Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 242, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1918 — Page 2

Friend of Errand Boys

By JANE OSBORN

“S 1 ”* N "” p " When Alison Preston decided to get • Job for the duration of her first long Vacation from college she also made up her mind that that job should not be of the sort shat would confine her within the four walls of an office. She wanted an outdoor job and, after having received stern parental objections to taking a land army job where she would be away from home for the vacation, she scanned the “want ads” in the daily papers several days in vain. Outdoor Jobs for girls did not seem plentiful. Then her eyes fell upon that advertisement of Brown & Brown, calling for messenger girls. The wage offered was not very tempting, but as the advertisement stated, the work would be for the most part doing errands In the busy downtown business section.

Brown & Brown is a very large concern, with branches in cities in various parts of the country, and when you join their force of employees it is like enlisting in an army—you have to submit to considerable catechising concerning your previous experience, your parentage and your place of residence; and all this is written down on a formidable large white card that is kept in a filing case for future reference. “There Is just one thing PH have to ask you,” said the young office manager who employed Alison Preston, “and I will ask you to keep this confidential. I don’t want every one to know that we are taking on girls for errands —one person in particular mustn’t know. That’s our vice president, Mr. Morgan Thome. He’s in the Chicago office now and —well, to make a long story short, he began as a messenger himself and he’s nuts about them. He makes a hobby of giving every messenger that is employed what he calls a chance. “That means a lot of fatherly.adr vice, which would be all right if the boys had sense enough to profit by It. He has made up his mind that the future executives of the concern must be drawn, as he was, from the ranks of those who began at' the bot-

tom rung. So whenever we get a new messenger he takes no end of interest in him. He it was who installed this card system—wants to know all about the life history of every one that is taken into the concern. And now that he is off in Chicago he has left word to send on records of any new messengers. He wants to give them longdistance advice. So here is what I’m going to ask you,” said the young clerk, coming back to his point after his long explanation: “You’ll just let me put your name down here so that he won’t know you’re a girl. Alison, you said it is. May I put it down as Alec?” “Why, certainly,” faltered Alison. “Only, won’t he find out?” “He won’t be back for months, and you say you can’t stay later than the middle of September. You’ll escape him completely. Yon see, we did our best to get boys, but we couldn’t get any. He’d say we hadn’t tried hard enough. And, by the way, don’t say anything in that report about being in College. It might interest him too much and then he’d write to you and ■ the cat would be out of the bag.” So Alison reported the next day for work and, provided with her pigskin wallet that swung easily over her left' shoulder and rested on her right hip, she started out on the rounds of the day, carrying stocks and bonds about to various offices, reporting at the bank and back to the office of Brown & Brown. If she attracted any attention it was because she was so much better dressed for her work than the other girls who were beginning to take the places of messengers and errand boys in the downtown section. She wore neatly polished shoes that had served for country hikes the previous winter in college. Her suit was plain and of khaki —such as had been chosen* by well-to-do college chums of hers who had "gone in” for motor messenger service in-the vacation.

The coat collar was neatly topped by a man’s soft pique collar and a dark blue four-in-hand tie and a banded sailor of brown completed the equipment. Yes, of course, she grew tired with her many errands, but the fatigue was repaired by her healthy appetite and by the soundness of the sleep that always followed her days in the open. The first letter to Alec Preston was practically like the letter almost always received by errand boys from the vice president, Morgan Thorne, when that young officer of the concern was not present to Interview them personally. Mr. Thorne assured Alec of his Interest and his hope that he was regarding his new position a stepping stone to higher things in the employ of the concern of Brown & Brown. He asked him some questions that he wanted him to answer frankly In a letter that Mr. Thorne assured him would be confidential. “Did he smoke cigarettes? If so, did he smoke in business hours? “Did he indulge in games of chance with other errand boys? “What did he eat for luncheon? Did he go to night school? How did he ,spend his evenings? What time did he \go to bed?"

There were many more questions in the same vein, and Alison answered them promptly, assuring the kindly vice president that she smoked not at all and abstained from games of chance. She ate egg salad and milk for luncheon, went to bed early and spent her evenings “at home.’-’ She didn’t add that those evenings were sometimes spent with her tired little body resting on the soft upholstery of the long chair in her own little bedroom reading some one of her favorite Spanish or Italian authors that she had learned to admire in college. The next letter expressed approval of the young boy’s steady habits, but he reproved the boy for not going to night school, and ended by telling him that he would give a prize of sso— he always offered messengers in the concern, but had never been won—if he would devote himself so earnestly to the study of Spanish that within six months he could command a slight reading knowledge of that language. He himself, he said, had been handicapped because as a boy he had not mastered a foreign language. It was only recently, when his time for such study vtfas limited, that he had taken up Spanish. It was the great language for business men of the future, etc., etc.

Alison really ought to have been more cautious, but the very evening after receiving this letter she wrote back a long and fluent letter in her best Spanish, explaining to Mr. Thorne that, though she did not go to night school, she had mastered Spanish the previous winter and spent much time reading it. She declined the prize, however, as she had studied it without knowledge that such a prize existed. Then came the letter that caused consternation. Mr. Thorne wrote offering Alec a position in the Chicago office as second correspondent in the Spanish department They were getting lots of orders from South America, he explained, and he really needed him. His wage would be more than doubled, and his traveling expenses to Chicago would be paid. Alison was at first confused and repentant. She felt that she ought not. to have consented to the office manager’s deception. But then she took a different attitude toward the matter. Financial conditions in the Preston family had not been all that they might have been for the past year and it had become apparent that another year at college would be impossible for Alison at the present time. She had about decided to spend the following autumn and winter working. And here was a chance to earn $25 a week. She wrote back to Mr. Thorpe accepting the position, confessing at the same time her sex, did not wait for an answer but, packing her little traveling box and gaining a rather reluctant consent from, her parents, started forth to take her new job. She could five on $lO a week, she figured, especially if she continued to dress in uniform, and the other sls she could save to pay her next year’s expenses in college. The office manager in the New York office when he heard of the step she had taken, predicted a stormy reception for Alison. He felt that he knew just how Thorne would snub her. But the storm and the snub were not forthcoming. Thorne told her that at first he had not known, then he chanced to see the New York paper that had the office manager’s advertisement for girl messengers, and, beside, he suspected from the egg-salad luncheon and the hand writing that she was a girl. But it made no difference, he assured her. He was a thorough-going feminist, if that meant entire approval of giving girls an equal chance with boys when they proved themselves capable of grasping it. And this girl had proved herself more promising than any of the messenger boys that had ever drifted into the employ of the concern.

Then one day Thorne called Alison into his office and as she came toward him in her trim little khaki suit he held out both his hands and tpok hers into his. Alison did not draw back, but stood looking down at their joined hands with a puzzled smile on her face. “I want you here, Alec,” he had always retained the fifst name by which he had thought of her—“l want you in the office, but more than all I want you in my heart.- I want you to make a home for me. Is it so necessary to finish out that college course of yours?” ‘ “There is always one and only one possible event that will make a college girl give up her course,” said Alison. “And that?” “When the man in all the world she loves asks her to be his wife.” “Does that mean you have decided to finish?” asked Thorne relaxing his hold on Alison’s hands. But he tightened it again when she told him that it didn’t

Fumigation on Mexican Border.

The latest disinfection project which has ever been undertaken in this country, and probably the largest in the world, was recently begun by the United States department of agriculture along the Mexican border. Five fumigation’houses are to be erected at a cost approximately of $50,000 for the disinfection of freight cars, motor trucks and wagons entering the United States from Mexico loaded with products that might introduce Insect enemies, especially the pink bollworm of cotton. The largest house will accommodate fifteen freight cars. Each house will be equipped with apparatus and plant for the generation and dis* ; tribution of hydrocyanic-acid gas.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER, IND.

WHERE YANKEES ENTER FRANCE

Vivid Word Picture of Port of Debarkation for American Troops.

HUMAN SIDE IS DESCRIBED Miracles Worked Here In a Year by American Energy—Mystery Surrounds Flight and Return of Allied Sea Craft By GERTRUDE LYNCH. A French Port. —This is not only a port of debarkation for our troops, it is a port where many men gre permanently stationed in various military and naval duties. It is a center of aviating and seaplane stations, for welfare and hospital activities. Dock work is done by labor battalions, numbering many men. Here the shore days of men of the patrol and convoy fleets are spent. ' How is this port to care for such an Influx? American energy can answer the question. American energy does. Cinemas and vaudevilles are plentiful, a theater leased by the Y. M. C.A, providing the best entertainment the town can boast.

The principal street is lined with shops where Parisian products are censored to suit provincial tastes. To these have been added a multiplicity of goods to tempt the keepsake and souvenir wants of the strangers. Along the streets that lead from the gates to the suburbs are “baraques,” or covered pushcarts, extending for a mile or more, where glmcracks are sold to sailors, free with their money and not too well-endowed with the powers of selection. Along the streets, the ever-vatying, never changing war procession! Officers of the army and navy, marines, English Tommies, men and women of the Y. M. C. A., and the Red Cross, convalescents, casuals, Moroccans, Algerians, Senegalese, sitting in rows with nodding fezzes and Hashing teeth, peasants from many provinces, each with a distinctive dress, fighters and monks.

Over the sea wall is always a curious crowd of onlookers.' In less than a year they have seen first a few, shiploads, then more and still more, until now the weekly debarkation of thousands causes little comment. Let Heinie Look Out. Hear the conversation of two, an American soldier and a French Poilu who lean over the wall and look down to the landing places where a smart naphtha launch is bringing to shore an admiral and his staff. The American speaks: “Suppose the Helnles do get Paris, what of that? If they get London, what of that? Hope they don’t, for I’d like to see the old burgs before I go back to the farm, but that won’t make any difference; so long as we have a foothold in the harbor, that’s all we ask. Let Heinie look out. Paris and London—they aren’t the war. Not on your tintype.”

The French Poilu who understands all the English but the tintype allusion, looks amazed, then relieved. He had the provincial idea that Paris and London were the war. Over the seawall the observer looks down on the harbor town. The wpy leads by winding stairways of stone and slanting roofs. From it rises the tang of brine mingled with the odors of warehouses, oil and naphtha—those thousand and one smells that are as much a part of the port as are storage warehouses, docks and quays, basins and breakwaters. Beyond, the eye travels far to "the beauty and mystery of the ships and the magic of the sea.” Descend by one of these many routes. You find yourself overwhelmed with dirt and confusions. Here thousands of negro stevedores work like a colony of big, black ants. There are squads of Ammannites and Portuguese. Sailors’ oaths strike the ear. It is a babel of foreign sounds. Every inch of this water front is covered with' energy, docking, construction, loading and unloading, transportation, repairs. America has worked miracles here in a year. Inside and outside the breakwaters

SOME OF THE SECOND MILLION YANKS

Th® American transport Momus arriving at a French port with its quota of the second million of Yankee soldiers being sent across. < ■ -■——- - -

are fleets of fcceap traffic, transports, convoys, torpedo destroyers, patrol and fishing boats, sail-steam auxiliaries—craft of every possible relation to the sea. One day you may count scores of ships, and the' next hundreds. Mystery covers the flight and return of these Interallied shuttles of steam and steel. . Follow the splendid roads to Brittany, by fragrant pasture lands. You will find air stations where America!? flyers are hidden, guarding the entrance of the English' channel, helping with convoy and patrol to make the U-boat menace a nullity.

Welfare Work. On the way back, stop at one of the clearing houses of the troops. Let us choose “The Barracks,” familiarly called. There are 12,000 men here. It has housed troops since Napoleon’s day and before. As you stand at the door of the Y. M. C. A. canteen, your view takes In a vast, field, all In .monotones, brown earth, brown tents, brown men against a background of green, under a bowl of silvery blue. The American flags are flying free over the French casernes. Men, glad to stretch their sea legs, are drilling, playing ball, running, walking. The bands play gay melodies. So great is the rush for the canteen supplies that the doors have to be closed frequently to facilitate the waiting. A bugle note sounds high and clear. Instantly every man on that immense parade ground is at attention while “La Marseillaise” and “The StarSpangled Banner” are played. Fathers and mothers ask what welfare work is being done at this port for their sons. The Y. M. C. A. is busy. It aims first to attract and then hold the boy until corrupt influences are nullified.

WILL GET MAIL IN THREE WEEKS

Washington. —Improper or inadequate addressing is the main cause for delay in the delivery of mail to soldiers in France, according to Capt. Frank E. Frazier, assistant director of the A. E. F. postal service In France. Captain Frazier suggests that every person writing to a soldier in France follow the following model:

Return to Stamp. Mrs. Walter Smith, Street, Boston, Mass. Private John Walter Smith, Jr., Co. L, 102 d Infantry, Via N. Y. American E. F.

The mail of more than 50,000 soldiers in France is delayed and perhaps can never be delivered because of incorrect addressing. While delays due to this cause and to the fact that the military authorities have objected lu some cases to furnishing civilian postal authorities with information as to the location of troops have been numerous and disagreeable, nevertheless Captain Frazier maintains they have constituted a small part of the service, which amounts to the delivery of 1,000,000 letters a day to the troops abroad. Three Weeks the Average Now. “Delays caused by military objection to furnishing, location of troops are now being cured in a measure by giving such information to army officers directing the mail service. Military mail officials are now provided with transportation facilities that were denied to the civilian service. .Only in exceptional cases does it take more than three weeks for a properly addressed letter to reach a soldier in France who is attached to an organized unit of the army. The great mass qf letters to and from the expeditionary forces come and go on time.” One of the causes of delay has been duplication of names. Another has been that hundreds of thousands of

GIANT WOULD SERVE

There isn’t a trench deep enough on the battlefield to conceal all of the eight feet one inch of Bernard Coyne, the twenty-one-year-old giant seen in the photo. Of course young Coyne is not worried, overmuch about it, because he figures there will be no more trench fighting anyway. If he ever gets a wallop at “Jerry,” or if he ever lays eyes on . the kaiser himself, oh, boy! there is going to be a funeral in Germany due to the strength displayed by the youngster. Young Coyne has just registered at Des Moines, la. In the picture are E. D. Van Meter at the left of the giant, and Samuel Wymer of the United States revenue office directly under the outstretched hand. Young Coyne has been growing rapidly for several years. He was over six feet tall when he was eleven years old. His greatest year’s growth was 4% Inches. He added 2% Inches during the past year. Coyne wears No. 23 shoes, and other articles of apparel equally as large.

letters sent to some training camp or other in this country were forwarded to the great central A. E. F. post office in France, at Tours, and there held until the addressee could be located in France. It is estimated that 300,000 letters a month were delayed on this account. Captain Frazier points out that it is necessary that every soldier should notify his correspondents at once when he is assigned to a definite unit in France.

“Delays in the delivery of mall which cannot be avoided are likely to occur at any time during a period of great activity and secret movement of troops,” Captain Frazier explains. “Where the success of a troop movement on the front depends upon secrecy mail cannot be sent to members of a mobile force until the troops are established at the selected designation. Whether the delay be of hours or several days it must be accepted as a military necessity. Some Letters Just Miss Ships. “Every care is taken to expedite the mail for wounded men fn hospitals. The only delay is that which is absolutely unavoidable. A wounded man may be sent from one hospital to another, and even to several before reaching a permanent *base hospital. There is no delay whatever in mall sent home by or for wounded men. “Only two causes of delay have occurred at The port of embarkation in this country. One is the posting of the letter just too late to make the transport and with a week ensuing before the sailing of another transport. The other cause is the limitation placed upon ocean transportation facilities and lack of information as to the destination of ships.

“Unless the military port officer at the port of embarkation knows where a steamship is going to land, mail cannot be sent by that steamship. This defect has been cured by a war de-partment-order which directs that the Information as to destination be furnished to the miliary port officer. One of the most puzzling things to the public has been the frequency with which letters were received in France of a later date than letters that came afterward. One explanation qf this is that the postmaster of the port of embarkation has been assigned, a definite limited cargo space. Ilf 2,000 bags were ready for shipment and he could get space for only 800, 1,200 bags would lie over, and these might include letters written previously to letters in the 800 bags." All in all, Captain Frazier sees a great improvement in the service and predicts a constant betterment—if the people at home will use care.

HUNS TAKE POLISH TIMBER

I Germany Is Devastating Forests of Poland for Its Own War Needs. Copenhagen.—Germany is devastating Polish forests for her own war needs. In a protest printed in the Gias Narodu, Prof. J. Morozowlcz stated that of 210,000 acres of national forests in Russian Poland prior to German occupation more than onethird has been consumed by Germany, largely in rebuilding that part of many Invaded by Rusal■ in 1914.

THE BOOKWORM

By VINCENT G. PERRY.

(Copyright, 1918, by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) < Raymond Walsh was a puzzle to the villagers of Willgreen. At the age of twenty-five he was not even givingmarriage a thought. Nothing seemed to interest him but books and hisestate. Sarah Morley, who had been postmistress for thirty years (this was a fact Sarah hoped no one could remember), kept the village posted ,on his activities.- The first year he haff been home from college he had taken; a correspondence course in law, then he had switched off to short-story writing and later had studied the keeping of bees and the culture of mushrooms. He was always trying something new, but kept on with the olff things he had learned, adding to his hobbies almost moifthly. Raymond did not find time for social life. It did not interest him in the least. He attended church every Sunday morning and sat in the Walsh pew all by himself. “What do you suppose he is studying now?" Miss Temple exclaimed, breathlessly, as she hurried into the meeting of the T. G. C. (This might have stood for Town Gossip club.) Every member knew who she meant but before they could offer a guess she had told them, “Veterinary surgery ! What do you think of it?” Thediscussion* that followed did credit to the volubility of the members of the T. G. C. Little Miss Audrey Dunbar from the city was an interested visitor.

“Why, auntie, what Is it all about?” she asked. “Who is this man, and whydoes everyone criticize him so severely?” . They were only too glad to tell her all about Raymond. After the meeting Audrey felt an Irresistible longing to meet this “oddity” of the village. The sunshine suggested a stroll in the direction of the Walsh estate. Just as she neared the Walsh estate a dog limped toward her. Struck with a sudden thought, she coaxed the animal to her and examined.its injured foot. It was broken, she felt sure. It was a big, dirty cur, T>y all appearances, but nevertheless she picked it up in her arms and walked boldly through the gate that led to the Walsh home. She almost let the dog fall as she caught sight of a tall, good-looking man weeding in the garden, but regained her courage and kept right on. He dropped his hoe as he caught sight of her, and ran to meet her. “What has happened?” he asked. “My dog has been injured,” she said. “Whatever will I do? I should not have brought him from the city with me. Oh, is his leg broken? Do not wiggle so, dear Fldo.” Raymond smiled falntjy, as he took the dog frpm her and rested it on the grass. “No, it is not broken,” Tie announced, “but needs attention.” “Poor ojfi Rover-—Fldo, I mean I” Audrey corrected her mistake hurriedly. She hoped Raymond had not noticed it.

“I will carry him to the kennels. I have hospital equipment there,” Raymond said, as he looked up from the dog. .Fldo seemed quite at home in the kennels. All he required was . the rest cure, apparently, for Raymond left him to show Audrey about the place. “It is wonderful,** she told him enthusiastically. “Everything is perfect. You must be a genius to’ have a knowledge of so many things.” He laughed. “The villagers here think I'am a lunatic. You are the first outsider to go over this estate for fiveyears. Nobody takes any interest in me.

Once the ice had been broken Audrey called often to see how “Fldo" - was getting on. She left him entirely In Raymond’s care. But visits,don’t last forever, and one day she announced that she was going home tn the city. “I am sorry,” Raymond said sadly. “I will miss you more than you can realize.” “Will you?” she asked earnestly. “I certainly will.” With an effort he changed the subject. “You will take Fido home you, of course. He is right at home here,” Audrey blushed furiously. “He is not really my dog,” she confessed. “I never saw him before that day. He is just a poor dog I picked up. I wanted to meet you, and that was the way I went about it.” Raymond was laughing. “I knew it all along,” he, too, confessed. “He 1b my of the best,l own, aren’t* you, Jip, old boy?” The recovered Fidn danced around his master in acknowledgment. ' “You must have thought I was terrible,” she cried, horror-stricken. “It was a dreadful thing to do.” “It waa a sweet thing to do. Everything you do aft<j say is sweet. Just think how happy your deception has made me. I love you, dear, and if it was not that I knew you hated villagelife so much I would ask you to become my wife.” “Village life! What difference does that make? Of course I will becomeyour wife, even if we had to live on a desert Island.” # “You won’t have to live here always. I have been doing some experimenting: for the government and I have a chance for an appointment in the agricultural department. If I accept it . wb can live in the dty part of the timeand have this for our Summer home,”" "Lovely,” she cried. “After all, it won’t matter where we live, for love will make us happy anywhere."