Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-06-09

OF you will shut your eyes and
walk backward long enough you
will come to a big white room
q filled with cots. And the cots
are never empty.
The sisters call it a free ward for
children. But, also. they know II as
place Of pain.
No matter what science and tender
est care may do for = child, he Is
bound to get tired Of splints and
bandages and the aches that go with
them-so: Whenever a visitor passes
the rows of little beds to leave toy
or a picture card or maybe only a
word the doctors and nurses very
likely call that visitor an angel of
mercy.
And very likely, also. the Greatest
of all Heaters let's the definition
stand.
One time a young man breezed in
with regular Santa pack that held
toy for every cot in the room. They
were not cheap gimcracks that break
if you look at them. but real play
things that wind up and buzz and go
round and that cost money OF the
size that is known outside OF arith-
metics as big"
Just why a young man should buy
happiness for poor children instead
of indulging in the popular amuse-
ment that calls itself seeing a good
time" is, Of course, his own affair.
but
1T shows, anyhow, that an angel of
with holy eyes like saints have In
pictures.
There are others.
1T is always a satisfaction to glimpse
other ruts than ours-if only to
wonder why people should want
things we have no use for ourselves.
Say. for instance. you take car
ride to the water front that lets you
out at an old rat-gray wharf. with
the river siding against its piles
lap. lap. lap.
The first thing you notice is big
heap of sacks. Sacks like that never
come into your life. but the wharf
master tells you they represent a
seasons grain crop for some farmer
down the bay. 1t is his rut.
And look at those crates, will you,
crowded with hens-mostly dom1-
neckers-some of them with their
heads thrust through wire-top mesh
es, and all of them forebodingly con-
scious that the home run will know
them never no more. You would have
no use whatever for all those carts
implements-why, the very idea! And,
say, those cumbersome things all
wood and steel stacked up outside the
warehouse are plows. Plows! 1t is a
ridiculous thing to say, but suppose
just suppose-you and mule had to
0t,id NJ rln fftv
acres of clods from dawn to dusk,
and do it over and over again, instead
of leisuring at your desk with a NY
wheel on the side. and an Aladdin.
named Office Boy. to bring you min
eral water at the touch Of button?
What would your rut say to an i'm
position like that? And yet, SON
You look up at a farmer in village
store clothes, who Is standing on the
deck of steamer that is about to
start on her round trip down the Po-
tomac. The restfulness of the coun-
try is in his eyes and there is sense
of self-ownership in his free and easy
lankness that makes you question if
if-your rut Is the better one, after
all-you and your pay envelope job!
The farmer man himself, doubtless.
bears the name and lives on the land
of his ancestor who came over with
Baltimore" and that weather-beaten
little old woman anXiously fuSSy over
the preserve jars a 'truckman Is rae
ing up the gang plank. may be the
greatest great-granddaug of
dame who danced minuets with roy
atty in the days of buckles and pow
dered wigs. You never can tell.
Oh, yes, the water front is great
little old place to study other ruts
than ours. Go down there some time.
And take your camera along.
you are, no doubt. acquainted with
table mats-afghan stitch with
shell-edge finish-well:
A woman in a car had her dress
trimmed with a whole set, which she
had obviously 'crocheted under the
impression that they would look like
lace medallions. But they didn't look
like anything in this world but table
mats. Template sizes in the wide in
sert band on her skirt: saucers up the
side seams, and whole rows of in
dividual buffers on her waist and
sleeves.
You could tell that she had worked
like whole hive of bees on those
mats, and anybody who knows any
thing about applique" can figure out
the time and trouble it must have
taken to make those inserts" in In
dia linen that crooks like-India linen.
Also, you could guess that she was
wearing her splendor for the first
time. and that her complacence was
dampened by the fear that perhaps
just perhaps-it was too conspicu-
ously fine for so ordinary place as
a street car in rush time. Women are
that way.
L. a. -,