The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-05-27

rap about such a holiday. We never
decorate any graves
Mrs. Parkinson senior was strucls
dumb for a moment with the horror OF
the situation. Decoration Day had been
to her patriotic soul even more than
Christmas. He father. her brother, and
the lover of her school days, had fallen
in the Civil War
She herself had worked at all the
things that women could do to help in
that time OF need
In after days she had walked in the
parades she had filed baskets she had
drilled children. she had sung songs till
her lungs ached. and watched torn bat
tie flags. and listened to Memorial Day
addresses till she had cried. She had
gone into it all with her heart and soul,
and now it seemed to her that the Lord
was sending a very severe punishment
on her which she did not deserve. What
could she have done to merit being sent
to a place where they did not believe
in Decoration Day?
Then she Strengthened herself, a flush
Crept over her wrinkled cheeks, and a
dignity into her manner
'Lorella," she said simply, maybe
there has never been a Decoration Day
year And she went out into the yard
to think it over.
I'm worried about ma" her daugh-
ter-in-law said to her husband that
night. she seemed awfully cut up
about Decoration Day, and then she
seemed queer Don't let her go and do
anything silly" But Tom Parkinson
knew his mother well.
IF she wants TO do anything, she'll
do it, Lorella," he said. Nothing
could stop her from getting her own
way, and as a general rule, it amt
bad way. Mas all right And he
dropped comfortably to sleep.
But his wife watched, and the next
morning tried her best to interest her
mother-in-law in the garden, the baby,
q new brood of downy chickens-any
thing and everything except that which
she knew was first in the old woman's
mind.
1t was all TO no purpose. After the
mornings work. of which Mrs. Parkln
son always did even more THAI her
share, was done, she went in, dressed
in her best. and came out with a par
asol over her head, and kid gloves on
her hands
Don't wait dinner for me, Lorella,"
he said as she went down the walk, ,
I'm going to be busy. and I may be /,
late" and off she hurried, her square, !
dumpy little figure in it's stiff, best
clothes looking oddly out of place in
that luxurious southern lanscape. /
She wendell her way first to the !
mayor of the village. He occupied
shanty, which he called a law office,
right beside the chief grocery store.
The chief grocery store, however, hap
pened TO have d bar behind and so
added to itself the glory of being the
chief club house, too, and Mrs. Parl<in-
son, as she saw the mayors coat tails
slantlng toward the hospitable bar,
shrugged her shoulders and changed
Ter course to the home of the Methodist
From there she went to the chief
shepherd of the Baptists and then,
taking her rank Puritanism by the
hroat and trying her best to strangle
is outcries against the customs of a
ffe time she went sturdily up the
steps that lead to the simple home of
Father O'Neil. who had much the larg-
EST if not the wealthiest flock in town
Her interviews were all satisfactory.
That fact was plainly evident as she
anne from Father O'Neil's, that gentle :
nan CALAMITY bowling her from his
loor.
Mrs. Parkinson was still an interest
ng sort of woman, and besides, sheer
and enthusiasm do much
o further any cause.
AS she entered the office of the mayor
he decided that though grocery store
,ars were not strictly after the fashion
f Buffalo, n. Y, they were at times '
esira bic. For the mayor was in a dis
inctly happy frame of mind-a gen {
rous, whole-souIed, pliable state of l
1ind-which, she had heard, was not {
is under strictly natural conditions
She went straight to her point. She c
nforced her arguments by quotations
rom the local clergy. There was an
mount of real eloquence, of earnest e
ess and resolution in the little square V
40 $4,000