Evening Star Newspaper, December 16, 1928, Page 73

‘Your Baby and Mine BY MYRTLE MEYER ELDRED. The older generation is verbally con- cerned with the faults of the younger, and most of them feel that in a small sense they are responsible for them. In their contention they are both right and wrong, for certainly no one can stem the trend of progress, at least with words; but all. can do something about it. If the younger generation is restless, eager for entertainment and easily bored the reason isn't hard to find. Entertainments today are like mechan- jcal toys, thoroughly complete in them- seives and leaving nothing for their audiences but appreciation. Having no education in appreciation, the auditor has nothing to bring to a contemplation of the entertainment but a spirit of *show me.” He sits and Jooks at the {g‘m participation and actual work in 'm. ‘There are periods in a child’s life when he is most intensely interested in make-believe. If he is highly imagina- tive he can become in reeling success- sion an Indian, & cowboy quick on the draw, and a wounded veteran, all in the few moments after he has been gived | permission to tear up the pillow slip that developed a hole. The strip of { hem and the opened-out slip are all the properties he needs. Home theatricals vividly color the memories of most middle-aged parents, and it is a pity that children are being weaned away from them by the lack of necessity for making their own fun. If children don't think of this them- selves the parent can offer the suggest- tion and make it possible by a gener- banquet of amusements dished up for his enjoyment and his probably per- sonal contribution will be “Rotten.” The small child spends his leisure going to movies or the theater with his parents. If he takes part in theatricals himself they are in the hands of experts who use their creative ability and their imaginations and the children mereiy as properties. If the small child never took a paint brush in his hand to try to make a tree that Iooked like a tree it is obvious that he would have neither knowledge nor appreciation of the art | pensiti of a master who accomplished the task. This is true of all the arts. Our pres- ent day education of children must always take into account that they are being fitted to enjoy leisure as well as for the economic struggle which pre- supposes the leisure. The older gen- eration found the business of living so complicated that there was less leisure to enjoy. and, if there were any, the dearth of amusements made it necessary for them to concoet the frivolities to fill it. Present-day living is so _mechanized and so systematized that evén the small child has more time for just playing. and for his entertainment such a full diet of predigested amusements that his owp mind and imagination go to Tt remains for the parent to realize the necessity for some method of spur- ring the child to a desire for mal his own entertainments, and giving them the spice that can-only come ous offer of the living room or the garage or .the attic. A good week to plan for a “show” for the smaller children is that deadly week immediately following the holi- days, when candy, new toys and too much leisure extinguish all the child’s ideas about what he shall do and by constant demands deplete any store the parent might have. In recognition of the necessity for giving children some material with which to work out their natural pro- les for make-believe, there "are numerous plays for children which aré simple, easy to stage, using few or many children of various ages, and which contain unobtrusive morals. There is a wealth of information to be picked up just in the reading of the plays in an effort to make & choice and later in the selection of their properties and costumes. Just nice, sugar-coated knowledge that has a way of sticking in one’s mind. These crude efforts to entertain them- selves may bear fruit, for they may result in the discovery of play- wrights who write their own material and young thespians who excel in their interpretations, as well as the more ob- vious results of a richer appreciation of one of the oldest of the arts. Such esthetic estimation awakened in child- hood should result naturally in a real dislike and scorn for anything but the finer manifestations of the art, and such education is not entirely the responsibil- ity of the school. Cupboard Cogitations BY ALLENE SUMNER. ful, too orderly, too harmonious and artistic?’ Are our high national stand- ard of living and fairly fat pocket- books which ‘make that standard feasi- ble, uusmzuswbelhltfldlc\flaul';u . a department will completely any sort of cupboard from the rubbers and umbrella one under the front stairs to the linen closet, the kitchen cupboard, bedroom . ts- on dh'g}ll! were veliness. e whole gleaned gayly lacquered chests of drawers, mod- ernistic shelf paper, even cutish lamps for the dark corner in the closet. ‘You would think to see this rather unusual exhibit, that the closet and cubby-hole are as important as the drawing room. E * There were special gay chairs and step ladders for the high closet shelf. One sample even insisted on a special drawer for assorted sachets in the linen closet, and one sample bedroom closet held a table and chair and reading lamp and bowl of flowers: One smiled a little to wonder what emergency would send | one scurrying for.the closet to be ma- | rooned with book and reading lamp. Nice, of course. Still—I got to won- dering about closets I have known, closets as remote from this world of interior decorated ones as THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 16, 1928—PART 3. Last-Minute Christmas Gifts BY BETSY CALLISTER. T shows rare forethought to have all your Christmas shop‘:tng done carly, to have taken the last stitch in the last homemade present sometime before Thanksgiving, and to have all your Christmas presents wrapped , neatly in paper, tied with Christmas ribbon, two weeks before Christmas. You will have reason to pat yourself on the back if you have anticipated Christmas that way, but I really think you will be missing some of the fun. Out of consideration for the salespeople and ' our own peace of mind, most actual purchases ought to be made be- fore the last pre-Christmas rush, but there really is something rather fes- tive about having to rush around at the last minute to get things ready and to make some last-minute present or two that have been overlooked be- fore. Two very attractive Christmas gifts may be made from a half yard of yard- wide chiffon and about five yards of inch-wide footing and a little pastel- colored embroidery silk. Cut the chif- fon in half to form two 18-inch squares. Carefully overhand the footing around the edges, rolling the chiffon as you proceed and mitering the footing at the corners. With the colored em- broidery silk work a tiny vosebud de- sign on the four mitered corners of the footing. This will provide two or the large handkerchiefs which women like so much for evening or formal afternoon use. Fine lace may be used instead of the footing and white chiffon with black lace or footing—or black chiffon with white lace or footing provides the new magpie effect that is considered very smart. If you can buy some inexpensive wooden shoe trees these may be trans- formed into attractive presents at short notice. It is sometimes possible to get them for as little as 20 or 25 cents a pair. The wooden part of the trees may be gilded or lacquered some at- tractive light shade—the metal strip between should be wound with narrow ribbon and a rosette or nosegay of ribbon may be placed on this ribbon- wound metal strip midway from either end. Wooden clothes hangers may be enameled or wound with ribbon to make attractive companion pieces to go with the shoe trees. Smooth-edged tin boxes can also be attractively lac- quered. If you are more of an adept at cooking than fancy needlework you may find it convenient to make your lasi-minute Christmas presents in the kitchen. Christmas cakes and cookies can be made and delivered the day before Christmas, packed daintily in boxes lined with waxed paped, and tied with holly ribbons. ‘The sketches give ideas for several interesting Christmas gifts. You can cake a bureau scarf from handker- chiefs, a dainty little soft cushion from odds and ends of prints put together in patchwork style; an apron of un- bleached muslin with cutouts of some gay cretonne fastened on with a one- two-three stitch around the edges. A handkerchief case can be made of two strips of satin ribbon, four inches wide and 16 inches long—16% to begin with, to allow for turn- ing under at the raw edges. The two strips of ribbon are fastened togethe: with a catstitch or featherstitch and are tacked over a foundation handker- chief case made of white silk or mus- lin over a padded sheet wadding strip scented with sachet. (Copyrisht. 1928.) THE SKETCH SHOWS SOME IN. TERESTING GIFTS THAT CAN BE MADE WITHOUT SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME. LACQUERED OB- JECTS WITH STENCILED -DECO- RATIONS, A HANDKERCHIEF SACHET MADE OF RIBBON, A PATCHWORK PILLOW, A WASTE BASKET AND LAMPSHADE WITH CRETONNE OR PAPER CUTOUTS, ARE ALL EFFECTIVE AND NOT TOO DIFFICULT. Tedious Jobs BY JANE BROWN. "~ Do you remember how Benjamin Franklin when he was still a very the | young man wrote down the names of arty and homes in which these cloets were, dif- fered from the homes in which these modern closets will go. One of my grandmothers, for in- stance, made a great-to-do about papering her bedroom closets every Spring. She saved all the odd rolls and half rolls of paper left from the other rooms of the house. And what fun she had and we all had deciding which scraps should be used together and how! And what pretty effects were thus achieved! * To this day I remember the scrap of paper with buttercups blowing over it I‘lmch 'was- put ndo% by slfl? wl%htu wal nosegay bachelor but- wu?‘;%? I defy the high-salaried mod- ern “closet decorators” to beat that effect. ¥ Grandmd worked out -all sorts of closet devices, some more practical than esthetic. I'm wondering if coat hang- ers were avallable in that day; maybe they were, but grandma never seemed to have any: but she had worked a smart scheme of impaling empty spools upon nails, guaranteed to hold the most fragile white muslin without danger of soil or rust. 5 ‘When I think of 'closets I have known, I wonder if the modern “im- provements” are always just that, and if we are not losing real spontaneol beauty for “the boughten” kind. No Need to Look Dowdy in Rain One good thing—you needn’t look & fright nowadays in & storm. There was a time, you know, when rainy-day clothes were definitely ugly. All-enveloping, they were—but beauty- concealing, as well. Great, bulky storm rubbers, big, stifiy prim umbrellas. Shapeless, heavy raincoats. But nowadays & woman can be per- fectly protected against the worst sort of storm and yet look attractive. For all the paraphernalia of rainy-day equipment is very good looking. To begin with—well, it's hard to begin. With shoe coverings, perhaps. There are witerproofed fabric galoshes that reach to the ankles and have turnback cuffs that may be turned ug to_protect the ankles. . There are higl galoshes to wear in snowstorms that rubber, marked sometimes in moire or tweed designs. Sometimes they are made with turn-down cuffs in con- trasting design or color. . And then there are sandals made of thin rubber, in black or color, so thin and flexible that they can be tucked into a little rubber bag and carried in the handbag when they are not needed. Umbrellas are as decorative now- adays as they are useful. In the old days a rainy-day outlook was a drab sort of thing. Now a rainy-day crowd looks like a bouquet of bright garden flowers. And the raincoats help along this 1llusion,. although many women this ‘Winter seem to think that dark rain- coats are smarter than bright-colored ones. 13 moral virtues he wanted t0 attain, with brief precepts after each, and then set to work quite deliberately to acquire these virtues? His account of this effort toward self improvement is, I think, one of the most interesting of his very interesting auto- gtm Ty g ‘The sixth virtue in the list is in- dustry, and after it Franklin wrote: “Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut of all unneces- sary action.” That last precept is extremely im- portant, and one that every housewife should Temember. There are plenty of women who are nearly always employed in doing something useful; they lose no time and yet they never seem to have the upper hand with their work. The trouble is they have not learned to cut off all unnecessary action. The more I study the problems of the housewife the more convinced I am that unless unnecessary activities are cul off, the work sooner or later will get the best of the housewife. Many women, I think, sap their strength and wear themselves out spending more time than is necessary on certain tasks that they enjoy. One woman I know has taste for fine table linen, and is extremely par- ticular about the way it is laundered. Every week she spends hours ironing tablecloths, napkins and table doilies herself. She wouldn't think of using an electric mangle even if she had one. She folds the napkins almost to a thread; irons each napkin completely over again with each fold and some- times dampens a piece all over again and betdns to iron anew because she has not been able to fold it with per- fect precision. if T were to tell this woman Permanent Eat Up Time that she was wearing herself out doing this fine laundry work, she would prob- ably be annoyed. She likes to do it and so, it seems to her, the hours she spends on it cannot be exhausting. Yet I am convinced that it is this puttering, rlmuklng work that women enjoy, that is often the cause of physi- cal and mental breakdowns. The tasks that a woman doesn’t like to do, she plans to do with all possible expedition. She uses gg;:n-d.te appliances to help her ugh them quickly, she lets head save her fingers and her heels in their accomplishment. I have sometimes noticed that women who frankly admitted that they did not like any of the actual work con- nected with housewifery in the long Tun had the best results in their house- wifely adventures, Jelly Molds Add To Refreshments supper or card party refreshments, when the various foods are served on plates from pantry or kitchen, it is a good plan to have jelly formed in small individual molds, one .of which should be put on each plate before passing. With chicken salad a small mold of cranberry jelly is attractive. ~With roast lamb, lamb chops or game, cur- rant jelly is appropriate. To make the currant jelly molds, slightly melt the current jelly and then turn into very glasses—such as liqueur glasses. Set these in a cold place until the jelly has re-formed and un- mold them when needed. . Boudoir Slipper Has New Tricks Boudoir slippers are available in so many attractive styles this Winter that it is hard to be limited to one or two pairs. Youwd like a dozen when you see them. The newest, thing about them is prob- ably the use of modernistic designs in their trimming. These designs are in gold or silver kid on slippers of satin or velvet. Sometimes colored kids of two tones are used; sometimes gold and ‘When planning a plate luncheon or | sjlver kid together. The lining of the evening slipper is a XX R X I X EXEXEXEXEX R ST Lighten Mother’s Burden all year round with this Portable SO-E-ZE matter of importance. It is often in a contrasting color, and is often of velvet, sometimes of .fur. Even Toys Go Modernistic. BY ALIDA VREELAND, Modern art expression, greeting us on every side, is now making prepara- tions to greet the kiddies under the Christmas tree, Not content with its influence on the adult -mind it now extends a coaxing arm to the cradle's inhabitant, dangling before his eager eyes the latest interpretations of his favorite toys. , ‘The first of these seen by the writer were displayed in large gmbers and varieties at the Jubilee hibition of Contemporary Culture held “at Brunn, the second largest city in Czechoslo- vakia, in celebration of its tenth year of independence. They were colorful, interesting and amusing and we may confidently expect to find them quickly taken up in the best playrooms of the very youngest social set. In one of the exhibition playrooms a small theater for a marionette show was built. This was somewhat larger in size than a very spacious bureau and could easily be constructed by the amateur carpenter. The cabinet work was simple and a colorful exterior was provided by the use of bright blue and gray paint. The lower portion, about three feet high, was semi-circular in form and had open shelves on either side as convenient nooks for other toys or accessories connected with the per- formance. Above this stood the stage with curtains draped on each side of the square proscenium. Strung along on the left wall of the room were various character dolls with their life-giving strings ready to take part in any drama which their youthful stage manager might choose for them. In addition to dolls and stage, other toys and blocks were scattered on the floor and on shelves, all expressed in the most bizarre terms of the moderns. With a marvelous economy of lines, beast, fish and fowl were created in wood. And simple as they were, there was no sense of crudity. On the con- trary each model showed raré skill in draughtsmanship and a clever under- standing of the main characteristics embodied in each of these dumb creatures. For example, an oblong block slightly thicker at one end where a small round knob with a painted eye and a square bill were placed, signified a duck with- out question. A swan floated into ex- istence after a long wooden neck had been inserted into a half circle of inch thick wood tilted upward to indicate the tail and showing painted ripples of blue water on the lower round side. A wedge with two spiky ears sticking upward from the pointed end betrayed a mouse. Near him stood a sheep, curly wool painted with zigzag blue stripes and composed of two wooden semicircles. ‘The arched side of the larger was used for the body while the small one, attached to the front, pointed toward the ground, sheep f: , in grazing position. The eyes were closed with the benign peaceful expression pe- culiar to the species. Little baby ducks who hadn't yet reached years of angularity made them- selves known in two ovals, one tiny one for a head and a bigger one for the body. These rotund figures followed dignified parent ducks around in flocks of six or eight. All posed for a spring into the near- est pond was a wooden green and black frog. Though his legs were squared and his body suggested a fish in shape, he was thoroughly froglike in appear- ance. Any child would immediately recognize him. ‘The complexities of a cow as the ar- tist sees it were also quite simply smoothed down by the modernist. Switching tail with tasseled end, horns, ears and hips were remarkab! revealed in four irregular lines and two sets of legs. The splotches of brown and white color were conclusive proof of the animal’s identity. Perhaps one of the reasons most fa- vorable toward the adoption of modern toys in the nursery the constant training in the observation of animal | propertions which children receive from them. Minus their fur and feathers only the mass outlines are predomi- nant. Yet to draw these forms truth- fully the average artist often spends ‘more time than he does on other details. Our youngsters, if Czechoslovakia’s new. playthings enjoy popularity in this country, will ‘get the modernists’ ex- pressive forms instilled with their por- ridge and bedtime stories. THE DAILY HOROSCOPE Monday, December 17. Benefic aspects will be strong tomor- row, according to astrology, which finds the morning most favorable to many activities, Literary and educational matters are especially well directed, with promise of great achievements in the intellectual world. America is to pay especial attention to art interests in the new year, which will bring a widespread appreciation of beauty. X ‘There is a first-rate promise for those who deal in land and it seems that in several cities slums and rundown sec- tions are to be marvelously reclaimed to loveliness. Intense interest in agricultural prob- lems will reflect upon the public mind in a way most beneficial to gardening. ‘The seers fortell that the United States will parks and gardens more beau than any in the world. The landscape artist is to come into great demand and more than one man will make fame for himself by splendid achievements. “This is not an especially auspicious day for starting ocean journeys, but as- trologers forecast much ftravel to America from foreign countries. Industrial enterprises should prosper under this rule of the stars which indi- :‘a'zs increased trend toward combina- ons. Money is to be obtained by those who deal in and those who deal in large things, but between there will be much real cleverness necessary to suc- ceed, the seers declare. Again many changes in customs and in scale of living are prognosticated. Persons whose birth date it is prob- ably wil find that the year brings them a sense of safety and security in finan- cial affairs, Children born on that day probably - will be rather too mild and modest to succeed in_ their own business projects: ‘They should make fine employes. Girls will be admirable wives and mothers. (Copyright, 1928.) Apartments Available The Highlands “A4 Most Desirable Permanemt Address” GhuiniiAve: 8 Cal St O n e of Washington's exclusive Apartment Hotels offers suites from 2 to 7 rooms, furnished and unfur- nished. Rentals Moderate Wardman Management -Nh 1240 When You Haven’t A Thing To Wear— LUCY LOU/ THE HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES Dresses for 11° ONE DRESS $6.50 The Greatest Hosiery Value in Town! UNIQUE GIFTS to Suit Every Purse U GIFTS TOYS CHILDREN'S APPAREL 1929 Q St .E. Cor. Conn. Ave.) Full Fashioned .~ All Silk Hose In CHIFFON AND SERVICE WEIGHTS 99' a pair The Daintiest of Underthings So. Attractively Priced That They Solve the Gift Problem Teach higher than an old-time high | shoe. Yet they are fairly light weight, | soft, good looking. They, too, are some- ' times cuffed with velvet, and they come in black and brown and some- | times dark blue. ‘There are rubber shoes, ankle high, that welgh almost nothing and can be slipped over the lightest slipper or & substantial street shoe with a look of daintiness and chic. These, too, | e in brown or black, gray or blue, | are made of the thinnest, softest KAPLOWITZ BROTHERS 13TH STREET, BETWEEN E AND F STREETS ANNOUNCE NEW FASHIONS: FOR THE HOLIDAY FESTIVITIES Sewing Machine $ 39.50 One of our most popular portables. The So-E-Ze. Has walnut-finished base and cover. General Electric motor, sewing light and full set of the latest at- tachments. Easy to carry about and easy to put out of sight when not in use. Can be used in any light socket and with six speed foot-control sewing can be done slowly or at a good speed. 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