Evening Star Newspaper, February 2, 1930, Page 89

couple of games of chess afterward and a chat with the gquiet young man to whom he had taken such a fancy. “You'll be out this evening, I suppose,” Mr, Santrey said to his son. “No. Don't you recall, Dad, this is the night I've asked Linda and her mother over to dinner?” “Oh, yes.” Linda was a sweet thing. Mr. Santrey suspected that she would eventually become his new daughter. Well, the chess was out and the quiet chat—soe it might as well be a larger party. Perhaps Carlo and Billy could come, too. As it happened, they could. Carlo arrived before Billy, who came directly from the office. “I had asked some people to our house to- night,” he explained to his father-in-law as they shook hands. “Just a few people. I called them and asked them to come here in- stead. You don’t mind, do you?” “Not at all.” “Thanks. Say, Carlo, you'r2 looking swell. I mever saw that dress before, did I?” “Only four or five times, Billy.” Billy wandered about the room for a bit and, as Carlo and her father returned to their con- versation, he switched on the radio. -Carlo’s brother came in with Linda Wright and her mother. Linda was a small, vivid bru- nette, slim and lovely. Her eyes were brown and ablaze with life. Dr. Hale was late, but came in time to go with the party in to dinner. It was 10 o'clock when Billy’s friends arrived. Miss Crane and Mr. Worthley and Mr. and Mrs. Clinton. They were a lively, talkative foursome. They greeted Carlo with slight interest. How was she today? . . . That was fine! They gathered about Billy and laughed and joked; the party was theirs. THE radio played and people danced and Carlo sat with Mrs. Wright, while from across the room Dr. Hale watched her. “Mind if I dance with your girl, Walt?" Billy sked, tugging at Linda’s hand. “Not at all.” Carlo watched as Linda and Billy danced to- gether. They danced beautifully. There was the rhythmic quality of true dancing even in their foolish antics. The orchestra stopped and, while the announcer spoke, Billy clung to Linda. He wanted her for the next dance, too. “I wonder what they'll play now,” Linda said. *Oh, St. Louis Blues!” Carlo’s eyes—sad, gray pools of wistfulness— followed her husband and the gay Linda about the room. They danced as though it had been rehearsed. Linda’s gown glittered in the lamplight as Billy turned her about. She was a good dancer. Was Bllly remembering—— ‘The music stopped. “By gosh, nobody ever danced to & hot num- ber like you,” Billy cried. He bhad forgotten. He was not being mean; he was not trying to deride Carlo for having fallen in the race. He had simply forgotten, Billy had no place to store memories. His brain was too crowded. There was no room for even a tiny recollection of having danced with his wife and having people leave the floor to watch them. He mustn’t forget. Carlo couldn’t bear his forgetting. She slipped from her place beside’ Mrs. Wright. On that shelf of old records she had had the St. Louis Blues. She must find it now. There it was. Dusty, and cracked a bit—but that wouldn't matter. She started the record going. Walter shut off the radio. “What are you going to play, Sis? Oh, that @gain? Why, we just had that on the radio.” Carlo walked to Billy. “Dance with me?” “Sure,” he answered in surprise. “I never thought of asking you, Carlo.” THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 2, 1930. TR W | e e e B AN LB Ay el R AARON Carlo watched as Linda and Billy danced together. They danced beautifully. “You must be feeling good tonight, Carlo,” her father said. v Dr. Hale'’s eyes were grave and disapproving. He leaned forward in his chair to watch. “St. Louis wom—an” “Gosh, Carlo, how you can dance!” Billy’s applause was the dearest in the world. It al- most made Carlo forget that the pain was with her again—tearing, biting. Linda's voice came to her ears from a great distance. “Hot ziggity!” Around the room, again and again, slowly with dragging steps, long and mockingly solemn like the wails of the saxophone. Smiling into t’i:m“ eyes, clinging to him a little, now and en. Arrm the dance Carlo slunk away to the library. She could give in there to the enemy. She knew she was rocking back and forth in the chair, that beads of perspiration were upon her forehead. Suddenly she beheld Leonard Hale in the doorway. He closed the door and came over to her. “Pretty bad, Carlo, wasn't it?” he asked. She .hrugged, with an attempt at noncha- lance. This man of all men must not know Billy's shallowness. He must not know that her marriage depended on her ability to keep up with her husband. “Modern women are fools,” she said. take such silly chances. had to dance, and I did.” “Carlo, yoy can't dam a flood by standing in “We I simply felt that I Loving the Gentle X ild GOOD many years ago my wife and I read in a book that we ought to love the wild flowers, so we got ready and began to love them. The dif- ference between loving the tame flowers and loving the wild flowers is that if you love the tame, or garden, flowers you spend most of your money for fertilizer, while if you are going to love the wild, or semi-civilized, flowers you spend all your money for books. Unless you have a lot of books to tell you how to love them and what wild flowers to love, you never get anywhere, The first book to get is Gray’s. You buy Gray’s book and go out into the flelds, and you see a flower you think is a sort of blue daisy. “Shall I, or shall I not, love this flower?” you ask yourself, and you look in Gray's book to learn whether the blue-daisy thing is a nice flower and worthy of your love or one of those flapper chorus-girl flowers that will have you in court for breach of promise and read all your letters to the jury. " What you sce in Gray is something like this: Oopsicus dentatus (L), & semi-petalous om- thropoid, 6 to 3¢ mm. Petals decadent omniv- erous perspicacious; sepals omnibus multifari- ous cuspidorus. Orms slightly delinquescent. Fruit a homogeneous carpel. Leaves orbiculus, metaphorus, epluribus except when unum. Damp sandy hillsides in Northern Alaska. Oct.- Nov.” If it is June and you have found the flower in a dry field in Maryland, you decide this is not the flower. You therefore throw the flower away. You then throw the book away. THE next book you get is Susan Mullock’s Heart Throbs Among Our Native Wild Plowers,” $5; postage, 20 cents extra. You now look through this book and find a picture that looks something like the blue daisy, except that it is printed in black, and you read under the picture, “The Common Picklewort or Bow-Besom, Ucularius modentata. Page 476.” You turn to page 476, and this is what you “How often, dreaming of the soft whispering of the breeze among the hemlocks, we wander gently o'er the lea when June's umbrageous beauty tinges the welkin with thoughts of the soft whispering of the breeze among the hem- locks and, glancing carelessly down, spy the Common Picklewort or Sow-Besom (Ucularius modentata) which (see illustration on page 325) led the poet to sing: “. + . winning and winsome and pert, Cheering me some and bringing sor- ToOW to me some, The darling, the Common, Picklewort, Or, as others would call it, the Sow- Besom.” Miss Susan Mullock then goes on with more of the same vintage, and winds up by saying that there is no finer sight than a field of Com- mon Picklewort or Sow-Besom glowing like yellow gold in the slanting sunlight. So we throw that book out of the window. My wife and I are willing, if the description is at all similar, to decide that a sunflower is an Alpine violet, but we are not yet ready to admit that & blue daisy sort of thing makes a field glow like yellow gold either in sunlight that slants or that don't slant. We decide to call the flower we have found “that blue daisy sort of flower we have found “that the cows were in where you tore your brown skirt getting through the barb wire when we were at Lake Queechy that year when we had to carry all the water that half mile,” and not love it—only have a sort of neighborly friendship for it, the sort of friendship where you are glad to lend a cup of sugar or stop at the post office for its mall, if you are going to the village anyway, but not to play contract bridge with. We have, however, come to know some of the wild plants, one from the other, sufficiently well to know whether we ought to love them or the sweet not. I would advise those who wish to know - how to distinguish one wild plant from another to begin with the thistle and the nettle. It is easy to decide whether poison ivy is poison ivy or woodbine. If your wifg says, “That is wood- bine,” and you say, “It is poison ivy,” there need be no quarrel. All you need do is rub some on your wife, and in & day or so you will both agree. If she breaks out in red streaks, i 1s poison ivy; if she doesn't, it is woodbine, its way for a moment, but you can drown yourself.” “Yes, I know—and I see that you know. But Leonard, Leonard, don't preach! Don't you see, he lives too fast to remember? I had to remind him that I wasn’t always an old woman, I wasn’t jealous of Linda. She’s sweet and I like her. It's just that I love him. He's got to know that I'm still here. He's got to think that I'm alive.” “But, Carlo, if you were sensible, in a year at the most you'd be yourself again. Didn't your doctor tell you that?” “A year's too long,” she cried. “Don't you see, Leonard? I'm taking a licking, but I want to take it standing up. Don't try to stop me. The licking is inevitable and, if you ever cared for me, you won't want me to take it lying down and whimpering.” & He said nothing—just watched her as she sat in the chair with clenched fists and closed eyes. The music of the radio came to them through the door. Billy was dancing again. Carlo could not dance this time, but there were always more partners. Dr. Hale opened the door and went out quietly. He saw her point. She was right. There was a licking coming to her inevitably. He would not talk her out of taking it like a thoroughbred. He could be valiant, too. Outside, some one had suggested moving to a night club. Mr, Santrey had been invited and had declined. “What about you, Hale? Going?” WITH the thistle and the nettle, however, there is more danger of ill feeling and family quarrels. It may be early Spring, and your wife says, “There is a nettle, Augustus.” You look at it and say, “No, Clementine, that is a thistle,” and thus one word will lead to another, and presently it may come to blows and anger will prevail until the plant blossoms and one or the other of you will be proven right. Often, because of the trouble it has made, this will result in your not loving a thistle you ought to love, or hating a nettle you would otherwise be very fond of. The best method of avoiding such quarrels with your wife is to ask the plant frankly, “Are you a thistle or a nettle?” When you prepare to ask this question, I would advise that you wear, if you are the husband, a pair of light-caliber pants. My own preference is for crepe de chine, but any light material will do, such as dotted swiss or a sheer muslin. Having asked the question, you sit down on the plant. You will, probably, immediately arise again, and you should then stand silent for a few minutes. If, at the end of two minutes, you feel normal where you came in contact with the plant, it is a thistle; if, however, you con- tinue to have a stinging, burning sensation there, it is a nettle. You now know which it is, and you can decide whether to love it or only regard it with respect. I might say that if you do not feel like re- maining silent just after arising from the plant, you are permitted to sing some little song, such as “Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?" or “Drink to Me Only With hine Eyes.” If, after you have decided which the plant is to your own satisfaction, your wife asks you, “Well, Augustus, which is {t?” and you say, “It is a thistle, Clementine,” and she says, “I don’t believe it?” it is not considered cricket to say anything rude to her. Merely shrug your shoul- ders playfully and say, “All right, sit on it your- self!” But I fear we have been spending too much time on the thistle. There are so many other wild flowers to consider that we should not lin- ger too long on the thistle and the polson ivy, interesting as they are. Leonard thought of Carlo. Surely she could not go. “No, I'll stay here awhile with you, if I may™ Mr. Santrey’s mind was still on the chess, He agreed heartily to that arrangement, The party was getting its wraps when Carlo appeared in its midst. Every one was a trifle disconcerted. They had forgotten about her, She stood watching them. Her shoulders were thrown back and she stood very straight, be= cause it would have been so easy to crumple up had she given in at all. Her eyes were keen and clear, but the taffy-colored curls clung damply to her fcrehead. “Where were you?” Bill asked. “Get your things. We're going down to the Paraguay Club.” “The Paraguay Club?” she echoed, “Yes. Don't you want to go?” “Sure. I'll go.” Carlo stood motionless as Billy draped her wrap about her. Her eyes closed once. She opened them and turned suddenly. Without a word to her father she followed the laughing people through the door. “You're not going, are you, Hale?” asked Mr, Santrey. Dr., Leonard Hale leaped forward and the door closed. He stood irresolute for a moment. Then with slow, firm steps he came back to the center of the room. (Copyright, 1930.) Flowers—By Ellis Parker Butler WHEN you have learned to love the flowers, the passing of Summer will, at first, bring a feeling of sorrow, but you will be able to feed your love of wild flowers and retain your loving memories of them by pressing them, so that you can have them with you all Winter. A col« lection of such pressed flowers is called an her- barium from Prof. Herbert Arlum, who first pressed flowers. The easiest wild flower to press for Winter loving is the violet, but this little woodland darling has a habit of turning color= less when pressed, and many now prefer to press the dandelion or the elderberry, in the latter case waiting until the flower has ripened into berry form. The flower of the grape also presses nicely after it has, so to speak, mae tured. In pressing these flowers, a good stout cider press may be used, and when the pressing is done the flowers, or as much of them as runs out of the press, should be kept in kegs awhile and then bottled, being careful to avoid leaky corks, With such a collection of pressed flowers, kept in a cool, dark place in the cellar—and perhaps put on the ice awhile before the eork is drawn—your herbarium will be a constant source of pleasure to yourself and your friends all through the Winter, and they, too, I am sure, will come to love the wild flowers. (Copyright, 1930.) 4 Iron Mines Increase Output, FUR'I'HER evidence that business is on the up grade is found in the output of the iron mines of the country during 1929, when an in- crease of 18 per cent over the preceding 12 months was recorded. More than 75,000,000 gross tons were turned out, with a value of $197,000,000. About 86 per cent of this ore came from the Lake Superior region. Virginia just barely managed to horn into the Federal statistics with an output of 232 tons, valued at $631, iron mining apparently not being too extensive in the State. g