Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 38, Number 215, 18 July 1913 — Page 10

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THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM, FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1913

PALLADIUM'S MAGAZINE AND HOME PAGE

"Am I Not a Boy? Yes, I Am Not!"

One Proof is That I Wear an Apron

By Nell Brinkley

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THE HONORABLE PATTERN FOR THE COM FY AFFAIR.

GOOD FOR ATHLETIC STUNTS, PLENTY OF FOOT ROOM IF YOU WANT TO TELL THE MAID YOU'RE "NOT AT HOME."

YOU CAN DO YOUR MORNING BEAUTY EXERCISES IN IT.

BY NELL BRINKLEY. JKNOW plenty of lucky girls who do their little part of the world's work at home, as I do, away from the glare and the courtesykilling violence of the big town. Almost all of them work in rigs that are either very pretty or very ugly and painfully uncomfy, or very comfy and ugly. Not one has one both pretty and comfy. Not one has a little outfit that is feminine yet boyish, pretty, and gives absolute leeway to young limbs and arms and waists that must bend over some sort of task. So I, who bend my back, too who like to look pretty, too who need, oh much to be comfy while I scratch for a living and who envy little kids their half-socks and sandals, their bare knees and necks

and heads, their rompers and lack of petti-skirts. I laid away my sentimental Billys and Bettys, who love one another oh, so desperately for one minute and "drawed" pics of working clothes. Oh, all kinds I made I did. Those that were too pretty were too fussy, too 1 shook my Scandinavian locks and crumpled them up. Those that were too comfy happened to be either utterly impractical or altogether too ugly for any girl to go any farther with. So I ripped them up. Then I fell back on what every girl finds infinite strange relief in till she's a grandmother my mother. I called her into consultation and together with my wild ideas and insistence on beauty and her genius for understanding the subtle ways of a needle and

thread and her smiling common sense, we evolved a thing of use and beauty and a joy forever. Seems to me most any man who had his rathers would like to see his sweetheart or his busy house-bird of a mate in a work garb like this rather than in some of the bibbed frights, the tie-around kind that cut you in two, or that ancient dishonored makeshift some women make do duty all day long the kimona. And don't you know men folks are everlasting preachers about their women folks being comfy. This little workapron certainly is that. Here are facts: I am usually short on those. That's mother's proof that I am a girl. Turn your Cheshire cat smiles away, Bettys and Billys, and let me tell how this honorable apron is

YOU CAN PICK UP YOUR ERASER WITHOUT BENDING YOUR KNEES WHICH THEY SAY IS FOR YOU.

made. I've made a faithful pattern from it spread out upon the floor. The real labor ones, where I get good and dirty ink on my nose, grime on my elboys, grubby hands and all that are made of blue and pink fine-chec ked zephyr gingham. Those that are just a little more company to loaf about the house in these hot days are made of cotton, crepe or anything pretty and washable that you like. Twenty seven inches wide, if you please, the goods must be; then there need be no piecing on the sides. And twice twentyseven inches is plenty of foot-room. There is a hole for your head, very short sleeves, and just the two seams down the sides. The back is as innocent of fastening as the front. Nary a butttonhole or a hook and eve. That

MOST AWFULLY GOOD MY CLEVER LITTLE MOTHER, WHOSE OWN LITTLE GOWNS ARE PRETTY AND SENSIBLE, TOO.

HERE IS THE APRON I WORK IN.

ought to please any cynic and make 'm sit up and crow. Just on a line below the hip bone there are two beltstraps back and front, and through these goes a belt a couple of inches wide, fastened with two buttons. On the humbler ones a bias fold and stitching about the neck and amis and a deep hem is all the decoration there is. On the niftiest ones there is narrow lace in the sleeves and neck and a belt of a different color. The belt fits closely, but doesn't pinch. That draws the apron into folds. These are facta. Now for the beauty and the joy of it. You wouldn't believe how pretty it ia on a girl. For it falls into every line of her body, gracefully and modestly, too. It has the same simple attraction that a little kid's clothes always have.

There's the beauty of it simplicity, good lines and any lovely color, and the joys of it it goes over your head, the sleeves are a joke, the neck is low, it's as cool as a l.ady Constance Richardson costume in this warm town, corsets with it are "taboo." it hasn't even a sash around the waist: you can reach, and catch and throw a ball to your heart's desire. Under tt. If it pleases you, when there ia not going to be "people." there are only stockings. chemisette and knickers of china silk or thin muslin and sandals. When i.iere is to be ""people," a one-piece lip has to be added on underneath and slippers instead of sandals, if you please. Sounds like a dream, thiw little outfit, but feels like a dream, too.

After the Honeymoon

The House

By MABEL HERBERT URNER. SEVERAL times lately Anna had complained of the mice in the kitchen, and had asked for a trap. But Helen could never fce.ir to have anything killed, had refused to get one. The most harrowing memories of her childhood were the cruel rat traps that had been kept in the pantry and cellar of her grand-father's house. She still shuddered at the thought of the helpless, squirming things with a leg crushed in the old-fashioned steel trap laying there for hours, until they were found and killed. Again and again she had stolen down in the cellar where the traps were set with bits of cheese, and had strung them with a stick, so that she might sleep that night free from the thought that some little creature was lying there maimed and suffering until morning. And countless times, when she found them caught in these cage-like traps which imprison, but do not injure, Bhe had opened the wire door to free them before the servant could throw them into a pail of water or let them out before a leaping dog. Sh Barred All Traps. And so now, when she had a home of her own, she was more emphatic in her instructions that there were to be no traps of any kind. It was afternoon just before Warren came home that she reached up on the shelf In the bathroom to get a fresh box of matches for his smoking table. On this shelf she also kept the bird seed, and it was from behind the package of seed that a tiny mouse sprang out, and in its terror fell over the edge of the shelf into the bathtub beneath. For a second it rushed wildly around the polished porcelain tub and then

began leaping up the slick sides only to slide back again. The glass-like finish of the tub gave it nothing to hold to. It was helplessly imprisoned. And still it leaped frantically but only to reach just below the edge and then fall back. It's little body was quivering with terror. Helen after her first start and cry of surprise when the mouse had darted out, watched it with pity and dismay. "Anna Anna, come here quick!" Anna appeared at the bathroom door, her hands covered with flour. "Loo:: look! How can we get it out without hurting it?" With something like a snort Anna reached over and turned on the hot water faucet. But in a flash Helen had dragged her back and turned it off. She Scolds The Maid. "Don't you dare to do a thing like that!" Anna had never seen her so angry. "Do you think I'd let you scald that little thing? If I ever see you do anything so cruel again you can't work for me! Do you understand?" "I didn't know that was the hot water, ma'am. I was just going to drown it." "Well, even to drown a thing trapped and helpless like that I won't have it! You've been wanting to get traps and I won't have them either. I want you to understand now that nothing is going to be made to suffer or to be killed in this apartment. The mouse was still leaning frantically on the side of the tub. "Oh, it can never get out by itself how can we help it?" "Oh. it's Warren!" joyfully. "Warren Warren, come here! There's a mouse in the bathtub and it can't get out!" "That's tragic" coming to the door. "Oh. it's so frightened. Can you get

MYSTERIES OF SCIENCE AND NATURE The Mysterious Properties of Steel, Tin and Glass If Cooled Slowly Steel Will Not Take a Cutting Edge; Cooled Suddenly It Becomes Hard and Tempered Tin Will Crumble in Severely Cold Weather.

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By Garrett P. Serviss.

ERE is a fact, known to everybody, which is as mysterious as would be the actual appearance of a

ghost, by which I mean that the fundamental explanation of the phenomenon is about as far beyond our reach in the one case as in the other. The fact' to which I refer is the production of tempered steel by quenching in cold water. If hot steel is cooled very slowly it becomes soft and cannot take a cutting edge, but if it is cooled suddenly it becomes very hard and can be ground into keen swords, knives and cutting tools. Now why the difference? Have you ever thought about that question. If you have not. many a man of science has. and has been greatly puzzled over it. Here is another related mystery. If you heat an old Japanese sword which

for centuries has retained its capacity to slice off a head at a blow, or to open a swift passage for the soul of the victim of the kari-kari mania, to the temperature of boiling water it gradually softens and looses its keenness that once made it so formidable. It Is the Same Steel but It Seems To Have Lost Its Soul. It is the same steel, but it, too, seems to have lost its soul. At a temperature of 150 degrees Centigrade the hardened steel commits hari-kari in a few minutes. Surely there is something strange in that. Then consider this: At zero temperature water changes from a liquid and suddenly becomes solid. But if

you put the water in a vase and j carefully protect it from dust, you ! may cool it as much as twenty de- ; grees below zero, and yet it will not I freeze! But now shake the vase or

it out without hurting It or frightening it more?" Warren To The Rescue. He glanced at the little thing darting quiveringly around. And then, he simply let down the chain of the rubber stopper which had been caught up under the faucets. In a flash the mouse had climbed up

the chain, leaped to the floor and dis-1 appeared behind the tub. j "Oh, Helen put up her arms and . kissed him impulsively. "I never thought of that! You are the dearest and nicest and best man in the world!" "As shown by my valorous rescuing of the mouse." i

drop in a bit of ice, and the water immediately solidifies. I owe the collection of thse facts to a paper by Professor James H. Walton, Jr., of Wisconsin University. The explanation which he gives is that substances like hardened steel and the unfreezing" water are in a state of "suspended change." That accounts for the phenomena, but, in a certain sense, they remain mysterious, just as life is mysterious. Many substances possess the same curious characteristics. Professp Walton says that if a flask containing sodium acetate, which has been cooled below its natural freezing point without solidifying, is opened in a room containing dust of the solid acetate, the fine particles of the latter dropping into the flask will cause the whole contents to solidify. Tin is a very strange metal with regard to this state of suspended change or "metastability. A severe winter cold will sometimes cause it to lose its hardness and crumble. Objects Made of Tin Often Suffer from "the Tin Disease." Objects made of tin often undergo such change and are then said to be suffering from "the tin disease." The contact of "diseased" tin with bright hard tin is capable of setting up the transformation. Glass, Professor Walton informs us. is "an under-cooled substance," that is. it is in a metatable condition. If old glass tubes through which water has frequently passed, are heated, the glass crystalizes and loses its transparency. All substances in this state are liable to change, and the change, under proper conditions, may be sudden. Hardened steel is in a similar category. If it were as perishable as tin it could not be safely used for many purposes for which it is habitually employed. Fortunately steel exhibits great resistance to change of state after it has been tempered. Transformation is retarded or arrested. "Does steel slowly return to the stable form and thus grow softer?"

asks Professor Walton, and then answers: "That we do not know: we can only say that if such a change dors take place, hundreds of years are necessary to bring it about." Heated Japanese Swords, if Preserved, Will Retain Hardness The same ancient Japanese swords, which, when heated, as before described, become soft, retain all their hardness if carefully preserved. It is evidently of the highest Importance to the practical world that science is investigating these things and discovering the way and the circumstances in which the changes come about, even if it has not unveiled the underlying mystery of their cause.

REAL FREEDOM

By BEATRICE FAIRFAX. A MOTHER assigned a trivial household task to her daughter, and the girl rebelled. She preferred to loll in a chair and read the latest fiction. "I detest housework," she snapped; "I despise that word 'Duty' you talk so much about: I hate being ordered around in this way. I will be glad when I am married and can do as I please." And when the noble Bird of Freedom heard her make this speech, it hung its head on its breast, and drooped its tail feathers in shame. It knew that no freedom comes with matrimony, but that freedom ends at its portals. It knew that the day was coming when the same girl would look back with a sigh at the liberty she enjoyed as a girl, and of which she now showed so little appreciation. The mother also knew it, and her reply to her daughter's speech was a sigh. How many times a mother's answer is a sigh only the good Ixrd knows. It is an expression of pain that goes unheeded on earth, but that is

recorded against the one who evoked it in heaven. EXTRAVAGANCES. Though the amount is unusually limited, there are few girls these dayi who do not have spending money witb which to do as they please. Obsessed by the passion of possession, they buy flowers, ribbons, hats, gloves, littls necessities and more follies, few of which outlast their brief season. There is no one to object; no one to question; no one to scold when the bills come in. The girl who wants pretty flower buy it without the nagsrinK consciousness that it would b better to spend the money for potatoes. Sfhe is tree, with hT little or much, to do as she pleases. The majority cf girls are engaged ia some sort of lucrative employment, and all their time is not their own. but the hour comes at last when the type- t writer is closed, the loom ia quiet, th sewing machine covered, and the books but back on their shelve. Otien the day is too long, and th labor too arduous for the pay received, but it aluays ends at last and for a time the girl is free. She has a few hours ef sweet liberty when she may go for a ride, a swim, or to dance, or to lie undisturbed in a corner and rest. Her life, for a brief period, is all her own, with today's work ended and no Intrusion of the duties of tomorrow. But when asked to do a little houce bold task for which she lacks inclination, she says irritably, "I will be glad vhf ri I am married and can do as I picas1 !" The noble Bird of Freedom, my dear girls, is never an emblem of wifehood. That little gold band that ia put on a girl's fincer at the altar is a link in a chain which, in the great majority of casr-s. is as binding as that worn by a slave. The married woman who has as much freedom as a girl is a creatur existing only in fairy tale and imagination. Her time, her money, her

'S' MATTER POP?"

(Copyright 1913 by the Press Publishing Company. (New York World I

(Continued on Page Eleven.)

Bv C. M Payne

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