Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-28

| her taste, Just ruined the whole house.
Mrs. Long is a sharp-tongued. gossipy,
old woman, if ever one lived
All the rest of the members were
our young crowd and two or three of
the girls in the Harvester bunch and a
couple from the Church street crowd.
1t was a jelly bunch and we looked
forward to having quite a lot of fun
and were determined not to let Miss
Prescott put anything over on US.
! We'd heard so much about her from
the old people that we were on our
| guard She might be able to run the
Women's Club, but she would be out of
her line trying TO run a mothers club
Wait till she's put on three mus
tard plasters four times Gay, and then
let her talk to me about being a
mother" said Rosie, whose entire fam
lily was down with colds.
II suppose she'll want lis to go in
for psychology" hazarded Mrs Frank
| KirSted, "but she needn't think that's
anything new to US. I've done my best
| to bring up frankie according to the
modern methods and not let him get
anv inhibitions or anything"
The rest of US glanced at each other
at that, Frankie KirSted being the
worst spoiled little pest in Montrose.
Miss Prescott. however. didn't try to
tell any of us how we ought to bring
up our babies. She really wasn't bossy
a bit, and, to everybody's surprise, we
| liked her. Of course, she introduced a
| lot more good works into the club than
we'd figured on. We had elected her
| president, out of compliment, on &C.
! count OF her having organized the club,
and SIZE kept bringing up one thing
after lother that she said, as mothers,
of course, we were interested in. Like
seeing that the health inspector kept
after old Van Holderen about his cows
though we all took our milk from the
HAIRLESS so Van Holderen's COWS were
nothing to u.s. one way or the other
And calling on the school board to pro-
test about the lighting in the primary
rooms, though none of our children
went to school.
I had to hand it to her. the slick
way she got us all to work; having
been chairman of the alumnae bazaar
myself, once, and having seen the way
everybody left everything for me to do
We would probably have left everything
to Miss Prescott in just the same way.
but she would appoint committee and
then call on the chairman for reports
in a way that would be embarrassing,
if you didn't have anything to report.
In fact, it became so strenuous that
there were times when we felt about
the way our mothers did about her.
II she were a real mother, instead
of just president of a mothers club"
said Corinne, shed find she didn't
have so much time for all this reform
ing. either"
That, of course, was one reason we
didn't get antagonized at Miss Prescott,
the way our mothers did. Ours being
mothers club, we had a real advan-
folHf k1nr Vt nh
older and smarter and everything else,
but on that one point we had her. She
was the only one in the club who
wasn't real mother.
X x y 4
1T was bit Of a rest at that when
she went away for two months in
the Summer. ! must admit that we
relaxed considerably on the good works.
AS we didn't have her big living room
to meet in then, Mrs. Long said that,
Il the club would like to Ak it up, we
could use one floor of her warehouse
for a regular meeting room. The
warehouse was vacant right now, but 1t
had been rented and the new people
wouldn't be using the top floor. We
were tickled to death, of course-hav-
ing your own room makes any club
seem SO much more important. There
was very exciting meeting while plans
were made for furnishing our room.
Father had said that he would give
us three wicker chairs and several of
the other merchants were going to
give us things, too.
didn't happen to be at that meeting
on account of a rather peculiar Job I
had at home. I had had everything ar
ranged to go. America was to be at
the house that day and would keep an
eye on the children. Will had got
little Ben Brace to come and paint the
trim on the garage, having decided that,
that with the garden and everything
he'd never get around to it, himself, and
Ben could be got for only rs cents a
day. But Ben was a faithful, hard
working little fellow, and I wouldn't
need to be on hand to watch him.
strolled out once, about o'clock, just
as / was ready to leave for the club,
to see how he was getting along.
Hello, Ben," I said, "how does it
go?"
could see that it was going all right.
Over half the job was already done,
but wanted to be pleasant. Ben had
been to work for us before, and he was
such a sturdy, dependable kid that I
had taken quite fancy to him. I
guess the real reason though, wasn't
because he was Woodworking and de-
pendable, but because he looked like
my little Jack. He had the same kind
of blue eyes and sort of sandy hair,
and he wrinkled his nose when he
smiled, just as my baby does. I
couldn't help thinking of my little Jack
at 10 or IL, having to paint garages for
rs cents a day and it made me feel
kind of friendly and unhappy about
Ben, both at once. always made it a
point to have specially good dinner
! the days he came to work, and / usually
had him stop and have a glass of root
beer and doughnut or cookie in the
middle of the afternoon.
Today, when I went out to speak to
him, though he wasn't friendly and
nice, as he always had been before He
answered my question with a Alright
I guess" and went on painting.
whats the matter, Benz" l asked
Don't you feel well?"
Sure, I'm all right" he said.
OF course, 1t wasn't my business how
Ben acted, so long as he went on paint
| ing, but I kind of hated to go and leave
| him. / had bunch that he wasn't Just
| being surly; 1T struck me that some
thing was wrong. If he had been a girl,
he'd have been crying, but, being little
| boy, he was being rude. instead. So,
| though he let me see that he didn't
want me, kept hanging around. And
| finally, without his really telling me, I
| found out what was the trouble.
A bunch of boys had tried to get him
to go swimming with them.
Well, I knew just how he felt. It
was hot day. and it isn't much fun
to stay and paint garages while other
boys are going swimming. Still, Ben
was earning rs cents. reminded him.
And then / learned that he didn't get
l cent of it himself The man he'd
been living with since his mother died
farmed him out Summer and Saturdays
and after school hours. To pay fer
boarding him, the man said.