The Syracuse Journal, Volume 4, Number 9, Syracuse, Kosciusko County, 29 June 1911 — Page 7

\JI STORY C\J ~T f~ iss Selina Lise Soap-Box Babies By Maria Thompson Daviess 4* Illustrations by Magnus G. Kettner Copyright 1909, The Bobbs-Merrtll Company. SYNOPSIS. Miss Selina Lue, spinster guardian angel of River Bluff, presides over an impromptu day nursery for the babies of the neighborhood in the rear of her grocery. Her charges are known as “SoapBox Babies.” The fact that she is single makes her an object of sympathy to the mothers. One of her friends is Miss Cynthia Page, daughter of Widow Page. Cynthia visits Miss Selina and learns that she has taken another “Soap-Boxer” in Alan Kent, a young artist who wishes to establish a studio in her barn. Blossom, Miss Lue’s adopted baby, and one Cynthia is very fond of, shows an evident preference for Alan. When Cynthia leaves. Alan hears that her mother Is in danger of losing the old homestead. A near rukus. Alan admires Cynthia. Selina tells how she came to locate in the place and start the haven for little ones. She suspects that Cynthia is responsible for Alan’s neglect of herself. Sale of the mortgaged Page place Considered. Alan's portrait of Cynthia is discovered. Evelyn Branch. Cynthia's close friend, shows interest in Alan Kent. Cynthia relieves Selina for a day. cooks dinner for Mr. Kent and makes a sorry mess of it. Alan declared a favorite with all the Bluff folk. CHAPTER Vl.—Continued. ‘‘We all wish you could settle right down here with us for life. Os course we won’t ever have money enough to make the picture trade brisk, but Mr. Jim Peters was a-saying the other night he most knew he could git you a job with the ’lectric company to help out. You would have all our recommends fer anything you wanted to git." ‘‘Miss Selina Lue,” Mr. Alan’s voice was low and very gentle, “I may ask your recommendation some day about something—l—want—very much. I— I am—afraid —” “Law, Mr: Alan, don’t feel that way about Miss Cynthia! She ain’t noth ing but a mite shy of you, and I ain’t got a bit of doubt that she’s jest awaiting fer you to pop the question. For my part I always held with a little waiting in girls. Minds made up too quick are mighty apt to unmake, same as a garmint sewed with a redhot needle and a burning- thread, is liable to come to pieces.” “Oh, Miss Selina Lue, I didn’t mean you to guess—that is to say, I have no right to— ’’ Mr. Alan broke down and commenced all over again with shining eyes. “It began two months ago at my first sight of her here in the grocery door. She is so beautiful and —I—l do care—l—! How glad I am that you, know, dear Miss Selina Lue; now I can talk about it to you. I know I ought not to —and I—” “Young man, I’ve got a heap more faith in the love that is so much it spills over than in the kind that don’t quite All out the measure.” “Oh, do you really think—could it be possible that I have just a chance with her? I —I—" “Wait a minute,” said Miss Selina Lue, and moved by a desire to settle the matter then and there she hurried into the store toward her room door, but she was too late, for the bird had flown from behind the molasses barrel. Miss Cynthia was stealing through the garden and in her ears there sounded a soft-voiced echo—- “ She is so beautiful—l do care—” “My, that pin muster been a crooked one that she couldn’t get to without undressing,” said Miss Selina Lue to herself. “I do hope she will come back right away.” And she went out to the steps a bit crestfallen, still actuated by motives of delicacy in not mentioning Miss Cynthia’s precipitous flight. “Did you ever see anything so lovely as she is, Miss Selina Lue?” And the rhapsody began where it had been interrupted. “Yes, and her heart and soul are Jest as pretty as she is. I was a-think-ing the other day that they ain’t many girls as would git into folks’ lives as she have done right here on the Bluff. She is friendly to everybody and they husbands. It takes a feeling and managing person to know that the thing to do is to take up for a woman’s husband when she tells you how he’s been abusing of her. Miss Cynthie have stove off trouble fer Mr. Kinney more times than he knows.” “I don’t know what I am to do. I never can seem to see her* anywhere, and she hasn’t asked me to call on her.” Mr. Alan’s lugubrious tones were symptomatic of his condition. “Well, anyway, there’3 the party tomorrow afternoon and she’ll be here sure. I want to git your advice about how to do things stylish. Would you have the pie on plates, and knives and forks to eat it with? Or would it do to hand it around in wedges to be et like cake?” “I believe the plates would he safer,” answered Mr. Alan in a judicial tone. “She might get some on her dress.” In the throng to he at the entertainment, In his state of mind, he could prevision only Miss Cynthia.

“That depends on whether they was | made cross-barred, open-face or kivered, < Cross-barred is the prettiest, but they could all lean over and bite kivered without making no mess,” said Miss Selina Lue, who was seeing the question from all viewpoints before deciding. “Suppose you have the plate for the grown people and let the youngsters take their luck,” compromised Mr. Alan, not liking the idea of trusting the “kivereds” entirely. “That’s just what I’ll do,” answered Miss Selina Lue. “I think it will be best for Miss Evelyn to go up and look at the pictures and then come down here and all eat the pie. I am going to clear off the counters so they can set up to them and be comfortable, and I am going to put a bunch of flowers in between each pile of pies. Won’t they all have a good time?” Something in Miss Selina Lue’s beaming hospitality smothered any misgivings that Mr. Alan might have had about the arrangements, and his glow of anticipation matched her own. “Well,” she remarked briskly, “I must be turning around if I am to get all.that ready. Can’t I help you fix up none?. Don’t you want ahy pants pressed? I would admire to do it. I could borrow the heavy iron Mis’ Simmons presses Mr. Simmons’ with and do it in no time.” Miss Selina Lue's sweet solicitude went to Mr. Alan’s heart and he took her hand as he said; “If my mother had been with me, Miss Selina Lue, she would have let me tell her-—about —it all —and she would have —asked about the trousers. I wonder if it is because you are not anybody’s mother that you are everybody’s?” “Mr. Alan, you are the first person that ain’t put that to me pitying-like about not having no children, and here you are giving me the whole world to mother. Well, my heart ain’t crowded yet; they is room fer ’’em all, big, little and grown-ups too. Seems like sometimes grown-ups show a mighty hankering fer a little mothering, and I ain’t the one to hold it back from ’em. Lands alive, if there ain’t Mis’ Tyne and all the family come back! You pick up Pattie and bring her out fer I know her ma is jest dead to see her, and I will run, and help Sammie and Ella Virginia carry that valise.” As Mr. Alan approached the group that seethed around and against Miss m RlPfi “The Lord Do Join Some Folks, Which Let Not Man Put Asunder. Amen.” Selina Lue, the mother of Pattie segregated herself from the mass and without warning precipitated herself on Pattie and so necessarily on that young lady’s new friend. “Oh, please excuse me, sir,” she panted, gaining her equilibrium and her offspring at the same time. “I was jest that excited! Seems like I could eat her up. Miss Selina Lue, you can’t never know how good it is to git back to one you’ve left,” which seemingly, only seemingly, ungracious remark had the edge taken off by Pattie’s emphatic squirm and whimper toward Miss Selina Lue. The quality of Miss Selina Lue’s mercy she knew and that of her mother she had forgotten. “Give her back to me, Mis’ Tyne, and I will put her in her soap-box while you all git unpacked. You come jest in time fer the party, and you better git about fixing fer it. Thank you, Mr. Alan —the valise are a heavy load fer the children.” As she stood on the grocery steps and watched Mr. Alan carrying the Tyne valise on down to the Tyne front door with perfect courtesy, she spoke earnestly to Blossom, who sat in a split basket by the door. Blossom’s personality, though in the bud, exhaled the fragrance of sympathy and made her a responsive mark for conversation. “Blossom,” she said in tones ,of quiet joy, “it looks like the two nicest people in the world are going to git married to each other, and ain’t it fine that they dispositions fit into one another like the edges of a piece of paper tored in two? Sometimes when I see wives all wore out with work and crossness, and husbands fed bad and no buttons, and sick children and too much beer at the saloon, let alone a hard winter a-coming, I git too much pleased with my condition, and I need jest sech a thing as this to remind me that the Lord do join some folks, which let not man put asunder. Amen!” CHAPTER VII. A Send-off for Mr. Alan. “But ain't it a good thing to think how there’s a guiding hand, child, a* guiding hand?” —Miss Selina Lue. The stir and hustle .on the hluff began early and rose at times to a tu-

mult, for an afternoon tea was a thing that had seldom come the way of the older citizens and was fraught with the mystery of the unencountered for all the small fry. By eleven o’clock the excitement had spread telepathically to the Hill mansion and was bringing the color to Miss Cynthia’s cheeks and lending an additional sparkle to her eyes. Miss Cynthia’s eyes, hpwever, had been very bright through a very wide-eyed night, and her heart had been dancing in an unaccountable way since she fled through the' fields with the echo in her ears. Generally speaking, a Woman prefers a first-hand wooing, but to Miss Cynthia the outburst in the grocery had had an especial charm. There is something propitiating and alluring in an affection that is daringly outspoken and declares itself at the first opportunity, whether or not the listener is the inspiration. Her state ol mind might have been guessed by the careful process of her toilet, though she only intended to descend'to the bluff for the purpose of aiding Miss Selina Lue in her hospitable preparations. The visit of her friend Evelyn had lost all aspect of an embarrass! ment; rather it partook of the nature of a triumph. Her trip to the Bluff, however, was postponed for an almost unendurable length of time, for in the hall she encountered Mr. Everston in the act oi taking his departure after an intervieyv with Mrs. Jackson Page. The expression of extreme harassment on that gopd gentleman’s face conveyed a definite idea of the interview, and Miss Cynthia followed him to the veranda and invited the explosion. “Most unreasonable, my dear, most unreasonable! < The land company is willing to wait no longer than two weeks fjor a definite answer. It is an exceptional opportunity and the only way to settle the estate so as to insure a residue—er—suitable to your mother’s—er—needs. The price of the house is, I may say, a fancy one, and I cannot see another way of getting the property on the market except at a sacrifice. Couldn’t you—er—er —my dear, remonstrate with your mother?” Remonstrance with Mrs. Jackson Page sounded stupendous even to the ears of her own daughter, hut Miss Cynthia’s head went up a trifle and she answered in tones slightly akin to those habitually used by that most impressive lady; “If you please, Mr. Everston, proceed with the business of the sale, and when the time comes I am sure she will sign the papers. Thank you for- your kindness and —your patience,” and Miss Cynthia held out her hand to the flustered old gentleman with the smile that always drew Bennie Dobbs —and others. She watched him drive away in his sedate old gig, and then turned, not to the apartment of the difficult Mrs. Jackson Page, but down the hill to the bluff, where turmoil and excitement and life called. And she found them in abundance; in fact, the bluff fairly teemed with them and Spilled over and ran out to meet her. Bennie headed the onslaught and was followed by Ethel Maud and Luella Kinney and several Tynes of assorted sizes. As they brought up beside her, Ethel Maud stepped on one of her own feet in a most amazing way and fell sprawling in such; a manner as to graze her little retrousse nose on the tip of Miss Cynthia’s shoe. A mighty wail ensued, which was augmented by Bennie’s most unsympathetic prediction that she would be denied the privilege of attendance at the party. “Oh —oh —o —ho, I can go, too! I don’t eht with my nose, and I see with my eyes and they won’t he nothing to smell. Oh —ho, can’t I go, Miss Cynthie?” “Yes, indeed you can,” answered Miss Cynthia, as she wiped the barked little dot with her clean handkerchief and failed to notice the smutty prints from the small fingers that clung to the sleeve of her snowy frock. “Bennie mustn’t say that. He knows it wouldn’t be a nice party if you had to stay at home with a sick nose. Now come on and let’s get your mother to put some camphor on it.” And they all proceeded down street. Mrs. Kinney hailed them from her open window with the rolling-pin. She was almost, literally speaking, elbow deep in pies, and the aroma thereof spread across the street. Her front stoop glistened damply in the sunlight and the front walk was spotless. The gate was tied up as a signal for the children to jump over the fence and approach their home with caution—on the grass. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Strength of Ice. It Is said that ice one and a half Inches will support four inches thick will support cavalry; five inches thick will support an 84-pound cannon; ten inches thick will support a multitude, and 18 inches thick will support a railroad train. These figures, of course, presupposes that the ice is of an even thickness, not having thin places, and only to true Ice, not slush ice or to ice when the temperature is above the freezing point After a thaw sets in but little confidence can be placed on the strength of the Ice. Wit That Bit. Admiral Lord Fisher, at a dinner In Philadelphia, praised American wit “Even the little boys,” said Lord Fisher, “are brilliant wits. Thus, on a ferry boat, I heard a little boy take down a fat man famously. “The boy was selling holiday weeklies and magazines. The fat man looked at all the holiday Illustrations, then walked away without buying anything. The boy called after him with biting wit: “‘Hey, fatty, wot do you take this boat for? A free library V ”

CREMATION OF SHORT MEASURE SUSHEL BASKETS NEW YORK. —A cremation of short measure market baskets took place recently at the Wallabout market, Brooklyn, by otder of Commissioner of Weights and Measures Walsh. There were over three thousand of them; all were of the bushel persuasion, and the late property of farmers who wend their way daily to Walla,bout and Gansevoort markets. Fer some weeks inspectors had been waylaying the wagons of the guileless rustics with the result that many of them were found to contain “bushel" baskets that were from four to fourteen quarts short. .ft is stated that the seizures will probably result in congress taking actum to the end of compelling a standardization of so-called barrels and bushels all over the country. As matters stand, the terms art variously interpreted in different sections, and invariably to the disadvantage of the consumer.

DANDELION AS PEST

Unusually Luxuriant Crop of Weed-This Spring. No Safe Remedy, Say Experts, Except to Get Down and Dig Them Out by Roots —Big Damage Is Seen in New Jersey. Chicago.—Dandelions are getting a strangle hold upon Chicago’s lawns this year. .While other cities are estimating in six figures the loss caused by the coh'cmned yellow blossoms. Chicago gardeners are looking with disgust upon tne of the most luxuriant crops of the big-leaved weeds that the lawns upon which they sowed grass ever bore. The late spring, followed by the unusual hot weather, seem to have been just what the dandelions have been waiting for to show what they can do in the way of rapid growth, and some of them have almost leaped out of the ground in their eagerness to mount skyward. In some of the parks, in places where much tramping has weakened the mere delicate grass, a second crop (f dandelions is blooming in the spaces left by the first. The earlier :r >p is now going to seed, and ter large areas the grass is almost invisible. The leaves of many of the - ’ants have been lifted clear of the ■.-round by the rapidity of growth. Other cities are watching the dandefiou crop with even more concern hen in Chicago. Gardeners in East '‘'range, N. J.. estimate that a damage approximating SIOO,OOO has been done the lawns in that section within the ia-=t fortnight. In other of the eastern states where much pride is taken in the appearance of the lawns the dandelions have secured an equally strong start. The belief is stated by some of the. naturalists that some natural enemy of the dandelion which has kept it more within bounds in former years has been absent this season. That continued activity with the av.-n mower and careful fertilization f lawns are safer preventives of the .andelion pest than any chemical ..reparations was the advice given by several Chicago gardening experts in speaking of means of dealing with them. Like many antidotes for poison, their -main objection is that they kill the patient as well as ridding him of the trouble, they declare. Sulphate of Iron, which is recommended as sure death to dandelions, is almost, if not quite, as hard on the grass. “Dandelions are beautiful early in May, but for the rest of the year they are ugly, and therefore we have to keep them out,” said Jens Jensen, in speaking of this year's crop. “The only way to deal with them in large areas is to keep the grass close cut and in healthy condition, so that there won’t be any hare spots for the seed to get through to the ground and sprout. “If you keep their heads cut off before they have a chance to go to seed you prevent them from spreading. I don’t know of any preparation that doesn’t do too much harm to the vegetation you want to save to be safely used in killing them. Os course, if you have a small lawn, the best thing is to get down on your knees and dig them out by the roots. ’ O. C. Simonds, landscape gardener for the Lincoln park commission, was of much the same opinion. “Dandelions are pretty difficult to cope with, and there certainly are a lot of them this year,” he said. “Sulfate of iron ia recommended by

many, but it undoubtedly is pretty hard on the grass. It is a little harder on the dandelions than it is on the grass, so in many cases it kills the one and the other survives. It is rather a desperate remedy, though.” MEN MAKE BETTER TEACHERS President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard Says Plan to Equalize Salaries Is Most Destructive. New York. —In regretting his inability to lecture in New York on the question of equal pay for men and women teachers, which the board of education proposes to adjust by reducing the salaries of men, former President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard writes to Joseph Van Denburg: “The sex of the teacher is of absolutely no importance in education. It is a perfectly clear result of much experience that men make better teachers for boys over 5 twelve than women do. You tell me the beard of education is planning to reduce the salaries of men teachers.A more destructive policy could hardly be imagined. There are two reasons for paying women teachers less than men. First, with rare exceptions, they do not and cannot do the same work Secondly, teaching as a temporary occupation for young women is more desirable among the occupations open to women than it is for young men among the occupations open to men.”

PINEAPPLE VESTS WEAR. LONG

| Englishmen Returning From India Brings Garment Made From Strong Fiber —Cost Small. London. —Pineapple underwear is one of the latest wonders threatened by mechanical science. It has long been .known that the fiber of the pineapple leaf can be manufactured into the most dainty, musliniike material, but the cost of extracting the fiber has made the price of the fabric almost prohibitive. A retired Indian colonel, who is the proud possessor of three undervests made from pineapple leaves, said they were more luxurious and comfortable than the very finest silk. “They cost me something like 520 apiece,” he said, “and though I have worn them for over thirty years, they show no signs of wear even yet. “I doubt if they are procurable anywhere in London. In India the natives extract the fiber from the pineapple leaves by hand, and the process is long and laborious. The products of ramie, or China grass, are fairly well known, but only a few know of the luxury of the pineapple.”* While pursuing inquiries on this interesting subject among silk brokers and silk manufacturers, whose businesses are threatened by this new invention, it was found that the existence of pineapple silk was scarcely known. “After -*ll, silk is silk,” said a leading broker, “and this new invention or discovery will rank among artificial silks, of which there are already enough to form a market amongst themselves.” Ia the office of one of the pricipal fiber merchants of Mark lane were seen specimens of a beautiful silk-mus-lin fabric which had been manufactured from the pineapple fiber under the superintendence of Charles R. Dodge, the fiber superintendent of the United States government. “While touring on the continent.”

ISOLATE LEPER UNTIL END Lee Tung, Afflicted Pittsburg Chinaman, to Live °Rest of Life Away From the Public. Pittsburg.— Lee Tung, the local Chinaman who is suffering from tubercular leprosy, was taken to the municipal hospital the other day, w;here he will live the rest of his life, isolated from the public. The Chinaman’s face is badly swollen. and ugly blotches mark his wrists and forearms. He contracted the disease eight years ago while on a visit to China. Dr. B. A. Booth, the city physician,, says that the leper probably will live for four or five years. In the meantime the city will have to provide a home for him. During the warm weather he will live in a tent on the hospital grounds, but before winter sets in a house of some sort will have to be built for him. Students’ Food Is Costly. New Haven. Conn. —The appetite oi the average Yale undergraduate loonu large in food statistics compiled by the management of the university dining hall, where 900 students eat thre* times daily. During the first five months of the college year, it top’d 120,000 quarts of milk, 20,000 quarts of cream and 215,000 fresh eggs tc satisfy the college boarders. Othei notable items are 7.500 pounds oi breakfast foods, 14,000 pounds of but ter, four and a half tons of crackers 450 barrels Os flour, 20,000 pounds oi roastbeef and 19,000 pounds of chicken.

said a well-known fiber expert, “1 found that pineapple silk was stocked by some of the leading drapers. My wife bought a quantity of it. but when on our return she tried to purchase some of it in London she failed to find any shop that kept it. "For trimmings I think it is excellent, but I doubt if, in its present state of development, it would be equal to very hard wear. But the great trouble with these fabric textiles is that the” planters will not guarantee a large and regular supply of the raw material and English manufacturers will not alter their machines to suit it until they do.” SETS TOWN TO SCRATCHING School Boy Is Accused of Distributing “Cow Itch”—Joker Will Be Publicly Flogged. a Wilkesbarre, Pa. —A practical joker recently has had half the residents of Conyngham, a country town near here, scratching continuously at the greatly irritated surface of their skins. A special committee of the school board is endeavoring to find and punish him. The afflicted ones did not know what was wrong at first. Some thought it was an epidemic of hives; but it did not develop like hives; the skin merely grew red, there was a slight swelling and the irritation was continuous, while the number of those affected grew until half the residents were scratching. Finally it was learned that it was all due to “cow itch,” which had been distributed in the school, in two lodgerooms, the postofflee, suad at a horse sal© during the evidently by some practical joker, probably a pupil. The people are so indignant after their prolonged Irritation that the joker is likely to be publicly flogged if caught

SUCH A QUESTION. ■PC 5 !! J| State’s Attorney (examining talesman for jury)—lf you considered this man guilty would you send him to the gallows? t Talesman (a politician)—What’s his politics? FREED FROM SKIN DISEASE "Our boy was born in Toronto on Oct. 13, 1908, and when three months old a slight rash appeared on his cheek. What appeared to be a water blister would form. When It broke, matter would run out, starting new blisters until his entire face, head and shoulders were a mass of scabs and you could not see a particle of clear skin. Other parts of his body were affected, but not to Buch an extent We tried about every advertised remedy without avail, Indeed some of them only added to his suffering and one in particular, the Remedy, almost put thb infant into convulsions. The family doctor prescribed for him and told us to bathe the baby in buttermilk. This did not do any good, so we took him to a hospital. He was treated out-patient twice a week and he got worse, if anything. We then called In another doctor and inside of a week the hoy was, to all appearances, cured and the doctor said his work was done. But the very next day it broke out as bad as ever. “We decided that it could not bo cured and must run its course and so we just kept his arms bandaged to his side to prevent tis tearing hio flesh. We left Toronto and shortly after our arrival in Duluth, the Cuticura Remedies were recommended. We started using them in May, 1909, and soon the cure was complete. You would not think he was the samo child for Cuticura made hrs skin perfectly clear and he is entirely free from the skin disease. There has been no return this time. We still use only Cuticura Soap for baby's bath. Robert Mann, Proctor, Minn., May 3, 1910.” If it frere not for their long faces some people have an idea the world wouldn’t know they were religious. The Herb laxative, Garfield Tea, overcomes constipation, giving freedom from siek-headache and bilious attacks. God pays, but not every Saturday.— Alphonse Karr.

Hood’s Sarsaparilla Eradicates scrofula and all other humors, cures all their effects, makes the blood rich and abundant, strengthens all the vital organs. Take it. Get it today in usual liquid form or chocolated tablets called Sarsotabs. i USE A PORTABLE BOSS OVEN WdAPattrUd GLASS POOH on yoar (tore or range, either oil, gasoline, acetylene, alcohol or gas. No more spoiled bakings or worry— No more wasted heat—No more jarring or chilling of oven. Housewives can sss their baking without opening door. Economy and convenience both guaranteed in the BOSS— a polished blued steel oven lined with'tin and asbestos. . I s ? _ Look GLASS in DOOR is j guaranteed not to break front heat becauseitis secured by our patented yieldinf pressure retaining strips, which permit expansion andcontraction. Class door fi ts snugly in on*, piece beade d Iron t.and is held tightly in place with two turnbuckles, preventing escape of heat. Baking qualities and ventilation superior to any other oven or range. All heat goes right into the open bottom, and ts. perfectly distributed to al 1 parts of the oven by means of our patented Beat Deflector. Flame always visible through small nkt windows. With the BOSS a baking costs Urn tkanacent. It will many times over jayfee itteV in saved bakings to say nothing of laved fuel. I Ask YOUR Dealer to show yon the BOSS Glass Door Oven. INSIST upon seeing the name “BOSS” stamped In the front of Oven. Thai you know that it is genuine and fuaranteed. free a^T^MrjjrfoaseiSi ■"■■■■■■■ of BOSB Ovens aont FREE on receipt of postal, K*vin» your owu.and you* THEHUENJEFTLDCO. 2»8fl SefagCwnAw OncinsaAO Thompson’s Eyt Water W. N. U , FT. NO. 25-ISII.