Evening Star Newspaper, December 30, 1928, Page 68

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, PO Louise Takes Things Into Her Own Hands HAD been making tapioca custard for the babies and wondering whom they could marry, when Dulcie came in. Of course, the twins be- ing only 3, it would be some « time before they could marry anybody and I suppose lots of people would think it was just silly of me even to give the matter a thought. But there's no harm in thinking and I wasn't worrying at all, because I real- ized that a lot of things might happen before they were grown up. If this were the kind of country, though, where par- ents betroth their children in infancy I would certainly be one worried mother. I might manage all right for Jill but I can't think of a baby in Mont- rose that I'd want Jack to marry. Little Dulcie, next door, is very pretty and blonde, which would be nice, Jack being dark; but the way Dulcie is bringing her up lets her out as a wife for Jack. Little Dulcie is spoiled at 16 months and what she’ll be at 16 years I shudder to contemplate. Goodness knows, Rosie Merton's babies aren't spoiled—as Rosie says, you don’t cross-stitch any monograms on the fourth set—but I don't think any one of her three little girls would quite do. Betty is too old for Jack and the two little ones look like Howard. Corinne’s Marcia is a very attractive child, but she’s croupy, and I want Jack to have a healthy wife. Ruth’s baby is healthy enough, and rather nice looking and amazingly well behaved, but, as Rosie and I have often said, we sometimes suspect that the only rea- son she is s0°good is because she's too dumb to get into mischief. Of course, some of the Harvester bunch have girl babies, but I'd hate to see Jack marrying into that crowd. In fact, the more I thought about it the more I realized that there wasn't a girl in all Montrose who was really suitable. Naturally, T didn’t mention what I had been thinking about to Duleie, who had run in to see if I had a good recipe for sour cream cake. It wouldn’t have been very tactful on account of little Dulcie and I wouldn't have, anyway, because ever since we made such an awful bone of trying to marry of Madge Edwards, we've all been a little offish on the whole subject of matchmaking. This morning, however, Dulcie brought it up herself. “Well,” she observed, chattily, “I see Louise Curley's got another beau.” ‘Who?” I exclaimed. r. Pawling.” r. Pawling!” I echoed, amazed. “Why, he’s old enough to be her father!” “Oh, no,” said Dulcie, “he's only 42. And she’s 26. Lots of married couples have that much difference in their s, “But he's bald,” I protested, “And he gargles, night and morning. His sister told me so.” Dulcie shrugged her shoulders. “I can't see myself m: a who gargles,” she admitted. * there’s no accounting for tastes. ably Louise res she'd rather be an :ll: man’s darling than a young man’s Ve We polished for a few moments in silence. Then: “And there aren’t so very many young men left who aren’t married, already,” I said. ‘Which, of course, hit the nail right on the head. We haven’t got much of a bachelor class in Montrese. And all of Louise’s girl friends were married, with a baby or two apiece. I suppose, to put it erudely, Louise had reached the point where she'd rather have Mr. Pawling than nobody. “Well, maybe Mrs. Curley’ll think Mr. Pawlding is good enough for Louise,” said Dulcie. ~ “He's settled right in Montrose and his store is doing well.” * x k% Dm was thinking of Denis O’Shea. Louise is awfully sweet and pretty and had had plenty of beaus, but Denis was the one that everybody had thought she would marry. Plenty of other girls in Montrose would have been glad enough to marry Denis, but ia-uréu was the only girl he ever rushed He was the handsomest Irishman you ever laid eyes on, with crisp, black, curly hair and blue eyes and flashing white teeth. The only thing in the world I ever heard against him was that he wouldn’t settle down in Montrose. He was studying to be a geologist and he said that he wanted to see the world. ‘That was enough for Mrs. Curley. She was a widow and Louise was her only child and the idea of Louise get- ting married and leaving her to go off to some far end of the earth set her wild. She was against Denis from the start and she finally managed the breaking up of the affair. Louise never told anybody much about it. All she ever said was to Bee Duncan, her best friend. She told Bee that she couldn’t break her mother's heart. So, after having gone with Louise for four years, Denis went away alone. We heard that he'd got a won- derful job in Brazil. That was five years ago. Louise had had a few other beaus since but nothing had come of any of them. Nobody ever knew what was the trouble; there ‘was never a quarrel or anything you could put your finger on; they all con- tinued to say Louise was a fine girl, long after they had made a fadeout and married somebody else. It had been a year or more now since anybody had been going with her at all. “Do you know,” said Dulcie,” I think the trouble with Louise’s beaus is her mother.” “Oh, I don't know,” I protested. “I never heard of Mrs. Curley's objecting to any of them, except Denis.” “That's all very well,” said Dulcie. “But Denis is the only one of them who wouldn't have had to marry Lou- ise’s mother right along with Louise.” Which I admit seemed reasonable. Mrs. Curley expected, as a matter of course, to go right on living with Louise in case Louise should get married. And, when it came right down to it, any man who was courting Louise had to come pretty close to courting her mother, too. This was on account of Mrs. Curley’s being a chum to her daughter. She was always telling us how she was just Louise’s chum; that they were really more like sisters. “I was only 18 when she was born,” Mrs. Curley was always saying. “Dr. Horne used to say to me, ‘Why, Mary, you're only a girl yourself, and here you are with a little girl of your own. You and this baby will be just a pair of sisters!” " Mr. Curley died when Louise was a baby, leaving Mrs. Curley with money enough so she didn’t have to worry, and she had devoted her life ever since to being a sister to Louise. I remember how it was when we were all little. Mrs. Curley always ‘walked to school with Louise and came after her, even after the rest of us, who were years younger, were let go alone. Then each Fall, when Louise passed into a new grade, Mrs. Curley would go to school and call on the new teacher and invite her to supper. This usually made Louise the teacher’s pet. When we went to play at Louise’s house, her mother was always so inter- ested in our games. We could make candy any time at Louise’s, Mrs. Curley would always be right out in the Kitchen to tell us when to take it off. Louise never did learn to make fudge that would get hard by herself. Mrs. Curley seemed so much younger and gayer than any of our other mothers. We all liked her and envied Louise. “ man till, serious about Louise and wanted to be This hurt Mrs. Curley’s feelings. She'd tell Louise to go on somewhere with Denis, but when Louise got back she’d find that her mother had been crying. nest, Mrs. Curley liked him less and less. Where she used to say he was so handsome, now she'd add “in a rather coarse sort of way.” showing off. She didn’t talk any more |it, 1 realized that this might be partly By Fannie Kilbourne Meeting an Apparently Permanent Barrier. | the different ones to supper and have everything they liked to eat. She'd join right in, put on her own prettiest dress, play all the new popular songs for them on the piano and be as jolly as though she were Louise’s age. “I'll bet Johnny Harris really comes to see me,” she'd tease Louise. And then, to any one else who happened to be around, “Really, you know, I have as much fun out of Louise’s beaus as she does. We're just a couple of girls together, just sisters!" I must admit, though, that I never knew any sisters who worked that way. o 18 B ALL through high school Louise was awfully popular. All the boys liked to go to her house. Mrs. Curley never cared how late they stayed; would let the bunch tear up the living room to dance any time they wanted, would play for them and even get up and dance an old-fashioned waltz herself with one of the boys. Everybody said that Louise Curley was lucky. Then Denis O’Shea came along. Denis was crazy about Louise. He was awfully nice to her mother, would jolly her along, pretend he couldn’t tell her and Louise apart. When he'd ask Louise to go to the movies, and Louise would say, “Would you mind asking mother to go along, too? It would be dull for her to stay at home alone,” Denis would say, “Surg, the more the merrier,”. and would get seats right down in the front because Mrs. Curley is a little nearsighted. For quite a while Mrs. Curley thought he was grand, told everybody what a handsome young fellow he was and what a beautiful voice he had and how :;lnlzlm?us he was, and everything like at. But after a while Denis began to get | I never knew a human being who was so crazy about babies. She used to try to get her mother to adopt one. But Mrs. Curley would laugh and say, “M:‘ircy me, Louise is the only baby I need.” The truth of the matter is that, though Louise was only 26, she *had begun to seem a little of an old maid. It never occurred to any of us that she minded this, till she suddenly be- gan going with Mr. Pawling. We had thought she was perfectly contented. Contented—why, she must secretly have been getting desperate! “Do you think Mr. Pawling is really serious?” I asked Dulcie. “Oh, I don't imagine he's proposed, or anything like that yet,” she an- swered; “but he's going to see Louise two and three times a week. And now that his brother has died and left him the other store in Verblen, goodness knows, he's in a position to support a wife. I don't see why Louise shouldn’t get him, with half a chance.” “When she's away with her mother, though, she hasn't really got half a chance,” I said. This was perfectly true. As any girl who has ever had the least experience with men knows, there comes a time in every love affair where you've got to be alone in order to do your best work. And, as things were, I realized that Louisz would practically never get a chance to be alone with Mr. Pawling. “I think all of us girls ought to help Louise out on that,” said Dulcie. “We'd have to do it awfully tactfully, of course, so as not to hurt Mrs. Cur- ley's feelings. But I believe that, if we «;“]ilty put our minds to it, we could 0 it “I think so, too,” I L along, too, saying, “Why, of course, Dotty, we'll be delighted to help you out.” She pinned a tea-towel over the front of her dress for an apron, and asked me briskly which plates I was going to use for the sandwiches. I gave Dulcie a wild signal, and she came to the rescue. She said, “Oh, Mrs. Curley, I've just been dying to ask you about that paper mother said you read at the woman's club. It's—" I didn’t hear the rest, but Dulcie can be flattering when she sets out to be, and, the next thing I knew, she had Mrs. Curley cornered in the living room. I set Louise and Mr. Pawling to cutting cake and dishing ice cream and so on, and kept out of their way as much as I could. Refreshments, however, can't take forever, and, when they were over, somebody asked Mr. Pawling to sing. That was unfortunate, because it brought Mrs. Curley right into the picture again, to play for him. Her mother being able to play so well, Louise had never learned. Mr, Pawling has a very deep voice, which seems downright funny, he's such a mild, wiry-necked little man. He sang five or six songs before he stopped. Most of Mr. Pawling’s songs seem to be tragedies of the sea. He was booming away on “Davy Jones' Locker” when I happened to glance at Louise. She was sitting there, listening, and suddenly—I don’t know why—I remembered how we al- ways used to drag Denis to the piano and get him to sing Irish ballads. Mrs. Curley has never had to play any ac- companiments for Denis. He could listen to anything once, and sit down agreed. Match-making is the most fascinat- alone with her some of the time. ing sport in the world, and, almost at to_the plano and play it by ear. I looked at Mr. Pawling, standing up Je A man you were in love with, and made it seem queer and glad and tearful and ‘magic, the thought of being married to him, of being with him forever, of having a home, and maybe babies that belonged to you both. After Denis’ ghost, it was consider- able of a come down to wake up and hear thin, bald-headed little Mr. Pawl- ing singing. Still, in a way, I thought L could understand how Louise was feeling Feeling that she just couldn't bear to stand by, and see youth and love and life pass her by altogether. Sitting there, while Mr. Pawling was pufing out his chest and rocking in the cradle of the deep, I took a solemn oath with myself. If Louise wanted a home and bables of her own bad enough to take Mr. I'>wling along with them, I, for one, was going to do all I could to see that she got the chance! This wasn't going tc be so awfully easy, I realized; but match-making al- ways _ stimulates me. Besides, Dulcie and I had told the other girls, and we were all working together. - Evenings, we'd see the three of them together at the movies, just as we had used to see the Curleys with Denis. Everybody goes over to the Oasis after the movies, to get sundaes, and whichever of our crowd happened to be there would loiter around the door till the threesome came out. Then we'd maneuver to get up a bunch to g0 to the Oasis together, and, by posi- tively diabolical cleverness, arrange it so that Mrs. Curley would be dragged in at a table with some of the rest of us, and Louise and Mr. Pawling would have to sit by themselves. Fortunately, the Curleys lived just beyond our house and Dulcle’s, so that walking home it was possible for some one of us to walk with Mrs. Curley, keeping her engaged in conversation, ot ) SITTING THERE WHILE MR. PAWLING WAS ROCKING IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP As Denis got more and more in ear- If he'd sit down and play and sing in a crowd, she'd laugh a little superiorly and say he was about his being ambitious. Now. she called it “reckless.” And when she discovered that his ambition was to be a geologist and go all over the world, she got just frantic. She said that a man with that idea ought never to marry; that no girl could be happy away off from every- body who was dear to her. Denis began going around with a hard, set look around the mouth, and Louise got thinner and thinner and whiter and whiter. Then Mrs. Curley got sick. She told everybody that she was afraid she wasn’t going to get well. Louise was a perfect angel, took all the care of her. Nobody knows what hap- pened, but all of a sudden Denis O'Shea left town. Mrs. Curley got better right away and began putting on weight again and fairly blooming, till inside of e months any one would swear it was Louise who had had the serious illness. Everybody said what a wonderful daughter Louise was and how devoted she was to her mother. They went everywhere together and they were so thoughtful of each other. The rest of us were always having Louise Curley held up to us as an example by our own mothers. If Louise hadn’t been an awful peach, this would have made us hate her, But everybody liked her. Once in a while some one would say it was a little too bad things hadn't been so she could have married Denis; they had seemed to be so terribly in love. Still, everybody said, Louise would find somebody else she'd like as well as she did Denis, and probably it was all for the best. The only trouble was that Louise hadn't seemed to find anybody else. And, once Dulcie had spoken of on account of Louise and her mother being such chums. For one thing, Louise dign't get to go to so many places where there were men any more. She and her mother went everywhere together, and we girls sort of got into the way of inviting them both when we were having an afternoon bridge party, but not to our evening parties when there were to be {men. Evening things are usually in i couples, and Mrs. Curley would have | made an odd woman. We all liked her too well to hurt her feelings by not | asking her, so we just got in the way of counting Louise out, too. Besides, after Denis went away, Lou- She and her mother went to Chicago to buy their clothes, and being just of a size they got to buying things they could change back and forth with each other. dashing on Mrs. Curley, but they were likely to be a little bit old for Louise. Most, of the other girls bobbed their hair, but Mrs. Curley didn’t like short hair, so Louise kept her’s long, which made her look a little older, too. In | fact, the old compliment began to be look a day older than her daughter. This was half becausc Mrs. Curley looked so young for her age, but the other half because Louise was begin- nl%m look old for hers. en we had all begun having bovs come to see her, her mother en- tared right into that, too, Would invite ’ ‘When she got old enough to have the families. Louise would always be the ise didn't seem so attractive, anyway. | ‘These looked very young and i { almost true—that Mrs. Curley didn’t] once, I had an idea. I was to entertain the Christian Endeavor, Saturday night, and the Curleys always went to that. So did Mr. Pawling. “T'll ask Louise and Mr. Pawling to help serve,” I said. “That will throw them together for quite a little while.” “That's a good idea,” said Dulcie. “And I'll see that Mrs. Curley is kept entertained in the meantime.” Which we did. I got Mr. Pawling out in the kitchen first and then I called Louise. Mrs. Curley came right I read in the papers, Or what I run into from day to atre where I come in the afternoon to kinder hide out and get a little public you”” I says Bender, what Bender? show him in anyway and I will look think it _is? Well it ain’t a soul but our old Baseball Pitcher for the Phila- Article for it may not interest you, but before you throw it away hand it to Chief Bender? What did he ever do? Here is this old Man Rogers writing say: “You young America! You mean to ington, or Lincoln, or Bryan, or Carrie Nation, at your schools and not teach there been no Chief Bender there would have been no Pitcher in Baseball They matter of formalily, or Maby let Mayor ‘Walker pitch, or Calvin or just anybody. “Baseball is our National game, the same as War is our National heroic | Institutions if they dont teach the chil- dren about Chief Bender and all our BY WILL ROGERS. WELL, all I know is just what day. I was sitting in_my dressing room at the annoying done, and the back doorman come in and said, “Mr. Bender to see him over. Well, in he comes, and who do you delphia Athletics, “Chief Bender.” All you young folks skip right over this your parents and say to them, “Pop did you ever hear of a Ball Player named something about him.” Your Dad will grab the paper and tell me you never heard of Chief Ben- der! Do they teach you about Wash- you about Chief Bender? My Boy, he is what made pitching famous. Had would have just let the second baseman throw the ball up to the batter as a You go and tell your Teacher to learn something about American history. effort, and Bootlegging is our National Industry. Shame on our educational other Baseball Heroes.” “Hello Chief, Gee I am glad to see in Philadelphia and had dinner at your house maby about 1910.” “Hello Will! You being a Cherokee, I always been sorter keeping track of you. I guess you seen where Charley iCurtis, our Kaw brother, had worked for the Government for years, and he finally got set back to Vice President dident you?” “Yes I did hear that Chief, and I certainly felt bad about it, Cause I have known him for years, and I can remem- ber when he was Leader of the Repub- was Leader of that side you dident have to worry much what the other. side would do. He really had some author- you! haven't seen you since I went out | lican side in the Senate, and when you | there, booming away, and, above his careful, middle-aged bass, I actually seemed to hear Denis' rich young baritone. How_could Louise bear to listen to Mr. Pawling, the girl that Denis O'Shea had looked at when he sang? * K X K IT was suddenly downright spooky, like a ghost in the room, the ghost of Denis O'Shea. Denis' singing always made you think of Spring and moonlight and the US INJUNS MUST “Did you learn em how to get the | other teams signals Chief? I remem- | ber when you and Harry Davis used to | coach at first and third for the old A’s, rand you knew what kind of a ball the Pitcher would throw before he got out of bed in the morning. Everytime the Pitcher wound up you just told.the batter what was going to happen. Why ity and I was sorry to see em set him back to nothing but & Toastmaster. How you been chief?” “Oh, I been managing Ball teams, first one to call to see every baby. and Cou:hln! o for the Navy for six. yom."] Baseball at Annapolis . it was almost like the Literary Digest calling the turn on an election. You made some great batters out of men that never got a foul after they left your team. How did you do that Chief?” “Well we.just studied em. Pitehers leaving Louise and Mr. Pawling to walk along alone together. Ore thing that helped our scheme a lot was the fact that Mr. Curley prided serself on Louise’s young friends liking her just as well as they did Louise. ‘When one of us would ask her to do something alone, or would tell her some little secret or something like that, she would be so flattered that, for the time, being she'd forgot all about Louise. After all, though these times were Rogers and Chief Bender Revive Memories of Major Sports in Which the Aborigines Made Good—Pop Warner and His Proteges. Merunghi Sysdeste, Bt WCT. STAND TOGETHER. have a certain way of doing everything just like a Politician. You know your- self Will, you know yourself what he is goinl to say before he even takes his rst drink, downtown with the recep- tion Committee, and thats the way I studied Ball Players. They are pretty near as limited in their business as Pol- iticians. If they used a signal ten years ago they think it is good yet, and they would have been just as well off if thay had announced to the batter, Here is & curve, or here is a fast one.” “Remember the time, Chief, in 1903 |1 think -it was, you ¢ » always pretly short. Louise might not have got far with just them. But I had a real inspiration. This was get- ting Mrs. Curley to play the accompani- ments for the chorus of “Betty, Mind Your Step.” The Christiin Endeavor was putting on an amatcur musical show, and, as Mr. Pawling was one of the principals, he didn't have to rehearse with the chorus. Mrs. Curley was to play for the chorus, so she had to be at all their rehearsals. That left Louise with & lot of free evenings, and, though she and Mr. Pawling would always come around afterward to take Mrs. Curley home, they had had three or four hours alone together first. Things were really working like a charm. Mr. Pawling was at the Cur- leys’ most of his spare time. He bought himself two new suits, and began comb- ing_his scanty locks to cover as much of Ris baldness as possible. All of us girls were fairly hugging ourselves with pleasure at how well things seemed to be going. ER ND then—trust Girlie Whittaker to do the one wrong thing at a critical moment—everything changed. We were all walking home from the Oasis together, Louise and Mr. Pawling, a little ahead, I with Mrs. Curley. Girlie caught up with us and walked along with me and Mrs. Curley. We hadn't taken Girlle into the scheme, as she’s so tactless we hadn't dared. And tonight if she didn't look ahead at Louise and Mr. Pawling, and then laugh knowingly, and say to Mrs. Curley, “Well, it looks like a wedding in_your family.” I must confess that, at first, I didn’t realize what a terrible thing this was to have said. It had never occurred to us that Mrs. Curley would be against Louise’s marrying a man as proachable as Mr. Pawling, who wouldn't even take her away from Montrose. Why, there wasn't a chance that he would mind having Mrs. Curley live right with them. But, when Girlie said this, we pened to be under a street light, and I saw Mrs. Curley's face. It was startled, amazed. We passed out from under that light and, by the time that we reached the next one and I could see Mrs. Curley’s face again, it had taken on a new look. Angry, outraged. It was quite a little way between that light and the next one and by the time we had walked that distance and I got another look at her, Mrs. Curley's | face had settled into an expression that fairly turned my heart cold. It was a | look of hard, set determination. In that look, I read the truth. It hadn’t been Denis alone she had op- posed that other time. She didn't mean to let Louise marry anybody, ever. Louise was her chum, and she was going to keep her always, just for herself. As I said, it just turned me cold. I suddenly saw the whole affair of Denis in a new light. Remembered every- thing Mrs, Curley had done, even her getting sick. Remembered how, though Louise and her mother had always spoken of pneumonia, Dr. Horne had sald it had just been a very bad case of_grip. I remembered every detail—the sweet, patient way Louise had taken care of her, looking like a poor forlorn little ghost herself, her lips white, and her face all queer and drawn. And how, as soon as Louise had torn her own heart out.and given up Denis, Mrs. Curley had got better right away, seeming younger and gayer and more blooming every day. And now she was going to do the same thing right over again. I knew it. She'd keep Louise from marrying Mr. Pawling, just like she had kept her from marrying Denis. It was a terrible shock to me to realize that a woman could devote her life to a_ daughter, :nd still be a bad mother. But it was rue. I thought of it all that evening, and while I was bathing the babies the next morning. I've been trying to teach the | twins to be polite, and, when I was lifting Jill out of the tub, she put her fat, damp little arms around my neck and sald: “I want to give a kith on mother— pleathe!” Some way, it made me think of Louise’s always being the first one to come to see the new babies, of her mother’s getting old. some time, and all beat McGraw |to dying and leaving Louise all alone. ‘Without ever having had a home or a and Mathewson and McGinnity? You won that series yourself.” “Yes but I was lucky Will. Matty was a great Pitcher, and McGinnity beat Coombs 2-1. They hurrahed me, and give me the Indian war Whoop all during the game.” “Chief, you know who was sitting here in this dressing room the other night? He was out in front at the Show, Pop Warner!” “Oh is that so? I went to Carlysle in 98, wanted to play football, but was so tall and skinny, in a year or two I finally made sub end. I was there with the Metoxens, Demis Pierce, Johnson, Dillon, (the man that hid the ball un- der his Jersey and made the touchdown against Harvard). The boys used to like to make the football team because they got better things to eat. You got steaks then instead of just gravy. You know the Government dident feed the Indian much better than they have taken care of them. “You know people dont know it but Pop Warner used to go out on the | reservations every summer and pick out the boys that looked promising. There was no rich Alumni to send him ma- terial. You know Will he taught me how to throw a curve, and a slow ball. He was baseball Coach, too. For a slow ball I used to hold it in the middle of my hand. It was the old fashioned way but it was effective. Mathewson to be over at a school adjoining, Bucknell at the same time. You know when he used to have those wonderful teams Pop Warner only had about 200 to pick from. Think of what these big schools nowadays have, and say Will in those days it was all just bucking the line or kicking. Imagine what would happen nowadays if Pop Warner had a bunch of those fast Babies with this Forward pass, and all this open fleld stuff, with him coaching and a bunch of good Indians. Harvard and Yale and Princeton wouldent get their Racoon | coats off before they had had at least fifty scored against them.” “Chief, when did Thorpe come to Carlysle?” “Oh, he was after me. He come in about 1907. But when he come they knew it.” “Where you living now Chief?” t “Oh out in the edge of Philadelphia. just 568 feet high, right on the level | ;Ill‘tll;l‘_wfl.lllm Penns hat on the City | “I—I HOPE YOU'LL BE AWFULLY HAPPY” husband or her own baby's fat little arms around her neck. What had been a jolly, soclal, match- making scheme seemed suddenly to me to be almost a holy trust. I felt that it was all up to me. I just couldn't let Louise’s life be left so empty. We girls would all have to get busy now and work quick. The alarm, so to speak, was out. I didn't know how far things had gone with Louise and Mr. Pawling, but I knew that they'd got to be speeded up now. Some wayy I had a feeling that Mrs. Curley would probably not be taken sick until after the musical show was over. She just loves to be in on any- thing like that. But time was fright- fully short. It was only three days now till the show would be pulled off. I spent the morning trying to think of some dignified, tactful way to hint to Louise that tempus was fugiting and she'd got to work fast. That is a rather delicate thing to get across tact- fully to a girl who dosen’t know what you are getting at. Besides, I knew her mother would maneuver now so that Louise would never have any time with Mr. Pawling alone. She was to have this one afternoon though, I happened to know. “Mr. Pawling’s asked us to drive over to Verblen with him to see his store that his brother left him,” Mrs. Curley had told us, before she had known what was afloat, Wednesday afternoon. I had had to think quick. “Oh, isn't that a shame!” I said. “The girls in the chorus wanted to re- hearse their ‘Shine On, Moon,’ Wed- nesday afternoon.” The girls hadn't heard of it, of course, but I knew they'd stand by me. “Oh, dear!” Mrs. Curley exclaimed. “Well, maybe Mr. Pawling can take us some other day.” But, as it happened, Mr. Pawling couldn't, and we girls had fixed it so that we couldn’t possibly rehearse any other time. So Mrs. Curley was going to stay, reluctantly, to play for us— after we'd told her how her playing was all that was holding the chorus together at all—and Louise and Mr. Pawling were to drive over to Verblen alone. I WAS walking home from rehearsal |1 a little after 5. Mrs. Curley was still back in the Sunday school room, | going over the “Darkling lie the shad- ows” with the altos. I was walking slowly, it was such a heavenly Spring day. It had been raining, but ® had stopped, and the twilight was so sweet and fragrant it almost brought tears to your eyes. Little drops hung on the purple lilac bushes; the forsythia was out, gay and yellow, in every yard: there was that sweet Spring smell of the earth—gar- dens that had been freshly plowed. As I came in sight of the Curley house I saw Louise coming down the steps alone, and all my anxiety was suddenly over. At the first glance I had of her face I knew that our job was done. We wouldn't have to man- age Mrs. Curley any longer; we needn't have anything more to do with the af- fair. As far as our part was concerned, the deed was done. Louise—there was no mistaking the look on her face—had taken affairs into her own hands. In that one afternoon something magic had happened to Louise Curley. She wasn't any longer the quiet, dull, almost elderly girl. who had gone to Wornen': tC{&h hmeennghs and worn clothes just e her mother’s. Her cheeks were simply flaming, her eyes fairly shone out light. Young— she was as young as the yellow for- B * K K K hia. “At first, though she saw me, she didn't seem to be going to stop. Then she apparently thought better of it and came toward me, half running. shemcaught my hand tight, looking right into my eyes. ‘E“Llsuzn, Dotty, you girls all like mamma—be as sweet as you can to her, won't you?” “Of ‘course we will, Louise,” I prom- Then I noticed the suit case she had in her hand. It was big and it must have been heavy, but she carried it as lightly as though it were a flower or a ag. “Louise!” I gasped, scarcely daring to believe my eyes. “You're eloping! “Yes,” she said, “I've got to. I can’t help myself. I gave it up once, and I can't again. I've got to! You'll be sweet to mother, won't you? I'm so sorry to be doing it to her.” Her eyes filled with tears, but they were a queer sort of tears. It was &s umu&h fire were !ltaln ‘th.:':lml‘h them, like the sun_on iripping forsythias. “I—I hope yau'lf be awfully happy, Louise,” I said, awkwardly. There didn't seem to be anything you could say to any one so unearthly radiant. She leaned, over and kissed ; Then, catching up her suit case, she ran away down the avenue. The heavy bag seemed fairly to float along beside her. It was as though she were flying. 1 stood for some little time, just look- ing after her. We'd put it o was no doubt of that. But we known what we were putting over. I felt as though we had been thinking we were making bread pudding. And food. It was breathless and so sweet it hurt, like the smell of Spring in the I felt that for a moment I n looking at a flaming miracle. is certainly the strangest thing I finally pulled myself ! “Well, us injuns got to stick together Chief. For these white people bout to take this country. You know Coolidge tried to claim kin to us last year, but that was only an add to get the Indian vote. But its too bad about Curtis for we had kinder depended on him doing something for us.” “Yes, Will that was a big disappoint- ment to me. I thought he would amount something some day t00.” together and started on home, to put | the cereal on for the twins. 1 “And just to think,” I thought to myself, amazed and incredulous, “of feeling like that about a man who -+ s LI rr was nefirly 10 o'clock that night when Dulcie called me up. She was as excited as I had been. “What do you think of Louise Cur- ley?” she breathlessly. “Words simply fail me,” I said. Will snorted from the chair. “Mr. Pawling just didn’t w what to make of it,” Dulcie went on excitedly. | “He stood around in Verblen waiting for_her for nearly three hours.” Wasn't that just like Mr. Pawling, to let a girl come on home alone to get her suit case? “And to think that she just ran into him in the street! And that he was leaving this very night!” Dulcle ex- claimed. “And it all happened like a flash—he'd been visiting his married | sister in Verblen, you know.” I didn’t even know that Mr. Pawling had a married sister in Verblen. 5 , for heaven's sake!” Dulcle said. “Who's talking about Mr. Pawl- ing?' ‘There was a moment's silence, while I tried desperately to make sense out of what I was hearing. Then— “Oh,” sald Dulcle, “you haven't heard?” - “Yes, I have,” I insisted, but persistent. “I saw Louise just as she was leaving.” “Louise Curley,” said Dulcie, in that excited, complacent tone of one who is the first to tell lmutn{_nm. “Louise Curley was married in Verblen at half past six—to Denis O'Shea!” We haven't really got over it yet. Tt is the most exciting, romantic thing that has ever happened in Montrose. They caught the fiyer for New York that night, and sailed on Monday for Buenos Aires. Louise Curley, who had never been farther -from home than Chicago and Grand Rapids! I shall never forget her flying down our prosy street as though she were on her way to_heaven. ‘The real joke, though, is on all us girls. We expected to have to nurse Mrs. Curley along for months or years. In spite of how I felt about her as a mother, ‘I was really awfully sorry for her, and we girls agreed to do all we could to keep her from being too un- havpy. And then, we didn't have to do & single thing! Less than a month after Louise had left, Mrs. Curley married Mr. Pawling. I shall never know just what the truth is, but Mrs. Curley, at least, is per- fectly sure that he has been coming to s2e her all along. And, for all I know, maybe he was. If he was, goodness knows, the way we pushed him off onto Louise furnished opposition enough to make any courtship a success. “I could never have married, though, if Louise hadn't,” she told Mother Hor- ton. “It would have left Louise too ter- ribly alone. You see, we've always been so_close. Just like sisters!” I swear that it's completely cured me of matchmaking, though Will says when I'm through with matchmaking Il be through with breathing. That is as it may be—you never can fore- see how you're going to be tempted. But there’s one thing I'm sure of, absolutely, cross-my-heart, hope-to-die sure. That is, that I shall never stand in the way of the children’s love affairs. Even Jack can marry anybody he wants to. (Copyright, 1928.) Early Celebration. According to history, the first Massa- chusetts colonists had Christmas din- ner aboard the Mayflower. Lack of space notwithstanding, a barrel full of ivy, holly and laurel had been brought aboard. With the greens of the home- land the plucky women decorated the dining table and managed to prepare a dinner of salt fish, bacon, Brussels cprouts, gooseberry tarts and English plum pudding for the homesick voy- agers. That Christmas dinner aboard the Mayflower was their last for many years. The Massachusetts colony which settled around Boston believed that the divine Christmas mission upon earth ‘was too serious to be celebrated with anything but prayer. To these right- eous men the merry old customs were heathenish, and the day was derisively called Pope’s day. To finally repress all attempts at celebration the Massa- chusetts General Court enacted a law in 1659 which declared: “That whosoever shall be found ob- serving any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, shall be sub- jected to a fine of 5 shillings.” But in spite of temporary prohibi- tions and all the worry and the work, Christmas has survived. Women all over the world are still trimming trees, wr-Dg:lnl up presents and Strasburg pie and snails in pleffer-kuchen in Germany, eels in Italy, plum pudding in England and turkey and mince pie in America. Stamp éonfetti. UNCL! SAM is a thrifty business man, economizing so far as to sell all the time we had been making angel | %0 3altimore coal concern, uses a certain SRS S e et . Improved Stone. BUn.DlNG stone that absorbs sounds