Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1915-09-17


get that coat. I'd have been glad to wear
it. But by the time 1 had locked the
front and back door-I always has to do
that in that thieven' neighborhood-it was
gone"
Tillie is one of the worlds conserva-
tors. Mollie, her neighbor in one of the
crowded tenements near North river, is
one Of it's MASTERS Tlllie knows that
whatever is clean and may be made
wholesale is an artist in these vanishing
fine arts, darning and patching-can be
used somewhere. somehow. Hence her
mourning of the cast-off Jacket.
TT might not have been good enough
for Mollle to wear to church, or when
she goes out walking with her young
man, but it was good enough to throw
over your head when you go to the
butcher, and to wear through the halls
on cold mornings when you go to the
door for the milk. II would save her
better one and make your new one last
longer. l do hate to see things thrown
away
Titles lamentation meant more than
the accumuative instinct of some of her
race. 1t denoted her as one of the val
liable class of persons who are the care
takers of the world
1t is not in all of us to build she
had not the power to organize, to con-
struct, to erect monuments of industry
1t is not in all of us to heal Our
tongues may be too like the stiletto
points, our hands too heavy, perhaps
our hearts too hard or the area of sem
timent in our character map too arid.
But we can all be conservators. We can
take care of what is. We can preserve.
Show me what woman does with her
clothes at night and 1 will tell you
whether she lie a conservator or a waster.
Does she spread her gown carefully over
a chair back, turning the lining outward
to ventilate the garment. and letting the
folds hang straight so that they will not
wrinkle? IL she does that she has
earned the title of oonservator. Or does
she fling 1t in a neglected heap upon the
floor or leave 1t wherever 1t drops? The
fate of the waster Is awaiting her around
the corner
Does the housekeeper let the gas stove
burn while she peels her potatoesg Does
she throw into the garbage can max
saucer of berries left from breakfast!
Does she make more starch than she
needs for washing? Does she throw out
bones with numerous bits of meat stick
ing to them? Does she leave soap to
dissolve because she is too careless or
thoughtless to rescue 1t from the dissolV-
ing water or dishpan or washtubf Then
is she a waster.
For the conservhtor would not turn on
the gas OF the stove until the potatoes
were peeled and ready to be set on 10
boil The conservator would make the
remaining berries the basis for a pud-
ding or at least the flavor OF pudding
She would calculate to a teaspoonful the
amount Of starch she needed and would
make too little rather than too much.
That meat close to the bone she would
scrape off and use II In nourishing hash
or stew. The scraps of soap she would
save for the next need.
The waster will toss away a piece OF
,Ibbon or wreath of flowers that are
sliebtIv faded. The conservator will
shake the dust from them and wrapping
them dalntily in tissue paper. put them
into a box of trimmings that are her
reserve fund of millinery and next sea-
SON or the one after, you may see them
adjoining a hat, beneath mist OF yelling
that obscures their defects.
But there are conseTvators on less
material plane There are those who
knowing that friendship is sensitive
ulant nourish it with care. There e
,bose who knowing that the love of a
man for a woman. and woman tor
mn. is a fragile thing, guard II as they
would a bit of valuable, half tran parent
lima, or bubble OF cut glass