Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 180, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1910 — EFFECT OF GLASSES [ARTICLE]

EFFECT OF GLASSES

l WAS DIFFERENt THAN EXPECTED ON MRB. BILVER. Spectacles Brought Out Figures In the Wallpaper and Design in the Tablecloth That She Had Not Seen Before. When Mrs. Silver stopped one day to think about herself, she found that she was past the age at which most people begin to wear glasses. Her husband had put them on long before. It was a wonder she had not - realized sooner how much she needed thqm. A few evenings later she beamed upon her family at dinner time through a brand-new pair of spectacles. “Now this is like living!” she ejclaimed. “To think that there’s a beautiful pattern in the parlor wallpaper and I never knew it till today! Do you hear, father? That paper’s been on the wall three years—and I thought ’twas a plain tan color. And for pity’s sake, what’s this? A new table cloth?” Mother, you’re joking!” the grownup daughter protested. “You know when I got this tablecloth, and all about it.” “I never saw that rosebud design till this minute,” Mrs. Silver declared. “It’s lovely, too. Why,- I feel if I had a lot of splendid new things.” Just then something called her from the table, and while she was gone her husband said, musingly: “Your mother’s just the opposite from my aunt Cornelia when she first put on glasses. Uncle Robin brought ’em home from town one day,—he thought maybe she was beginning to need them —and the first thing she did after she got ’em on was to take one of the children by the shoulders and say, “Mercy! I didn’t know you had freckles!” “But that’s just like mother—not the opposite,” small Tim demurred. “Not the difference is that my Aunt Cornelia discovered freckles, and dust in corners, and grease spots, and everything” bad, until life wasn’t worth living for the rest of the family.’ “I never thought of that," said the grown-up daughter. “Mother must be discovering unpleasant things, too. She hasn’t spoken of one, but if her eyesight has been affected ever since we put that paper on the parlor, just think -’’ “Just think!” Her father took up the words playfully. “Think of the lines and changes in my face alone that she hasn’t known were there! But you won’t catch her speaking -of them. That isn’t your mother’s way.” “Let’s make her tell if father’s face does look any different to her,” someone proposed, just as Mrs. Silver, quite unconscious that she was the subject of discussion, came back to the table. Everybody was looking at her as she sat down and met her husband’s eyes. Suddenly she leaned a little forward and Btudied his face intently, with an expression that was tender, loving, sorry—all in one. “Caught!” said one of the boys under his breath. “What have you just found out about father’s face, momsje? Tell us." “H’m! What’s that?” Mrs. Silver temporized, looking actually guilty. “Go ahead and tell ’em mother,” Mr. Silver coaxed. “I sha’n’t mind.” "Mind!” There was a volume In the one word as she spoke it. 'Then she took off the wonderful glasses and wiped a little dew from them before she answered, glancing round the circle. “You don’t know, children, what it means to me to see your father’s smile again, across the table as plain as ever. I was thinking, when I looked at him, hew many of ’em I’d missed.” —Youth’s Companion.