Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1909 — HER EXPERIENCE. [ARTICLE]

HER EXPERIENCE.

She looked at herself in the mirror of her dressing table, which stood be tween two windows in a strong light She looked long and earnestly, being beyond youth's first flush, and pondered. “I’m going to the hairdressers,” she announced audibly to no one in particular. "I’m going to' see if nay hair, horrid gray stuff, can be* made to look like anything.’’ That was the beginning! She went, and as a necessity the laundering process took 'some time, and the pretty girl behind the suds,' the shampoo, the hot box or what you will, spoke in gentle tones of the absolute desire on her part to see those locks “done up” according to the latest manner of hairdressing, and looking at the pretty young girl the patient acceded to the request that she look at a “transformation." Seated in front of the mirror with the curling iron thrust through her locks at regular intervals she mused over the mutability of human affairs and chiefly she mused over the price of a “transformation” (when she intended buying a blouse with the money). Vanity, that dormant possession that only needs slight encouragement to become most rampant, conquired, and the "transformation’’ was shown. It was gray, it was wavy, and the price was —something terrific! She hesitated and as is usual —was lost. On went the beautiful bit of gray hair, but this was not all; puffs were held up for approval; beautiful gray puffs they were, but no; no puffs for .her, these were for the giddier folk, but a “switch” almost as pretty was suggested, and —accepted.

Then the pretty girl began, and the result —well the result was quite fetching; so much so that the family rejoiced over the added youthfulness of the wearer of all this store hair. Then she went home, took a bath, with head held erect like a snake, slipped skirts over her head with many groans and objurgations, and started to the theater.

Half way down the stairs hairpins began to stick into her scalp, and when the front door was reached the agony of the punctures was unbear able, so she dashed back into the house and readjusted things—until she felt better. When she got ready for bed and began to take out hairpins it took her sixteen minutes by the clock to get it ready for her night’s repose with seventy eight hairpins, two combs and a net piled as silent witnesses to the expenditure of one hour and several dollars at the hairdressers. And the family laughed.