The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1936-12-31

and pies were baked, the peaceful
ringing of churchbells and the
meadows where black-eyed-Susans
starred the green grass.
Perhaps two hundred Of my books
tell the story of the great women
who helped to build the younger
America; Lucretia Mott, Harriet
Beecher Stowe, the Grimke sisters,
Julia Ward Howe, Frances Willard,
Susan B. Anthony, Sarah j. Hale.
The life of a great Englishwoman,
Elizabeth Fry, was suddenly un-
der my hands one day, in two great
filling volumes. This gentle Quaker
managed to bear thirteen children
her youngest daughter was born
on the same day and in the same
room as her Oldest grandson-and
yet to do such marvellous work for
women, in the dreadful prisons Of
the day, that all prison laws have
been changed since.
Hundreds Of women's stories;
some thrilling, some painting pic
ture Of long dead days; some in
finitely touching. Shoulder to Shout
der with &C. Auton's" delicious pic
ture of child's life in America in
a crowded household whose mis-
tress ''could remember General
Washington" is Mrs. Tait's own
story of the loss, in single week, Of
eight of her precious ten children
she being the wife Of England's
great archbishop. And beside
them, perhaps, is the extraordinary
recital of Opal, the seven-year-old
who lay on her stomach under a
bed and wrote down thousands and
thousands of words at a stretch, on
crumpled old bags and odds and
ends of wrapping paper.
One day, to read on the long train
trip west, hastily bought two thick
volumes called '"The Worst Journey
in the World" because I saw the
name Cherry" on them, and sup
posed them to be by woman.
Whether the worst journey was in
to the Himalayas or the jungle I
didn't know; I was rather daunted,
upon beginning the book. to dis
cover that it was written by an Eng
lishman whose full name is Apsley
Cherry arrard, and that. it de-
scribed SCOTS attempt t. reach the
South Pole.
To say it is a great book is an
exaggeration, for it is amateurish-
ly written, in spots, and makes no
pretentions toward style. But it
is simple fact that never have
enjoyed any book more;
1t was the pioneer in long row
of Polar travel books, most OF them
long out of print, and only to be
found on the upper shelves Of GER
tain old bookstores. Neither Am
undsen nor Peary, who actually
reached the Poles, nor Cook, who
said he did, have contributed any
thing of especial interest to this
collection, but there are other and
older explorers whose pages are
simply breath-taking. De Longs
journal, Melville's drift on the ice.
Tyson's diary, and above all the
elegant and articulate Mikkelsen's
'Lost in the Arctic" AID Nansen's
exquisite, half-practical, half-occult
story OF "Farthest North" are all
''tops"; there are others with bits
and scraps and passages one never
forgets. Greeley, rescued at last
with some seven or eight of his
starved, enfeebled, despairing men,
in a collapsed tent on Cape Sabine,
Greeley tugging at his glove before
extending his emaciated blackened
hand toward his preserver. presents
a perfectly typical picture OF arctic
courage. "Here we are, dying like
men. I'm glad to see you'll"
Habits can ride us cruelty in the
course Of our lives. But the Sec
ond-hand bookstore habit is not an
expensive one, not disagreeable to
anyone in any way, and will even
tually afford tremendous occupa-
ton and distraction to the woman
who feels some of the younger cur
rents Of amusement and excitement
running dry.
To build hobbies into our lives is
one of the ways of cheating the
years. Gardens, cats, etchings, it
doesn't matter what it is as long
as it interests us wholly. Middle
age, as every woman who lives to
reach it discovers for herself, Is
rather like bank. Unless you
have put something into it you can
not draw anything out. Women
who have been taking rather than
giving for forty years find a blank
wall ahead Of them when they reach
the time that ought to be the hap
piest of all. And yet autumn has
charms of which spring and sum-
mer know nothing for those wom-
en- who have a harvest to bring in.
g Bell Syndicate.-WNU Service.