Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-21
FRIENDS NO LONGER.
The Baby Show Breaks Up the Affec-
ton Between Two Families.
TROUBLE BETWEEN NOS. 25 AND 26.
Neighborly Love Could Not Stand the
Strain Of Rivalry.
HEATED WORDS FOLLOWE CLlNCH

The baby show is over, but it has left its
scars behind. Friendships have been shat
tered, communities disrupted, neighbors look
askance at each other, and children refuse to
make mud pies out of the same puddle.
The blighting breath of the baby show has
withered the flowers of spontaneous affection
which bloom in the spring, when urban
housewives seek advice as to summer
dresses and rural matrons boil soap in a
common kettle and harmony.
The saddest of these incidents was brought
to light yesterday. Nos. 25 and 26 at the
baby show are neighBors in q pretty little
suburb. Their vine-embowered cottages
nestle side by side, their little ones played
together and ever and anon threatened to
tell ma" about each others delinquencies.
The heads of the respective households would
borrow chewing tobacco from each other,
and in the summer evenings would sit out
side their doors and. with their chairs tilted
back, agree beatifcally in declaring that
every man not of their political belief was
an inhuman traitor.
Longing for a Paradise on Earth.
They gave each other good advice as to
the best crops to sow in their little gardens,
praised each others children, and mourned
in common the fall OF Adam, which COM
PEELED them to earn their food by the sweat
of their brow when they might just as we'll
be living on a coral-grt island in the In
dian Ocean, with bread-fruit, pinsapples
and other tropical and high-priced fruit
right to their hands, the only labor neces-
sary being to shake tree or two before.
meal time.
Thus the two families lived, as harmon
iously as the two monks in the fable, who
mourned that they could not quarrel as
other folks did. But serpent entered this
Eden. The baby show was originated, and
each mother insisted, with a mental reserva-
ton, that the other ones youngest olive
branch could not fail to secure first prize.
Then. again, it was their duty to aid their
husbands, and the prize offered was large
one, and would materially assist in keeping
up the building ana loan association pay
ments. Fortified with this virtuous resolve
and jag OF maternal pride, these good
women sank their identities under the num-
bers 25 and 2S
Every morning while the show lasted Nos.
% and rs would travel to town together,
paying each others fare and commenting
on the unfortunate fate of other women
whose babes were not in it-that is, in the
show. They borrowed each others baby
clothes. sat side by side ON the raised dais,
and lent each other paregorlc and moral sup
port in doses to suit the occasion.
And Then the Trouble Commenced.
The show closed on Saturday night, and
homes, each confident of victory, and laid
awake all night thinking how they could
best .condole with their ne1tdoor neighbor
on her defeat.
Early yesterday morning two copies Of
The DISPATCH were purchased one by
each mother, and the list of prizes was
eagerly scanned. No. 26's baby had won
the first prize, but she had been sure of it
all the time. No. 25 had also been sure of
it, but she wasn't in the list at all. There
was something wrong somewhere, she wasn't
quite sure where, but she thought it was
next door. Next door she went, and there
made a statement in terse, but pointed
language, which scared the little dickie
birds out of the vines which embowered the
cottage. Then she left.
The husband of No. 26 returned at noon.
His wife told him what had happened, and
ne went next door to deliver an oration.
No. 25's husband was also at home. There
were few brief words. cllnch, choice
assortment of screams, and the doors of the
two cottages shut with q bang which nearly
shook down the vines.
When the Montagues and Capulets want
to see real, genuine, dyed-in-the-wool
feud, they should go to the neighborhood
wherein reside No. 26, the prize-winner, and
her one time bosom friend, No. 25.