Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1918 — Page 3

Gregory Fuller, Model

By Osborn Jones

(Copyright, 1917, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) There were twelve high-backed rocking chairs oh the boarding house veranda, and in each of those chairs sat a woman, varying in age and figure all the way from the six-year lassie, who sat bolt upright, with her chubby bare legs crossed tailor fashion under her, as she laboriously plied the stitches of

a wash cloth with her rosy fingers, down, or rather up,to Mrs. Van der Hayden, who looked as we who have never seen a duchess at close range Imagine duchesses of three-score and more all dp look; —portly and haughty and serene. She was knitting an aviator’s helmet. All in all, there were twenty-four needles clicking, and, save when some one stopped to count es, there were half as many tongues gently wagging. No wonder, then, that the two unattached males whom unkind fate had condemned to abidp in the one boarding house in town preferred to smoke their pipes and read their papers on the wooden settle down by the gate of the old house. Except for the fact that they were doomed to share the same bench in this ostracism, there was little in common between Gregory Fuller and the other young man, who sought to entertain and impress Gregory with his social conquests in his home town. Still, when the young man went for a week-end to that home town, presumably to score a few more triumphs, Gregory felt doubly oppressed in his ostracism; and without knowing just ,how things stood between Gregory and Margery Drake —the little twenty-year-old school teacher that sat up there in the third chair from Mrs. Van der Hayden and knitted sleeveless sweatersyou might have wondered w r hy he did not seek some other place to spend his Saturday afternoon than down there oh the hard wooden bench by the fence, with only a magazinq and a pipe to console him. Down there at least he was unobserved, or thought he wasf and he could be sure that Margery was safe. He had little reason to feel . Jealousy, for, except for his erstwhile companion who had gone home'for the •week-end, Gregory was about the only eligible male in the community. “Do you know, I think there must be something wrong with these directions.” It was the shrill treble of Mrs. Jones —the angular blonde lady with the bediamonded fingers who sat next to Margery. “I have followed them faithfully—bound off thirty-two stlteh- . es for the head, knitted five ribs, and then set op thirty-two stitches again, and •will you look at the size of the neck?” Margery beside her compared her own nearly completed sweater with her neighbor’s. “Mine is just the same size. I took it for granted that the rules were right.” “But I can’t get it over my head at all,” exclaimed Mrs. Smith as she seized Margery’s sweater and tried to pull It oxer her blonde pompadour. “Of course you can’t,” reproved the duchess, pausing as, she counted stitches —“twenty-three, twenty-four, twen-ty-five—with your hair done over a rat of course your head is larger than a

man’s,”. “You don’t suppose I do such a thing,” gasped Mrs. Smith. “Though I will admit that my hair is very thick end that may take up more room. But even if my hair is full, don’t you think a map’s ears are big and would take the extra room in slipping it on? I always think men’s ears are very big.” “I have noticed that Mr. Smith’s are," suggested the duchess, still counting. “If we could only try the sweater on a real man,” sighed Mrs. Smith. “It’s too bad my husband is a traveling man. He’s the only husband in the house and he Is away.” “But there are other men,” suggested Mrs. Van der Hayden. “Not Mr. Fuller," gasped Margery. “Please don’t |et’s ask him.” She had stfcn at least eight pairs of eyes cast in the direction of the little wooden bench and its solitary occupant It was too late and useless to protest for the portly Mrs. Van der Hayden had risen and beckoning with her large angular hand, she called: “Young man, Mr. Fuller, will you step this,, wayand then, feeling that her word was law, she sank down into her chair again; “Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty,” she counted on. Gregory rose and came up the steps to the porch and, as the twenty-four needles Ceased to click and half as many pairs of feminine eyes were leveled upbri him,, he felt the color rise In his cheeks and under his collar. “You are an average-sized young man, aren’t ybfl?” quested the duchess as if she were asking a new gardener whether he could cut the gfass. “Well, then will you let/these ladles try their sweaters on you?” „ V Then the fitting process began and the only consolation that came to Gregory was the knowledge that Margery was blushing confusedly and because he knew that the first sweater that was tried on him was made by Margery's fair hands. / “Yes, I think Ms eatt stiek out a bit, too,” commented Mrs. Van der Hayden, “but then I suppose the average

soldier might have the sam? defect. 1 remedied the trouble' in my boys—made them sleep in ear bonnets when they were little." Here she tugged regardless of Gregory’s features and got the sweater over. Then taking it off again—“and now my good man will you wait a minute till I txf this helmet on you. First, I must count the stitches to make sure I haven’t lost one.” “Would you awfully mind taking off your shoe,” a quiet little lady in black piped up. ‘Tm not at all sure about the length of this sock.” Gregory was still obliging, and tried on seve'ral pairs of socks and then a pair of wristlets, and finally Mrs. Van der Hayden’s'helmet while his dark locks, usually lying as close to his head as a duck’s feathers to its back were disheveled and towseled, and he was limping with one shoe off, for the -duchess had given him rio time to put his shoe back again. “It’s funny we never thought of getting yop to do this beforri,” Mrs. Smith said cheerfully. “You have seemed so lonely down there. Oh, would you awfully mind holding my next skein of yarn? I can use the back of a chair, but I’m sure you would be lots more intelligent about keeping out the knots.” —_ “Thank you,” murmured Gregory, and as he looked up at Margery’s face he caught just the suspicion of a twinkle in her soft brown eyes.

Perhaps it took as much courage for Gregory to do what he next did as anything he had ever done before in his life —for it does take more courage than some men possess to say the first words to the girls they love when some quarrel, groundless or otherwise, has broken the cord of their friendship. At any rate, when he had finished holding Mrs. Smith’s yarn, he deliberately took a skein of the same sort of gray yarn from Margery’s work bag, arid there, before all the boarders, said to Margery, “Now, let me hold this for you. I am better than a chair; Mrs. Smith will vouch for that.” , The rest was easy enough. Margery wound the yarn very prettily, and thanked Gregory with all her old winsomeness when it was done. There were more socks and sweaters to be tried on and more yarn to be wound for the other women in the twelve chairs. And so passed Gregory’s Saturday afternoon. - Somehow he managed that evening to ask Margery to stroll around the block with hiiri, and then they sat together on the little wooden bench by the gate. “Thank fortune tomorrow’s Sunday,” Gregory said. “You won’t have to knit then and perhaps I can get you to go up” the river—a little picnic would be good this time of the year.” “But we can knit for soldiers on Sunday,” insisted Margery. “Even Mrs. .Van der Hayden says so. Her minister told her it made a difference.” “She’s a cool proposition,” Gregory murmured. “Yes, there are always people like her in every boarding house,” replied Margery. “So much the worse for boarding houses,” was Gregory’s rejoinder. “Somehow I feel that if it hadn’t been for those women, especially that duchess, you and I would have made up long ago. But with their eyes on us, how could we? Margery, do you think my ears are so awfully big?” This with an emphasis on the “you” that Indicated that no one’s opinion but Margery’s counted. . “Boarding houses are dreadful,” Margery cooed after assuring Gregory that his ears were ideal. “Then don’t let’s live in ’em any more. Let’s get married and have a cottage of our own.” “Gregory, how lovely 1” About that tiihe the portly duchess clad in her black china silk bath robe tiptorid across the hall fb Mrs. Smith’s room. Mrs. Smith was removing the rat from her bountiful blonde hair. “It’s done,” excia’imed the duchess, “I knew it when he started to wind her yarn and they’re sitting out on the wooden beheh now. Well, I’m mighty glad. A boarding house is no place for young people like that anyway.” “It takes you to be a match maker,” sighed Mrs. Spilth, and then, as she brushed out the golden switch that she had just unpinned, “you were a wretch to tell them all I wore a rat. But I’ll forgive you this time.”

Lime Water.

Lime water does not look unlike the ordinary fluid which comes from the faucet. It is mildly bitter In its taste and Its properties are antiacid and astringent. It is because of this antiacid or alkaline property that it is given In milk or plain water when there is a tendency to sour stomach, nausea or vomiting. The sour or acid condition is corrected and a slightly tonic and soothing effect exerted. Unless one has an opportunity to get pure, clean lime, it’ is a bettor to buy lime water than to try to make it, as it is very inexpensive. If, however, you wish to prepare ft at home, take two teaspoonfuls of slaked lime -and add to one pint of boiled or distilled water. Lime used for this purpose should be that prepared from marble or ehalk rather than |he common building lime.—Exchange!

What Did She Mean?

Congressman Bidet Bill Smith wants me \fo get him a job—says that he voted for me. > ' Wise —And how can such a bonehead expect to hold down a job?

Hot Times.

“These times are' making it warm for the motorists.” “Yes; they are either getting roasted by the public or scorching thinselves.”

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER. INT>.

The frocks of today that have an arrangement of drapery at the back placed a little below the waistline are called “bustle” dresses. This is merely by w'ay of identifying their style. Instead of drapery several rows of ruffles across the back, in the right position, entitle a frock to be classed in the distinguished* group \of bustle dresses. They bear about ris much resemblance to the bustle drfess of the seventies as an automobile does to a spring wagon. In nearly all of them an overdress is draped and worn over, an underskirt made of the same material or of a lining goods faced up with cloth like the overdress. This seems to be the easiest way of managing' the drapery. Some beautiful models in velvet are shown in which the tonneau skirt and bustle back have been combined in once-piece frocks that are marvels of chic style. A quaint two-piece frock made of a wool twill brings the bustle to mind with a deep, double fold in the goods acro.ss the back of the overdress and the material gathered in under the second fold. A fitted bodice, with basque at the back, is a suggestion from the

Latest Millinery Offerings for Winter Wear

Dress .hats, more or less pretentious, make up the last offerings of milliners for this season, and already there appear among them demiseason hats and hats for Southern tourists that look as if spring were near Instead of far away. Beautiful hats for afternoon are made to serve for all purposes, where dressy headwear is required as the handsome afternoon gown dois duty for evening dress as well as dinner and afternoon wear. The matron of today is fearful of overdressed and prefers to be conservative rather than run the risk of securing indifference to the war. Three of the latest hats for afternoon or evening wear, shown in the group above, are representative of approved styles. Another group of all black afternoon hats, made of malines combined with-panne velvet, or of black satin with jet trimming, would be equally good style and give representation to the all-black hat—which holds an uncontested place ■in the realm of elegant millinery. , » The all-black hat and other simply trimmed hats, look to shape and materials for distinction. Two of the hats pictured here are of black satin ,brocaded with gold, draped closely to shapes with unusually spirited and fine lines. It would be like painting the lily and, adding an odor to the violet to place any sort of conspicuous trimming on then*, so a finishing touch is added by a dark fuf-pompon on each of these models. A single small os-

Bustle Frocks of Today

same era as the bustle-back. At each side a wide belt buttons on and extends about the waist. The plain sleeves are narrowed along the forearm and fit snugly. They fasten with four buttons and buttonholes. Plain bone buttons are in keeping with the practical character of this dress, and a detachable collar of crepe de chine finishes the neck that Js high at the back and has a short v-shaped opening at the front. “Bustle-back” has quite a wide application and .covers almost any sort of fullness or drapery arranged across the back of the dress or coat. Velveteen suits with fitted coats are very smart with the short coat portions covered with narrow ruffles. These are scant across the front and sides and full at the back, set on in rows with fines lifting toward the back, so that the suit has the same effect as a bustle frock, when the coat is on. The tendency is toward narrow, plain underskirts and draped tunics rather than in the direction of one-piece frocks, when the stylfe featured is the bustle-back, but in view of the. success of this new departure we may expect many developments of it.

trich feather or small fancy feather might be used Instead of fur, on hats of this kind to be worn in the South. A brilliant dress hat is shown of gray velvet and silver tissue having a brim facing of cerise velvet. Silver soutache braid elaborates* the silver crown and two handsome gray and cerise shaded ostrich plumes, mounted at the back, carry out -the color scheme. There are many other new models that show a return to favor of bright colors. The sentiment with regard to the wearing of gay colorp depends upon the point of view of the individual. We cannot expect the younger women to dress too gravely and we need “the courage of color.” Youth should be accorded the privilege of high spirit, and nothing bat our thanks is due the yoUng woman who brightens a somber world pretty millinery.

The Drape Skirt.

The drape skirt is still seen in the new dresses. This may be one way back to the tight skirt. Other dresses have series of plaits in their skirts, so thfey seem narrow without being so—another route to the tighter models. Still another has slight draperies made, of released skirt plaits. _ Tunic tops, despite their slight curves, often present a long slender dress.

IN A NUTSHELL

According to Josephus the wdlnut tree was formerly common in Pales* tine and grew luxuriantly around the Sea of Tiberius. The output of manganese ore in this country" in 1916 amounted to 27,000 tons, which was three times the production In IQJS. A Kentucky man has written to a Connecticut mayor please to find him a stepmother, “not too fat,” for hla four daughters Vibration is almost entirely eliminated from a new reciprocating pump la which cams are used instead of cranks to drive the pistons. Boston has tried successfully the experiment of having open-air moving pictures, which is an advance in conserving the public health. Although England’s ipeat Importations are very heavy coming from Australia and North and South America, 60 per cent of the supply is grown at home. The production of fuel briquettes in the United States last year exceeded 295,000 tons and was the greatest on record, being an increase of 33 per cent from the year before. The codfish has the reputation of being the goat of the sea. It will eat anything, and there are many records of it having performed some marvelous feats of swallowing. > Fedor F. Foss, mining expert on the Russian mission to the United States, has requested that firms making laborsaving machinery for use in mineral industries send catalogues and descriptive literature to him. All of the European armies have shoes without linings, and the new service shoe of the United States is made that w T ay. -It makes a better shoe, more sanitary, more comfortable and less likely to cause blisters.

YOUR CHANCE

Quit worrying over lost opportunities and become alert to new ones. * 0 * You are going to have more chances to make good. * The old saying that opportunity knocks but once at your door is a fallacy. Don’t be so pernickety that you immediately begin to wonder if the quotation about “opportunity” was correctly quoted, and so lose'sight of the lesson which it is sought to drive in. From experience you know you have had already more than one chance to improve your present position. Don’t allow yourself to think the big ch&npe is going to hunt you up. Indeed, it will ship you a-flying If there is a disposition on your part to be sought, and then coaxed, and then implored. Opportunity is looking for some one who is ready and waiting to grab it. Don’t lose a second in catching on to opportunity any more than you want to luse a beat of that wonderful music by making a false step in the dance you enjoy.

HIT AND MISS

Some folks find a happy compromise in building houses of rock on the sand. A great deal of criticism of kissing cotnes from thbse who lire seldom exposed to it. In many instances it takes a heap sight more courage to let go than' it does to hang on. We are charitable enough to think that the man who found a bit of ground glass in his breakfast food and blamed it on the kaiser was going a little too far with his imagination^

SOME OBSERVATIONS

The western lie is brutally a lie; It has no decoratidn, no artistry, no craftsmanship. Next to the German, your westernized Oriental is as big a scoundrel as the world produces. It needs an unscrupulous as well as a clever man to make an intelligent woman waste her capital upon him. The best and most healthy moments in life are when we forget civilization and cities and become human animals. It is possible that some disciplined rAection may take place while a woman Is dressing her hair or \ man is looking for his studs. When a woman gets into trim for letter-writing she is in the condition of a species of moral intoxication; she wtll go on and on whipping herself with her own verbosity—From Sir Willianv Richmond’s “The Silver dafifli” % "

LIFE'S LITTLE JESTS

BLANK VERSE. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Robinson wer® at loggerheads, but they always turned up at each other’s “At Homes.” ’ “Does your Johnny recite poetry?” £ “Yes,” replied Mrs. Robinsoo ■> proudly. “I don’t care for poetry,” laughed Mr.' Robinson, Johnny’s father, “FBI. otr ” ' “Oh, surely you approve of Johnny!” chipped in Mrs. Jones. “It doesn’t sound a bit like poetry ""“V. dear little Johnny recites it.” Additional Grievance. “It must be rather trying for a talkative* woman like Mrs. Gabbles to be* married to a man as deaf as Mr. Gabbles." “So it is. And to make matter* worse, Mrs. Gabbles has a lurking sua- .. picion .that Mr. Gabbles lost his hearing just to spite her.” Needed. Friend —Why do you maintain suck a large office force? Financier—To prevent outsiders from bothering me. “But 1 thought that was what your executive secretary was for,” “Oh, no. He is here to prevent the office force from bothering me.” —Life. TOOK HIS NERVE. - I

“It’s up to me to get a new gag. 1 told dat lady in de cottage dat I used to travel wld a circus.” “I suppose she got off dat old chestnut by giving yer an ax and asking yer to do de split?” "No; she had a new one. She gave me a saw and told me to saw up a cord of wood and den de fresh sawdust would remind me of de clrcu* rings.” Fits in Anywhere. People shy on punctuation / * Needn't gg»to smash. You <3 b »# the situation AlwayV-wkh a dash. Sympathy. Husband (groaning) —The rheumatism in my leg is coming again. Wife (with sympathy)—Oh, I am so sorry, John! I wanted to do some shopping today, and that is a sure sign of rain. The Result. * “Some glib talker persuaded me to go into the bee business he was selling out. guaranteeing mp big profits.” “What happened V “I was stung.” ~ ’JgH On What to Bay. “If you have something good to say, say it,” said Robert Meltz. “But if it’s something mean and bad, why then say something else.” Cruel Reminder. ' 1 “I don’t like my wife for a partner She never leads me anything.” “Why, everybody says she leads yon a dance.” ' . Advantage of Practice. “Briggs tells me he has a very fretful baby who cries all night.” g “He ought not to mind that. He is a professional floorwalker.” - Between Doctor*. First Doctor—l operated on him for' appendicitis. Second Doctor —What* was the mat--;, ter with him? r ■ ■ -y.flßj Great Discovery. Crawford — I see that there are I!%* 000 varieties of beetles. How did they ever find that out? Crabshaw —Some fellow who a bungalow in the country must .fmAg tided hanging a lighted lantern on his front porch.—The Lamb. Proof Positive. “He runs mad after every takes up. Now, he is always dosing! himself with some InfuMoa-of haiku? , “No wohder his health is gring te the dogs."