Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-10-02
Around the City

A woman scurried out of a newspaper
! building and started up the Avenue to
keep a business date with another
woman. Se1f-centered in her work. she
| he'd no eyes for the newest hat the
scantiest hobble. the cutest baby or
any other extreme that might accent
the average crowd. She was hustling
through. until-whiff.
The street changed itself ito a medi-
| eval poem. Only. instead of printed
verses. there was the green silence of
a castle garden and the gray frown Of
a castle wall. In the shadow of the
wall two cruel knights spied upon a
lovely weeping lady whose arms were
around an urn of sweet basil, and
whose face was bowed in it's leaves.
They were moving-picture knights.
for one Of them dragged the lovely
weeping lady from the urn. while the
other dug into its spicy greenery until
his sword uncovered the head of her
| true love, whom they had slain, and
which she had buried where she might
mourn it in secret evermore.
| And-whiff!!
| The street was back again. and the
woman was realizing that some hustler
as busy as herself. had showed her so
close to one of the columns of the hotel
at the corner as to fairly bump her
| into a box of green leaves on the
bricks.
| And the leaves were sweet basil.
| She looked like a twin sister 10 the
woman who sweeps the cobwcbs from the
sky.
Her hobble hat was banded around its
peak with red ribbon, more red ribbon
laced the black bodice over her white
guimpe and her narrow skirt was short
enough to reveal the buckles and heels
that all of us have seen a-straddle d
broom-in the fairy tale.
But she sure was stylish.
The man with her looked like a dress
chart that had escaped from a tailors
advertisement and was yet to be caught.
And the woman was saying to the
man:
II don't care whether YOU sign the
lease or not, l positively refuse to live
in fiat. If we can't have apart
ment like other decent people I'll rent "a
She said it as if she were making
threat The dress-chart seemed to take
it that way.
There was nothing to the incident. of
course, except that before the days eof
either flats or apartments there used to
he a nation that honored man for the
one reason that he wrote song about
home!
And the question is: Where is that
nation now?
LET me have a little fire?'
Maybe he didn't use just that slogan
of the man who asks another for a light
for his cigar. but il came to the same
thing. The oil in his bicycle lamp had
burned out. He put his predicament up
to the man in the machine.
The man in the machine was just get
ting up power to whizz away from the
curb when the bicycle rider came up
with his empty lamp Instead of whiz-
zing he got out of his automobile,
reached under somewhere for gasoline
can, filled the bicycle lamp. as if it were
no more than passing over Il match or
cigar end. and
That was all there was to it.
But, say. when it comes to everyday
kindness with no sting to it. is there a
soul in all creation to equal an every
day man?
| You mustn't call it larch. 1t looks
| like larch. with its feathery sprays of
green needles.
1t isn't. It is an India pine.
The gardener who was digging up ever
green's from q triangle in the Library
| grounds said So He knows.
| The woman thought she knew. too
Women have such curious notions, some
| through the Capitol grounds for-oh, WELL
| it is just as we'll not to mention how
many years-she fancied she knew every
tree and bush along the way-the Christ
|
| the gnarled old Judas tree: the copper
| beeches. whose leaves dance like chorus
girls: the Chinese-oh, all of them.
| II am glad you have spared the larch."
she paused to say to the gardener as he
| stopped over his work.
| He was nice gardener, for as soon as
| he had laid aside an uprooted bush he
| Strengthened up to contradict her in the
politest way.
This is not a larch madam 1t looks
| very much like larch but it isn't. 1t
is a native of the Himalaya mountains
and is known as the India pine
| Then the woman, who is rather nice
also. thanked him and walked Of to ad-
| just her knowledge.
| After all, a larch-a quiet, ladylike, but
most ordinary English larch. is not half
SO excitingly attractive as pine whose
ancestors have shaded mahatmas and
all that.
| Don't forget it. The larch in the Library
grounds is an India pine.