Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-04-15


and the worm and Iindulged my lace
and dimity came out much the worse.
THAT was lovely song you sang
about Molly. darling Billy" ! SAID.
"Where did you hear it?'
That's good bug-song, Molly, and
bet | can git lizard with 1t, too
If sing it right low He began TO
squirm out of my arms toward the
table and the glass.
who taught it to you, sugar
sweet?" persisted as poured water
in on the squirming worm under his
direction.
Nobody taught it to me: DOC
sings it to me when Tilly, nurse, nor
you amt there to put me to bed. He
don't know no good songs like Rolb
Jordan, Roll. or Hot Times or
Twinkle. 1 go to sleep quick cause
! he makes me feel tired with his slow
tune what's only good for bugs. Git
d hair-pin for me to poke him with,
Molly, quicki"
! found the hair-pin and l don't
know why my hand trembled as
! handed 1t to Billy. As soon as he
got it he climbed out the window,
glass, bug and all, and 1 saw him
and the red setter go down the gar
den walk together in pursuit of the
fdesired lizard, | suppose. l closed
| the blinds and drew the curtains
again and flung myself on my pill
low. Something warm and sweet
seemed. to be sweeping over me in
great waves and | felt young and
close up to some sort of big world
good. II was delicious and I don't
know how long | would have stayed
there just feeling 1t if Judy hadn't
brought in my letter.
He had written from London, and
it was many pages of wonderful
things all favored with me. He told
me about Miss Chester and what
good friends they were, and how
much he hoped she would be in
Hillsboro when he got here. He said
that great many of her dainty ways
reminded him of his "own slip of a
girl" especially the turn of her head
like flower on its stem" At that
] got right out of bed like jack
jumping out of a box and looked at
myself in the mirror
There is one exercise here on page
twenty that I hate worst of ALL You
screw up your face tight until you
look like a Christmas mask to get
your neck muscles taut and then
wobble your head around like a new
born baby until it swims. / did that
one twenty extra times and all the
others in proportion to make up for
those two hours in bed. Hereafter
I'll get up al the time directed on
page three, or maybe earlier. 1t
frightens me to think that I've got
only a few weeks more to turn from
a cabbage rose into lily. l won't let
myself even think luscious peach"
and "string-bea If | do, | get
warm and happy all over and let up
on myself l try when 1 get hungry
to think of myself in that blue mus
lin dress.
| haven't been really willing before
to write down in this torture volume
that | took thaf-garment to the city
with me and what Madam Rene did
to it-made it over into the loveiest
thing | ever saw, only / wouldn't let
her alter the size one single inch.
I'm honorable as all women are at
peculiar times. | think she under
stood, but she seemed not to, and
worked a miracle on it with ribbon
and lace. I've put it away on the top
shelf of a closet, for it is torment to
look at it.
You can just take any old recipe
for Marty nd fYaix ny, a Ioht,f fo,.
girl, but it takes more time to con-
coct one for a widow, especially if it
is for yourself. l spent all the rest
of the day doing almost nothing and
thinking until | felt light headed.
Finally l had just about given up any
idea of a blaze and had decided to
! leak out in general society as quietly
as my clothes would let me, when a
real conflagration was lighted inside
me.
| If Tom Pollard wasn't my own first
cousin | would have loved him des-
perately, even if l am a week older
than he. He was about the only oasis
in my marriage mirage, though
don't think anybody would think of
calling him at all green. He never
stopped coming to see me OCCASION
ally, and Mr.. Carter liked him. He
was the first man to notice the white
ruche | sewed in the neck of my old
black taffeta four or five months ago
and he let me see that he noticed it
out of the corner of his eye even
right there in church, under Aunt
| Adeline's very elbow. He makes love
unconsciously and he f1irts with his
own mother As soon as I've made
| this widowhood hurdle-welh I'm
| going to spend a lot of time buying
tobacco with him in his Hup run
about which sounds as if it was
named for himself.
| And when that conflagration was
| lighted in me about my debut, Tom
did it. l was sitting peaceably on my
own front step, dressed in the sum-
mer-before- last that Judy washes
and irons eveny day while I'm decid
ing how to hand out the first sip of
my rousseau to the neighbors. when