New-York tribune., 1918-07-21
Back to Grandma
By Emma Bugbee
Grandparents are in.


Those dear, stupid old souls, who have
been the secret shame of our advanced
thinkers ever since thinking became ad-
vanced, are being trotted out Of their wood
sheds and their corn patches for the ad-
miiation of the world. No longer do We
sigh for belle in Munich, back in 1850
who chose dear guileless grandfather, then
a student with fiddle, in preference to all
her titled sui.o~s. No longer do we boast
of the Spanish countess from whom we got
our poetic temperament or the Polish pro-
fessor who introduced introspection into
our family. Good old Betsy Jane Hobbs. the
best butter maker in Rutland County. and
honest Hiram, her husband, who never sus
pected how ploughing and reaping on tic
stony New England pillsides are deadeninc
to the intellectual life, arc preferred stock
to-day
We don't patronize Betsy Jane any more
for her prize butter or her t2a children.
We don't talk about the treadmill of the
kitchen, but we sigh for grandmother's
physical vigor and her recipe for doughnuts.
who blazed a trail into Maine or across Ver-
mont in 1860, even if we have to come down
a century two, or can remember grand
mothers account of her honeymoon in
on the lonely reaches of the upper
Mississippi, or of the day when she drove
the mules while grandfather kept the red
skins at bay from the rear end of the
prairie schooner-if can tell these things
in the village to-day We 10. We can't get
to France without them
even more astonishing readjustmcnt
of values in regard to a lady's years has
likewise taken place. We boast Of thirty
five. The years we used to blush for the
resigned, spinsterly manner which gave Us
away in spite of our orange linen smock
and our agility in the onestep. are an asset
to-day. We pity the round checked infants
who cannot possibly hope TO get away with
the statement that they are over thirty ana
the lovely creatures who can't STIR one
gleam of respect in the stony censors o.
the Personnel Bureau. The homelier we are
the better for patriotism. Who cares for
roses born to blush unseen in some silly
American summer resort, when one may he
as homely as a subway kiosk and be belle
in Picardy?
Curls, which have been the dearest pos
session of women since the first damp day
in Eden, are liability We know a girl
who was rejected by the Personnel Bureau
just because Of frivolous little curl that
danced over her left ear She had worn
her mothers hat on purpose, too, 1t cane
down low in the back and was skilfrlly
draped with thick veil. designed to camou-
fage the bunch of bobbed curs clustering
in her neck, but in vain.
u love my country" she wept. "I'll even
let my hair grow if you'll send me .
France"
Good oldfashioned virtues are the thins
to-day We assume them if we have them
not. The most assured femmists take u
out in boastng that any woman with well
developed intellect can learn 70 make dough
nuts in the trenches, but the fingers that
have welded the paint brush with vgor-
Gus futuristc swipes have TO undergo
severe discipline before they can be trusted
with a fevercd brow
And, alas. when all this has been done
for the reconstruction Of our modern
selves, when ali the twentieth century &C
complishments have been snubbed 20 death
we are turned down anyway in favor OF
Vermont school teacher who got nesC
start in the doughnut game during those
foolish years when we were learning 10
understand Chinese cartoons.