The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-04-22
EVENING STORY
Little-Hat Lady.
BY JANE OSBORN.

wholesale millinery establishment was
not Upton Pread's ideal of a stalwart,
iifes1zed mans occupation. Still even
young men with that innate feeling
for line and color that marks them-or
brands them-as artists before they
nave had a fair chance to determine
for themselves whether they wish to
FOLLOW an artists career or not. have
to eat and have to be clothed, and de-
signing women's hats seemed at the
time to be the only opportunity that
afforded what Pread considered a lix-
ing wage Getting an occasional order
Tor portrait perhaps was more the
sort of thing he had dreamed Of and
more the sort of thing his friends ex-
pecteo, but 1t would not have provided
Tor MIN comfortable existence at the
Stanley Arms, and Upton Pread found
that living at that well appointed little
Motel had advantages that offset the
designing of hats.
Still Upton did not like to have peo-
PIE know the nature of his artistic"
work. In the morning after break
ne got out his drawing board and shut
up in his snug little chintz room, he
would call into being first the image
OF heads of fair women, and then, as
IL by magic, he would summon hats to
crown them. Hastily and with quick
stroke of his pencil he would sketch
the pretty heads and then. with min
uteness that made reproduction by a
milliner possible, he would portray the
nat. Having made some four or five
sketches he would roll them up Sc
curely in his portfolio and, after hav-
ing had luncheon in the hotel dining
room, he would sally forth to the mil
linery establishment. there to deliver
his wares. They were not always ac-
cepted. In fact. he was expected only
to deliver two designs a day and he
made sometimes as many as six. At
ter his visit to the milliner's he had
good part of the afternoon free
elected to go to one of the fashionable
indoor ice Kinks he always had before
him the task of studying the women's
hats. not SO much to get ideas for
designs but to learn-what to him was
the hardest lesson-what women
ideas of his own about beauty in
women's apparel. and often when he
made a design that he thought was
his masterpiece it was only to have
the manager of the millinery estab-
lishment push the design aside, de-
claring that if he put out hats like
that his business would be ruined So
Upton would carry back the rejected
drawings and crush them into his
waste basket and start fresh the next
morning with an effort to suppress
his own notions about hats.
Upton always worked in secrecy.
You see he was not proud of his call
ing. If the substantial. slow-moving
chambermaid happened still to be set
ting his room to rights when he re-
turned from breakfast, he was loath
to get out his drawing things, but
fingered over his morning paper or
walked idly about his room. One day
after she had left the room and he had
begun in earnest. there was a knock at
his door and, without waiting for Up
ton to call out come" the chamber
maid stuck her head in the door. She
held a waste basket in her hand. you
don't make mistake. sir, do yoyu.
and throw away pictures you want?"
she asked. Some of these here pretty
girls heads, 1 mean. SENS most too
good to throw away.n
"Oh, those" Upton said as the
woman held up crushed and crump-
led girls head WEARING what the day
before he had judged one of his best
designs only to have it condemned as
impossible by the practical millinery
manager. those are rubbish. 1 just
do them-to amuse myself as it
were" And the chambermaid with
drew, dragging her mop and carpet
sweeper after her.
The hat in question was inspired by
muscle shell. Upton had seen hats
that were inspired by roses and sweet
peas and even by canary BIRDS That
sort of thing was trite. He happened
h.
cred on the seashore the summer be-
fore and treasured for no very good
reason, and it occurred to him one dav
that in the graceful curves of the
muscle shell and in it's deep. penetrat-
ing black with brown. green and blue
shadings. he might devise a hat that
would be worth designing The head
he drew for this head was the head of
sea nympth. He always made the
faces first to suit the hats-if the hat
showed Japanese influence the girl
was slightly slant-eyed, if she wore a
sombrero she was of Spanish features
The hat was of black silk above with
shadings of brown and blue and the
lining beneath the brim was of the
shimmering gray of the inside of a
muscle shell: Upton really reveled in
this hat-only to have it rejected the
next day at headquarters, while an
insipid little hat of dark blue straw
with cherry dangling at one side was
pronounced winner"
Upton had not learned his lesson
a hat that he said was inspired bv a.
German air raid at night, tho the
millinery manager did not ev4n at
tempt to see the similarity. He did
admit, however, that the design was
original and might do for a theatri-
oval costume, but for his purposes
never. And that was consigned to the
waste basket, where a few days be-
fore had gone the muscle shell hat
and on another day hat that had
been suggested by the colors and
shape of a spring onion. Upton had
had them for dinner the night before
and had actually carried one to his
room, put it in water and taken his
| design from life. That also was
among the failures.
Upton knew that onion hat of his
was original. Still someone else must
have designed it simultaneously For
| a week later as Upton sat at dinner
he looked up and there two tables off
the very pretty golden-brown blonde
| who dined alone, and seemed to have
few friends-Upton had seen her often
and not infrequently recalled her face
and coloring when summoning up i'm
aginary models in his room-there
| sat the little blonde wearing the onion