The Seattle Star Newspaper, October 29, 1921, Page 11

gri- #EazP HEE ate re” gett E rt Bae | i 2 5 Paste dd? as ee @ eccccccccccccce codes {Continued From Page 6) jeader and the poor soul is fright. ‘engi to déath. She wanted me to et to come. She says she's gure you will brighten up the meet. ing Wh your knowledge of books and writing (English postry is our tapic today) So shoo! Put on your ca poetry? Really? I'd I didn't peallae you were Bidakine poetry.” “Oh, we're not 80 slow!” Mrs. Luke Dawson, wife of the —— te gaped at them _piteously when they appeared. Her we frock of beaver-colored gun with rows, plasters, and pend- ants of solemn brown beads was in. for a woman twice her eize. fhe stood wringing her hands in! front of nineteen folding chairs, in pee front parlor with its faded photo: of Minnehaha Falls in 1890, “colored enlargement” of Mr, Paweon, its bulbous lamp painted ith sepla cows and mountains and SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, MAIN STREET BY SINCLAIR LEWIS Copyright, 1920, Harcourt, Brace &@ Hews, Inc. 1921. e eevee curios and old houses well worth examination, Many people believed that Shakespeare was the greatest playwright who ever lived, also fine poet. Not much was known about his life, but after all that did not really make so much difference, be- cause they loved to read his numer. ous plays, several of the best known of which she would now criticize. Perhaps the best known of his plays was “The Merchant of Ven: fee," having a beautiful love story and a fine approejation of a wo- man's brains, which -a woman's! club, even those who @id not care to commit themselves on the ques. tion of suffrage, ought to a he ate. (Laughter) Mrs, Jenson was sure that she, for one, would love to be Ike Portia, The play was about @ Jew named Shylock, and he didn't want his daughter to marry a Ven- fee gentleman named Antoni Mrs. Leonard Warren, a eae gray, nervous woman, president of the Thanatopsie and wife of the Con- PAGE 11 | WAS SO WORRIED WHEN | DION T HEAR || FROM You THAT 1CALLED MESSENGERS AND GEHT A NOTE TO FOUR, OF YouR FRIENDS - | ASED IF You WERE. THERE AND TOLD THE oy BOYS TO WAIT FOR. ANSWERS! DID “THEY THERE AND wouLD SEND BACK? |CALLME IN ¢ MORNING @anting on & mortuary marble cob) gregational pastor, reported the birth and death dates of Byron, Scott, Moore, Burns; and wound up: “Burns was quite a poor boy and he did not enjoy t ema. | @he creaked, “O, Mra, Kennicott, Tm in such a fix. I'm supposed to pad the discusston, and I wondered would you come and help?" “What poet do you take up to. demanded Carol, in her li. tone of “What book do you i te take out?” “Why, the English ones where he heard the Word of God preached more fearlessly than even 4 - finest old brick churches in \ , ¢ big and so-called advanced cities oS oft ae Jor today, but he did not have our yes. re learning all) educational advantages and Latin “sat Buropean Literature this year.) and the other treasures of the mind “The club gels such a nice maga-| so richly strewn before the, alas, too} e Culture om and we follow/ofttimes inattentive feet of our = ist year our sub-/ youth who do net always sufficient. was en and Women of the/ly apperciate the privileges freely granted to every American boy, rich or poor. Burns had to work hard and was sometimes led by evil com- panions into low habits, But it is body hustle to ‘wp with all these new culture but it is improving. 80 you help us with the discussion On her way over Carol had decid morally instructive to know that he Was a good student and educated himself, in striking contrast to the loose ways and so-called aristrocratic ud And certainly though the lords and earis of his day May have looked down upon Burns a & bumble person, many of us have greatly enjoyed his pleces about the mouse and other rustic subjects, with their message of hum- ble beauty—I am so worry I have not got the time to quote some of EVERETT TRUE suggestion——-_ I know you are fol lowing a definite program, but I do wish that now you've had such a splendid introduction, instead of | going on with some other subject | next year you could return and take up the poets more in detail. Exspect- ally actual quotations—even though their lives are so interesting and, as Mrs. Warren said, so morally in structive. And perhaps there are | several poets not mentioned today ) whom it might be worth while con. ; sidering--Keats, @or instance, and Matthew Arnold and Rossetti an Swinburne, Swinburne would be such a—well, that is, such a contrast | to life as we all enjoy it in our beau- | Pe Mra. George Edwin Mott gave ten minutes to Tennyson and ing. & wryfaced, cu- sli za i ki BT 3 He & Gg 3 & ! fi E f f :" a5 i i 2 i i ; i Hig ue 555 i? il WHALE IN TROUBLE i“ , MR. WHALE ESCAPES Tf you're on my back you'd better get off.” worry, Mr. Whale,” said “That's what you said,” answered little voices into his ears |the whale sadly. “But how? You Whale was so surprised that | are so little I can’t even see you, and ned his funny Uttle piggy eyes | so light I can't feel vou. How, can Mie he had been dreaming. you suve a great creature like me?” m.around him in the ocean hun-| “I'm going to throw some ink into ¢ were snapping their Jaws | the sea,” answered the little boy. ‘As Waiting for a chance to grab|soon as the water gets black you ERice bites out of him, and now | must dive, and don't come ap to ane or someones were promis | breathe if you can help it until you er, hin. % ote are miles away. The sharks won't inow who you are, be able to see youand so they can- “ eters - iui ~ ee not follow, Are you all ready?” 3 er get off. "m ni fen under the water and you'll | Mr. Whale said shat pe war #0 da Thanks for your kind |™© Gost the same.” Instantly the sea got #0 black that doexn't matter,” answered |one shark cried out, “I knew it! T “We have Magic Shoes on | knew that rhyme would come true een’: cet drowned.” about the agile being apple pie, > op hte Pe red Mr. |} the sea ink, and the trees turning lrntaiiy: “1 eacrs oiky ser Hate, Sovee ace sik ‘soon | sharks to, ea! Pighin bBo wars my| “It won't be whale meat for one yet.” . pe said another shark. “Mr. ” ‘hale’s gone. reg, 08 een ee (To Be Conttnued) oa st tiful Middle west-—” She saw that Mrs, Leonard War. ren was not with her, She cap / tured her by innocently continuing: | “Uniess perhaps Swinburne tends) to be, uh, more outspoken than you, than we really like. What do you! think, Mrs, Warren?” | The pastor's wife decided, “Why, | you've caught my very thoughts, Mra. Kennicott, Of course I have) never read Swinburne, but years! ago, when he was in vogue, I re- member Mr. Warren mying that Swinburne (or was it Oscar Wilde? but anyway:) he said that though many socalled intellectual people posed and pretended to find beauty in Swinburne, there can never be genuine beauty without the message from the heart. But at the same time I do think you have an excel- lent idea, and though we have talked about Furnishings and China as the probable subject for next year, I believe it would te nice if the program committee would try to work in another day entirely devot- ¢4 to English poetry! In fa Madame Chairman, I #0 move yo' When Mrs, Dawson's coffee and) angel'sfood had helped them to re- cover from the depreasion caused by! 2 thoughts of Sbapespeare’s death! Vs they all told Carol that it was a W777 pleasure to have her with them. The membership committee retired | to the sittingroom for three min- | utes and elected her a member. And she stopped being patroniz ing. She wanted to be one of them. They were so loyal and kind. It waa they who would carry out her as- ar * army? During the gossip the meeting Mrs. George Ed- win Mott remarked that the city hall seemed inadequate for the splendid modern Mrs. Nat Hicks timidly wished that the young people could have free dances there—the lodge dances were so exclusive. The city hall. was it! Carol hurried home. She had not realized that Gopher Prairie was a city. From Kenn’ she discovered that it was le organized with a mayor and council and wards. She wan de lighted by the simplicity of voting on self a metropolis. Why not?, She was a proud -and patriotic) citizen, all evening. i She examined the city hall, next) morning. She had remembered it | only as a bleak inconspicuousness, She found it a liver-colored framo coop half a block from Main Street. The front was an unrelieved wall of clapboards and dirty windows, It had an unobstructed view of a va- cant lot and Nat Hick’s tailor shop. | It was larger than the carpenter | shop beside it, but not so well built. No one was about. She walked into the corridor. On one side was the municipal court, like @ country school; on the other, the room of the | volunteer fire company, with a Ford hosecart and the ornamental hel- mets used in parades; at the end of the hall, a filthy two-cell jail, now empty, but smelling of ammonia and ancient sweat. The whole second story was a large unfinished room| Aittered with piles of folding chairs, | a lime-crusted mortar-mixing box, and the skeletons of Fourth of July | floats covered with decomposing | plaster shields and faded red, white and blue bunting. At the end was/ an abortive stage. The room was large enough for the community dances which Mrs. Nat Hicks advo-|lent Mbrary. It’s—it isn't so bad. sated. But Carol wae after some), , “. te it-possible that I am to paring af snr dy scm inpered to] find dishonesti¢s and stupidity | in every human activity I encounter? the public library. The library was open three after. | In schools and business and govern- “The Sierra Ne were #0 steep and so rocky,” grandmother went on with the story, “that they had to take the wagons to pleces to carry them up. “It took them four days to get to the top. But after many fard- ships, Ben's family, with the other emigrants and the half- breed scouts and the 10 Spaniards, reached Fort Sutter.” minute before she went on. “Bome time I will tell you about what those settlers found in California, but I've only a lit- tle time left now and I want to tell you about Columbus, “After a terribly hard winter at the fort, @ Mexican general with 30 armed soldiers as an es- cort, came into the fort and gave notice that all Americans must become Spaniah subjects at once, “So the men and women got to- gether and talked # over. “We bave not come all these heartrending, soul-trying miles across the plains to sign away our Americanism,’ they said. ‘If we can not stay in California and stay American, then we will find a way to get to Oregon, where we tended to go In the first place “Oregon,” grandmother said, “you must remember, was all of what is now Washington, Oregon, Nevada and part of Idaho, “Most of the settlers’ families noons and four evenings a week, It} ment and everything? Is there was housed in an old dwelling, suf-| never any contentment, never any Carol | rest?” fictent but unattractive. caught herself picturing pleasanter | reading-rooms, chairs for children, an art collection, a Hbrarian young enough to experiment. She berated herself, “Stop this fever of reforming everything! 1 She shook her head as though she were shaking off water, and has- tened into the library, a young, light, amiable presence, modest in unbuttoned fur coat, blue sult, fresh organdy collar, and tan boots will be satisfied with the library!) roughened from scuffling snow. The city hall is enough for a be-} Miss Villets stared at her, and ginning. And it® really an excel-}Carol purred, “1 was so sorry not ms + cd 2 NS... ory Iaboly. & Page%07 DISCOVERING COLUMBUS , Grandmother paused to think a’ finally an old Mexican a sinieielahelal re camemesnin ven a roanneneank oman decided to go, and they sold their oxen and wagons to Capt. Sutter, bought horses and began in April to plan the trip North. The great- est problem was the 15 children, “Little children couldn't ride horseback over a rough trail all the long miles from Southern California to Oregon. “They talked and talked about how they could manage it, and shid, ‘Leave it to me. We see, we see.” “The old man went away then and made strong basket saddles of strips of rawhide. Then they put in quilts to make them soft, strapped them securely across the backs of the ponies and two or three children could ride in each one.” “Oh, I do think that would be so much fun,” Peggy sighed. “They could just look over the side of the basket and see the horse, But I think tt would be a teeny bit scarey, too." "Yes," grandmother replied, “I think it was. Well, one day they camped beside the American river and the children were told that they would be there three days. “Ben and his sisters and two other children wandered down to the river and began to gather pebbles. “Took here,’ cried Ben, ‘what's this?’ (To Be Continued) to see you at the Thanatopsis yes- terday. Vida said you might come.” “Oh. You went to the Thanatop: sis? Did you enjoy it?” “So much. Some good papers on the poets.” Carol lied resolutely. “But I did think they should have had you give one of the papers on poetry!” “Well Of course I’m not one of the bunch that seem to have the time to take’ and run the club, and if they prefer to have papers on lit: erature by other ladies who have no literary training—after ) why should I complain? What am I but ® clty employeal” MY ORDER ! IF YOU WERE DELIVERING CENTURY PLANTS THEYD BE IN FULL BLOOM BEFORE YOU GOT OVER YOUR ROUTE != YOU'RE ALMOST SLOW ENOUGH TO BE AGENT FOR THE SEVEN . CHARIOT ADVANCE NEAR LOCUSTS When we reached home I had lunch sent to my room and there together. Kate Ames and I ate. I had come to like Kate Ames—she seemed to be one of those people on whom responsibility rests safely. “Well—it'’s all over now,” Mrs, Ames said after the meal had been finished. “And I'm glad,” she con- tinued, “that he had such a wonder- ful day on which to leave. I think I'd like to talk a little bit about it now—because for so many years I have just thought. “I know there were a great many women who pitied me because they believed I had completely lost (my husband while he yet lived, I did, in a way, and yet, tho I lost him, I had him beyond losing. “There is only one thing a man marries for—except In rare cases—~ |and that ts love. numerous side issues for considera-}he was, ‘There aren't the “You're not! You're the one per- son that does—that does—oh. you do so much. Tell me, is there— uh——- Who are the people who control the club?" Mise Villets emphatically stamped a date in the front of "Frank on the Lower Mississippi” for a small flax- en boy, glowered at him as though she were stamping a warning on his brain, and sighed: “] wouldn't put myself forward or criticize any one for the world, and Vida is one of my best friends, and such a splendid teacher, and there is no one in town more ad- vanced and interested in all move- ments, but I must say that po mat-| legged on ti ter who the president or the commit- tees are, Vida Sherwin seems to be behind them all the time, and ough she is always telling me ‘about what she is pleased to call my ‘tine work in the library,’ I notice that I'm not often called on for_pa- pers, though Mrs, Lyman Cass once volunteered and told me that she though my paper on ‘The Cathe- drals of England’ was the most in- teresting paper we had, the year we took up English and French travel and architecture. But—— And of) BECAUSE 1 GOT YOUR ORDER INH’ DO You ?== REMEMBER THEVS OTHER CUSTOMERS ‘ST HAVE ANXIOUS FRVIN’ PANS WAITIN’ FOR ME To HOVE NTO SIGHT WITH Siam, ” : eases “WHE BUTCHER BOY DRIFTS IN TWO HOURS LATE WITH THE HAMBURGER == .WHEN A WOMAN TELLS | By RUTH AGNES ABELING i (Copyright 1981 by Beattie Star) CHAPTER LXXIV—KATE AMES MAKES A tion, when a man marries, that there are when a woman does. Phil, like most men, married me because he loved me. “And I know that he went to his death loving me—and because he loved me, “When J went to hie office that evening, I found a photograph of myself that J had given him before we were married, under his blotter. And when I went home that evening, in his trunk I found all of the letters I had written him, and trinkets and reminders of our courtship days— he had kept them, “There were reasons why Phil and I couldn't be happy—there was a ghost between us—and that is why I know that ft is just as well as it ig, because al! along Phil was no hap- pier than I, though many people, es- pecially the women he knew, thought but—— No, you may regard me as entirely unimportant, I'm sure what I say doesn’t matter a bit!" “You're much too modest, and, Um going to tell Vida so, and, uh, I wonder if you can give me a teeny bit of your time and show me where the magazine files are kept?” She had won. She was profusely escorted to a room like a grand- mother’s attic, where she discovered periodicals devoted to house-decora- tion and town-planning, with a six- year file of the National Geographic. Miss Villets blessedly left her alone. Humming, fluttering pages with de- lighted finger: Carol sat croes- floor, the magazines in heaps about her. She fund pictures of New Eng- land streets; the dignity of Fal- month, the charm of Concord, Stockbridge and Farmington and Hillhouse Avenue. The fairy-book suburb of Forest Hille on Long Island, Devonshire cottages and Easex manors gpd a Yorkshire High Street and Por Sunlight, The Arab village of Djeddah—an intricately chased jewel-box, A town in Call- fornia which had changed itself from the barren brick fronts and course Mrs, Mott and Mrs. Warren! slatternly frame sheds of @ Main are very important in the club, as you might expect of the wives of the superintendent of schools and the Congregatiorial pastor, and in- eed they are both very cultured, Street to a way which led the eye down a vista of arcades and gar- dens. 4 Assured that she was not quite mad in her belief that a small E “And sometimes as I have of it since, I have felt that it was selfish of me to tell him—I was only putting on him the burden of my own indiscretions. That, Miss Soren- sen, is what destroyed Phil—not any other woman.” (To Be Continued) [ American town might be lovely, as well as useful in buying wheat and selling plows, she sat Wrooding, hor thin fingers playing @ tattoo on her cheeks, She’ sdw in Gopher Prairie a Georgian city hall; warm brick walls with white shufters, a fan- light, a wide hall and curving stair. She eaw it the common and in- spiration not only of town but of the country about. It should con- tain the court-room (she couldn't get herself to put in a jail), public li- brary, a collection of excellent prints, rest-room and model kitchen for farmwives, theater lecture room, free community ballroom, farm-bureau, gymnasium. Forming about it and influenced by’ it, as mediaeval villages gather about the castle, she saw a new town as graceful and beloved as Annapolia or that bowery Alexandria to which _ ay Washington rode, All this the Thanatopsis Club was to accomplish with no difficulty whatever, since its several husbands were the controllers of business and politics, She was proud of herself for this practical view. She had taken only half an hour — to change a wire-fenced potato-plot into a walled rose-garden. She hur ried out to apprize Mrs. Leonard Warren, as president of the Thana- topsis, af the miracle which had been worked. (Continued Monday) ‘ ca