Evening Star Newspaper, October 26, 1930, Page 98

The Meeker Girls Fannre VEN with such terms as “old maid” .and “maiden lady” prectically gone out of the language, there was something about thé five unmarried Meeker sisters that did suggesi them. The Meeker girls were so apologetically un- 1 . Each and every one of them met you on the supposition ghat you questioned her The old homestead, inherited from their parents, was filled with twittings among them- selves and to their friends, when they called, of opportunities that might have been. It Lily had cared to accept Tom White! It was known, among the Meeker girls, that fn 1899, during a two weeks’ trip to the Adirondacks, Edith had three times refused a young Canadian trader from Quebec who had pince become a coal baron. : Meta, long and affectionately indicted by sisters as the flirt of the family, had down” right and left. After the battle of Vimy Ridge Ella confessed #o & secret fiance who had fallen. Teens, the youngest, although non-committal, you the feeling that life had not padsed by. Besides, it was a fact that Nicholas a widower of standing in the town, was on her. $ feit the need to marry just for the sake of being married. Naturally we've had chances. Not én began to refer to them mms." It was somhething they y among themselves, keeping their agog on the buoyancy of a self-induced . After all, #ffair with Tom White was one to leave fmprint across a lifetime. The world thou Tom White had died of influensa following World War. The Meeker sisters knew better. Tom White, just as surely as if they had seen #t disintegrate, had taken to his bed of a broken theart after Lily had spoken her sorrowful re- fusal. It was somehow fitting that Lily should oontinue to keep her heart locked in its tower. i« « Ella, too, for that matter. Poor Ella, whose secret garden had been blasted in full 3441 to the beholder, was far from that to - was Meta. Evening after evening Ella stitching away at handiwork, the girls would Msten to Meta. Oh, but she was a naughty, darling heartless sitiner! No wonder, even with her equal share 1‘8! way Meta handied the difficult situation " of the men sbout her Ta the office was masterful! Naturally they swarmed about her. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, OCTOBER 2, 198, e TR b 1 “Miss Meta,” he says, “the boys tell me youw're just the coyest young girl in this office and make all the flappers look . “That's what I'm coming to let me. ‘Miss Meta,’ he says, “Nerve!” . “Nerve doesn't express it. N world on his mind but dating up with me. “Would he propose, Meta?” Give a man like that “That's right, diirling, keep them in their places.” If it percolated through at all, to the Meeker girls, who in the forties and fifties were lean and rather plucked-looking, that pathos and amusement were blended in the attitude of their friends, certainly that consciousness was slow %o reach the close little inner circle. Romance brushed this circle night after night, sat in flushes on the dry flushed cheeks ' of the sisters, hovered over their confidential like & prayer meeting.” ‘Then came the time when, outside the inner sanctum, the amusement of friends became laughter and the laughter. derision. Man-crazy as the Meeker girls. That sounds like a Meeker pipe-dream., Hear the latest? Another secret lover has sued for Lily Meeker’s hand. Accent on the secret! "THAT was the beginning of a strange and deadening thing that began to happen to the Meeker girls. Delicately bred, sensitive to the intonation or the suppressed laugh, there seemed to seep slowly into that home as the girls wore on in years awareness that the cat “of pretense was out of the bag. More and more silently the girls gathered about their little circle evenings, less and less they came to discuss with friends the repudiated amours and wooings. Even Meta as time wore on came more and more to maintain silence concerning the many overtures of the men about the office. It was during the period of those silent, rather dreadful years in the great old house that had used to ring to the tales of conquest that Nicholas Lang, 71, took Teena Meeker, 53, off one day to the town of Greenwich, Conn., and married her! : A Meeker sister had succumbed. A Meeker sister, marrying, had proved to an all too cynical world that she was desirable in the eyes of a man. It gave authenticity, it gave ‘reality, it gave authority, mot only to Teena, but to the Meeker sisters. S 5 Something flowed bck into the eyes of the remaining four. The old light of conquest. The old vistas of romance. The old air of desirability. . The Meeker sisters are once more reciting with authority the sagas of the suitors who have sued in vain. . . ‘There is even about Teena, the wife, a slight air of ess toward her sisters, for the humanness of not only having permitted here self to be wooed, but won, . L (Copyright, 1930.) For Dear Old Poso—and Doll}/ Lee—By C. W Fessier Continued from Fourteenth Page blew higher'n tige price of seats at a salacious play. The backfield was all right, but the line crumpled like the. winner of a prize fight who's been fouled. I cursed every linesman threatened and cajoled, but to that with no help whatsoever from the linesmen. I didn’t try to figure out what'd happened. It was all I could do to keep my chin out of the way of straight-arms and flying knees. I had given up any idea of winning about thiee minutes before the gun.” Then the Pan- thers fumbled and we got the ball. BeéY tram- pled over his own linesmen and barged down the field to the Black Gold 10-yard line. Hope teams as the and both tackled Lisard before he reached the goal. Lizard slugged one of 'em and a free-for- all started. A Panther man fell on the pigskin and the game ended in a tie. I ran up to where Beef, Lizard and Derrick were sitting in an exhausted circle, glaring at one another. “A fipe bunch of bananas,” I snarled. ttling girl-flesh’ had wrecked not omly our foot ball team, but probably my fortune. I kind of a Jot of violent measures which I planned take to sort of shake her down into a state consciousness. I couldn’t wait to see that Diszy Dolly and tell her a-lot of things. She met me at the sidelines. “Who was the star?” she asked. “There wasn't any,” I stated bitterly. “0-0-0-0-h,” she cooed. “Then YOU'LL have to take me to the dance.” She smiled sweetly and looked into my eyes. Suddenly I wondered why a minor matter like losing $5,000 had bothered me at all. (Copyright, 19%0.) . S Inventions Change Trade. Tnt production of hardware for 1929 gives & good cross-section of the changes modern inventions have brought to commerce. For in- stance, it is' probably due to the increased radio ownership and improvement of programs, with the resultant preference to sit and listen rather than perform, that the production of piano and organ hardware has dropped off 55 per cent over 1927. Y > Similarly, motor vehicle hardware production increased 20 per cent, while other vehicle hard- ware dropped 52 per cent. The tendency of people to drive by car when visiting out of town and carrying their luggage with them has probably caused a reduction in ‘trunk and suit case hardware, which has dropped 37 per cent. Saddlery and harness hardware also was off, being nearly 29 per cent behind 1927. On the other hand, builders’ hardware was up 28 per cent and furniture and cabinet hard- ware increased 39 per cent.