The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-23
o. Henry's Story About Lord Kitchener and the Shabby Little
 Three-Dolldr- d-WeeR Girls Ideal
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE

To my mind, of all the beautiful things that have been written about the great Lord Kitchener-"K. of K.'-the most appealing is the little story per- haps the best short story" ever writ ten by an American, in which o. Henry tells about the little shop girl who kept on the shabby little wall of her hall bed room a cheap photograph of the silent powerful, insistent Kitchener and or dered her daily life along the lines she thinks her hero would approve.
 You remember-if you've read the story-that the little shop girl made only $S a week; and in describing her and her sister, o. Henry says:
 Its pretty hard for girl to fight the world, the flesh and the devil, on 8 week; but this little girl did it She was putting up good fight and the beautiful general was leading her army
 True, it was only cheap little colored photograph, in a still cheaper gilded frame, that the girl had, but there he stood, just the same, always on the lit- tie shabby wall. big, handsome, brave, courageous and fine; man who couldn't stoop to anything petty; who couldn't do anything but the right thing; the straight thing, the big thing!
 There was Piggy sort of a person in the story, too, as well as I remem ber-it's been a long time since l read it-but somehow I recall that one day the little shop girl was hungry and cold and lonely; yes, now it comes back even if I've forgotten the name of the story itself-and Piggy" the Irishman, came along and invited the little shop girl to dinner; she was so hungry she agreed to go, but-wait-she didn't go; for there the great general stood, lead ing her to victory, and as hungry as she was. she declined old Piggy S" invita- ton.
 And did it end happily" I can hear you saying.
 I have a wretched memory; always re- membering the things I should forget, and invariably forgetting the things should remember and I haven't thought of o. Henry's adorable little stories in years until the dreadful news of Lord Kitchener's tragic death was flashed from the wires a week or so ago. start ling the whole world; then, too, I don't know exactly what other people call "a happy endng.''
 As a matter of fact, the great general stayed rightson in the cheap little gilded frame, ana no miracle happened eSpeclal- ly; maybe the little shop girl lost her little old meagre S3-a-week job maybe she got hungry and tired and worn and the world almost got the best of her, but she kept her ideal, and that's the. most important thing, in life, after all.
 Yes, I said the most important thing in life after all, for when a man or a woman has come to the place where he or she cannot look their ideal straight in the eye it looks like a pretty bad state of things. When you come to think of it, most ideals are but reflected inn ages of ourselves: what we might be, what we can be if we keep on knowing that we are truly the captains of our souls; we may realize any ideal if we but keep faith with it to the end.
 I think that the reason that so many men say that the world is a cynical and sordid place, is because there are so many women who hide their dreams and ideals deep within themselves, and veil their real feelings with flippant, worldly wisdom. which isn't wisdom at all, but just a cheap sort of cynicism.
 When God made man and woman in His own image, he planted in each the desire for perfection and many of us have wandered away from the beginning of things in the Garden of Eden; but the part each of us keeps in our heaM is the dream of meeting the other half some day--our "affnity''-and I mean this word in the beautiful sense that it was used before it was soiled with the mod ern application, and in that one finding the perfection we ourselves have missed.
 Every, one has ideals-that is, every one