Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-10-04
AROUND THE CITY

| \ small colored boy was toddling on
| all tours around tree.
! At little distance stood two white
Riddles in feather war bonnets and yell
low cotton suits exactly like Indians don't
wear. One was aiming a gun at the COL
ored boy and the other was pointing at
him with a cigar box.
| At one fatal instant the boy with the
gun yelled Bang" the boy with the box
| gave 1t a whack and the colored boy fell
! to the bricks with q groan that sug-
gested. say. green apples.
, AS a woman came along the white kid
dies were kneeling by the coiored one. and
the gun had been laid aside for a silver
of shiny new tin.
What are you playing Children" ask
ed the woman. The boy with the tin ex-
planned:
We amt playin' nothin'. I'm Teddy
Roosevelt huntin' elfants. this IS Kun
| NIT takin' pixchers an this coon is
| Africy. I've done kilt him and now I'm
| goin' to skin him."
| And he was really right about it's not
being play.
For three small kiddies it was the real
thing-while it lasted.
| Something had happened 70 a water
| pipe up 14th street. The pipe was in a
ditch. and. as 1T burst, an impromptu
! fountain leaped above the trees and
/ showered down with the rain.
| Each labOrer who had been digging In
the ditch became, for the minute. a very
| black OthellO with his occupation gone
! bye-bye. and there was the usual sudden
| crowd. rooted under by umbrellas, and a
| jam of drippy teams that We're water
wagons In the lteralest meaning of that
| hard worked term.
| One would have supposed that Mon
! days storm would have dampened hu-
| manity's curiosity in mere aquatics but
free show is free show. though the
| heavens fall,
And 1t was a show worth looking at
| for the torrent shot upward with live
velocity. as IT, like the bottled genii we
| all know about. 1t was no longer mans
! slave. penned in pipe. 1t was tie un-
/ trammelnd constituencies. beautiful, fe-
| rOcious thing Of which oceans and floods
| and cloudbursts are made. 1t was ma
lures greatest miracle. 1t was water.
| A woman who was plotting another
woman under her glori: may have
thought these things. but she only said
! to her:
| Il never cared for tailor-made foun-
| tains. with their senseless spurtings up
and down in a basin and gold fish on the
side. but this is great. What do you think
| of to-
| The other woman's reply showed that
no microbes of fancy infested the cor
! ners of her outspoken mind
| why. | think it's a shame to waste
good wash water like that on a Mon
, day
! Which helps to prove how right that
wise man was when he sat down some
! where in the dim centuries back and
wrote that everything in this world de-
Ponds on the point Of view.
! 4 plain stout woman was crossing the
cobbes OF a street downtown.
was q street broken out all over in a
business rash OF secondhand clothing.
and noisy with foreign tongues.
| The woman, herself had the saffron
glazed skin and soot-black hair Of an
| other land than ours. Her shabby black
| gown was somber enough for a first
Nnourner. except for a burst Of red on
her breast. and her head was covered
with a shawl.
! = thousand and one other stout women
| in shabby black, with shawls over their
, out attracting notice This one was an
exception, and it Is the exception that
! counts.
| For one thing she caught the interest
| OF two palpable WASHINGTON women, who
must have been making a short cut to
somewhere, to account for their wearing
| such sty..sh gowns in SO shabby quarter
| Both stopped with excited EXPLANATIONS
ana the one VINO was dressed in the first
symptoms of the new directoire said to
| the other:
/ did you ever see anything so pictur-
esque off the stage? If I could lool, like
that woman I'd spend the rest of my
! days with a shawl over my head
| Her companion, who still persisted in
wearing deposed jumper. was plainly a
| person of ideas:
I'm going to get shawl like that and
start a fashion for you to COPY
silly. Haven't we been wearing scarfs
! on the boardwalk all summer? And to
| think of il. my silver SauZe wasn't d
patch on that rusty old lace Must be
| that odd red flower that makes her look
so--diferent from everybody else
, SILLY. your ownself, AS If We haven't
been sta ggering all summer under corsa &c
| bouquets. from pink peas to scarlet
| sage. Must be the way she's fastened
| II to make her look so-different.
| The stylish women started on and the
woman with the saffron glazed skin and
| SCOT black hair sauntered along on the
sunny side of the pavement.
| The blood-red dahlia glowed in dra-
| matte contrast TO its somber setting. but
| il was the rusty lace that made it's wearer
| different from the thousand and one OF her
women who might have passed unnoticed
| In the shabby street.
For in the mantilla of the wonan's
country is folded the romantic history of