Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-07-31

Failure to get to sleep on hot night
may not always be due to the heat.
Too many glasses of iced tea for supper
have been known to be the cause. owing
to the caffeine content, making for
poor, restless or no slumber at all.
It then becomes the solemn duty of
noises made in the neighborhood, and
to place his failure to go to sleep upon
each one of them in turn.
The heat he rules out, as the very
night before, which was even hotter,
he slept like a top. Those who recall
their boyhood days know how nicely a
top can sleep" spinning around with
out moving in the horizontal, or wob-
bling on its point.
The would-be sleeper falls one
quarter asleep time and time again,
only to wake up at the slightest sound.
Now there are plenty of sounds. rang
ing all the way from the slight and
meager to the loud and robust.
Even such breeze as there is brings
the magnified roar of distant trolley,
which ordinarily is never heard. But
tonight 1t grinds out in defiance of the
heat. A scientist is experimenting with
rubber wheels and other devices for
silencing street cars Why not? Only
we wish he would experiment on milk
wagons. too.
It is far too early for milkmen, how
ever. They will come along just when
all the other noises die down.
Just now the chief diversion is a
modified wild party" which is being
held somewhere in the offlng. There is
just one light. and the sounds must
come from there. Some more of these
young-old people trying to pretend that
they are very flaming.
What travesty to brand the younger
generation as wild" when every one
of them is safely in bed, while their
40-year-old and older elders do their
best to initiate what they suppose to be
their salient characteristics!
The holders of this mild wild
party are trying their best to be kind
to the neighbors. But their laughter
rings out every now and then, just
enough to keep one who can't sleep
wide-awake.
Too bad, but hot nights were ever
thus. In those darkened windows
yonder other people are sleeping, or
trying to sleep. Just how many fall
many into the second, there is no way
of telling. for few will arise from their
touches to "shush" the nighthawks.
Earlier in the evening an intrepid
soul, in the majesty of her wrath, had
gone to the window and sent forth a
mighty "shu-s-s-sh" winging over the
waves of heat.
Is it necessary to add that it was
never heard?
X X ~
The non-sleeper, trying to force his
way to Sunderland. closes all the
windows Now he will smother. 1t be-
comes a speedy choice between COM
parative quiet, on the one hand, and a
bit of air, on the other.
One cannot have both. So he opens
the windows, to discover that he had
attributed the wild party" to the
wrong parties. They have a light, but
must be reading or something.
The noise is coming from a home
where dim light burns. Muffled voices
come from persons who are trying their
best to be quiet. He cannot accuse
sideration for others.
Are they not speaking low, and is
not their laughter hushed to discreet
middle register? But how far slight
noise carries on a hot night And he,
trying to 60 to sleep, cannot blame them
for attempting to enjoy themselves, If
thew can.
He falls into his perpetual wonder,
why some people must never begin a
party" until every one else has retired.
What is it that they do or say which
they could not as well say or do be-
fore midnight?
And. above all. how are they able to