Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-26

WE CALL them "the girls In the village,
w though either of them l should have to
suspect If l were forced to do anything so
lndecorous. could in years easily be the
mother Of a debutante "The girls" is a spon-
taneous village tribute Of affection and OF
recognition that youth Of the spirit Is eternal.
The girls are two in number sisters, and
they live in little cottage of ancient vint-
age, surrounded by little garden forever
new with fresh blooms midway down the
village street 1t sounds like Crawford"
doesn't it. or a story by Mary Z. Wilkins?
But the girls are about as much like Gran
ford" as picture by Fontaine Fox is like
Kate Greenaway. The times have changed.
Who knows but even in Crawford the dear
ladies are now demanding the ballot? At any
rate there is nothing early Victorian about
our girls except their piano and the portraits
over it. They pretend to be prim, old-fash-
ioned spinsters sometimes but their hearts
are in the twentieth century.
TTIIE girls earn their own living. They
i didn't always have to. as the family por-
traits attest, Once upon time they dwelt
in a large city. amid comparative affluence.
But do they now lurk drably in that "genteel
poverty" of our Victorian story-telers? They
do not. They have no liking for poverty,
genteel or otherwise, Just as nobody has who
is in his right mind and they at once, when
the blow came, set about devising ways and
means honorably to avoid it. Do they talk
sadly and with much show Of naughty pride
about their days of 'affiuence? They do not.
They never mention 1t. That's over. Here's
the present. most fascinating time full of
things to do, plans to make. people to see.
When they depart, In speech, from the pres
ent, 1t is always to speak even more cheerfully
Of the future. Unconsciously when 1t called
them "the girls the village hit upon a pro-
found truth.
NTHAT do they do for living? They make
w jams, jelles. preserves; they can fruits
ana vegetables (Which they raise themselves
in their little garden. with hollyhocks in the
middle of the asparagus bed and the cauli-
flowers between the larkspurs). Further
more, they convert in summer their dining
room, with its Greasy floor, its big ceiling
beams, its old, wide fireplace. into a little
shop. Here they sell their Jams and jellies
or such Jars as have not been made on order
and various articles of handicraft and even
some antiques gathered in the neighborhood
In front of their cottage swings little white
sign. They painted it themselves, letting the
black paint from the letters run down at the
bottom. II anybody else had done that it
would have looked simply sloppy But the
girls did it-and the effect Is charming. You
will Know the sign by this mark and by the
colored roses on one side and the colored
jelly Jars depicted on the other
DERHAPS, too you will notice something
| i else about their little red cottage behind
the sign. The. entire roof of the veranda
(now Sagging bit in the center) is covered
| not only with Virginia creeper, but with
| green moss in which the characteristic fora
| which grows in moss--the small grasses
| ferns saxifrage, etc.-is present, just as
| though the veranda roof were the top of
| some ancient boulder in the woods. The girls
did that. They went up to the second story
| with pals Of earth and dumped them out on
the shingles. Then they set out pieces of
moss and even scattered little seed The
| village thought them crazy. The local car
| penter, in an excess of friendliness, hurried
| over to tell them 1t would rot the shingles
and in time the very beams.
| TyHEY laughed. "All right" said the elder,
| ! when that happens you shall make new
roof, so we can put more earth on 1t. But
/ we must have moss on our veranda roof"
| YES" said the younger I'VE simply can't
| live without moss on that veranda roof. II
| is quite unthinkable."
| The carpenter shook his head sadly He
| told his wife the girls were queer" Mean
| while the rains came. the sun shone and In
| a year or two that veranda roof became q
| thing of beauty.
TIME girls enjoy canning. For that matter
| i they enjoy everything. Life is all a de.
lightful party" as they would find it. But
| having set out to make living by canning
why-presto Canning Is simply the mos,
fascinating thing in the world. Their can.
ming kitchen Is the whole upstairs of theil
story-and-haf house knocked into one room
with white rsfters and window sashes hinee<
4 70 swing IN and out ~ they stand BY th'