Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1893 — Mrs. John Is Surprised. [ARTICLE]

Mrs. John Is Surprised.

"I had an experience to-day," said Mrs. John, as she broke off a bit of her soup bread. “You havo so many.” I replied, “that it should bo no novelty, and they are all interesting,” I finished Invitingly, though 1 know I should the “experience" without this little sop. Mrs. John merely arched her eyebrotos. “It was a small one,” she went on, “but it is ono of so many similar that it sot me to thinking afterward during my rldo up town." l waited, “I was Jn a shop near a crowded oountor to which I vainly tried to get access, wlion I saw a woman complete her purchase, puy her money and stand waiting for the change. I thought this an opportunity, and 1 said to her, ‘May I have your place, please, if you are through!” ‘Not, until I am through,’ she replied, coldly, without even turning her head, and she stood, tlipro'lfoijrly five minutes longer‘boforoparemfl and coins woro handed to her." “I think," I replied, “she wa3 a telephone girl." “She was a vory disobliging woman, certainly," said Mrs. John, “and at the elevated station I met another." I was carving the joint, so I only scowled. “I stood waiting my turn in the lino with two men before me," continued Mrs. John, “when tpis woman walked up and ulong tho lino and calmly thrust horself beforo us all.” “Well, isn't that what you call woman’s progress?” I oouldn’t help inquiring. “It was ono woman's torted Mrs. Jonn,“and everybody nated her for it.” Then she dropped her vehemence and bocamo discoursivo. “It was this double experience which, as I said, sot mo to thinking. I began to wonder when wo aro ‘ladies,’ if at all. Woaro not,certainly, when \tmdo either of these selfish and unlust things, nor pushing and scrambling around a bargain oountor, nor spreading our skirts ovor two seats in a filling street car. We aro not when in church or olsowhero wo aro overcome with tho consciousness of being bettor dressed than our neighbors, nor when wo aro devouring a bit of gossip, repeating and enlarging upon it; nor, indeed, when wo are scolding the children, quarreling with sorvants, or regarding, if wo are boarders, our landlady as a natural onomy. It is a pity that there should be 6o many women who would scorn not to be called ‘ladies' who have only a thin parlor vonoer of manners.” “So it is," said I.