The New York herald., 1921-04-10


things that the high priced tailors
place UPON the backs of their customers in
a futile effort to make a silk purse out of
a sow's ear" but plain, ordinary. simple
clothes. which are made" and not built
and which are worn because both law and
custom require them and because the police
will send you to the Island if you haven't
them on.
1t is rather remarkable that each one OF
us thinks all the others are examining our
clothes to note whether we are dressed in
, the latest fashion, and for their benefit we
sauander our earnings in fancy goods. but
the others are just like each one Of us and
gain their impressions of us not by the cut
Of our clothes but by the cleanliness of our
face and hands, by the manner in which we
enter or leave a room, by the clearness OF our
eyes and by the lines which have been left
in our faces by our passions or our gentle
ness, by our vices or our virtues, our temper
or our kindness.
There are antiques among clothes in com
parison with which such things as old fur
niture and family jewels seem cheap and
commonplace. Old clothes have associations
and memories connected With them which
are not possessed by anything else on earth.
Pen Picture of Couple
Poor IN Goods but Happy
There was an old couple in our town who
knew this truth. and their knowledge
brought a great deal of quiet JOY to them
He was a gentle man who had strolled with
out haste through the avenue of the years
with his wife, providing as best he could Tor
ner (not always overly welD and all the
time her guiding hand had been on his
shoulder, if you know just what | mean
He was never able to give her the clothes
he would like to have seen her wear. and
very frequently the table was not overladen
so he had to shower upon her in place OF
clothes and fancy food those things which
every one has in abundance and which do
not cost anything--kndness, thoughtfulness
gentleness and love. These were his pres
ents to her. and somehow or other she
seemed not only contented but very happy.
Her dear old face was like a benediction, and
there was fragrance in her presence, as posi-
tive a fragrance as there was in her garden
of roses.
We children OF the neghborhood would
gather there frequently in the afternoon
after school. She read to us the books she
thought we ought to know about and some
times sang. playing her own accompaniment,
but she always sang something like Doug
las. Douglas, Tender and True" songs that
stick in a fellows mind and come to him at
odd moments OF life when he needs music to
carry him a little farther
Well this old couple had a curious Gus
tom, but, now that think of it later in life
very beautiful one. On each anniversary
of their wedding she carefully unpacked the
old trunk that held her treasures and
dressed herself for him in the clothes she
wore on their wedding day. We children
we're never there on these occasions. That
was their private afternoon together. For
DAYS afterward there seemed to be the spring
Of youth in his steps again and her beauty
took on new radiance.
The point ! am making is that this old
couple knew the value Of old clothes, and
they must have been knowing II for years
Then there was a mother I knew. White
haired she was and with such lines OF Sc
rene sorrow on her face that they were beau
tiful, and with eyes that could laugh and
dance with merriment. Her trunk Of treas
ures was in the\attic, and every now and
then she would dimb the dusty stairs and
tonderly take them out-Bill's red curls that
he cut off one day when the boys teased
him, Sans Little Lord Fauntleroy suit of
black velvet, Sarah's frock and Bessie's ging-
ham dress. Sometimes she used to feel that
these things were about all she had left of
her children, now that they had married or
gone out into the world and left her, but she
afterwards said it didn't make any differ
ence. The real question not how much
~ her children she had kept, but how much
II herself she had given them to take