Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1910-05-05


named Abbie who walked up the hill
by our home to school with her hair
in two thick symmetrical braids tied
with cherry ribbon. From the second
primary grade to the first high school
year Abbie's braids grew far below
her waist and were Just as thick at
the ends as at the top. Every girl
had thick braids and the mothers
weren't behind in that respect, either
They wouldn't have known what to do
with rat unless they had used it to
stuff soft cushion.
81 don't know where all that hair
has gone to, I'm sure.
"At the present time," proceeded
the girl who likes to talk, ito own
little hair attached to your scalp is
taken as a personal injury by the hair
dressers. They tell you in sad tones
that it's impossible to dress your hair
so that it looks fashionable If you
have any of your own.
1--WE never been exactly crazy
about my hair" declared the girl who
likes to talk, because I was brought
up in the belief that it was an entire
ly natural thing to have hair grow on
ones head, and grow thick and long,
just as much as it was natural to
grow teeth or nose. When I was
in school had occasional spasms of
trying to arrange my hair after the
prevailing mode, but somehow it
never worked.
But I've never been actually apollo
getic and unhappy till this winter
I've got so now that l stink and cover
at the sight of a hair-dresser's sign
and shudder with apprehension if
have to enter the shop. The first
hair-dresser approached this winter
regarded me with unconcealed horror
as she started to take down my locks.
'Why!' she gasped, you don't wear
a braid!'
Why should I wear braid? asked
I, in superior, comfortable way.
have plenty Of my own hair to braid
if want to-
"Thereupon the hair-dresser explod-
ed. Didn't know that braid could
not be arranged properly unless both
its ends were free? The only thing
to be done, if one was so unfortunate
as to have hair, was to wad it up over
a cage-like cap and pound it down into
as near nothingness as possible and
then wind around ones head a braid
80 inches long at least, made of the
very best imported hair. Yes, such
a braid was expensive. Anywhere
from $35 UP to $1O0, and, of course,
the more individual the shade the
higher the price. My own hair always
had looked most ordinary brown to
me. Firmly refused the $50 braid
and the hair-dresser threw up her
hands. All she could do for me- it
appeared, was to make an old-fash-
toned pompadour and an old-fash-
fashioned array of puffs at the back
out of my own hair, to be sure, but
as nearly as possible like the false
sets you can now buy at reduced
rates. So after paying her l went
home and took down my hair and did
it up my own way
"a few days later / surged into an
other hair shop and fell into the hands
of gum-chewing young person called
Mabel, to whom broke the news at
once that did not own braid. Mabel
didn't faint. She said to leave it to
her, and as l was in chair with an
apron tied around my neck and help
less, l did.
Some day Mabel is going to be
perched on pillar of fame. l don't
know exactly what she did or how she
did it, but when she was through with
me / was fashionable dream. She
tied and divided and subdivided and
twisted and wreathed my hair till /
emerged with the semblance of a per-
fectly lovely braid pulled out all
around my face. Oh, it looked simple
and lovely and most becoming and /
was entranced.
"Do you know, it took me three
quarters of an hour to get the hair
pins out when took down my hair?
Why, had hairpins stacked up around
me like cordWood, all over the dresser
and the floor. | looked like a cap
tive tied to the stake all ready for
the match to be applied. l got de-
lirious. l didn't know there were that
many hairpins in the world or that
one head of hair cOuld be divided into
millions of strands, as mine was.
"That couture was built like the
pyramids-to stay. Further it was
like the catacombs for complexity. Ii
I'd let it alone it would have lasted
all this year. 1 don't believe Mabel
could ever do it again.
II believe after all I'll cut off three
quarters of my hair and buy false
braid that I can stick on with two
pins-it'll be QuicRer!"