Omaha daily bee., 1916-06-22
If You Want
d Thing Done--
DO It Yourself
By FORTUNE FREE. !

If you want thing done, 90 ~
yourself 1t is good old advice, and
I dare say it could not be bettered in
some circumstances. But surprising re-
suits often attach to doing things
oneself.
A friend of mine who cannot afford
much in the way Of paying for an
abundance of attention, asked me the
other day if ] knew anything about
darning socks. Now that is a thing
have never studied.
"Of course not" he said sarcastic
ally. Wonderful what useless thing
man is generality He's helpless-de-
pendent upon other peoplel And
how do they look after him? Here
you have been all these years wear
ing socks and couldn't for your life
stop hole in one! Now these socks,
which I only put on this morning,
have hole here"-we were walking
down street, and he stopped on one
.eg, lifted up one foot and tapped the
sole, to the establishment of passersby
las big as a silver dollarl Enough
to give a fellow his death Of cold"
| asked him how it was, if he could
mend socks, he had not seen to it. He
informed me that he had never
mended socks before, but having
bought some worsted and needles, he
meant to mend his own socks in flu
ture.
He set up that night in bed, smok-
ing his pipe and mending that hole,
and the next morning astonished his
fellow clerks by turning up at the Of
flee in one light blue sock and one
dark brown. The explanation was
that, having completed his task
Somehow" he had gone to sleep, and
when he had turned out in the morn
ng-with only fifteen minutes in
which to dress, shave and have his
|breakfast-had discovered that, for
some mysterious reason. his foot
would not go into his sock. Could it
have swelled in the night? No. 1t was
the ordinary size. 1t dawned on him
at last that in mending that sock he
had sewn the bottom of the sole to
the top. In his-well, agitation and
rush-he put on the first sock he could
find. He will do better next time.
Doing a thing oneself-or trying it
is often revelation. One may find
the thing which seemed easy remark
ably tricky or impossible without
lot of practice, or, on the other hand,
easier than one expected. .g
/ know lady to whom the ne
cessity OF having to do her own shop
ping has proved revelation. She
was certain she would never be able
to do it herself. The person who at
tended to that department of her
household occasionally gave her the
most narrowing accounts OF the al
most superhuman energy and daring
she found necessary to foil shopkeep-
ers bent on obtaining INSCRIPTIONS
profits from her. Her saving to the
establishment was tremendous-ac-
cording to her own accounts-and the
lady, who had mo head" for figures,
Rugged herself on her good fortune
at having secured such treasure"
Blank despair seized on her when
suddenly her income was greatly re-
duced, and the treasure, being called
upon to manage things on smaller
weekly amount, promptly declared it
could not possibly be done. She
seemed really quite insulted at the
suggestion.
She left. The boot Of the taxi that
bore her away had hardly died down
in the Street before my lady friend,
taking her courage in her hands, de-
termined to see to things herself 1t
was wonderful Shopkeepers, she
found, to her amazement, quite polite
and considerate folk. They were moth
ing like the brigands she had mag
ined. One great worry, however, af-
ftfcted her. How was it, having bought
everything she wanted for the week,
she still had SIS left over? What had
she forgotten? >
"You don't know how worried | got,
Fortune" she smiled at me. What
could it be that had not thought Of?
OF course, | had list of things on
paper, but there must be something l
had forgotten. What was it,"
1.-THE treasure" remarked.
That was the explanation. THE
treasure" used to impress upon my
friend that she regarded her interests
as her own. Certainly no one ever
looked after her own interests more
'keenly. Yes, her employers money
vas regarded as her own.