Evening Star Newspaper, July 20, 1930, Page 80

Three Hortons. The Story of a Vaudeville Ro- mance Written by the Highest-Paid Writer of Short the Stories in World, Fannie Hurst. IMBLE-FOOTED, nimble-witted were the Three Hortons, and their long bookings on wide vaudeville circuits testified to it. The Three Hortons were a cheering part of any bill and almost invariably second only in importance to a headliner like Friganza, Brice or San Francisco. There were Beatty Horton, whose patter was as nimble as his soft-shoe dancing. Alicia Horton, who could out-patter, but not out- dancg her spouse, and, from the age of seven on, Winstead Horton, who could fling himself in a bridge from maternal to paternal shoulders, and sing in a choir-soprano that had captivated his audiences from the days he had toddled on stage with lifted hands balancing unsure feet. All that was changed now. Winstead was grown, his tather Beatty had developed a gouty tendency and had been obliged to cut out the soft-shoe work, and Alicia, while she still made up to something of the old dazzling blondness and was adorably cute in her flip line of patter, was nevertheless subject to the relentless eye of her audience to the extent that they simply did not want the ‘“young-stuff” from her any longer. Alicia, in rather severe togs and a slight comedy make-up, was getting around that, these days, by doing the young matron sort of thing, and to a poing making her audience like it. But the fa. t of the matter was that by the time he was 18, and his parents were in their forties, Winstead, single-handed, was carrying the act. AN’D carrying it brilliantly. A flying con- tortionist, voice for comic, character and solo singing, a baffling ventriloquist and a soft- shoe dancer who seldom failed to get his six recalls, the Three Horton act practically rested on his slim young shoulders. Not that anything of the kind was ever admitied in the confines of the Horton family, however achingly Beatty or Alicia might long since have realized it to themselves. Regu- larly, the Three Hortons held confab for the refurbishing of their act; periodically rehearsals were called, changes inserted, songs revamped and costumes freshened for each and every one of the three of them, with emphasis on the requirements of each. Beatty’s audiences wanted his sure-fire bombardment of patter; Alicia’s wanted hers blonde and graceful; Win- stead’s wanied him the flying, dancing, comic, vocal young devil. The Three Hortons. Up to the bitter end, until Beatty's patter began to crack in his throat, and Alicia’s ankles to twist and turn as she danced, there was no out-and-out ad- mission on the part of the older Hortons that they were finished. The situation racked Winstead and tore at the very withes of him. They were such a gallant pair in his eyes; the dudish, rakish, old Beatty who would limp to the wings from his dressing room, with his face made up into a grin and the darts of pain through his ankles hke fire; the prankish dear-beyond-the-telling, Alici¥, whose role in life was to pamper every one except herself, from her husband and son down to the most obscure performer on the bill. To see them slowly disintegrate, to see a merciless public grow cold to them, to behold the hurt in the eyes of his father and the bewilderment on the face of Alicia was pathos beyond the telling. g NOT but what they gloried in the rising success of their son, and stood back with their faces perspiring and tHeir hearts hurting from exertion and something else, for him to take the honors for the act, but there came the time when there was simply no easing the fact, for the two of them, that they were finished. Managers were clamoring for Win- stead, and for years had been tolerating the presence of the older pair for the simple reason that he would not book without them. But the time had come when it was appar- ent even to Winstead himself that there was imposition in any longer asking for bookings . for ithe older pair. Beatty was winded almost bofore he reached the stage; Alicia, poor dear, no léhiger had the stamina, THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JULY 20, Strangely, this realization dawned, nearly simultaneously, upon the three of them, sparing Winstead the almost unbearable pain of telling them their hour had struck. “We're finished, Beatty,” Alicia announced to her husband one evening, as they sat around trying wholeheartedly to discuss plans for a naxt season’s act. “What's the use beating around the bush? They don't want us. We're dead weight around Winstead's neck. Let’s face the music.” It was with a sense of what seemed positive relief that Beatty capitulated. Actually, his old face seemed for the first time to allow itself to fall into the luxury of wrinkles. “I guess you're right, Alicia. We're done.” ‘There was not any money scare. Winstead, of course, would see to that, and besides the Hortons, Beatty and Alicia, simple-living, simple-minded folk, had put by their little penny. It was fear of Winstead that lay in their hearts. This boy, never out of his parents’ tracks, suddenly alone on the road! Fear of Winstead had squatted on their old chests, both of them, ever since the shadow of this day of their retirement had begun to cast itself across the circuit. He was such a child, Win- stead was. A helpless, confiding genius-like fellow, No good at money, for instance. Had to have it handed to him every morning. So much for taxicab. So much for lunches and little luxuries. So much for tips. No good at watching himself against colds, to which he was subject. It teok all his mother could do to keep after him effectively with mufflers, rabbers and precaution about drafts. No good at eating well. His father was forever giving him the second helpings of food without his even knowing it, stacking his plate when his attention was diverted and then insisting that he eat. “But I have eaten, father. some potatoes on my plate?” “Nonsense. Eat, I say!” R Imagine a boy like that, a helpless, off-in- the-clouds fellow who had never had to think much for himself about the creature phases of life, off suddenly by himself on a circuit. It hurt the heart of 2\icia so that she cried most of her nights. It threw such a dread into Beatty that his efforts to pretend to Alicia that all was well were pathetic to her almost beyond endurance. Didn’t you slip ELL, it had to be faced and the sooner the better. ‘The Hortons purchased for them- selves the inevitable chicken farm in New Jersey, that haven of all good retired vaude- villians, and Winstead, bewildered and a little frightened with his release, began rehearsing a new act with a young girl with the stage name of “Yvette,” whose singing and dancing had attracted the admiration of the Three Hortons. It was a whirlwind turn of fast, amusing 1930. young-blood talk, really exquisite and highly diverting soft-shoe and toe-dancing, and some pretty duet singing that marked them for al- most instantaneous success. After a tryout in Newark, Winstead and Yvette were booked over a 40-week cycle and the pair of the older Hortons settled down to what gallant resignation they could muster. And musker they did, except it actually did seem that with the letting down of the strain and excitement of their lifetime of years on the circuit, Beatty and Alicia were destined to fall apart like the proverbial one-hoss shay. Bad health set in for both almost the month after retirement. An old pair were nearing the final turn in their road. It was quiet and peaceful and even beautiful in a way. Sweet, come right down to it, grow- ing old out of a youth that had been so long and tumultuous and vigorous. It was Win- stead that brought dread to the heart—Win- stead, who had been so _babiled. His first visit home after the 40 weeks brought peace to the heart on that score. He and Yvette had come back to the farm to be Rain Lover. By Florence Hartman Townsend. How selfishly I love gray days of rain! Because it brings you in beside the fire T o share with wme the settle once again; To hold mv’hand and waichthe flamesleaphigher. Our speech spins webs as filmy as the haze And wraps us like a garment all about— A garment weven just for rainy days, To keep our two hearts in and all else out. I hug each moment to my jealous breast, For with the morn the cold and lambent sun Will woo you back to some brown hillock’s crest, And you will shed our garment as you run. You'll set your easel on the rugged hill And paint the sheen of sunlight on the grain; But I shall lean across the window sill And scan the fleckless sky—and pray for rain. Winstead's audience wanted him the flying, dancing, comic young devil. married. She is a tumultuous little thing. Dances like a whirl and can fling herself in a horizontal bridge from the neck of Winstead and start whirling. She is young, vivacious, beautiful and a whirlwind for making Winstead tos the mark. Rubbers! Let him try to venture out on a damp day without them. Appetite! Let him try to skip that glass of fresh cream with his lunch. Money! Yvette holds the purse strings and doles out to him as if he were a child. There is nothing left for Alicia and Beatty to dread: about the twilight. (Copyright, 1930.) Modest Spark Plug Element. ANDALUSITE may mean nothing to the average reader, yet it is unlikely that the average reader does not employ it every day. It is a little known mineral, which is prac- tically indispensable to the manufacturer of high-grade spark plugs for automobiles and airplanes. It comes mainly from the high alti- tudes of the Inyo Mountains of California and is transported on burro back over a trail four and a half miles long, down to the valley, 6,000 feet below. g Associated with andalusite are two other minerals of exactly the same chemical compo- sition, but entirely different physical proper- ties. The two others are kyanite and silliman- ite. All three are sometimes referred to indis- criminately as sillimanite. Prehistoric implements made of compact sillimanite are found in Western Europe and have a certain resemblance to jade imple- ments, but the mineral was named in honor of Benjamin Silliman, the elder, who was born in 1779, states Alice V. Petar, in a report just pub- lished by the Bureau of Mines. ‘The commercial utilization of this group of aluminum silicate minerals is a recent develop- ment. It had its beginnings during the World War in the search for a suitable insulating material for spark plugs. The synthetic porce- lain insulators available at that time did not meet the demands placed upon them in war- time service in airplane engines. In the course of tests at the Bureau of Standards some years ago on spark plug porce- lains, it was determined that, in a good spark plug porcelain, the quartz should be eliminated from the composition and replaced by some other substance. Artificial sillimanite was used in the manufacture of porcelain, but was found to be impractical commercially. Natural sillimanite, found in the Inyo Mountains in California, was then developed for this purpose. Although it is in .the manufacture of spark plugs that the andalusite minerals have been most widely used, these materials have various other industrial uses. They are employed in the production of laboratory ware, including crucibles, casseroles, evaporating dishes and other heat-resisting articles. Mullite refrac- tories are used in the glass industry. Recent tests indicate that in firing electrical porcelain, saggers containing kyanite have a much longer life than those made from ordinary mixtures. Kyanite has likewise been used, more or less experimentally, in spark plugs, for refractory brick, in electrical porcelain and chinaware, and in glass and enamelware. Kyanite ’produced from a very large deposit in Imperial County, Calif., is used in the man- ufacture of various ceramic materials for the porcelain, white ware and electrical insulator trade, and including super-refractories in the form of prepared grains, cements and finished raw materials, together with a line of refrac- tory brick*and shapes for the glass industry. Dumortierite is used with andalusite in the manufacture of porcelain for spark plugs. The only commercial deposit now known is in Pershing County, Nev. Cold Storage Space Gains. MORE than 60,000,000 cubic feet of cold storage space were added to the available storage facilities of the country during the two- year period of 1927-1929. This increase, 9 per cent, brought the total to 728,594,833 cubis Leet.