Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-05-24
LITTLE TALKS BY
BEATRICE FAIRFAX

missent, or fetching the ice cream
that was forgotten till too late to
order through the regular channels,
or getting the theater tickets, or
bringing out in the back of the car
the untamed and untamable new
cook, who may remain long enough
/ to get the morrow's breakfast.
If the cook fees like a shadow
during the night, Mamma will tell
him to get his breakfast on the way
downtown. She takes only coffee,
and there isn't going to be any reg
ular breakfast that morning. Per-
haps she will phone him during the
day to get his dinner downtown, too,
as the family is still in a state of
cook-less desuetude.
The daughters sometimes turn out
quite brilliant impromptus on the
chafing dish for strange young men
who have happened to have missed
meal or who come home with
them after the theater, but no one
ever thinks of making any of these
concoctions for Father-the impress
sion prevails that he is an auto
matte self-feeder.'
This is the type of martyr who is
constantly consulted on the tele-
phone during the day about house
hold matters. His womankind never
really know him, never actually see
him, yet he is attached. He is like
the invisible Central at the other
erd of the phone; he may be sum-
moned at any moment.
And he is summoned, poor dear,
to be told that the last cook he
brought home is not satisfactory
Her breath smells of vanilla and
the ragout she made for lunch was
unspeakable. And will he please stop
at the "Gentlewoman's Jam Pot
and bring out one that has a little
less white to her eye. And, oh! yet,
will he please ask the stenographer
if she will go downtown and get two
yards and three-elghths of black
pussy willow taffeta, and four
bunches of turquoise beads; yes
they know the kind
And the poor old camel, who has
not yet had quite the last straw ap-
piled to his patient back, never re-
bells. 1t is all in the days work
the office and the business mixed
| up with the constant intrusion oil
the family and their concerns. And
at the first of the month the bills
oh. it's gay life that father leads
when he happens to be of the gen.
tie, long suffering type!
| But the trouble is that the family
usually waits for father to die be.
fore it becomes really acquainted
with him. In life, he is a useful ant
| impersonal bit of household furni
ture, less conspicuous than the hal
hatrack, perhaps. but infinitely more
valuable. And he is too bad wher
| the family waits for the obituary
notices of father to be printed t
recognize his virtues.
Really Worth CuItivating
| Because all said and done, he i!
/ really worth cultivating. His posi-
| ton has usually developed a gentle
whimsical sort of humor that is a.
mild as milk. He has a taking way
of being kind to things less forum.
ate than himself, and he usually
| has a fad or two that are apt t.
| be interesting.
And the dogs all know father
/ even if the family does not, and they
have a friendly greeting for him a.
| he hurries on his driven way.
| One sweet "old dear" of this type
rescued himself from oblivion at the
eleventh hour, by writing hectic love
/ letters to himself in a disguised fem.
mime hand. And these, with theil
! burning, sizzling contents, he woult
| leave carelessly about in his Goa
| pockets, because along with every,
thing else, mother had always re.
! garded it as a sacred duty to censor
fathers mail.
| Well, it worked. And when the
! last letter hinted at an elopement
/ I,,,, L. L., G..s
| back hand said that the famil,
would be better off without him anC
| that she would be the last TO objec
! to the modest income he proposed
leaving them before starting-ther
the family discovered father. AnG
/ it was so much better all round thar
waiting for them to learn of his vir-
tues through the obituary column
! oh. father. was a wag when hC
wrote those lery love letters to him.
self, and no mistakei