Evening Star Newspaper, January 3, 1932, Page 72

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHING TON, D. €, JANUARY 3, 1932 2 MCCORDON £ 14 Or how Douglas Truehart found his dream girl, and mustrated By ETHEL HAYS what happened afterward By JOSEPH FAUS ARRIAGE,” earnestly de- I/ claimed Douglas Trueheart, handsome idol of countless members of the fair sex, in the five-minute heart-to- heart chat over the radio onc evening during the popular Trueheart mu- sical hour, “is a 50-50 proposition. The hus- bard and wife should share equally the work rnd responsibilities, the pleasures and triumphs. “When one does all the pulling in the marital traces, and his partner lags, there is bound to be a discordant halt in the progress toward et fect domestic felicity. “Too many folks, alas, go into marriage to see what they can get out of it. They should see what they can put into it. “Happiness, my dear friends, is not some- thing that you get—it is something that.you give. I shall try to remember that when 3 ¢ marry. “First of all, T am a man, but, secondly, I am an artist. No true artist can labor minus -inspiration. My wife shall be my inspiration. _With her constant eneouragement and advice I shall, I trust, hurdle all obstacles in my path -onward, ° 3 N “Mine shall be a marriage & la mode—a mar- riage of the hour and fashion—an individual- istic, idealistic and unique union—a union that shall satisfy my highly emotional and tem- peramental needs.” - ONA NICHOLS, blond feature player for & Hollywood photoplay company, twisted on her bed and sat up. Muriel, the beautician, discontinued massaging her clien{'s rather broad hips a bit discouragedly. “He has a nice voice,” said Zona. do pleasc turn the radio a little louder. “This is the day the papers said he was going to tell his opinions of the perfect marriage and the ideal girl. Gee,”’ her tone was wistful, “I'd Jove to meet him. They say he likes blondes the best. Plump blondes, I hope.” Douglas Trueheart, one time Jerry Barnes, an humble baker’s helper, but now King of the Accordion, radio star, silver-voiced tenor of Broadway, song composer, orchestra leader and Sir Galahad exiraordinary, mellifiuously continued with his homily: “I am frank to say that every girl I meet I secrctly consider as my potential wife. Always I have searched for my dream girl. Always. But in the commerce of love only a heart can buy a heart, and never yet, in all due modesty, have I felt that rhapsodic, responsive lilt of divine ardor come to my soul when glancing at a girl “Personally I prefer blondes—slender blondes. Nothing, tc my whimsical idea, can cramp style like fat. I like a girl who is vivacious, intelli- gent and ambitious.” “The girl I marry will dress smartly, read much, converse pleasingly, and entertain gra- ciously. She will practice the art of camarad- erie, the basical secret of successful connubial union.” Muriel toned down the radio as the famous accordion of Douglas Trueheart, the muted streins of his orchestra in the background, swept into the seductive ballad, “Won't You Be My Swcety-Sweet?” and turned again to her patron. Zona had a far-away look in her pale blue eyes. “I wish he would come to Hollywood to make a picture,” she softly stated. “They say he is close to his first million—they say hc gets 10,000 mash letters a week. “Muriel, you know, I've got to cut out eating £0 much custard pie. I declare, why is it that the thirgs we like the best hurt us the most? But ba home in Iowa,” confidentially, “I was supposed to be one of the best cooks there, and I guess that started the craving. Please ring for Je¢ to mix some cocktails. And say, Muriel, whot do you think of these new reducing ma- chines?” Douglas Trueheart did, in the natural course of theatrical events, come to Hollywood to make a picture, a musical romanee, with his celebrat- ed orchestra. Also, he met Zona Nichols at a swiinming party on Malibu Beach. The re- ducing machine had accomplished wonders, as had the abstinence from custard pie, and the Acc:rdion King stared admiringly at the beau- tiful blonde. “l1 am frank to say,” he announced several moths later during the Trueheart radio hour, “that love has to me a physical sense. I guess I have some of the old Greek in me. Not—ha! ha!—the one named Nick. I mean I worship beauty, true beauty. “Muriel, 11THAT, my kind and indulgent friends, is the first reason why I fell in love with Zona Nichols, the girl T am going to marry. “She fits accurately my ideas of what con- stitute true beauty—beauty that lives, glamor- ously lives, and gloriously inspires. Truly, she is the acme of feminine perfection, the quin- tesscnce of all my romantic imaginings “She unselfishly plans, dear Zona does, to rencunce her movie career and to devote herself exclusively to the career of wifehood, than which there is none nobler. 8She smilingly maintains she prefers the kitchen range to the open range—that she, in the idiom, is more of a homebody than a gadabout. “Consequently she expects to supervise—yes, and sometimes even to cook—my meals for me, £he will manage our bungalow, located atop on~* of New York’s palatial hotels. We will not l.ve according to the usual domestic routine —for routine, humdrum, cut-and-dried routine, kills romence; and romance, to my respectful idea. is absolutely necessary in order to keep alive all tender passion. “yes, we are going to be pals—trustful and tolerant, agreeable and sympathetic, pals. That reminds me,” melodiously his accordion began to pulsate, “I am now going to sing cne of my own compositions—There’s No Gal Like the True Pal'—written in collaboration with Irving Parece, Buddy Donaldson and Solomon Win- gersh. Step on it, boys!” “Douglas darling,” said Zona a few days previous to the widely heralded nuptialization, “we ought to hdve a candid talk before pulling this thing off.” “What about?” asked Broadway's Own Pet Minstrel Boy, aged 33, squeezing her supple waist. “Money,” guilelessly replied his fiancee. “I got to give up my career to sit at home and coo in public—not that I don’t want to, honey —bput all that will cut me out of a big fillum salary.- After all, you said our marriage was to be a 50-50 proposition, and I deserve my share. “Then, besides, suppose while I am at home supervising the menu’ and laundry, like the “papers say I will be lovingly doing, and you meet some platinum baby and go places with her, what then?” “Yeah, what then?” aggrievedly echoed the King of the Accordion. “You will still be my wife, won't you?" “But not still,” giggled Zona. “I'll make an awful hovl when you come home, and don't forget, either, that gigolos have to live, same as tabloids. What's sauce for the gander shouldn’'t be applesauce for the goose. Heh- heh!” “You talk,” prote‘ted Douglas, “like we have been married 10 years. You know,” evasively, “all T got is yours.” “I don't want all you got,” rejoined Zona placidly. “I just want half, in case anything happens. Surely You understand, sweetheart, the terrible wrench it is to a real artist to give up her remun—remuner—well, big-earning ca- reer and adoring public.” “They were letting your con}ract expire,” re- minded her sweetheart with close cousin to a sneer. “But all right,” helplessly, “it's a go. At the same time, I claim it's a dirty trick to start all this right in the midst of the engage- ment publicity.” . ZONA happily said she would call her lawyer, and he unhappily asked if she couldn't take his word for it. She said yes, but he might forget: she liked to have things down in black and white. And so things were put down in black and white, while the Accordion King looked on, helplessly acquiescing. “The successful marriage,” romantically de- clared Douglas Trueheart some time later through the nation-wide ether, “is the marriage of give and take, of tolerance and understand- ing. I am proud to say I have a mate who understands me completely, and I think I understand her. We fit perfectly into each other’s moods.” Not long after this heart-to-heart chat the radio star came home one afternoon from a re- hearsal to find his wife apparently absent. Quite by chance, while a maid hovered appre- hensively near, he wandered into the kitchen. There was Zona, bending intently over the hot electric range, solicitously watching two pies in the process of custardizing. “See here, Zona,” he angrily objected, ‘“you can't do that! It was stipulated when we married you would stick to your diet. Cus- tard pies! Worse than potatoes or candy! “And why don’t you ever exercise? You're supposed to be my inspiration, and I've always told my public that my inspiration could come only through a slender blonde. That reminds me, your hair ought to be gone over again—the auburn is showing near the roots. The other day when you sat on my lap for those newsreel men, you almost crushed my legs. Have\n heart, sugar!” “Marriage,” declaimed Douglass Trucheart, idol of countless members of the fair sex, “is a 50-50 proposition.” - “I just wanted to try my hand at baking while the chef was out,” she rather sullenly ex- plained, wiping the perspiration from _ her flushed visage. “I'll give the things,” her gaze averted. “to one of the servanis just as soon as they come out of the oven.” “Yes, you will!” he snapped skeptically. “T'il hapg around and see that-you do.” And grimly he did, and pathetically ske did. He came home late another nijght, some months afterward, to meet the unexpected— evidence of an erstwhile hilarious party in the living room; empty bottles, cards, cigarette stubs &nd ashes. The butler informed him Mrs. Trueheart had just left with her guests, to transfer the gayeties to some roadhouse. At his discreet question- ing, the man revealed his mistress bad on many occasions before fared forth presumably to parties. Seething, the Accordion King sat up patient- 1y till 5 o’clock, when finally his wife came in with a fellow who looked like a Jdck London hero. “See here, Zona,” he omincusly growled, after the escort had departed, “you can't be pulling this kind of stunts.” “Oh, I can't eh?” she exploded. “Well, I been cooped up long enough—I'm entitled to a little innocent fun. Besides, what about that skinny peroxide thing from the Peekaboo Re- vue? Every night, I hear, you've bzen taking her to supper and on a ride.” “We have been,” he said solemnly, ‘“only discussing our parts in the forthcoming show.” 11THAT,” virtuously contended she, “is all I been doing, too—discussing things.” But he wasn’'t assuaged. “You don’t even “See here, Zona,” he objected, “it was stipulated when we married that you stick to your diet. The other day when you sat on my lap for those newsreel men you almost crushed my legs.” listen to me over the radio any more,” he dis- gressed to complain. “What did I buy all these machines for, anyway—one in every room, almost? “You've been gadding too much lately. And making bum breaks in public, too, believe me! Just the other day one of the fellows at the theater was showing me a magazine that had a picture of you in it, holding a big book up- side down—that book about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire that Floyd Gibbons wrote. Can't you tell a book from a bottle?” “That’s an insult!” she screamed. ‘“You lousy ham! I'll get heart balm for this, I will! I'm going to see my lawyer!” And wrathfully she reached for her wraps and hat. “Aw, now,” he grinned sickly, apologetically. “Let it pass, babe. I just been worried lately.” His handsome face seemed suds2nly haggard, his slender shoulders forlornly drooped. “No!” she exclaimed, truly concerned. “It's the dope,” he reiterated, ‘“—the real low-down. Say, Zona, you heard that new guy, Cavendish. on the rival chain lately?” “He's hot!” Zona nodded, beginning to dis- rob>. ‘“Sure has that well known sax-appeal! Can croon—and how? Well, perfectly! Vallee and Osborne had better watch their steps while he’s around.” “And yours truly also,” g'umly affirmed her dispirited husband. “I heard on the q. t.” . he went oni, “that our company is offering over- tures to the fellow. Listen, sugar, if ever he lands a contract with us, and then makes the movies and the Big Alley, it's liable tu mean lights out for the Accordion King.” - So the quarrel was temporarily patched up. But troubles multiplied.. The Accordion King’'s - popularity with the fans visibly began to wane. . That- worried, haggard -look -appeared on his face more and more often. o “And then one night Douglas Truehart came home unexpectedly to find his wife gorging on a hefty slab of rich custard pie—the chef in the background fidgeting and watching her alarmedly. He gazed, wounded, at her—in a manner that betokeéned she was heaping insult atop injury. He drew himself up haughtily and, vaguely re- calling a line in a play he had once heard, melodramatically said: “You've sold you birth- right for a mess of pottage; you've broken my heart, and mocked at the tragedy you hath wrought. I'm going to the Lambs’. Good-by.” “You sound like,” she snickered, her mouth full of pie, “you're going to the dogs! Well, so long, Shakespeare.” EVERAL days later at the Lambs’ Club, when newspaper boys pried him out, he con- vincingly, even jovially, said that the vaca- tion from wife, home and wedded bliss had been mutually prearranged—that they felt each would benefit by it, and on the reunion would appreciate each other the more. It was trite, but true—absence made the heart grow fonder, and that was that. Withal, he grew more worried than ever. The new and younger radio star was shining with added luster—he was scheduled to go to Hollywood and make a picture. Douglas True- heart gradually lost his debonair bearing, his romantic vein, his caressing voice. He became irritable, he neglected his work. The station received disappointed letters from once ardent fans, and when the president of the chain todk the star to task for his obvious apathy he snapped morosely back at him. One morning, about that time, impelled by idle curiosity, Douglas Truehart wandered over to the roof-top bungalow where yet resided his estranged wife. The maid, admitting him, said Mrs. Truehart was in the kitchen; she had— yes, sir—discharged the chef some time ago. He wasn’'t surprised- to see her rolling out some dough, a gingham apron enveloping her now buxsom person. “‘Some one told me,” he stifly remarked, after greetings, “you might go back into the movies.” “No,” she denied, taking up some eggs and expertly breaking them into a cup, “I never even thought of it. It'd be too hard to get back into condition. J—I weight 145 now, though honestly I think that's my limit, and I feel better than I ever have. “Besides——"" she blushed. “A mother can't work in the movies and take car of a baby.” He stared at her, dazed. She nodded. Then with a whoop of joy, he took her in his arms, his face beaming. “And listen,” he. said eagerly, “this accor=- dion business isn't so hot for a father, either. I'm quitting—right now. I'm going back to the old home in Indiana and start up a business career. No more radio for me. “And you—you sweetie, bake al lthe custard pies you want to!” Machines May Cut Price UGAR prices, already at the lowest point in years, may go even lower as the result of experiments being conducted with labor- saving machinery for use in the sugar beet fields of this country. The sugar beet, although grown on 800,000 acres in 13 States, produces only one-fifth of the sugar consumed in this country, largely due, it is believed, to the expensive hand labor required to cultivate and harvest the beet. A new type cultivator, now being tried, is pulled at right angles across the rows of beets and thins and blocks them at a great saving of time over the old hand method. A large saving is possible here, but it is in the har- vesting that the greater saving is possible. A new type harvester digs the beets, tops them, gleans them and loads them' into trucks, piling the tops either in wide rows or heaps. This work is now done in series of hand operations, making the production a fairly expensive affair. It is estimated that the present crop runs about £120,000,000 per year in value, of which the farmer rezeives but half