Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-07-31

THE COWNSMAN
The Rubber Plant

| w Sarah had an enemy in the world until
| somebody gave her a rubber plant. To our
| inquiries, she was retcent No, Cousin
Thomas, Sarah's husband, had not given
1t to her. We confess that we had always
| thought better of Thomas than that. The
| person who had once owned the plant was
now dead. that much she vouchsafed. Rubber
| plauts are like faithful spouses; only death
| can divorce them from those into whose lives
| they have once entered. There it was, the
struggling. sickly. yellow. potted incubus,
| occupying Aunt Sarah's best, sunny win
| dow, arrogantly taking up a quarter of the
| room blocking observation, curtailng the
freedom of childhood. And for want of
I facts, we imagined romance. The un-
known sometime possessor of the rubber
plant was once dangerous young beauty
whom Cousin Thomas had Tilted for good
and sufficient reasons in his youth. She, Of
course, had never married, but had taken to
herself rubber plant. And-oh, the
malignancy of woman had waited cum
ningly until death was upon her to plant her
living curse. so to speak, upon Cousin Sarah.
her successful rival
A RUBBER plant is not place where they
"A manufacture motor tires, or rubber
shoes, popularity known as gums" or hot
water bottles, or even chewing gum. A rub
Der plant is not an affair metaphorical but
only too real an entity of the vegetable
kingdom, possessed of certain dependent
malevolence of disposition. when potted and
taken into the family. which offers a strong
argument in favor of belief in the powers
of ratiocination in plants. Somebody dis
covered the other day that plants have feel
ings and suffer under emotion. To say moth
ing of the sensitive plant. that vegetable
touch me not, Strawberries hate to be han
died and loathe being eaten. Carrots aud
turnips are all cut up in their nerves before
the knife touches them. and it is a clear
case of defensive retaliation which causes
onions to bring the cook to tears. Now, the
rubber plant has a place, in some impene-
trable Venezuelan jungle. where lizards,
serpents ana scorpions may socially crawl
over it and monkeys and macaws caper and
swear in its branches. We can conceive
or rubber plant, grown sturdy tree its
widespread branches leaning over some
muddy tributary of the Amazon, dropping
Its leaves in the tawny food. to be swirlcd
away among alligators and busy, noisy
water fowl to the monarch Of all rivers. But
a rubber plant in a parlor, boxed in and
hooped about, its roots pebbled overt No
wonder it straggles and grows to every
known point of the compass and every
degree of the zenith. No wonder it mopes
and exacts attention. sulks and degenerates
into the family nuisance, about which the
sweetest tempered can speak only in terms
of asperity.
uAS the reader ever known of any one
L who has purchased rubber plant? IF
there were ever so deluded a mortal, where
could such thing be bought? You may
buy rose bush, or cherry tree: even shade
trees, sizably progressed toward maturity,
are purchasable for such as have the purses
to pay for them. But rubber plant is not
to be acquired by purchase. A rubber plant
is bestowed donated, unloadcd. left malice
prepense by will: and unless you are vigi-
liant. you may wake some morning to find
that rubber plant has been wished upon
you. When this happens. your obligations
are obvious. You must be grateful to the
donor. full of admiration for the plant, about
the beauty. development. foliage of which
you must be fully prepared for some polite
perjury. Then you must arrange to have
the thing transported-that was the chief
reason why it was wished upon you-a
wheelbarrow, n cart, double team, per-
haps truck or moving van, may be neccs-
| sary. but in any case you must deprecate the
idea that it is the slightest trouble fastly.
the thing must be placed in your favorite
southern window-rubber plants are as
avaricious of place in the sun as was ever
'he ntril'ah enpcror-Spolilhg the room,
oosou,,ns ] pie'uLes' . ne.esSl'ating rear.
nIaeat;on 90 .ho VI" to nu, n'u, s anu general
Penates which have been fiustered to dis
| traction by the arrival of this vegetable dis
| turber of the serenity of households
! MORE domesticate and house loving foil,
| lNl than Cousin Sarah and Tboros !.
would be difficult to imagine So u,hat ,,,a
our amazement. last fall. TO he informed ~ :.
both had fitted south. All We had ,ros y
| br;ef note NJ reerot and tba roo,,os. .La "ao a
| look after +ba rubbor nIont d,u;, ~, " y.
absence ..To MAKO tb;rgs oonra,;ns.,, ,"s'r sir
ns-theso were tho verv ,ordsN.tn ,o
had been loft with tbo;r noYt d. e;upnN pam
| ~ ~ ~ 'i heishoor' >