Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 2, Number 45, DeMotte, Jasper County, 23 March 1933 — The Fable of the Unflinching Heroine [ARTICLE]

The Fable of the Unflinching Heroine

By GEORGE ADE

©, Bell Syndicate.--WNU Service. ONCE there was a Good Woman who, next to Mary Queen of Scots, probably suffered more than any other Prominent Lady of whom we have Record. It will be recalled that Mary started out as a proud Monarch, and finished up as a Martyr, while Mrs. Wambo started out as a Democratic Fixture and finished up as a Gazelle. The unfortunate Queen of Scots had her head cut off. Mrs. Wambo did not go quite that far, but she underwent a Major Operation, which seemed just as important, and which was preceded by as much Suspense, Doubt and Trepidation as that which racked the Royal Prisoner. Mrs. Wambo, before she got into the Jam, had been married so many Years that she had concealed all the Records and changed the Subject when some careless Friend began to dig up Dates. She owned up to remembering the Spanish-American War, but the Details were all blurred, because she was so young at the Time. Whatever may have been her Vintage, she had a holy Horror of looking old, or feeling old, or acting as if on the Retired List. She referred to the other Bridgers as “Girls” and would warn any Bachelor, on the slightest Provocation, that her Husband was jealous. She had a Pair of Scales in her Bath Room and had tried a Facial Mask and six or seven Years ago had learned to walk loose and slouchy, like a Leading Lady in a $3 show. Also she wore a one-piece Contraption which concealed her Knee Caps unless she had to sit in a Steamer Chair. Exit for the Seven Sutherland Sisters. She had a perfectly laudable Ambition to keep on looking an Ingenue until they chopped her down. When she got red in the face after dancing continuously for about forty Minutes, she kidded herself that the High Color was the Flush of Girlhood instead of a warning against Apoplexy. She wore Beads and took a swing at a Golf Ball once in a while and used to sit out in the Evening and sing with the College Boys before the Ukulele was pushed aside by the Saxophone and Cross-Word Puzzle. From this Preamble it will be evident that her name should have been Mrs. Ponce de Leon. If there was any Fountain of Youth, she wanted to hunt it up and dive in, headfirst. It happened that one morning Mrs. Wambo awoke and discovered that the Seven Sutherland Sisters had become a Joke. It may be remembered that these Girls had Tresses which swept the Ground and were copious all the way down. When all of the seven were bunched, the View from behind was like that of Niagara Falls. Mrs. Wambo recalled that, in her Seminary Days, it was the longing of every Sub-Deb to be a Sutherland, so that when the Mop was let down it would reach to the Ankles. In fact, it seemed that Long Hair had been the Rage from the Days of Eve, Cleopatra and Lady Godiva. The last named, for instance, certainly would have caught cold if the Modern Style had been in Vogue in Coventry in the 11th Century. Imagine the Shock which came to Mrs. Wambo when she learned that the Flappers, instead of wearing it down to the Ankles, had decided to wear it only as far as the first Cervical Vertebra. Some modern Joan of Arc, residing in Paris, had taken a Tip from the Dutch Kids and Buster Brown and had amputated the whole Works just below the Ears. It seemed that within 24 hours all the Cuties in the world were throbbing with Excitement and wondering if they would dare to follow Suit. The Situation Looks Grave. The answer was not long delayed. All of the Young Ones fell for the Fad. Within a short time the Village Barber Shop ceased to be the Place at which the local Bootlegger studied the Pictures in the Police Gazette. It became a Salon--the Social Center of the Community, congested, for Hours at a time, with the very Pick and Flower of young Womanhood. Prominent Citizens who did not know how to shave themselves began to resemble Ernest Torrence, all bushed up for a Western. Hairpins and Side Combs suddenly became a Drug on the Market but all the Factories making Toilet Soap began to work Night Shifts. When the new Craze began to sweep the Woodlands and Prairies, Mrs. Wambo spoke right up and said it was Terrible. She pulled the Old One about a Woman’s Chief Glory being her Hair and she couldn’t imagine what some of the Young Girl were thinking of when they sacrificed a Top-Knot on which they had been working for Years. Mrs. Wambo stuck to her Waves and Frizzes and the artificial Stuffing and any suggestion that some day she might join the great Sisterhood of Bobs would have given her the HibbyJibbies. Besides, she and the other young Matrons who toiled at the Card Tables every day predicted that the whole Thing was just a temporary Craze and some of those who had fallen would be in an awful Hole when the Styles shifted back and they tried to wear it long again.

As Month after Month passed by and the number of Victims increased and Rumor had it that Elsie Janis, Carrie Chapman Catt, Elsie Ferguson, Ethel Barrymore, Bebe Daniels, Queen Mary, Glenna Collett and Galli-Curci had succumbed, the situation began to look serious. It seemed that a good many Girls who were no longer Kittens and who in the Old Days, would have been knitting instead of JazzJumping, had been clipped and were shamelessly exhibiting their Necks for the first time. Signs of Wobbling. Mr. Wambo began to notice that the Missus, instead of saying that any Woman beyond 30 who got shingled was a Hussy, began to stall and ask Questions. She wanted to know of him if he thought it was Dignified of a Woman who had a Daughter in Smith College to trim herself up like a Soubrette and try to step out when she should have no ambition except to create a Home Atmosphere for her Husband and Children. Mr. Wambo was twice foxy and said he thought that the Modern Woman had a Right to do Anything which would not be stopped by the Police. He had read the Signs and seen Handwriting on the Wall. He knew that Friend Wife was getting ready to Fall and, when the Time came, she wanted to be pushed and make out that she had been talked into it. She showed him in the paper where Mrs. Pillsbury of Rockfill, Pa., had been Bobbed at the age of eighty-two and said it made her look and feel Forty Years Younger and she wanted to know if he didn’t think it was ridiculous but he said that if Mrs. Pillsbury was satisfied, he thought it was Great. Then there came a Day when she pulled a False Giggle and said that Lib and Gert were both after her to go to a Place in the Union Central Building where there was a man who had learned it in New York and who could advise one as to which Style would be most becoming. She had no Intention of going but it was a Fact that a great many Women ever so much older than She had been done over and you’d be surprised what a Change it made. Mr. Wambo, a Diplomat of the First Water, said that no matter what she did to the Hirsute Crop she would always look like a Million Dollars to him and if she wanted to make the Supreme Venture to go ahead and he hoped that her Conscience would be her Guide. No Ether Used. Weeks before the big Event every one but Mrs. Wambo knew that she was slipping. She kept on protesting that the Whole Thing was silly but the Fact that she couldn’t talk about anything else proved that she was a Marked Woman. Finally she hung the whole Responsibility on to Wambo. She said that if he insisted on it, she would go ahead and have it done. Then came the tense Weeks during, which she was trying to decide whether to have a Boyish Bob or a Shingle or a Terrace Effect or the Fish-Hook Dingle-Dangles or some Scallops. On the Day when she went to the Union Central Building the Sun stood still and Traffic was suspended. She refused to take any Anesthetics and went through the Ordeal absolutely alone except for Lib and Gert Ella and Jess. After it was over she didn't know whether to go and sit in Peacock Alley or hurry Home and hide in a closet. Just after she took the Fatal Step a Convention of Hair-Dressers in Atlantic City decreed against the Bob, but it was a False Alarm. Mrs. Wambo is now High Priestess of the Cult and will tell you what a Relief it is not to be compelled to hang your head out of the Bath-Room Window for Hours at a time. MORAL: A woman is as old as her Husband tells her she is.