The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-04
LITTLE WOMAN, 50 YEARS ABED,
 BRAVE IN SPIRIT
Mollie F'ancher Completes Half Century in Her
 Four Poster.


 F'ancher's big four-poster bed, where she has lain for 50 years, was hung and twined yesterday with flnly green e-niIax, and Miss MoIIie received her friends in celebration of the 50 years.
 All day long gifts and flowers were taken up to the second floor of 16O Gates avenue, Brooklyn; all day long was the stir of making ready, and all day Miss Mollte herself, an erect little figure in her bed, watched all that went with great dark eyes, sombre and attentive. At 2 o'clock the guests began to come. They the nurse who stays constantly with her and the nephew who has charge of the ce1ebration-were fearful that this unusual excitement would be more than the frai1 little woman could bear, but it was her wish that all her friends could be with her at the end of the 50 years, and the 600 invita- tions were sent out.
 She was only a girl when the acci- dent happened which crippled her for life and began the strange illness whic has passed through so many phases, which no doctor has fully understood, and which has left her a1- ways as it found her-brave and sane and cheerful; and now she is a little old lady, dressed in a sky-bIue gown, with soft, white hair most beautifully curled, and small, pretty hands c1asped in front of her. Her skin is so white and fair 1t seems almost transparent. She is like a queen hold ing court from her throne, so straight she sits, so graciously she smiles, among the palms and the green things. And she was very happy when the sun came out, after all, on the snow, and touched the yellow daf- fodi1s in the room, as if the spring 121 fon f0 hay Too orfxy
 Near her, on the wide bed, are the two parrots which have been the most constant friends of all, through the years. There have been others-fve other little birds, a fuzzy, cat, and a greyhound-which have been friends with her for many years, but nearest and dearest are the parrots. They are very keen in detail today, and not a face, a hand-shake, or a, blossom, but their snappy,- button-like eyes fix on with suspicion. Surely no queen could be settled in more exotic quarters for her golden celebration; this is no little house over a corner store, but a kind of Southern bower where green things grow of themselves and birds sing stories of which few people have ever heard.
 Only Miss Mo1lie and these bird com paions know about the fifty years. All the family, the friends, the physicians, the companions whom Miss MoI1ie had when she was hurt have died. The relatives whom she has now were born after she was hurt, and the nurse has kuown her ony through the more re- cent years of her sufferings and her Perhaps these parrots could tell some of the things which no one has ever been able to find out about Miss DIollie-into what strange lands her mind has gone when she has seemed to be unconscious of all that went on about her, and what cold, far-away things her great dark eyes have seen when they have seemed to be perfectly blind even in the light of day. At any rate, there is a kind of quiet pride about those caged and many-colored parrot-folk today which speaks of an intinnte knowledge which is not for the common guests of a day.
 It was a fall, from a horse which first made Miss F'ancher i'll, when she was still a schoolgirl. Later she fell from horse-caF when she was get ting off and was dragged for a block over the cobble-stones. These are the things which every one knows of her-her accident, her illness and the forms which her illness took of blind ness, of trancelike periods when she seemed like a dead person and of clairvoyance. The strange instances of this power which came and went in her, quite regardless of the fact that she would have none of it, and had no faith at t/an in what the spir- ftualists believed, have long ago been made known to every one. For years these things were the mysteries which fascinated and puzzled specialists and psych o1og1sts.
 Yesterday the stress of illness seem ed to have passed away from Miss Mollfe. She is just feeble little lady who is glad that her friends have come to celebrate with her the 5e wonderful years through which she has lived. The flowers please her, and the faces of her friends, and the light on the daffodilS. But the par rotss who are nearest to her in this festival as always, keep ferret eyes up- on the company, and know strange things which they do not disclose.