Evening star., 1919-03-09
Around the CITY.
ENr is here.

r ENT is here.
Under its ashes lies buried that
dancing. laughing, auaffing and
perfumed phase of life We
know as the social season. But there
are always others. On the seamy SIDE
of the great divide which walls Van
ity Fair from the Kingdom of the
common, you viii find an occasional
someb body to whom Lent IS merely a
calendar affair that means an extra
good fish market and an Easter hat
at its end. For one instance:
Two women in the rdoag class
sat together in a car and gossiped
with good-natured loudness over the
latest jump in butter until one of
them noticed a passenger across the
way, q plain woman who seemed to
be thinking of something that had
put on her face the expression we call
"1ooEing inward"
The butter, which, apparently, had
Jumped over the moon along with
the COW. fell fiat.
woInan's face, Don't let her see you
lookin'. Somebody oughter tell her
to wipe it off.
eSh-woman!" and the other shield
ed her mouth with a hand red and
glazed from honest work. God ls We
her: THAT amt dirt. She's been
marked"
'Whacher mean mark"
"I mean ashes that Catholics get
stamped with every Ash Wednesday,
that's why they call it that"
News to me- What makes 'em?'
Sc ct
got. I've seen EN-. You remember Ed
don't you? Well. he was the incest
feller / ever KEEP comp'ny with an
if he hadn't died"
"Whatcher mean she got marked
up like that?"
wen, wait till I tell you. can't you?
Ed. he took me to his church one
time an / waited in a pew while him
and everybody else in the church
crowded up to the railin' and took
turns kneelin' while coupIa priests
ashes like that. MY husban' raises old
Harry If / even so much as breathe
Eds name-
If the woman with the tiny gray
cross on her forehead heard her
neighbors opposite, she paid no at
tention. Perhaps she was needing the
everlasting warning:
Remember, man, that thou art dust
and into dust"
Perhaps, again. she was thinking
over the league of nations. You never
can tell
X
A CCDRDING to the worlds recipe
senator is of more account than
any oldish man who sweeps a path
that curIs around the Capitol grounds
but:
II you had compared the two that
Saturday morning that the solon per-
son was trying his f1libusterest to
keep the government wheels from
going around, while outside, where
there were yellow stars on the bushes
and yellow sunshine on the grass, the
oidish man was backing his govern
ment, so far as a broom could help,
you might have had your doubts.
Another big point in favor Of the
oldish mans superiority was that you
could stop in passing to ask him a
question, while you know right we'll
it would never occur to you to halt a
senator to inquire where the squirrels
had gone to.
The woman who wanted to know
had a special reason for feeding the
squirrels that morning. sort of an
niverEary memory of one who had
loved to do that same. If you care for
details-and the oldish man stopped
his sweeping to take in the grassy
acres and then to look up at the box
es tucked In the trees overhead.
The mother squirrels are busy
with their young, but there ought to
be a lot Of little fellows around some
where's. Just throw out a couple of
nuts and see"
The woman tossed out a pecan and
the squirrels began to flash from
everywhere. Then she wanted to
know about the birds. The oldish
man knew all about birds.
They get fed regularly along with
the squirrels. Our superintendent is
most ,kind-hearted rnan-Woods,
you may have heard OF hifn-and he
not only sees that the park birds are
fed every day, but sends food from his
own home to give to the sparrows. A
sparrow stays here all winter and
superintendent knows that he gets
hungry as wen as tho next-he's a
mighty good man. A crow is a dan
gerous enemy. Only yesterday
found a baby squirrel half picked. It
was too young to have left its nest,
so a crow must have stolen it while
the mother squirrel was out of the
box-uil less the robber was a red
bird. Both of them eat young birds.
I and the bones. / haven't much use
for sparrows. but they certainly can
put up highland they always seem
to be in good humor."
Then the oldish man went back to
his sweeping and the senator kept on
with his filibastering, and as to
which was the better worker of the
two, why
You can Judge for yourself
A. MAN was chasing q small dog up
II 4 street And the usual crowd
swarmed Into the white heat OF ex-
citement shufiled an ancient colored
woman, who solicited information
from the first person she could get at.
The first person was distinguished
looking gentleman with a foreign air.
"Hi, mistuh, what's dat man yander
chasin' that dawg fuh?"