still Will hadn't assurance in your life? ~Everywhere they go, Moses only meets the Republi- cans. Naturally a Demociat wouldent be seen with him, and Raskob or who- ever it is on the other side, every where they go, all they meet is the Demo- crats. Republicans have self-respect and watch who they are caught with, so how in the world are they going to get an opinion? Besides the man that announces who he is going to vote for generally is not registered, or perhaps his wife has not told him how he is to vote, yet, anyway. Any of those fellows don’t know any more about this election than the rest of us, and we don't know anything. If both sides were as sure as they claim, why are they working so hard, and spending so much money? Those Guys like a dollar as well as the rest of us, ! EEAIERS 7 A and they wouldent be handing any-| thing out to the Voter if they knew it was a cinch. No sir, its a tough race. The Demo- crats not only have a god Candidate, but they got money, which its better to have than a good Candidate. When there is money in an election its al- ways doubtful. Well this old Burg of New York sure is ready to go the limit for Al. Coming from California here | its pretty noticeable the difference in| the sentiment. So if you get big odds either way take 'em, and don't vote for nothing. They will pay you either way you want to vote. Well, I am glad T am back here | Edwards at all; she was a doctor. come. It was the most uncongenial threesome, and yet I actually didn't dare leave Wells and Madge alone, with her in her present mood. * K % % HALF-PAST SEVEN. Still pouring, and no Will. Suddenly we heard footsteps on the floor. There was a sharp rap at the door. Wells went to open it, and we heard a strange voice, a man’s. “Have you got a telephone that's working here? Or a car of any kind?” I heard Wells say, “No,” and Madge and I went to the door. There was a young fellow, drenched to the skin, and with the most scared, frantic. looking face I've ever seen. Wells was about to close the door when I interrupted: “What's the trouble?” “My_wife’s having a baby,” he said, in a husky voice, “and I'm after a doctor. Dr. Hessey said he’d come out from Verblen, but all the telephones out our way are off. I started off in the car and the gas tank sprang a leak back a ways on the wood road and I can't run another foot. What's the next nearest house?” “Tollheimer’s,” I said, “but they're all away in their car; they drove past here this morning. And it’s two miles to Brown’s. Is it your wife's first baby?” But I needn't have asked. The sheer terror on his face would have told anybody it was. And his wife was on the old Harley farm, five miles away. Will might be along any minute in the car, but it might be hours before he came—it would take two hours to drive into Verblen, anyway, two more hours back with the doctor, even if there wasn’t a minute’s delay—I felt myself sharing the terror in the young husband’s face. There was just a young girl out there with his wife—no wonder he was scared! I turned frantically to Wells. “We've got to get a doctor,” I said. “What can weé do?” Wells could answer, Madge said: “Can we make that old wreck of a flivver in the shed run?” “I don't know,” I gasped. “And I don’'t know of a doctor nearer than Verblen—" Madge turned sharply to Wells. “See if you can get that old flivver started,” she ordered. “Dot, where did you put that little black bag of mine?” For a dazed second I wondered what on earth Madge wanted of the little black bag she’d insisted on bringing. ‘Why stop for a bag when you've got to get a doctor? Then suddenly the truth flared into my mind. Madge was a doctor. Wells had seemed to realize that he was the only man in the crowd—the poor scared young husbahd didn’t count. “Now don't let’s lose our heads,” he said, in his masterful way. And to the young man, “The thing to do is for you to beat it right on to the next house— that old flivver won't run and—-" “How do you know it won’t?” Madge interrupted. Wells glanced at her with the irri- tated air of a man who is interrupted while he's being masterful. “For one thing, there’s no gasoline in it,” he said patiently. “There's gas in the tank of the stove, is’t there?” Madge demanded. I nodded. “The tires are all flat,” said Wells. “Ride ’em flat,” said Madge. She snatched up Will's awful sweater, stuck an old hat of his on her head, and grabbed her black kit. “Come along,” she ordered. The young husband followed us blind- ly through the cottage, out the back door, into the dark shed. ‘Wells climbed up and looked into the wreck of an old flivver. “There, I told you,” he said tri- umphantly. “There isn't even a self- starter.” Madge slipped on the wet shed floor, and Wells put his arm around her to steady her, a _masculine, protective gesture. Madge shook it off. “Get the gas in the tank, quick,” she sald. WITH shaking hands, the young hus- band and I emptied the kitchen stove tank, poured the gasoline into the flivver. “Crank the car,” said Madge to Wells. ( Wells started to obey the order auto- matically, it was so sharp and authori- tative. He gave the crank two or three . turns. Then—— \ “T told you this car wouldn't run,” he said. “And, if you're wise—" But Madge didn't even hear him. She_brushed him aside. “Give me that crank,” she said. Wells just stood looking on as Madge | cranked the car. Of course, cranking a flivver is more a knack than a matter of strength. I was thinking of that poor young wife away up in the Harley farm and I could hear my own heart thumping while I waited. Madge turned the crank once more. The engine gave a couple of thumping sounds and then actually started. A cough—a few back- fires, but it ran! “Got my bag?” Madge asked. “All right. Get in.” * Silently, swiftly, we all climbed in. There seemed nothing to do but to obey Madge. I had the queerest feeling of trust. She didn’t seem like Madge * ok K x How Madge did drive! The old car flopped and bumped along on its flat tires and the wheels slewed in the slimy mud, the steering wheel shook an shivered. “It's stark crazy to drive a car like this,” Wells said to me on the back seat, “over wet roads.” “We've got to get there,” I explained tensely, “before it gets too dark to see the road.” We drove along in tight silence | through the driving.rain. Only once | again on the whole trip did any one speak. That was as we skidded and half turned around on Soap Hill. “There’s no use killing us all,” said Wtadge didn ge didn't turn her eyes trom the road ahead, o o instant among the.sxcitement. New York elec- tion night will be worth mingling with. (Copyright. 1928.) gy “I'll go with you, of course” sald Wells, with great dignity, “but there’s nk‘\’l need for such an insane rush as this.” Madge made the only other comment of the entire trip. Curt, scornful, “Tell that to the stork,” she said. It all seems like a queer dream, the wild ride through the rain, the lights of the little house suddenly appearing. Then the still queerer dream. The daz- ed young husband blindly doing what Madge told him, myself following Madge’s orders as fast as I could, Wells humped up in the empty parlor, waiting. Water boiling, the sickish scent of ether—our shadows flickering big and black in the lamplight—a sudden sink- ing of sheer panic, with Madge right there, firm and steady as Gibraltar. Then, out of the wild dream and the panic, the sudden, faint; sharp sound of a baby’s ery. * K k% AT 2 o'clock the next morning I was still too jibbery with excitement to have even thought of our ruined match- making schemes. The telephones had started working again before 11 and Will had come after us all and we'd driven back to Montrose. We'd had hot cof- fee in our kitchen and Wells had gone home and Madge, yawning and begin- ning to relax, had gone up to bed. It was coming upstairs and seeing her through the crack in the door in my old rose-colored crepe kimono, her black hair curled tight with the rain, her cheeks pinker than her gown, that made me suddenly remember Wells, not as the rather weak member of a rescue party that he had certainly been last night, but as the ardent suitor he had been until then. The suitor lost for- ever. For while maybe some suitors might have weathered Madge's cranking the car, ordering everybody about, prov- ing herself far and away the best man in the bunch, I knew well enough that Wells wouldn' Our scheming had come to naught. It couldn’t have been helped, of course, but there was no dodging the truth. Madge had lost Wells Prentice forever. I paused a moment at the crack of her door to say good night. Madge yawned comfortably. “Well, I guess tonight squelched Wells Prentice for good.” she observed. I fairly gasped. Had Madge then known what had been going on all along? I was so amazed I could only fal hy, did you—has he—" “Has he?” Madge interrupted. “I guess this is the first day since I've been in Montrose that he hasn’t proposed to me.” I just stood in the doorway, utterly speechless, completely dashed. All this week, while we'd been scheming our heads off trying to work him up to the proposing point. “I suppose I oughtn't to repeat it.” Madge admitted, dropping back lazily onto her pillow, “but it’s tit for tat. He's the kind who'd kiss and tell, him- self. He hasn't spared me one of the girls who have been running after him. “And he asked you to marry him? I finally managed to get out. “Heavens, yes! A half times,” Madge yawned. “And you—you refused?” Madge didn’t even bother to stralght- en up. “Refused!” she echoed. “Well, nat- urally. You don't supose I'd ever dream of being tied up to that selfish, opin- ionated, incompetent, conceited pin- head of a man, do you?” I merely stared. “I'm engaged, anyway,” Madge went on carelessly. “I'm going to marry the best doctor in the State of Illinois. Or, at least, he's going to be the best. We aren’t saying anything about it because he’s got another year in the hospital yet and we're going to wait till we've both built up a practice. So don’t tell any of the girls.” ‘ I said faintly that I wouldn't and that I hoped she'd be very happy. At least, I guess I said that. I was so dazed I'm not quite sure. The excite- ment of the chase, so to speak, being suddenly over, I suddenly realized how it had been blinding me to the truth. Pictures came flashing through my mind like cut-backs in a movie. Madge bathing the twins in the pink bunga- low apron; Madge cheering up poor, half-blind Mrs. Keane with a tender tact that would bring tears to your eyes; Madge slewing and bumping that old wreck of a car through the rain and the dark; Madge smiling down at the tiny scrap of the new-born baby in the crook of her arm—Madge as brave and ready as any man, as sweet and true as any woman. And we'd dared think of Wells Prentice for her! I leaned over and kissed Madge. I couldn't say what I was thinking, that sort of thing is said so much it does- not have any meaning when you put it into words. But what I was hoping, humbly and honestly, was that the best doctor in the State of Illinols was asdeserving as he was lucky. (Copyright. 1928.) a dozen The Cement Gun. TIIERE is a cement gun which is used to apply a mortar coie‘ing to structural steel work. A mixture of dry sand and cement is shot from a nozzle by compressed air. A second hose de- d | livers to the same nozzle a supply of water under pressure, and the mixture of sand, cement, and water is shot out with a velocity of about three hundred and fifty feet per second. The nozzle is arranged to produce a thorough wetting of the material. As the mixture strikes the curface to be covered the coarse sand grains rebound until the fine cement mortar, which adheres imme- diately, has formed a plastic base, in which the coarse particles become em- bedded. A covering of any required thickness is then rapidly built up. One of these guns was used on the Panama Canal to cover the sides of the Culebra cut with cement to prevent the “Get out and walk ba y Vi PPt ck if you want unstable earth b s from sliding into the