Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-10-21
Little Talks by
Beatrice Fairfax
BY Beatrice Fairfax

A girl has written me, letter that
might be out of the pages of Little
Women" modernized and with a
world war as a background.
And, like Louisa Alcott's delight
full story, there are four sisters and
mother-four of them are doing
war work and my correspondent
keeps house for the rest.
She goes to market. gets two
meals, darns, mends and generally
acts as lady's maid for the others.
A laundress comes in once a week
to wash and iron, and there is a
halliday sweeping and heavy
cleaning done by someone else, but.
apart from this, everything else
about the little home is done by the
who feels that in running the fiat
we'll for the war workers she is do
ing her bit the same as if she occu-
pied a desk in a Government office.
The workers are all healthy,
happy and comfortable; they have
escaped the dreariness of dining on
revolving stool and eating melan-
choly canned vegetables out of
dishes that suggest a canary birds
bathtub.
Martha Gets Into Trouble
My correspondent, whom I am GO.
ing to call Martha because she looks
after the house, has an allowance
from her war-working family 1t
consists of her room, board and "a
a week apiece from each member
of the household. This gives her
about $65 month as her very own,
and is a handsome allowance for
any girl.
1t was this embarrassment of
riches that got Martha into trouble
during the first months of her ex-
perience as housekeeper. She spent
over half a months salary on a hat
that "dwarfed and shabbied" every
thing else in her wardrobe. The S35
hat made her good, honest blue
serge seem cheap-loking. And she
continues: "The high champagne
colored boots completed my tragedy.
bought them expecting to step into
happiness, and found they were a
little old-fashioned, a little passe,
that it was not quite the thing now
to wear boots so light or so high"
Her family, it appears from her
account of them, must have been
very sensible people. They did not
laugh or make fun of Martha for
her foolish extravaganza; they let
her have her own head and depend
ed on her native commonsense to
work out her own salvation. They
even borrowed the gorgeous hat oc-
caslonally when they were going
ou: anywhere, so that Martha would
not bewail her white elephant quite
SO plaintively.
Now Called "The Hat"
mo one calls it my hat any long
err" Martha continues. Everyone
now calls it the hat and says, I'll
take it if you haven't promised to
lend it to someone else.' It looks
like cross between the plumed hat
of medieval knight and a melo-
drama"
When Martha, who is the young
est, was not buying swaggeringly pic
turesque hats end champagne, col
orei boots, it seems she was invest
ing in ice cream sodas, sundaes and
candy. Life at this period was
spelled in the terms of an ORGY, end
yet the family patiently waited for
her reform.
The war workers were all sailing
down Thrift Stamps, which they
turned into War Savings Certificates,
and later into Liberty Bonds; only
Martha blew hers in in riotous liv-
ing. Then she made the awful dis
covery that she was getting fat
twelve pounds of it-and that her
complexion was getting spotty. And
this complexion, it seemed, had al
ways been thing of rose leaves
and lilies, complexion to inspire
a poet.
So the young prodigal took her
self in hand. Why did she have to