Evening star., 1921-07-17
4 CROSS from the House Office
\ building there is shady tree.
People stand under it to wait

~ building there is a shady tree.
III People stand under it to wait
for cars. except the other
morning. when the crowd fringed
around to see the free show which
had camped under its green and out
reaching boughs.
First. there was a team of steers
hitched to a cart. And behind stood
one lone oxen. with a covered trailer
in tow. On the box" was seated
a woman. who kept her eyes on the
man IN the foreground, who stood
on the tagging, ostentatiously con-
scious of the sensation his outfit was
creating in rivalship of a bunch of
congressman. who stood on the steps
across. as excited as kids over the
show.
They were big. well-fed steers and
they stood with such arrogant Sc
dateness that the goad carried by
the man on the side was as useless
an emblem as the scepter held by
king.
Among the onlookers was a dig
nifed old gentleman, whose name
| might head a board of bank di-
rectors and who was SO pleasantly
ejaculative as to confer his emotions
on the man next. who CHANGED to
have every appearance of being out
Of Job.
Looks great. doesn't it-Just of
| the old farm"
The Jobless man had different
| opinion. and expressed it:
We'll. sir: they don't look home
| like to me. I've been driving oxen.
| off and on. ever since I was big
| enough to holler and it takes lot
! Of hollerin' to handle steers. They
J want to wheel out of the road and
trees. Now. sir. watch these three.
Do you see them lowering their heads
or swishing their tails and tugging
| at their yokes? No, sir: they are
| standing as unnatural calm as IL
they were having their pictures took.
a whole lot of training since they
left any old farm. though 1T sur
prises me, too. seeing an OK is about
| the dullest creature on the hoof."
| The jobless one was obviously un.
acquainted with those oxen that
would haul an even hundred of buck
cts of water for the royal gardens
and call 1t a day: never one bucket
| over or under-but. on the other
hand:
stead of just writing about them. he
might have known whole lot more
about them than Plutarch ever heard
tell Of Which shows. If you notice.
that everything balances one way
I or another in this world.
| And, doubtless. in the next.
+
1.-THE heat sizzled up from the as
phalt and down from the sky.
| And the trees were as motionless as
p! carved Jade. One woman whose brains
! were too sun-addled to hatch out an
f! tdea-though, incidentally. ideas are
her stock in trade-was making the
| best of her tragedy with ball OF
| pink ice cream nested in half canta-
loupe. in a cafe whirry with fans. wheI
her frazzled interest was caught pS
a couple of other women at the table
next. One of them was a human lathe
with a tight. yellow-glazed skin: ano
the other, for contrast. was as whole
some as a breaker rolling on beach
Also, her voice was as boomy:
'I don't care what the doc tens you
Liz, it amt your heart; It's your
spinald column. Accordin' to my hg.
ment. your blood is loafin. on the Job
and you want rubbin' to hustle it tc
work ag'n. R'member. woman. yol
amt no perpetual motion machineI
none of us are-and once in vile
we run down an has to be wound W
same as a clock. That's where the
docs come in with their doses and
upsets us for good an all know
more about ailments this minute thar
half the run of them, an IL it wasn't
that my old man would stop work an
lay back on me for support ider mad
INV sign on the front door an maxim
money curin' folks, as easy as KISS
my hand"
The splendid thing about this boast
was the CONTINGENCIES of it-and be.
sides that: To practice without
license was some idea-and ideas wa:
what the SUM- added woman was att
er.
loLD. ugly and poor! The three-pi'
~ tragedy is SO universal that 1t IL
!merely mentioned by way OF intro
Iduction to a woman who was oo'
viously all three, and yet:
She was smiling as she limped alone
jthe piping hot bricks as II mel
thoughts were happy ones; as II. say
she was thinking of better worie
than this one. h.,.o,
idea than that.
4 +
rE had a mild, absent face. with
II loose lips and slack muscles. she
was a workaday soul with good. hon