The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-09-26
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK-Mrs. George Spelvn. Ameri-
can, always is little behind in her reading,
so it was only last spring that she got past
the Constant Nymph and pushed her way
through Pearl Bucks The Good Earth, fin
ishing about the time that victory garden
ing began, and old Scandinavian and Ger
man families were reviving forgotten arts
Of cannery, sailing and picking. At the pre-
sent time, all the closets, the space under
the stairs and even the garage are pretty
well packed with jars and crooks and strings
of things and there are two bushels of pota-
toes in sand box under the bed and fair
armful Of beets and carrots in the cellar. Mrs.
Spelvin was impressed by the part where the
starving Chinese were scrabbling for a single
blade of grass and there were moments dur
ing the summer when, as she plucked the
weeds out of her patch, she felt anxious
qualms, wondering whether those things that
make seed that you strip off into little pile
in your fingers, the ones that taste little
like pepper, might not be some lfe-giving
herb concealing within their apparent NUS
ance, the equivalent, per grain, Of porter
house steak, medium rare, three soft-boiled
eggs and buttered toast, or club sandwich
whole wheat.
Mrs. Spelvn rejected as total improba-
blity that stage of the famine at which the
victims nibbled clay, and ultimately MUNICH
ed the baby, but various grasses and insight
ly and prolific weeds, long familiar but utter
ly anonymous gave her, as writers of an
earlier school sometimes put it, pause. A
nelghbor, whose mother came from some
where doWn south. told her that low and
insistent weed which had always fouled the
flower path, was in reality fine. free
delcacy suitable for salads and/or boiling
and was known as pussel, pigweed and
she sailed a couple of jars of that She also
boiled and canned quite lot of chickens and
at a rather high price, too, considering the
40 per cent mortality among the chicks and
the cost of food and there is a formidable
stock of applesauce, for which as a family
trait the Spelvins have always had tempera-
mental but very active adherence.
Somewhere, perhaps not in The Good
Earth, but possibly in a chop suey restau-
rant, Mrs. Spelvin had heard that the Chin
csc made delicacy of sunflower seeds and
having a couple of big stalks beside the back
door mounting blooms the size of pie
plate she dried and toasted the seeds and
offered them to the old man with his evening
scoop of gin.
what the hell are these things?" was
the extent of his interest," and the supply of
toasted sunfloWer seed has been filed aWav
on the top shelf of the pantry against that
day of the final crisis in the famine vet
if ever, to come.
Meanwhile, generally speaking the Smell.
wins have Jared provokingly we'll. They have
had sufficient meat and commercial canned
goods, and cleo on the few occasions when
butter wasn't, and Mrs. Spevins hoard is
beginning to mock her slightly She has oh.
served that the family much prefers orooon,,-
store canned peas to her garden produce and
even thouh they recently had duck. she W.
unable to move as much as spoonf,, of
her applesauce. The family keep telling her ~
not to touch any of the a supply laid
they don't relish the same, but thst a go.
all, if this was done to stand off starv. +i.ei
the store should be kept in safe reserve s' and