Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-14

The pretty girl with the red cheeks
and the clear. hazel eyes and the soft
bobbed hair nodded vigorously.
Yes" she said. that's what | want
-reality-grim, hideous, vivid, ter
rible.
".Old-Fashioned Girl and Under
the Lilacs' and the Little Curl Series
they were all right when / was a
child, and so were dolls and skipping
ropes-but I'm a now and l
want TO read real books, about real
life. They don't shock me at all
they fascinate me. They thrill me
with the wonder of life and the horror
of it and the glory of it,"
And she and her young man put Up
a picnic lunch and went out TO the
beach and sat in the SAND and watched
the blue waves curl in, crested creamy
white like the lace flounce of Il blue
dress, and they read together out
there in the clean, understanding open,
that the very sight of it tainted the. air
Like the smell of decaying offal.
And the young man was delighted.
de was a nice young man, good as
gold, honest, upright, and intelligent.
He had lived all his life in Il clean,
well-ordered home and had wanted to
know how people felt who had never
been of such q home.
And he respects the girl and likes
her very much. Some times, | sup
pose, he and the girl will make up
their minds to marry and settle down,
though doubtless they do hate the
thought of anything so old-fashioned
and hopelessly Victorian as marriage.
There are thousands of such young
people, talking about just such things
together, nowadays-things that were
never mentioned in decent society 20
or even 10 or in most places, five
years ago.
They Mean Well
There's no use being shocked at
them-they mean well and they'll come
out all right. They're just passing
through a phase of development, and
they do SO want to be wicked and
worldly and knowing
| was talking to a woman / knpw
about it yesterday.
And she laughed, and then she
sighed.
Poor thins.'' she said. Il hope
they'n get all their grimness and their
hideousness and their terror and their
horror-out of books
And l knew what the Woman /
Know, meant. For she has seen the
seamy side of life, herself. Those
calm, quiet eyes of hers have looked
straight into the face of death, and
hideous, cruel death at that.
She has seen youth and beauty 60
like a dream. She has watched
friendship grow cold and she has seen
the light die out of the eyes of love.
She doesn't read hideous books.
She reads agreeable ones.
FNbo Mo- IS 4ho WILL r,,xol ..loa
he heard about the young folks and
their realism"
""Three-fingered Jack and Dead
eyed Dick'-didn't you ever read
them? / did. | hid them in the hay
loft and had wonderful times thinking
how wise | was.
The Man of the World has seen a
good bit of the world, himself-so he
reads poetry. things about birds and
flowers and trees and babbling brooks
when he's not studing the stock quo
tations.
Goodness said the Mother of the
Family. "Realities-don't you worry,
Pretty Girl, you'll have plenty of them
some day, and they'll keep you so busy
that you won't have time to laugh at
the way you wanted things to be grim
and vivid and terrible"
But Somehow, | keep wondering-I
can't seem TO help it-why Pretty
Girl and her friends think these queer
books are so surprisingly real"
Isn't the Mother of the Family just
as real and just as human and a
thousand times more interesting, really,
with her hopes and her fears and her
sacrifices and her little plans and her
crupl iSannOintmpnts aS some noor
drab who sells herself-and then wants
to tell the world about tin q book?
Isn't the river just as real as
the sewer?
The ocean is rather big and for the
most part clean-isn't it as real
and vivid as some choked and fetid
marsh, somewhere?
Bless the girls and boys and their