The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-01-14

yond the pleasure or the discomfort of
 the day, unable to help themselves out
 of the sordid rut in which they had been born. Julia watched them sob- | erly, silently, as the years went by.
 One by one they told her of their wedding plans, and introduced the boyish. iu-shaven, grinning lads who were to be husbands and fathers soon. One by one Julia watched the pitifully gay little weddings, in rooms poison ous with four air and crowded with
 y nosiy kinspeople One by one she Club as new membArs of the Mothers Club. The young mothers figure
 would be curiously shape1ess now, her
 slrlish beauty swept away as by a ribboned baby weakened by her own physical weakness and clouded by the fear that already a second chi1d's claim was disputing that of the first
 borrow some of the hopeless whining tones of the older women's.
 Julia was really happiest in her relationship with the children. She frequently peeped into the kinder garten during the morning, and had her dearly loved favorites among the tiny girls and boys, and she could never be absent from the sewing class every afternoon when some forty small girls scattered themselves about the assembly hall, and chattered and sang as they worked. Volunteers from among the city's best families were usually on hand to inspect the actual sewing-vague, daintily dressed girls who alternately spoiled and neg lected their classes, who came late and left early-but Julia kept order. supplied materials, recited the clos ing prayer, and played the marches by which the children marched out at hVe o'clock Now and then she i'm cited some small girl to sing or recite for the others, and two or three times a year the sewing classes gave an evening entertainment-e extraordinary affairs at the memory of which Julia and Miss Poland used to laugh for weeks. To drill the little, indifferent. stupid youngsters in songs and dances, to spangle fifty costumes of paper directions about the excited murmur- ings of the churning performers, to chalk marks on the stage, and mark piano scores, were all duties that fell to the two resident workers Julia sacrificed her immaculate bedroom for a green room, the precipitation would stream from her face as she whipped off one dirty little frock after an- unSpeakable undergarnents, and Ioosened stick braids of black or vel low hair into something approaching a fairylike dufiness One second to straishten her own tumbled hair at a mirror, another to warn her carefully ranged performers in the passage, and Julia was off to light the hall and open the street door to the clamorous audi 'ence- Opening the performance with crash Of chords from the piano. if teen minutes later, she would turn her face to the stage that the singers might see her lips framing the wSrds they were so apt to forget. and man age to keep watchful eye upon the noisy group of boys that filled the back benches and the gaslights that might catch fairy's spear or a witch's wand.
 well, we've had some awful per formances in this place, but really think tonight's was about the worsti" Miss Holland might remark. when the last dirty little garment had been claimed by its owner, and tho last fairy had reluctantly gone away.
 Well. the mothers and fathers thought it was fne" Julia would sub init, with a weary grin.
 'When that awful Cunningham child, with her awful, flat, skipping feet. began to dance the Highland Fling, truly thought would strangle, trying not to laughi" Miss Toland gazing absently over her book, would add ref1ectively.
 And the Queen of the Elves in those dirty pink stockings! And poor Hazel. bursting into tears as usua1i' Julia, collapsed in a chair. dishevelled and rosy, would give a long sigh of relaxation and relief
 eContnued Moudnv) \