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er REE
doa at
m (kerosens) coal
8 OF elect
AG
“HOME SUPPLY CO. 36 Home Bidg., Kansas City, Mo
FITS EPILEPSY|:
m FALLING SICHRESS
The Bee Cell Supporter
faces rendes
sbeotetdy ts impossible, Endorsed by the
medical Brokemion. ‘Send us £2.00 and
ro me “pack it t ly
ce. Money not entire!
factory. Write for descriptive cite
. wes application we will mi
sehoid hen utensils, I and
household goods, Iutchen utenatia, sgn, ewe Zanes
Send you tho merchandiaeon credit’ NO MONEY REOUIR:
The ase rite To-Day
or Company, Ine.
225-T. West Huron Street, Chicago, Ut, \
» Locket, Chain and Bracelet
FREE seed ta OF eed AD SALVE
Roseaus, Seen @ <
x 125, Woodsboro, Md.
One Who Drinks
Ihave en traportent confidential message wit
come ine Pin envelope, “iow ta comqust. the usr habit" i
home Nappy.” Wonde erful, safes, lasting, relia~
spothod, soarznteed..
to Edw, J, Woods,
cealeene the poor, protected her shoulders,
'To the Wife of: -
HEARTH AND | HOME
But ‘Yet
There was neither snow nor slush, nor so
much as a nip of frost. ‘The evening was
exceptionally mild, even for San Francisco.
Yet the air was all atingle with the spirit of
Christmas, which is not defined by compass
and climate, but is the very spirit of human-
ity itself. One person, only, seemed alien to
the hour. She was merely a shabby old
woman. Just at the silver edge of the De-
cember dusk the swirling currents of the
crowd had stranded her, human jetsam, in a
corner at the entrance of a great department-
store.
- Nobody knew who she was, nor where she
came from, nor why she was there. Nobody
cared. erybody was hurrying into the
store for belated buying, or hurrying out of
the store with last precious parcels, or hurry-
ing past the store to wherever it is that a
crowd is always going. Amid the gay and
prosperous throng the old woman was like a
frost-bitten and withered plant which the
gardener has forgot teen to remove from the
mass of flowers.
In the bitter storms of an eastern winter
her thin clothing would have called forth
compassionate interest. It was, however,
decently clean, if cheap, and patched, not
ragged. A shawl, that omnibus garment or
an
sketchily concealed the baby’ on her arm.
That she retajned the primary instinct,
motherhood, was lent from the quality
of the baby’s frock and the delicate, if nar-
row, lace onits petticoats. Ifthe old yomat
were begging, it was slyly and with art:
indifference. Her back was toward the door
and the crowd. Intently she watched the
wayward children of the street, whose noses
were glued to the glass imprisoning a para-
dise of toys. In her eyes was the look of
hungry, mystified terror seen in the eyes of
dogs allowed to watch the drowning of their
ippics
plimp Mr. Cheeryble of a man, with
ni arms full of deliciously, knobby bundles,
used ti piece of shiny silver into
the hand ' that held the baby. When the old
woman turned, he was lost in the current,
never to know the pain ca by
unthoughtful kindliness. old woman
5 ‘he
gave a frightened glance toward tl
¢ oe'Yerks WY.” Show tls to others! e police-
. ~ 76 | FREE man directly opposite the door. He, for tHe
peace of his own sot 1@ Was a man
Sell 1 [6 iace cinta URTAINS at 25e per box, before he ws. an officer, conveniently looked
. 8 beautiful FREE with each box. Ret the other wa;
j JZ Chon PS: $3. 00 soles fi and we wail sod. you yon a pout us. Millicent Peckham sar the
shabby old woman, saw the man 18
i . easy, three. yards ioe FI RE Bepans bare burs when knobby bundles, saw the glitter of the silver,
~» Kezck WILSON CHEMICAL CO., Dept. 413, TYRONE, PA. and saw the eyes of the policeman, which
4 ghanced to meet her own. Ms. Millicent
. eckham was secretary of the Woman’s
A Pair of Pillow-Cases|iecsienrs,seviay state oman
- Premium No. 1676 Minors! Protection League, and prominent
~ ber in many other organized philan-
. thropies. She ew the awful danger of
pauperizing the poor by indiscriminate giv-
ing. Having no children of her own she was
‘ professional mother to the public. With one
white-gloved hand she summoned the officer
. to her side. Will all the Millicent Peckhams
THESE Pillow-Cases finish up about 21 x35 world? yrorld we wear white gloves in the next
each. The pattern for embroid:
oy is amped On one vend of spacial “Arrest. this “woman for begging,” mag-
Pillow-Tubing. TI! ee, nice embroidered nificently she commanded.
Pom 5 Slips makes it ie Praesens rats “It's Christmas eve,” the man remon-
~ to work the design than it would to © the | strat
slips of ordinary Bods, and the m ts are ast that any Justification for ignoring the
oo mot <r ay pW in the contrary, it is the very time
supply on liberal conditions. the beneitts of which | hen people of spasmodic generosity most
If you willeend us aclub | heed protection against such appeals to
SPECIAL OFFER *R five, Se Subscriptions to | their emotional sensibilities.”
. Shis paper at our shor pe Raiser ene | She passed on, into the store, but, with a
By er One ye: 7 and we mc vou A Pair of | feeling of duty not conscientiously performed
Le ae AND TIOME. Advaita, Maine | turned back. The was moving
sulkily. meant to send the old woman
home, with ‘another bit of silver and a gentle
A Lace. Scarf ~ ‘kham, from past experi-
Premium No. 1720 ences, Suspected some such intention.
“T think ad better go to the station
Given for Four Subscriptions with her,’ she announced. “If there’s no
matron, she may need the protection of a
‘oman’s presence. And that inno-
cent baby must not be put into a cell.”
“Maybe 'twould be more friendlylike, if
you'd protect her now, without having her
! arrested,” suggested the policeman, hope-
i / .
; “Oh, no,” she protested, with horror. “I
. we ricco thie this sear Taeamroreont reduced in cannot interfere with the rights of a private
' inches. "pheveeart ‘ts in al in mike and if citizen. But. after sho’s arrested she be-
‘ made by hand wou very, . comes a ward of the public, whom it is then
Sialled ere a icing this werk in just tae’ same | my duty and privilege to take care of,”
Wi y [nee ainsi mage. 3 ad . id th The a shabby ol old erat thas along eave
wonderty tiem wy 6 mi ess tom: ose WI int pave
: signs doce | Shand, with the bal of ince is in favor | always beon bullied by life. She w:
. Of using e offer little wnsteadily. Arrived at the fale
Ityon will send paactob of house, she sank on a bei
| SPECIAL OFFER Raloors cee 30 Gents| “Drunk,” said the ofteer, his sympath{es
( each, we will eend each subscriber this paper . vanishing.
and we will send you A Lace Scarf (P) mi | _
baw No. 1720).
a ~~ HEARTH AND NOME, Augasta, Maine |. (Copyright, All rights reserved)
? .
lonely, indeed, if his little girl went away °
a Mother
BY FLORENCE TABOR CRITCHLOW
The old jroman lifted her hea
- “T hain’t drunk,” she said, out her voice
drawled away, confirming the officer's diag-
2
S
“Tl take the baby,” said Mrs. Millicent
Peckham, with great magnanimity ignoring
possible consequences to her white gloves.
The shabby old woman let the little lace-
trimmed figure slide out of her arms without
resistance. In Mrs. Peckham's experience,
most of these women tout against surren-
dering their last hold on decency, the mother
right. The drunker they were, the harder
they fought. The limpness of the little
waxen figure startled her even more than the
mother’s slack hold. Drawn out from the
protecting shadow of the shoulder-shawl,
the face of the child showed unnaturally
small, yet unnaturally plump, in the white
electric light. ‘ With a certainty of a deeper
tragedy than she had at first suspected the
philanthropist bent over the waxy face,
with its hectic cheeks. Then she laughed in
hysterical reli
“Why,” she cried out, “it’s a doll!’
The desk-licutenant, to whom drunken old
women were disgusting, and no novelty, be-
gan to show interest.
“Yes, it’s a dawl,"” said the shabby
woman, When she looked up, the desk-lieu-
The
bitten in by grief, by pain, by hunger. But
in Mrs. Peckham’s well regulated mind the
certainty of fraud was now established.
“It’s a dawl,’”’ répeated the shabby woman |
dull.
who wasn’t old.
An’ IT hain’t drunk. ain’t never been
drunk,- I hain't never begged. It allus
cemed to me 's if I couldn't never get to be
decent agin, if onet I got down that low. I
ain’t drunk. I be jes’ plain hungry. I
“But L wa’n’t beggi
ae 't allus had enough to eat. But I hain’t
never begged.
The lieutenant was examining the doll.
It was, in truth, almost as large as a baby, a
very new baby. It had hair that was almost
real. Its eyes opened and sh
“Such ‘dolls are very costly he said, in-
quiringly. “I know because I bought one
to-day for my little girl.” -
“The clothes are all handmade,” said Mrs,
Millicent Peckham. ‘‘Handmade_ clothes
are more costly than big dolls. All my lin-
gerie order, at Kendal's,
and it is frightfully expensive.”
She looked at the old woman, who wasn’t
old but ought to have been, with the ever-
ready suspicion of the rich for whatever they
cannot understand in the poor.
le ‘em myself,” said the shabby
woman, with more spirit than one could have
expected from
The Tieutenant was better acquainted with
shabby old women. than was Mrs. Peckham.
He, was not yet ready to form an opini
wero you carrying the doll?” ‘he
gently inquired.
terrupted himself, and too!
phone, ‘‘Mint,59. This is Moreland. Send
in a cup of coffee—make it three cups of good
coffee, hot, and sandwiches for three, I've
company.’ “Mint 59” was next door, and
the tray arrived almost immediately. “Tt’s
time for my luncheon, and I’d
invited them, He looked anxiously at the
Tie hoped White-gloves could
take a hint. He had seen something in the
eyes of the shabby woman, heard something
in her voice, which told him not to offer her
charity, though she was starving. ut any-
body could accept a share. If White-gloves
id Mrs. Millicent Peck-
Or, if she didn’t
wholly understand, she was a lady at heart, -
even though she tried to be Philanthropist—
with a capital P—by profession.’ She drank
vile coffee from a double-edged cup as grace-
fully as she would have sipped it from a cup
of Royal Wettin. The shabby old woman
accepted simply the hospitality offered thus.
In her very ignorance was the making of a
lady. Ter face was a little less pale, her
hands a little less trembly. It would take
more than a cup of coffee to brighten her
hopeless eyes. ‘Now,’ the lieutenant again
gently asked, “why were you carrying the
“I git mighty lonesome, since my llttle
girl went away,” she answered, quietly. Her
voice no longer trailed away into utter int
distinctness. “I live by myself in a left-over
refugee shack. I do any kind of work I can
git. Sometimes I can’t git none. When I
‘ed a come home, nights, and hear the sea—I live
out Richmond way—hear the sea, like ba-
bies cryin’ in their sleep, I can’ t help think-
me of my little girl, an w I hain't ever
in” er any mi oe
as lieutenant. nodded comprehendingly.
Tie thought that his home would be o very
n he was a human being, as
like to have }
you ladies accept my treat,” he awkwardly pli
forever. Mrs. Millicent Peckham, however,
did not understand how one cot miss a
chil either, in
euphemisms, nor in sentimentality about
plain facts. She spoke somewhat sharply,
for that was the only way to deal with these”
people.
“You mean, your child is dead, and you
carry a doll in its place, . pretending it’s
alive iver”
“No,” said the woman, wit the, strange
atience of the poor. t dead.
They took her away from ee ate be
growed up when they let her come home.
She won’t never be my little girl any more.”
She spoke without bitterness, with that
calm acceptance of fate and its conditions,
characteristic of a peasant and a pariah
caste. For the first time,.Mrs. Millicent
Peckham really saw the old woman herself,
instead of a preconceived conception. She
had not thought of the other as a woman;
only as a beggar, a characterless unit in a
class. Now, she distinguished an individ-
ual, -
“Your name's Widdicomb, ”’ she accused. .
She seemed to be saying: ‘‘Deny it if you
dare.” She turned toward the lieutenant.
“T remember this case. Laura Widdicomb _
was an incorrigible truant, and, finally, a
thief. We had to send her to proper sur-
roundings, at our Girls’ Training Home, in
the country. You can see for yourself what
the mother is, what the home must be like.”
The lieutenant turned upon the old»
woman a look, not of condemnation, put of
inquiry. Mrs. Peckham considered his
duct very irregular. Ile should have locked
the creature up, or else sent her home. But~
well as an officer.
Tie was used to estimating character quickly,
-as merchants estimate the value of goods.
.To him, the old woman did not seem a -
vicious person. The work that evening was
Te wanted to hear the story. The old
woman talked in the fiat voice of the very
poor, of those who have struggled hope-
_lessly and have surrender .
“Lauretta wasn’t a bad girl. You mustn’t
believe that, judge. You see, I’ve allus had
to work mighty hard for every dollar. Dol-
Jars look big. I don’t suppose you folks
know how big a dollar kin git to be, to any-
body what has earned it, theyselves. An’
so, I wouldn't buy Laurie no dawl. Dawls
gin’t fer poor folks, I telled her. I never had
no dawl. I telled Laurie she can’t have one.
She’s an awful set little thing. She pestered
me to death. She wanted to know, if San’
Claus brung her a daw], would I Jet her keep
it. So I up and telled her there hain’t nm
Santa Claus what brings folks nawthin’ put
what they helps theyselyes to. When come
Laurie’s eight year old she hain’t never had
no dawl. woman I worked fer, off an’ on,
heard about it. She give Laurie a doll for
Christmas. My, 'twas a beaitty, all tricked
out with lace petticoats, and real shoon and
hair. Seems like Laurettie was in heaven,
jes’ to look at it. I wouldn't let her touch
it. I knowed what had to be done. . Lau-
riettie, she didn’t have no shoon. The tru-
ant-officer, he said she must go to school, I
. says, how kin she go when she hain’t got a
shoe to her back? He said I’d have to git
- her.some, or the sassiety would take her .
away from me,
“The woman what runs that sassiety, she
come to see me. “She looked some like you, -
ma’am. Maybe ’twas you. I kind of dis-
remember whether she wore a. brown or a
blue dress, Of course if twas a brown dress
iit couldn't be you, seein’ you've got on a
lue—onless you could afford two such ele-
gant dresses. She said she guessed they'd
better take thé child, anyway. She didn't
think a refugee shack was the right place to
bring up a child in. -She seen that dawl.
She said she guessed I could aoe eh shoon.
Laurettie’s all, I've got. I didn't
much, her havin’ the dawl. But i ara rather
she didn’t have no dawl than fer me not to
have her. So I sold thé dawl, and bought
her some shoon, and sent her to school.’ I_.
didn’t think nawthin’, then, ‘bout the dawl
belongin’ to her, not to-
“‘An’ las’ Christmas, here come Laurottie
homey with another dawl. She wouldn't
where she got it.
an’ rock it. Onct, I heard a preacher say,
that a body ni more’n clothes an’ pi
toes. He said, the body hain’t everythin.’
he sold one of them loaves, an’
bought some kind of posies, to feed his soul.
It sounded kind of silly, when plain bread,
to feed your stemick, is so hard to git.
when I seen Laurettie over that awh tT
knowed what the preacher meant.
“Every time the doer opened, she’d hide
the dawl under her little petticoats. When
the officer come, he seen it a-stickin’ out,
She'd stole the dawl. She said 'twa’n't no
worse than fer me. to steal the daw! that was
give to her. That woman, the one that
looked like Sou ma’am, only she had on a
~a brown dress—I remember, now, 'twas
brown—she sald how I’d encouraged the
child in luxury. So they took her away.