The Washington herald., 1920-08-22

But ohen crossing orer
From Cs6is to Dorer
He did tohat he dids't iHtendI
" HOPE" smiled my hostess, "you like
hmericks. am devoted to them
myself; and that is one of my favorites. I
so often find myself in the same boat with
that young man from Ostend."
And this was the coming literary light of
the official set in washington-the one
woman in official life whom the critics are
inclined to take quite seriously as a writ
ing person. Her one novel, ''The Old Grey
Homestead" published less than a year
ago, they had treated with distinguished
consideration, coming, as it did, on top of
two or three clever, incisive little essays in
the Atlantic. Her most recent paper, "On
the Fence" in the same periodical, people
were chuckling over and quoting.
This was Frances Parkinson Keyes-
pronounce it with long ''i," if you please,
not with a long ''e'-Mrs. Henry Wilder
keyes, wife of the new senator from New
Hampshire, and, so far as Washington is
concerned, one of the most desirable results
of the last congressional election, which sent
her husband, fresh from brilliant term as
war" governor Of his state, to the United
States Senate, succeeding Senator Moses,
sho had filled out the term of the late Jacob
b. Gallinger, one of the Senate veterans.
Mrs. Keyes was explaining how, in face
Of a fixed determination not to let Wash
ington know that she ever had spoken in
public, or could speak above a whisper, she
had been betrayed into undertaking Some
"reminiscences of a Lieutenant Governor"
which is what they afectionately called
her all up and down the old Granite state
at dinner of the College Woman's Club.
As a result she had figured in the morn
ing papers as having made a moving plea
for the Sheppard Towner bill, which would
place maternity and infancy under the care
and protection of Uncle Sam True, she
had also reminisced, most entertainingly. for
her hosts and fellow guests that night but
she had accepted the chsirman's invitation,
In case there was any other subject that she
fet an urge" to speak about. And to
such good purpose that she was Immediately
deluged with invitations from the various
organizations which are interested in the
Sheppard bin to speak before various other
organizations and meetings that they desired
to have interested. Verify, she did what
she didn't intend!
ONES memory goes back to dear old
~ Senator Dillingham's story-Senator
William Paul Dillingham;, of Vermont which
was Mrs: keyes's home before her marriage
of small child in stif1y starched white
trock, and elaborate bows on her stiff little
pigtails, whom he found one summer day
nearly twenty-hv years ago explaining
from wagon seat to a group of amused and
admiring country folk just why they should
vote for him. (He was then running for
governor of his state.)
That was his introduction to Frances
Parkinson Wheeler, who could not at the
time have been much more TIA ten. He
has had occasion within the last year tn
remind her that even then as he lifted be-
down and kissed her, he prophesed that she
would come to Washington in time, if she
lived. Probably then, too, she did what
she didn't intend!
Certainly, she has done what her borr;sod
mother didn't intend her to. Her no+bs-
was proper, conservative New ENGLAND
woman, whose idea of a really sstisfactorv
daughter would have been a nice. conservs-
zir Il
dances, interested in frocks and frills cuI-
tured Of course, as a near Bostonian and
professors daughter should be-conserya
lively cultured; interested in all good works
also conservatively. And as a matter Of
fact, she is all of these things-and a wbol-
lot more. As one of her admiring friends
put it, Zone never knows where Frances
is going to break out next" Apparently
Frances herself doesn't know.
You see, she's a good deal of a mixture,
even for an American. Her father was
very remarkable man, a scholar, a college
professor, and at the time she arrived on
the scene one of the faculty of the University
Of Virginia. Which is how she came to be
born in the house that had been President
Monroe's home, at Charlottesville
She just escaped being named Virginia
Monroe" in honor of this accident of her
birth. They gave her instead some of her
good New England family names, for she
comes Of long line of good New England
families. And her father dying when she
was still a wee child, her mother took her
back home to New England, where she grew
up among the traditions O. ner forebears,
except as she Was taken abroad for the
broadening cultural effect of travel, which
was also according to New England educa-
tionsl tradition.
She married at eighteen a man already
we'll known in that part of the country a