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Bak maak
-- Biddy,
»-Margaret was a few months the older.
Copyright,
190%, by David C.
Cook Publishing Company.
ry To RE Jj PUBLISHED
Vout. VIL) No. 3: } WEEKLY. DA
VID C. COOK PUBLISHING CO., Excrn,
ILLINOIS, AND 386 WASHINGTON St., CHICAGo.
September 28, 1907,
OR many years the broad driye lead-
ing up to the Coburn mansion had
been a thing of beauty. . Great elms
that were planted when. the country was
first settled now threw their magnificent
branches over the traveler’s head, as. if
asking the privilege of doing something for |
his comfort. Stretching out from either ;
. side of these was an orchard, fluffy white
in the springtime with all its wealth of
blossom, and crimson, brown and_ golden |
in the autumn,
upon the landseape was the tiny log house
of the Pilkingtons, which stood at the. en-
trance of the broad drive, and. which had
belonged to the Pilkington family ever since
Judge Coburn and his servant Mike came
* to the West seeking a new home and health
and strength for the Judge. >
“Here, Mike,” Judge Coburn had said,
“you and I will set to work and build you
a home, and J’ll give you a half acre of |
ground for a garden. Then you can send
for Biddy and the children.’
It was without thought that the ‘place
was’ selected, and not until many years
‘afterward did the Judge realize what a
mistake he had made. . It was then too late
%to be remedied. . Mike had died, and, with
hia last breath had said to Biddy
*“ Good-by, me darlint; it’s goin’ home I
but it’s hard lavin’ this place. I'm
where the streets are of gold, but
heaven will be richer with the
thought that you and the children are livin’
on the Pilkington place.”
And from that, day the “ Pilkington
“place” had been sacred in Biddy’s eyes.
Even when Judge Coburn offered to move
“away the old log house and erect a pretty
cottage for her, she would not accept, saying:
~ “Yt would be decavin’ Mike in his
_ thinkin’-in heaven; he would be ,Placin’ us
all as iver in the old log house.
. Accordingly z Biddy’s children and the
_ children of Judge and Mrs. Coburn had
grown up together. It made little differ-
“ence to the older ones, for their tastes were
“so. unlike, and they quickly separated as
they grew older. But it was not so in the
ease of Margaret Coburn and Kate, the
- youngest child of Biddy Pilkington. Kate’s
brightness, wit and saucy ways made Mar-
“garet; demure, shy, and not very quick to
learn, her adoring slave. On the other
“hand, Margaret seemed to Kate the. very
-- personification of goodness. The two girls
~ had always played together, and when Mar-
| garet started for school, it was with her
“hand firmly grasped in Kate’s, although
It
was Kate who fought the battles for her
friend, who worked the hard problems and
explained away all the difficulties in geog-
raphy and grammar.
One day a friend of Mrs. Coburn’s said
to her, “ My dear, why do you allow Mar-
garet to be so constantly with Nate Dil-
kington? Edna says she has nothing at all
to do with the girls at school who are her
social equals, but prefers any time to go
off with Kate and indulge in all- sorts of
_ pranks. Why, the other day Kate was
actually trying to teach her handsprings in
the meadow, and you know what big girls
they are.” °
oat
. goin’
The one disfiguring thing ,
| This speech set Mrs. Coburn to thinking.
{She appealed to her husband as to what
; they had better do to separate the girls.
The Judge knitted his brows reflectively.
“Tt will be harder to manage than you
and I have any idea. Kate Pilkington is
one of the brightest girls I ever met, and
she has a tremendous influence over Mar-
garet. Yet you had better see what you
;can do in trying to separate them.”
| The next day the desired opportunity
came to Mrs. Coburn. She heard Margaret
jtelling a story in a rich Irish brogue. She
iasked her to come to her room, and, draw-
ing the young girl down beside her, began
to ask questions concerning the ways and
doings of Kate. She found that the more.
daring WKate’s exploits were, the more
i Margaret admired her.
| Margaret told of how the girls at School
‘disliked Kate because she stood first in the
class, how she could run faster and climb
"Ithink that Kate cares enough
Margaret made no answer. Mrs. Coburn
went on. to show her the difference in their
position, their opportunities, and of the dif-
ferent spheres of life which they would
occupy, and how impossible it would be in
future years for them to be friends. When
her mother’s meaning dawned upon Mar-
garet, she flew into a passion of sobs and
tears. Her suffering was so real that Mrs.
Coburn said gently:
“ Perhaps there is another way.
Do you
for your
friendship to be willing to try to cultivate
ladylike qualities?”
that Kate was really hurt by her boisterous
ways. Kate, too, tried to view her beloved
Margaret in a different light. With the
eyes of a critic she saw that it was. dis-
honorable in Margaret to have her work all
the hard problems. It was cowardly to al-
ways shield herself behind another when
punishment was to be inflicted. Margaret
was not strictly truthful. Yes, she could
find ten faults—-when she had thought her
idol had none.
The day came when the girls exchanged
two slips of paper. Katé glanced over her
list of faults, and her face flushed crimson.
A ray of light brightened Margaret’s Margaret read hers and turned pale.
‘ace, Neither looked at the other that morning,
“Oh, I’m sure she does. She would do|#™4 each went home from school alone.
. ° Then Margaret’s loye conquered. She
anything for me.”
“Then,” continued Mrs. Coburn, “I am
going to write a note to Kate and tell her
the things that are objectionable to me, and
say that your companionship depends upon
her giving them up.
Margaret looked graye,
“Do you think it is right to ask so much
of Kate and not give her a chance to ask
anything of me?- Don’t you suppose she
sees faulis in me, too? Oh, mother, let me
manage it. I'll ask Kate to make out a list
of things she dislikes to see me do, and I'll
make out a list of things which you—no, I
dislike to see her do. Then we'll both re-
form because we love each other. Wouldn’t
that be better?
more trees and even jump higher than al-
most any boy. When she had
to her heart’s content on all these merits,
Mrs. Coburn asked quietly:
“Do you really
girl to do such things?”
Why, mother,”
never thought it wrong in Kate.
different from other girls.”
“And you wish to be Hke her?”, .
MAKGARET MADE
answered Margaret, “T) pared the list.
She is so! Kate to give up ten things that she enjoyed
NO ANSWER.
Mrs. Coburn nodded her head, and said,
discoursed | with a smile:
Not many
Try it,
“That is an excellent plan.
friendships would stand the test.
think it ladylike for aj} Margaret.”
True to her suggestion, Margaret pre-
It seemed dreadful to ask
so much, but she was bound by the promise
to her mother, and, besides, she began to see
stole down to the apple tree half way up
the orchard, their old trysting place, and
deposited a note. It read thus:
“My own Dear: It was so good of you
to tell me those things. I love you better
than I ever did in my life before, and I’m
going to try to be true and honest, and take
my own share of blame in everything.
“ MARGARET.”
Kate read the note with hot tears of
shame running down her cheeks.
“Tt wasn’t so much that I liked doing
the things you wrote about, Margaret,” she
said, as they went home together that night,
with their arms around each other’s waists,
“but I thought you liked me better for do-
ing them. L’ll be glad to stop every one,
and be the kind of a girl you ought to go
with.”
When the two girls graduated from high-
school in the same class, and Kate went to
work her way through college, even Mrs,
Coburn could ask no better friend for her
daughter than Kate Pilkington.
—_.__.
“ROOM AT THE TOP.”
BY BERTIA GERNEAUX WOODS.
“But it’s so overdone—like all other lines
of work!’ The young girl from the business
high-school tossed down her bookstrap and
settled rather wearily into her chair. “It
does seem as if almost every other person one
meets is a stenographer, and what do you
think? Mr. Brown said he advertised for one
last week, and in two days he had received
thirty-four applications for the position. He
offered only a little bit of a salary, too, and the
hours are hard and it isn’t an easy place in
any way. almost wish I hadn't begun to
study stenography. It’s hard, and I don’t
care to get into such an overcrowded business,
apyway.” .
“ Always room at the top!” said the big,
cousin at the library table; but the’ young
girl, frowning. at her shorthand notes, made
no response.
The writer heard an | official in‘one of the
government departments complaining the other
day of a chronic’ dearth of competent ste-
nographers and _ typewriters. “We simply
cannot get enough to fill our constant need.
Oh, yes, of course we have dozens of appli-
cants for every place, but the trouble is, the
vast majority of them are utterly unfit to do
the work. We want thoroughly good ones.”
Knowing what desirable places the govern-
ment has to offer, with hours and salaries
presenting so much greater inducements than
the average private office, this state of affairs
seemed rather unaccounta
“But I suppose you require very special
qualifications, don’t you?” the official was
asked. ‘ Probably a technical knowledge that
the average stenographer. would have no
chance to acquire?”
at all,” was the reply. “For several
positions which we are trying right now to
fill nothing in the world is needed in the
or woman but a good, common-school
education, accuracy, of course, and a fair de-
gree of speed—just what every stenographer
who is worthy of the name should have, as a
matter of course. But I wish you could see
the average run of the applicants who try the”
examinations. —Miserable .spellers, many of”
