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

8: :: :: !:
a taiior-made gown,
"a only to discover that
her husband had ex-
4 W pended the neces-
sary funds for
strengthening copper vessel and q twist
ed-neck Venetian flask, neither Of which
would serve for personal adornment or
comfort. ''Why don't you get a horse
and wagon, John Chatwood. and drive
about the streets calling through your
nose: Ole rags-n-ironr like the rest OF
the junk men: You'll come to that some
day. Meantime, how am I to get along
this winter without clothes?''
John Chatwood was a gentle soul.
But don't you see. Mary7'' he said,
plaintively. These things would have
been gone If hadn't nailed them just
when 1 did. You can get new hat and
dress most any time"
''Oh. can! Well, then, I'll have them
now
II mean, Of course, when THAT is
when we have the money. And you know
such things soon go out OF style and are
not worth anything. Now. with these
things the more they go out of style the
more they are in style. They will be worth
five times what I paid for them pretty
soon, and II ever I wanted to sell
them"
But you never will. You wouldn't sell
one Of those copper pots Of yours II YOU
could get hundred times what 1t cost
You wouldn't sell one II we were stary-
ing. You know you wouldn't,
Yes I would, too, Mary! I'd do II IN
a minute IL we really needed anything
If we really needed 1t bad enough. But
YOU know, Mary, you've got a good many
hats and dresses and-and things. Any
way. you can sell all the old traps when
I'm dead and gone. Mebbe they'll bring
h uyI
the dresses
But of course that settled it for the
time.
1t was not that Mary Chatwood did not
care for most of the rare and beautiful
things for which John Chatwood spent
a coed share of their otherwise sufficient
income. She did care for them, though
her reasons were likely to be other than
those of her husband. To him they re-
vealed the history of nations, their art,
progress and decay. Even deeper was his
interest as collector-that interest which
is likely to become a passion, eventually
q mania. 1t is believed that Mary Chat
wood was not far wrong in her estimate
of her husbands ambition, which she de-
clared was to own all the old rugs and
battered copper and fat-bellied bottles
in the world, with a place large enough
to hold them and a string of visitors to
envy him their possession
For herself, she loved the things be-
cause they were beautiful. and for their
past. She found great joy in lustrous
fabrics from the looms of the east. She
loved to curl up among them to dream the
romance and the history of the interviewer
strands that semi-barbaric weavers had
mingled. that dusky hands and slender
feet of the orient had pressed. She
could picture 1t all, and wove into the
magic hues and patterns a thousand and
one Arabian entertainments for herself
alone.
But when her floors her walls and even
her ceilings had been well-nigh covered
with these marvellous things, and when
one night John Chatwood had brought
home almost an exact duplicate OF one OF
his rarest pieces, because, as he said, the
man who we've them both had been dead
some hundreds of years. and there were
only these two examples in all the world
when later. it developed that he had ex-
pended on this purchase an amount which
was to have paid Nor a very pretty party
she had planned-then Mary Chatwood
gave 1T out rather autiloritatively that
their rug collection was complete.
But there were other worlds to conquer.
From rugs to tapestries seemed natural
transition From ON tapestries: the the down
easy, then. with sudden shift. to beaten
and wrought metals. and later to the
bottles of strange lands and other days.
Bird cages followed the dialogue with
which this story opens-bird cages of all
nations and of every age. They were
rather handsome. too. some OF them. and
Mary Chatwood was at first resigned.
But when there were as many in the par
lor and library as good taste would per-
NIT, with a surplus that filed the spare
room upstairs and overlooked into the
garnet, and when IL became at last a
question of choice between a fur-lined
opera cape and some former and far-On
song birds battered but not inexpensive
habitation-a thing she could neither
Chatwood sighed to find that the wife of
his bosom elected to take the article of
apparel, which made it necessary for him
to secure the cage on credit. and to slip
1t into the garnet surreptttiously by night
But winter suits. opera capes and home
parties were trivial and temporary needs |
Within Mary Chatwoods heart lay a |
dream and desire more vital and more |
expensive than any of these. For as |
many as ten autumns she had planned a |
trip TO the ELECTROMAGNETIC Rome and |
Naples. and the sunlit villages and vine
clad slopes OF Italy. John Chatwood had
abetted these plans, once even to the
point of selecting the steamer. but always
just at the critical moment. certain events |
had occurred; some sale other rare
opportunity to add to his collections and
the needed funds had gone for something
OF perhaps more permanent and increasing
value, but which seemed cold and unsat-
isfyine and afforded but poor comfort to
the heart of Mary Chatwood When her
Uncle Chester died she had determined
to use her share Of the money for the
Mediterranean trip. But Uncle Chester s
estate was long in being settled There
was property to be sold, AMI year after
year dragged by while the end seemed
no nearer. There came an autumn at
last when. Mary Chatwood avowed she
would wait no longer. They were going
TO Italy. she said. about Christmas time
II Uncle Chesters money came they
would use IL II not then it was for
her husband to provide the means
Chatwood's face grew long.
But you see. Mary. I bought that
Peach-bioom vase at the Deland sale
Then you can sell it again-either that
or something elsei OF course il Uncle
Chesters money had come. IT wouldn't
matter. The vase is beautiful and ] love
81. Besides. it belonged once to Marie
Antoinette-"
''Lets-lets look through what we've
got, Mary he said. presently, without
enthusiasm.
Mrs. Chatwood regarded him with deep