Evening star., 1933-10-01

with gust of rainy wind and Immediately IN
spired the small group of forlorn students with
interest Ella Bishop retired as a teacher of
English In the college in 1888, with great
ovation at the alumni banquet-but apparently
with no pension. When Ella entered, In that
year OF 1876, she was the most vital member Of
the class, not pretty, but, every one admitted,
attractive. in her long plaid dress with rows
Of brass buttons and her masses Of hair piled
high on her head. At that time she had no
idea Of being teacher all her life. The hope
that she nursed and whose fulhlment she
firmly believed in was that the one man she
could love would come into her life some day,
be instantly recognized, and that q coy home
Of her own and children would follow. The
man came after she had taught two years in
the college and a beautiful white silk wedding
gown, with fowered pattern Of roses and
forget -nots, was almost finished when he
decided that he preferred her cousin Amy. The
dream was gone; the work remained-for a
lifetime. year later the child of her cousin
and her deserting lover came to her care on
the death Of both its parents. So Ella Bishop,
before she was 30 settled down to a full
life, but one in which nearly every moment
was devoted to others Something the president
of the college, the first of the three she was to
know, once said to her became her comfort and
her guide. "It's something like carrying a
torch to light the paths for all the boys and
girls VIII WHOm you CONC IN contact. Ilere
is parellel with Abbie Deals lantern" Miss
Bishop was not merely the teacher, but was
also the conf1dante and helper Of all the fresh
men who came to her through the years.
She was the favorite chaperon for college
festivities the organizer of debating societies
and literary clubs. the to whom faculty
and students came, while the college was small,
for nearly everything. At home she supervised
the housekeeping. which her frail, incoherent
mother was unable to do in anything but a
puttering way. brought up little Hope (and
later little Hopes daughter Gretchen) did
everything, with the aid of her faithful Danish
servant Stena. And her small pay check met
all expenses.
So her life rushed swiftly BY until 1898, when
Gretchen was graduated, and the banks closed
on Inauguration day and the one where all her
money was failed to open and she received q
tactful note from the new president of the COL
leRe limiting that she would be allowed to resign
before the board meeting at which q number Of
the old faculty members were to be dropped.
She was over 10 then, but had decided she
would like to teach a few more years in order
to make up the small savings she had lost. At
that commencement all the returning alumni
paid her tribute for what she had done for
them, and then she returned from the banquet
to her lonely little house-and poverty. Surely
It would have been no violation Of realism If
Mrs. Aldr1ch had allowed her modest pension
Also we should have felt better about it all II
Miss Bishop had had that trip to Europe so
long planned for, so often postponed and never
attained. We agree with Stena that the mother
whose wandering mind had at last gone
wouldn't know-and I take shust the same
care as If you vas here" And the selfish
young modernist, Gretchen, might have been
allowed to solve her own problem of her sup
posed love for married man, without being
sent to Europe on the money Miss Bishop had
saved for her own trip. But perhaps even that
short EllrOnean trim hove 1od
Aldr1ch's theme-that Miss Bishops happiness
came entirely from self f-sacrifice and devotion
to others, and that she really was very happy
WONDER HERO. BY J. B. Priestley. New
York. Harper & Bros.
"\A /oNDER" is favorite term with London
w Journalists who are out to make a
big splash" MI. Priestley uses it to desig-
nate his central character, Charlie Habble a
nice, ordinary youth of the North Midlands,
who inadvertently becomes the peg on which
the London Daily Tribune hangs big pub
icity scheme. Wonder Hero" which shows
marks Of being rather hastily written, is a
burlesque on sensational journalism and its
cooperation with publicity-seeking businesses
Charlie Habble eats his fried liver and potatoes
at Mrs. Fawset's boarding house at noon one
day, and before noon the next day is on his
way to London in charge of Hal Kinney, fea-
t'lre writer for the Daily Tribune and Sunday
Courier. Charlie becomes hero through
drinking trifle too much for his very mod
crate capacity, with two strangers at the Blue
Bell, before he goes to his night work at the
A. G. p. Chemical Works. and because Hal
Kinney is shown the door at Red House, Hatch
Brow near Northdean, where he hoped to get
a feature story.
This sounds like cross word puzzle but it
Is all quite logical. Charlie maps between in
spections of little red pointers and turnings
of levers a fire starts in a remote corner he
is aroused by the smell of burning, and half
awake, rushes to the spot and finds himself
with an ak in his hand. The fire is out before
It reaches any explosives. His arm is slightly
burned. No one really knows how the fire