Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-01-05
) S-s~s"s-s-s"s"s~s /.
THE i
BOLTON GIRLS I
PROPOSITION /:
;H'~'~.'~'~'~'~'~'~' By'"'~'~'~'~.~'"'''9.
! WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE =

Copyright, 1922, by the Macmillan &C

uo. AllCl llldA We htlt ia 9iiC go
at least highly improbable if not en-
tirely impossible. But then we might
have expected as much from a girl Who
called herself Maybelle. There is,
however, this much TO be said in May
bellies favor: she was persistent. She
did not let go till it Numbered! We
could nave stood it well enough if she
had limited her campaign for a job on
the paper to an occasional call at the
Office. But she had a fiendish instinct
which told her who were the friends
we liked most to oblige the banker,
for instance, who carried our over
drafts, the leading advertiser, the
chairman of the printing committee of
the town council-and she found ways
to make them ask if we couldn't do
something for Miss Bolton. She could
teach school indeed, she had a place
in the academy. But she loathed
sch~Ool-teaching. She had always felt
that, if she could once get a start, she
could make a name for herself.
She had written something that she
called "a Critique on Hamlet" which
h submitted to us, and was deeply
panied when we told her that we didn't
care for editorial matter; that what
our paper needed was the names of
the people in our own country town
and county, printed as many times a
day or a week or a month as they
could be put into type. We tried to
tell her that more important to us than
the influence of the Celtic element on
u national life and literature was
the fact that John Jones of Lebo-
that is to say, red John, as distin-
guished from black John-or Jones the
timer, or Jones of the Possum Holler
settlement was in town with a load of
hay. "Other papers," we explained
carefully, while she looked as sympa-
thetic and intelligent as a collie, ''other
papers might be interested in the
r~adio-activity of uranium X; they
might are to print articles on the
psychological phenomena of mobs"-
to which she snapped eager agreement
with her eyes-"others, with entire
propriety, might be interested in inor-
ganic evolution"-and she cheeped
ives, yes with feverish intensity
"but in u little local paper we cared
only for the person who could tell our
readers with the most delicacy and
precision how many spoons Mrs.
Worthington had to borrow for her
party, who had the largest number of
fnger-bowlS in town, what Mrs. Conk-
lin paid for the broilers she served at
her party last February, and the name
of the country woman who raised
them, and why 1t was that all the
women failed to make Jennie's recipe
for sunshine cake work when they
tried it." Such are the things that
interest our people. and he, she or it
who can turn in two or three columns
a day of items setting forth these
things in a good-natured way, so that
the persons mentioned will only grin
and wonder who told it, is good for ten
dollars of our money every Saturday
night.
Maybelle thought 1t was such inter
esting work, and her eyes floated in
tears of happiness at the thought of
such joy. If she could only have a
chance! 1t would be just lovely
simply grand, and she knew she could
do 1t! Something in her innermost
soul thrilled with a naturalization
that made her culver with anticipation.
Whereupon she went out and came
back in three days with five sheets of
foolscap on which she had written an
article beginning: "When Memory
draws aside the curtains of her magic
chamber, revealing the pictures medi-
tation paints, and we see through the
windows of our dreams the sweet vale
of yesterday, lying outside and be-
yond; when stern Ambition, with re-
lentless hand, turns us away from all
this to ride in the somber chariot of
Pleasure beckons us back to sit by
Memory's fire and sip our tea with
Maiden meditation" What it was all
about no one ever found out but the
Young Prince at the local desk who
read it clear through said that some
times he thought hat it was a report
of a fire and at other times it seemed
IKE ii uICSo-SOOdo Catalogue. II NCOlu
have made foul columns. AS he put
the roll back in the drawer the Young
Prince rose and paced grandiy out.
At the front door he stopped and said;
You'll never make anything out of her
she's a handholder! When a girl
begins to get corns IN her hands, l
notice she has mush on the brain!'
But Maybelle returned, and we went
all over the same ground again. We
explained that what we wanted was
short items-two or three lines each
little references to nome doings some
thing telling who has company, who Is
sick, who is putting shingles on the
barn or an 81" on the house. And she
said "Oh, yes!" so ~passionately that
it seemed as though she would bark or
put her front feet on the table. One