Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1917 — the Out-of-Date Girl [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

the Out-of-Date Girl

By MARY PARRISH

(Copyright, IW7, by W. G. Chapman.) “Those women look tome like a jumble of cartoons rather badly drawn and crudely painted.’! The speaker, an elderly man with a fine, broad brow, hollow cheeks and an angular frame, looked from the hotel piazza toward the troop of promenaders in the afternoon parade at a summer resort. The other man, quite his opposite in every way except for the Intelligence and quizzical humor of his expression, was young, good-looking, well “set up” in the muscular turn of shoulder and limb, and fashionably dothed. He smiled at the other’s comment, but seemed- to agree "with him. “Yes,” he answered, “that’s just about what they look like. Those freakish, angular things with all kinds of astounding things for decorations, they call hats; those furs muffled up to their ears, with mercury in the eighties, and skirts far, far above the ankles! What will they say some years from now when they look at the pictures of this period? Scott! I’d give something to be able to hear what they will say.” “They will say,” rejoined Arthur Rankin, “that it was only an exceptional few who made those caricatures of themselves, instead of which it is the exceptional few who do not.” “True,” assented young Bailey. “I think I’d like to know that kind of a girl.” “I know one,” said Rankin. “Really?” “Yes.” “It must take courage,’* mused Bailey. “It does, and a lot of common sense.” “Now there, for instance, that girl with the dark blue skirt that comes down to her feet —the one with the white waist and straw hat— ’’ “Yes, I see,” said Rankin. “I saw her around the hotel the first time yesterday. She doesn’t seem to

care a nickel that she’s back some years from the reigning styles; but I don’t suppose there’s a man here that would take her out anywhere.” The elder man looked at him curiously. They had only met about half an hour before, they did not even know each dther’s names, but had spoken as men will on a hotel piazza when both are smokers, and one wants a light. “Do you think,” asked Rankin, “men are all like that?” Tm afraid they are.” “But you—you have just said you’d like to know that kind of a girl.” “I would.” “But you wouldn’t take her out anywhere?” The young man stared at him in a perplexed way. He suddenly found himself confronted with a problem he had not thought about. “Well,” he hedged, “well —I don’t know." Then, as though seeing he must be honest. “No, I don’t suppose I would.” “I thought not There, you see, Is the whole rotten shanr of the entire fool business they call society.” He spoke emphatically, and looked the -younger man squarely in the face. “It’S a sorry time for the young .people of this day when the whole social fabric has to be built on such a poor, wobbly thing as clothes.” “I wouldn’t go quite as far as that," protested Bailey. “I wouldn’t have gone that far before; but you surprise me—yoii, a young man I thought with a pretty good mental equipment—at least a little above the average—you, by your •own confession, believe people are all ‘sized up’ by their clothes. It’s someIthing of a jolt—though I suppose I ought to have known. see, I’ve been living in a rather small world. The few people I care for do not measure their friends by their clothes. . Blit when you’re young, I suppose you must get into the game, andthat girl you spoke of—-she’s young, and’it isn’t quite right for her to b» entirely out of it She probably has more brains in her little finger than most of the ■women here have in their whole make-

up. She has had two poems published that have been noticed, but she has to grind away at teaching to earn a living. She went at it at eighteen. Her father never njade inor'C than enough to just scrape hlong on, and she's had no society, and you might say, no youth.” The young man was stdrtag at him in wonderment. “Oh, then you know her!” he exclaimed. “Yes,” said Rankin. “I knqfv what a clever, splendid girl she is, and If I had the money I'd send today for a consignment of new frocks for her. Why, I don’t think she ever had on a low-neck. dress in. her life. I hope she never will put on one of those such as we saw here last night, where the low neck ends at the waistline on the back." “May I ask you to Introduce me to this young lady?” asked Bailey, at the same time transferring his card to the other man. “What, after—” At this moment, as fate would have it, the girl under discussion ran quickly up the steps and straight to the elder man. *Oh, Uncle Arthur,” she began, and then, seeming to note the presence of the other man, she paused abruptly in confusion. “Janet, let me present Mr. Bailey. My niece, Miss Rankin, Mr. Bailey.” She acknowledged the introduction with quiet dignity, and went in. The young man’s face was one over which ?a less kindly man than Rankin might have gloated in boastful triumph. “I’m more sorry than I can tell you,” he said in crimson mortification. “Now, never mind,” said the other. “You’ve taught me something. Let me thank you instead,” and he put out his hand good-naturedly. Bailey caught it in a firm grasp.

The next day he came upon Janet, ensconced against a sand heap away from the crowd of bathers, reading. He asked if he might interrupt. Janet had no objection. They talked, and the time sped on till his watch warned him he had broken an engagement, and he had to leave. That evening at a hotel dance Janet, with her uncle, sat watching the swirling, rainbow-tinted clouds of tulle and chiffon float past on the modishly arrayed dancers. Her own gown, highnecked and neat, might have suited a woman twice her age. No dne asked her to dance, and. she felt strangely aloof and out of it all. Tugging at her heart was the question, why should she be out of it? She wanted to dance just as much as any of those smiling, happy girl whirling past. She saw Bailey, one of the best dancers on the floor, always with a pretty partner; but he never seemed to see her. Her uncle went out on the piazza to smoke and she was left alone. Her isolation began to be unbearable and she got up and tried to make her way to the door. Suddenly Bailey rushed up to her and asked her to dance. She excused herself and rejoined her uncle. ’The next day a box arrived for Janet. Much bewildered she called in her uncle to look at a dream of an evening dress, and another frock, both in good style. She made him “fess up,” and scolded him for doing it. He declared some royalties on his last book had come in, and that be could afford it. So Janet at the next dance was positively stunning. She was besieged with partners, and allowed Bailey only one turn. In fact she treated him so frigidly, he next day sought Rankin, and begged him to let him know if he had told her what he had said. Rankin replied he had not. But he added: “If you really care to know her better, you’ve got to show her your metal. You’ve got to win her. And just mon? ey won’t do It.” ~ •' Three days later the Rankins left, bufnhot until Bailey had extracted a promise that he might call. After calling several times the young man made a discovery. He imparted it to Janet. She was really surprised. “I wonder if you actually mean it," she said. “Well, please don’t go on wondering,” he cried. “Well, I won’t.” And with a happy little smile she let him take her in hi? arms.

“I Know One,” Said Rankin.