Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-04-02


Of five ordinary country folk down in
the front seats of that theatcr.
Did we remember where we had
heard Mlbb sing THAT song before!
All, yes, we did. No need to turn
10 one another and ask il. The same
emotion was passin" in the hearts Of
the five Of uS.
II carried Us back to the night Of
the little local talent play when we
were all boys and girls and life was Il
very different thing from that which
it had turned out. 1t carried Us back
to the young folk of those bygOnc
days, cauStic-longued Grace
Rawlins, little George Griffin in his
volumnous white ovcrallS struggling
and swearing to make the event Il
success, Mrs. Christopher Stacy in
her stayc-friyht, the little Hoadlcy
baby who would not suffer himself to
be produced in public rs offspring
however illegitimate for the moment.
But most of all, it carried US back
to the menfolk who were gone, :.
Jack and Herbert. 1t carried us
back to the dance aftcrwaId and the
carefrcc laughter on that Spring
night in the long ago, of happy boys
and girls, going home from a dance.
The song was most appropriate.
We were growing old indeed. Silver
was beginning to show in our hair
and life was fading away. True it
was, also, that those to whom the
song might have referred, were ever
to be young and fair, young and fair
as We remembered them before we
lost them, ever the same faces in the
imagery of memory. And there was
Il sigh in our hearts at the moment
that amounted to a sob.
Oh the pathos of going down Ii fe's
pathway steadily day by day and re-
collecting the dewdamp, sun-warmed
mornings when we first began the
Journey with small thought Of the
length of that Oddessy or the rough
and rocky windings in the highway
before it wound down for the final
turn into the peaceful shadows!
The cruel part of losing Eden is not
the going from it. No, but in the
curse of recollection that once there
was an Eden and we lived in it,
though for only little little while!
Mibb did not wait for applause to!
spoil the effect she had created. She
passed quickly though equally quiet
" to "Home, Sweet Home
enid pleasures and palaces, where
'cr we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no
place like home.
A charm from the skies seems to
hallOw US there
Which sought through the world,
is not met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home;
be it ever so humble there's no place
like home"
Mary Purse put her handkerchief
quickly to her lips. Then it went up
to her eyes and she held it there.
Only two men in that audience
fancied they knew why Nib put such
feeling into her last song.
-Dor-,cI,o~v we ..,;sI,ad yua ,uora oil
out of that place and up in the fam
liar old streets of aPris, Vermont!
Was the applause dcafcning? 1t
was! /
They would not let Mibb 90 off
hat platform. They called for her Il
cain and again. And again and a.
cain she had to respond. A bouquet
If flowers came down the left aisle,
under the mass human
,eing carried along by legs. Another
anne down the right aisle. Wave
lfter wave of approval swept down
rom the balconies and back again.
"And to think" said Sam hoarscly,
that THAT Queen of Shcb" {
worked in our printing officc!" l.
Sam wanted to go back-stage and
ce Mibb and visit with her but Alice
would not have it.
he same old Mibb Henderson, never
nind how high she flies. | couldn't
ring myself to the chagrin of raw
1g over her and congratulating her
s suppose | ought" ,
But Mary said nothing. With the
anne wistful look ever on her face,
he went with us out of that theater. :
When we got back to the hotel !
he complained of a headache and s
'ent almost at once to her rooms. 8
nd Alice, who had cause to go =;
own the hotel corridor afterward ,
I'D the light was burning under
Iary's adjacent door until well into r
he morning. r
She came back to Paris with US and 4
,ok up the burden of her life again l
nforc q grimy typecasc, earning the r
hereWithal to raise those boys which "
lck had left her, in dumb, hopeless, 6
nsung heroism of plain people doing a
ain tasks because that is their des- h
ny. f
But rs for Mibb, she went on o
. onward and upward, from t
loly unto Glory. 6
Going home on the train | said to a
I'M: Il
~ feel that we should have gone "
lckstage and made ourselves known
Mibb. There was something a. W
'ut the way she sang that Home, O.
won't TJop,a' tbof foJ1e MN che would