The Washington herald., 1911-09-07
That May Be Most interest
ing, but
E PERFECTLY USELESS
ARE
The Talk of Most Women Needs to
Be Carefully Gone Over with u
cences that Interest Only Her
self Be Stricken Out.
By FRANCES L. GARsIDE.

1 nave booked your order for eggs"
said the very frank grocer to a woman
| customer, but. madam. I object to
hearing how your grandmother liked hers
fried, and ate six the morning OF her
death: and how your husband likes his
cooked, and how you had prepared dew
lied eggs for the picnic where you first
met him-all with a 25-cent order.
Let me send you a dollars worth Of
groceries and I'll take time to hear all
about the family birthmarks; and II you
buy s. worth. I'll get out a rocker and
listen gladly to the account of the great
men and women who are hanging on
your family tree"
Was the grocer brutal? Perhaps; but
this is what made him so: He deals from
early morning till late at night with
women whose conversation needs edit
ing; they need the blue pencil The sight
of a cucumber reminds a woman who
needs blue penciling of a great-uncle who
ate too many CuCumberS and died, and
what he didn't leave her in his will, and
what she said. and what her mother said
and what they all said.
Becomes SeIf-nbSOrbed.
She floats away on sea of reminis-
cences at the sight OF the first winter
turnips. and drifts and drifts when she
buys cauliflower. and tOsses away on a
cloud of memories stirred into a whirl-
pool of action by the sight OF the sea-
sons first red cabbages for picking.
Everything reminds her of something to
talk about, and because the grocer does
not dare blue pencil her, and no one has
ever told her she needs the blue pencil,
she takes up thirty minutes of his time
with 30-cent order, and he prays for
the patience Of Job while he stands pen
Gil and pad in hand. listening, and other
women who have come in to buy and
have TO wait till the first woman has
drifted back to port before they can
get their groceries, and IL takes three
times as long to buy as 1t should. and
dinners are late. and husbands get cross,
and the whole world gets a jolt. all be-
cause a woman needs the blue pencil.
Unfortunately the woman who goes out
to buy butter and eggs isn't the only one
who needs this editing: the women who
get a clerks attention in a dry goods
store, and let her wait, trimming in
hand, whilek hey decide If hot or cold
applications are better for a sore throat
need the pencil that's blue, and on the
other side of the counter the girl clerks
who gossip about the sweetest man in
the world they met the night before, and
how well he danced. while a customer
is almost dancing with impatience to get
their attention, need some one to tell
them they talk too much.
The trouble is that both sides Of the
counter. we all talk to much. We need
the training that instructs one never to
use ten words when five will do; we need
to be told when we write fifty lines that
the world will be too busy 10 read it
unless It is boiled down to five.
Edit Our Complaints.
We need editing in our complaints, for
they are always greater than our griev-
anCes, and we only make our grievances
greater by complaining; We need editing
In our criticisms, since the worst that
others do affects US only in the manner
we call attention to II, and. more than all,
we need editing in our attire.
The woman who appears on the streets
with skirt too short or a waist cut too
low needs blue pencils by the gross, and
a blue pencil factory Should be eStab-
lished next door to the woman who uses
powder and rouge with its entire out
put at the command of her family and
friends. Beginning with the hat that COW
ers all but her chin and ending with the
heels so high an egg could be rolled
under without damaging the shell, blue
pencils should be used freely on some
women before they are permitted to walk
the streets.
The blue pencil is the Big Stick the
world badly needs in these days of eXag-
geratiOn, and II needs 1t along every line;
in business, in society. in our hating and
loving: In what We think and what we
say; and there is most to be hoped for
from the individual who carries one and
uses 1t, not on others, but on himself
Cantaloupe Frappe-Remove the seeds
from two melons and scoop out the CEN
ter; run through a potato ricer. There
should be a pint of pulp. Soften tea
sl.nnnful of trnltin in nne-fnmrth cIIn