Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-05

consideration for each other Each Of them
said it was absolutely her own little boys fault.
Mrs. Griggs said she would make her Brooke
apologize to Paulie and Mrs. Ttmberlake said
no, her Paulie must apologize to Brooke, and
they kept on like this until after a while Mrs.
Griggs went off to join her husband and Brockie
and Mrs Timberlake turned to me. I'd got up
when the fight started and was standing beside
her.
She shook her head kind of mournfully "Of
course, every body tries to be nice to her about
poor little Brockie," Mrs. Timberlake said. He
goes into terrible RACES If any other child pos
sesses plaything that he doesn't own himself
and 1 think it's about time they had psy-
chiatriSt go over him!
Mr. Timberlake was whistling for her from
where he had Paulie in their car on the road
beyond the beach, they drove of home and
pretty soon Mrs. Griggs came back and asked
me where they'd gone. told her and she
gave kind Of plying grunt and shook her
head.
Its no wonder that child can't control
himself" she said HE broke the propeller Of
his horrible motor boat yesterday and already
they've sent their chauffeur to Lodgeport TO
get him new one. What can you expect OF
a child that's simply ruined by his own par
ents?"
Well. she went on wondering what parents
could be made Of to be so selfishly indulgent
toward child as to provide him with play
thing that made life hideouS for their FRIENDS
and neighbors and actually deprecated the
value Of real estate at the Neck. She talked
with a good deal of vigor and quite long
while about the raising Of children, and it
was pretty clear she thought she was an au-
thority on that and maybe any other subject.
She was large woman with a nose you
could see she held pretty high, and this was
the first I'd had much conversation with her:
I felt little uncomfortable because good
deal of the time while she was laying down
the law on the raising of children kept think
ing about her other son, Pembroke, who had
been going about with our older daughter,
Clarissa considerably. Pembroke had been IN
college somewhere, but said he wasn't going
back next year because the dean was always
irving to be revenged on him for something or
other 1 thought Pembroke had fairly poor
perch manners when older people were around,
and altogether couldn't see him as an al
mighty example of success in the raising OF
children.
1 was still thinking about Mrs. Griggs ana
this talk of hers when Mrs Massey broke out
right suddenly, as we were driving home, and
said with sort Of snort, you might call
IL: It never did like that woman!"
Well" I said, Il didn't take any too violent
a fancy to her myself She strikes me as being
a little frosty about other people and having
quite notion of her own Importance, but I
special talk with her until today
4 lRS MASSEY cut me off. I'm not talk
wi ing about Mrs. Griggs. I mean Mrs Bull
finch and I don't intend to sit with the
Bullfinches any more at the beach. Shes
perfectly outrageous woman! She practically
accused Enid to our very faces of taking ad-
vantage Of Eddie Bunfnch's good nature,
using him, leading him astray so that entirely
through his poor masculine weakness and being
played upon by Enid he got the younger boys
to make this deafening uproar that's madden
ing the harbor cottagers. It's exactly what
that woman had just been around telling all
those people She certainly gave that away!
Why, she's acted like perfect fiend, and now,
just because Enid has been sweet and tolerant
enough to play around a little with that half
witted Eddie, the poor child Is being blamed for
starting this whole horrible commotion!"
It seemed to me that Mrs. Massey was right
and her way of putting 1t certainly caused
me to feel a good deal of indignation, too,
especially about the way Mrs. Bullfmch had
pretty well implied that Eddie was somehow
being victimized by our Enid. Enid is a right
superior girl and, Of course. she only puts UP
with Eddie and romps with him good deal
the way she does sometimes with our little
spaniel dog Pluto As for the boy himself, I've
sometimes felt feeble kind Of leaning toward