Evening Star Newspaper, March 16, 1930, Page 108

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 16, 1930. TOO BIG TO SPANK—B&y Margery Land May Every Girl Who Has Found the Man She Intends to Marry Can Plan Her Campaign to. Better Ad- vantage I}]‘_S/ze Ii’ill_ Read T/z"i.\‘fSMréy of Wise Aunt Martha and How She Cured a Bachelor Who Would Not Propose. IM GLENN, who was a general prac- titioner in Linsdale and. Aunt Martha’s nephew as well, often said that whereas he was a doctor for people’s bodies, Aunt Martha was a doctor for their souls. “And some- times,” he would add with his genial, reassur- ing smile, “I'm jiggered if I don’t believe it's the souls that need doctoring the most.” . Thus, frequenfly when he had a case which his tonics and pellets had failed to cure, the lank, long-legged medical man would climb into his hard-run coupe and chug up to the zinnia-bordered cottage of the sage of Whipple Hill. . There was, for example, the listlessness, the ing pallor, the gradual falling eff in weight which he had obssrved in Mona Rich- ards. “Pired all the time, eh? No appetite? Can't sleep? Hm, well,” filling out a prescrip- tion blank, “that’s not sp serious. What you need is a little alkali in your system. A tea- spoonful of this three times a day ought to put the color back in your face, I think.” - But though he spoke with his usual encour- aging heartiness, he was worried about the slim sweet-eyed girl sitting in the chair before him. He did not like her fragility—her look of inner illness which was, he well knew, so far beyond the reach of anything that came in jars or bottles. All that day he thought about her, with a disturbed n on his kind, weatherbeaten face. “I don’t like it,” he kept thinking, and that night he drove himself and his worry up the hill to Aunt Martha, who was as famous for her wisdom as she was for her pies. wmmm'nomm&beymnm on the porch in the cool, honeysuckle- fragrant air, he began: “Mona Richards was in my office today. Thin and pale and run down. ut her. But I can’t help her.” warm interest she feit for Aunt Martha leaned forward in “Can't help her? Why not, Jim?” she asked. He frowned. “Because what she’s got is a heart-sickness. There isn’t a thing in the world the matter with that child but that confounded Tom Andrews,” he said. Aunt Martha protested. “Why, Jim Glenn, ain’t you ashamed of ? ‘Tom Andrews is one of the stead- iest, cleaning boys in this town. rapturous mocking- “I mean I don’t believe he’s ever going to ask her.” Aunt Martha'’s hand flew out in a short ges- ture of disbelief. “Shucks, Jim. He'’s just slow about it. Some are, vou kr.ow. I thought my Joe would never pop the question. Gettin’ a proposal out of him was like gettin’ a dime from a Serchman,” But Glenn did not share her view of it. there's no one in the world like their Uncle Tom.” “But,” Aunt Martha protested, “that ain’t marriage.’” “No,” Glenn agreed meditatively, “but com- fort and companionship and kids are a big part of marriage. Fact is, they’re the main part of it. And when a man is already ~njoying most of the assets of marriage with noye of the risks and responsibilies that the actua{ state entails, he isn't so quick to hurry to the aitar. I know what T'm talking about, too. You may-not be- lieve it, but I don’t think I ever would have Aunt Martha sat up stock-s:ill with astonish- ment. “Go on, Jim. I don’t be'y*ve a word of it. You're just talkin'!” she excl-imed. He shook his graying head “No, I'm not. I'd always He was worried about the slim, sweet-eyed girl. He did not like her fragility, her look of inner illness, which was, he well knew, so far beyond the reach of anything that came in jars and bottles. Madge really was—" he broke off. Then, sheepishly: “We men are a selfish lo,” he said. “Tell me something I don't know,” she chuckled amusedly, and the next morning— armed with a box of the pastries which had won her renown—she went over for a visit with Helen Mills. “I DECLARE, Helen,” she began when they were seated in the red-tiled patio, “you sure are a good-lookin’ woman. It seems to me you're prettier now than you ever was, even when Dick was livin’. Land sakes, how time does fly! It's five years now you've been a widow, isn't it? Don’t you ever think about marryin’ again at all?” Helen, who had been thinking of little else for some time, gave a blush. “Heavens, no! And then, even if I did, who is there to marry here?” she asked. Reaching for her knitting needles and bright balls of wool, Aunt Martha rocked gently to and fro. “Well, there ain’t anybody here, I'll admut. But Linsdale ain’t the only place in the whole world. With the money you've got, there’s no reason for a pretty young woman like you to bury yourself in a little one-horse town forever. Then, too,” with a quick, sidelong glance at the rapt expression on Helen’s pensive face, “there’s the boys. They're coming on now and in big cities like Dallas or New Orleans there's so much better schools.” With her han her knees and her eyes fixed on the toe of a well shod foot, Helen considered this. “Well, of course,” she agreed, “it would be best for the boys, I suppese. But there’s Tom. He’s always been such a wonderful brother. It wouldn't seem fair to go off and leave him. Wise in the ways of her own generation, and several others to boot, Aunt Martha to be giving this phase of the situation some serious thought. “Weil, I can see that wouldn't be easy. 1 know how you feel about Tom. Ever since Dick’s death he’s been a regular rock to lean on. But there’s larger opporiunities for schools —an’ all—in a big place, and a mother has to think of her children first,” Aunt Martha said. It was of these larger for the children—that Helen spoke & few days later when sie drove up to Whipple Hill to return Aunt Martha'’s pie pans. “I've been thinking a good deal of what you said the other day, Aunt Martha. About the "Helen gave a blush. “Even if I did, who is there to marry here?” she asked. educational advantages for the boys, of course, and I can’t help but believe you're right. Oddly enough, too, Bob Craig phoned me yesterday to say that he could get me a splendid lease if I wanted to rent my house.” Aunt Martha, who had taken it upon herselt tQ go into conference with the real estate man, showed the proper amount of interest and sur- prise. “Well, what do you think of that!” she ex- claimed. There was e far-off anticipatory expression on Helen’s pretty face. “Quite a coincidence, wasn't it?” she agreed. “I asked him how he knew I was thinking of leasing and he said that he didn’'t know, but that he had a fine tenant in the event that I would. Harry Seymour, the Little Theater di- rector, I think he said it was. And so,” she paused, “with the house disposed of there's noth« ing lefl to consider but dear old Tom.” ROLLING out a ple crust and molding it deftly over the edge of her pan, Aunt Martha said: “Well, I can settle him. My friend, Myra Wiggins, was tellin’ me only this morning that she wants a roomer. Myra don't keep a board- ing house. She’s is in the egg and chicken business, but she’s got a big, front room, next door to the bath, that she’s willin’ to let out. She’d give him breakfast, t0o0. An’ he could get his other meals downtown or at his club.” There was an aghast flutter of Helen’s pretty, pink-tipped ha- ds. “Oh, ‘Aunt Martha, that sounds terrible! You don’t know how spoiled Tom is, and how fussy about having everything just so.” Aunt Martha closed the doors of the ovem with an emphatic shove: “Indeed, I do know, tco. An’ I think it's a cryin’ shame for a pretty young widow like you to be wastin’ so much ’ on a brother when the world is just chuck-full of men who'd like a little of it themselves,” Aunt Martha said. Thus it was toward the larger opportunities of the city that Helen and her boys soon em- barked. But not before the charming young widow had seen her dearly loved brother com- fortably installed in Myra Wiggins' best front room “Look after him, Mrs. Wiggins. He's a\finicky old thing. He likes his toast thin and cof- fee strong,” Helen said. “I'll remember,” Mrs. Wiggins promised! with 8 smile on her cheerful, pudgy face; but the pampered Tom could have testified that she did mot remember long. Thick bread and pungent-less coffee that tasted as if water had been poured over the dregs, soon became his portion. The water was seldom hot enough to let him shave m the morning. He tried it several times and then started to frequent the corner barber shop. He annexed half a dozen new”"and force- ful words .with which he swore inwardly when he had to wait his turn for a place in the chair. He liked the bedclothes tucked in at the foot of the bed, but Mrs. Wiggins did not have a touch of security in her fingers. Night after night he awakened to find he was using the covering for a scarf. Besides, she had = habit of putting a pink flannel blanket next to his body, with the remark that “it gave folks a cold to sleep between linen sheets like some of 'em did.” His pillow was hard, and the window wasn’t in the right place. It squeaked when he raised it, and it required a clothes brush to hold it up. Even then it didn't permit a sufficient quanity of air. When the wind blew the brush out, as it frequently did, it would fall with a crash. Twice when Mrs. Wiggins had promised to sew on buttons she had completely forgotten about it. Another time he intrusted the press- ing of a pair of trousers to her, and sat for 40 minutes waiting for their release, remembering that he was due at an important business con- ference. Mrs. Wiggins cheerfully explained tha she “never was no hand with an iron.” When he did receive the long-desired garment the crease was crooked. She asked what he was in the habit of paying for such services at his tailor’s, and cheerfully stated that she would be satisfied to take the same price. HOWEVH!. to the radiant Helen, who was finding city opportunitiss—for herself as well as the children—all that Aunt Martha had predI;:te:i hemwmte a gallant lie. “Don’t bot! about me I'm along splendidly,” he told her, whereas fiz'm ::th was that Myra’s wrinkled sheets, thick toast and boiled coffee, bitter with the taste of tanninm, :x;bcl:ombmim. to make him just as uncom- e as it was possible for a spoiled, ordered bachelor to be. - “It's telling on him, Martha. Ever since his sister and her boys left he’s had a lones"me, miserable look. And Dora Parsons, who's aer best friend, says that he’s Richards girl every be stops by for a cup of coffee with her, in the mornings, on his way downtown. Blessed it I don’t believe your scheme's goinz to work. ™ Mrs. Wiggins said, with a pleased littie cackie, when she dropped in to make a repor: early one afternoon. Aunt Martha's pink cheeks rounded in a amile and her eyes twinkled like bue stars bent on mischiet. “Going to work? Land sakes, a - gins, haven't you heard the news?” S “News? What news Sakes alive, Marty, what on earth are you laughing 2t?" she said, look- ing at her with wide-eved inquiry. Wiping her eyes with a corner of her blue- checked apron, Aunt Martha answered: “Nothin®, except that I was wonderin’ what sin of yours it was that made him: take the sud- den notion. Did you remember to forget his ..308p and fresh towels again, or was it ower- lookin’ to see that his clothes ave pressed?” Myra was frankly nonplussed.:. With a frewn of perplexity on “er broad, good-nstured face, What's happened? I've been Continued on Sizieenth Page