This is Her Week

THREE lonely girls lived on a Yorkshire moor in the first half of the last century. They were oppressed by poverty and inherited ill health.

A hectoring, loud-voiced, angry, egotistical father badgered the life out of them. A vicious, degraded brother drained the meager family purse. They grew up solitary, friendless, kinless. Yet in this very wrestle with hopelessness each one of the sisters developed a definite and curious writing genius that almost took fame by violence, as it were. They were the astounding Misses Brontë of Haworth, who each in turn dazzled the literary world of the time.

Two of the sisters, Emily and Anne, died at the moment of success. Charlotte lived to become famous, but was snatched from happiness and motherhood before either had become complete.

The book that made her fame, "Jane Eyre," was published in October, 1847. It stole upon London in the midst of the serial publication of "Vanity Fair," and obtained for its author, in the course of a few weeks, a success such as the creator of Becky Sharp afterward said to her a little sadly, "it took me ten years to achieve." Mrs. Gaskell describes Miss Brontë at this time as "a little set, antiquated old maid, very quiet in manners and quaint in dress, in whom one sought in vain for the knowledge of life, the passion, power or vividness that her book revealed."

It was almost too late for success. She had drudged out her youth as a governess, as a teacher, as a paid companion. She had fought a losing battle against consumption. Suffering, solitude, and bereavement had drawn from her her strength. As she said of herself: "So many years had my thoughts and dreams consumed me; so many years had my imagination eaten me up. If you knew to what extent you would pity me."

Timorously she enjoyed the great fame that came to her. It was almost as if it bewildered her. Then, to the amazement of every one, she married a curate who had been "calling" upon her for years—an insignificant little man.

A year after the marriage she died. But "Jane Eyre" persists and Charlotte Brontë is to-day an "immortal."

For Rickets—Cod-Liver Oil

By J. B. HUBER, A. M., M. D.

RICKETS—few words in the English language have a more unpleasant sound. And few convey a more unpleasant meaning than this word, descriptive of a children's disease arising from malnutrition. What is the preventative for rickets? For a long time, the answer to that question has been cod-liver oil: and Dr. A. F. Hess and Dr. L. J. Unger recently conducted experiments to discover how safe we are in pinning our faith to this old-time remedy.

Colored children are more generally afflicted with rickets than white, and the investigators therefore planned their experiments in the Columbus Hill district of New York, where the population is largely colored.

It was determined to give cod-liver oil to fifteen babies between the ages of four months and one year; and select, as far as possible, infants in families where the other children had rickets. A careful examination of the children's constitutions was made before the oil was given; and these examinations were repeated at two-month intervals until six months had elapsed. The baby's and the mother's diet, the economic condition of the family, the length of time they had lived in the North, and other relevant facts were in each case recorded. These humane physicians were thus able to prevent the development of rickets in more than four fifths of the babies who received the oil for six months, and in more than one half of those to whom it had been given for four months. Of sixteen infants that did not receive the oil, fifteen, living under the same conditions, gave indications of rickets.

Since it thus became evident that cod-liver oil does protect from rickets, a clinic for the prevention of that disease was developed; and Dr. Hess and his colleague recommend the establishment of like institutions in other cities, especially in negro and Italian districts—for the malady is almost as prevalent among Italians as among colored folk.

Beware of Bread if You're Fat

FAT people are frequently subject to certain very irritating skin diseases—the bull-neck boil, for instance, and eczema, which is so exasperating and so intractable a malady. Why is it that stout people are more frequently afflicted than others, asked Dr. R. Sabouraud, and in La Presse Medicale he details a series of experiments in which he sought the answer to that question.

From a study of the diet of such stout sufferers, he discovered that their food was not essentially different from that of other people, except that they were accustomed to eat a superabundance of bread. He learned, indeed, that many of them seemed to think it impossible to consume too much of the "staff of life." Not only was the amount excessive, but much of the bread was poorly baked, causing digestive disturbances, and these, in their turn, reacted badly on the skin.

All good things can be overdone. Beware of too much bread—especially if the flesh is beginning to be too much in evidence.

J. B. HUBER.

We Shall Win—If Our Sense of Humor Lasts

A SERIOUS minded subscriber takes me to task because one of the captions on our picture pages seems to him facetious.

"In ordinary times this might be all right," he reminds me; "but we are in the midst of a great war, and it is no time for jokes."

To which I reply that we are in the midst of a great war—therefore we should have twice as many jokes and they should be twice as funny.

Only yesterday I was reading about a Cabinet meeting held at the White House in one of the most critical hours of our history. The incident was recorded by Secretary Stanton, not a particularly sympathetic reporter.

Around the table the various Secretaries gathered, solemn-faced and silent. To their amazement, the President, instead of turning to the business in hand, began reading aloud a chapter from the humorous works of Artemus Ward.

They were too astonished to speak: Stanton was tempted to leave the room in angry protest.

The President, unheeding, read the chapter through. Then, laying the book down, he heaved a deep sigh and said:

"Gentlemen, why don't you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die; and you need this medicine as much as I."

So saying, he turned to his tall hat, which was on the table beside hint, and drew out what Stanton described as a "little white paper."

That little white paper was the Emancipation Proclamation.

The members of the Cabinet never could fathom the mingling of laughter and tears that was the secret of Lincoln's greatness.

They were afraid of laughter: they regarded it as dangerous and—in times like those—almost immoral.

But Lincoln knew better. Humor to him—as to many another overburdened man—was the great shock-absorber of life: without its kindly ministrations, the hard places of the road would have wrenched his soul beyond endurance.

Napoleon seldom smiled; Cromwell had little sense of humor. Either of them would be a dangerous man to handle our affairs in times like these.

Such men become too profoundly impressed with their own importance. And in the critical moment their self-importance often betrays their better judgment.

Give us, rather, men like Washington, who, as Irving writes, frequently leaned back and "laughed until the tears ran down his face."

Men like Lincoln, whose point of view is so detached that they can laugh even at themselves.

A saving sense of humor is the fourth great Christian virtue, says A. C. Benson. And that is so true that I wish it had been written in the Bible instead of in one of Mr. A. C. Benson's books.

A man may have faith and hope and charity, and still be a prig and a bore.

Jesus was none of these. He was the most popular dinner guest in Jerusalem.

No one ever criticized Him for being too serious minded and respectable. Instead, He was criticized for dining out too much, for not compelling His disciples to fast, and for being too much with the loud laughing crowd of "publicans and sinners."

I have some righteous friends who are going to feel greatly shocked at the conduct of the saints in Heaven.

They have never read that verse in the Bible which says:

"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh."

With all my heart I would urge them to begin right now—even in serious days like these—to cultivate that fourth great Christian virtue.

Lest perchance they die, and—in a heaven presided over by a God who dearly loves a laugh—shall find themselves lonesome and ill at case.

Bruce Barton, Editor.

THE BRAVEST THING I EVER DID

By THE READERS OF EVERY WEEK

The Prize Letter

THE event I am going to relate happened in the late afternoon of one of the coldest days in December, 1917.

I shall be twenty-one in March, and it had been my fond and cherished hope to go overseas and help win the war. But the outcome of my adventure on that cold December afternoon deprived me of that privilege.

My father's farm of three hundred acres in Maine is, for the most part, covered with a heavy growth of hard wood; and, immediately after the fall work was done and everything made snug for the winter, we set about cutting our year's supply of fuel.

On the day in question the weather was bitterly cold, the thermometer at noon registering thirty-eight degrees below zero. Father and mother had been obliged to go to a distant town, to be gone overnight. As they drove out of the yard in the morning, father gave me a parting injunction: "Better not go in the woods to-day, Ralph; it is too cold. Stay around home until we get back."

But the desire to cut my usual two cords of wood possessed me, and as soon as they were out of sight I shouldered my ax and went across the fields to the woods, about a mile from the house.

Stopping only long enough to eat a lunch at noon, I worked until my two cords were cut and neatly piled. Then, thinking to make a start on the next day's work, I felled a fair sized tree, which in its descent lodged against another. Not liking to leave the job half finished, I mounted the almost prostrate trunk to cut away a limb and let it down.

A bole of the tree was forked about twenty feet from the ground, and one of the divisions of the fork would have to be cut asunder. A few blows of my ax, and the tree began to settle; but, as I was about to descend, the fork split, and the first joints of my left-hand fingers slid into the crack, so that for the moment I could not extricate them.

The pressure was not severe, and, as I believed I could soon relieve myself by cutting away the remaining portion, I felt no alarm. But, at the first blow of the ax, which I held in my right hand, the trunk changed its position, rolling over and closing the split, with the whole force of its tough oaken fibers crushing my fingers. At the same time, my body was dislodged from the trunk, and I slid slowly down until I hung with my feet just resting on the snow.

The sun was setting, and the short winter day would soon be done. The air was freezing and every moment becoming colder. No prospect of any relief that night. The nearest house was a mile away. No friends to feel alarmed at my absence, for my folks would suppose that I was safe at home.

My first thought was of my mother: "It will kill her to know that I died in this death trap, all alone here in the woods so near home. There must be some escape; but how?"

My ax had fallen below me, and my feet could almost touch it. My only hope of life rested on that keen blade which lay glittering on the snow.

Within reach of my hand was a dead bush which towered some six feet above me, and by a great exertion of strength I managed to break it. Holding it between my teeth, I stripped it of its twigs, leaving two projecting a few inches at the lower end to form a hook. With this I managed to draw toward me the head of the ax until my fingers touched it—when it slipped from the hook and fell again upon the snow, breaking through the crust and burying itself so that only the upper end of the helve could be seen.

Up to that moment the excitement engendered by hope had almost made me unconscious of the excruciating pain in my crushed fingers, and the sharp thrills that shot through my nerves, as my body swung and twisted in my efforts to reach the ax. But now, as the ax fell beyond my reach, the reaction came. Hope fled, and I shuddered with the thought that I must die there alone like some wild thing caught in a snare.

I thought of my father and mother, and of the pleasant home where I had always lived so comfortably and happily. I prayed earnestly to God for forgiveness of my sins, and then calmly resigned myself to death, which I now believed to be inevitable.

For a time, which was probably but a very few minutes, but which then seemed like hours, I hung there motionless. The pain had ceased, for the intense cold blunted my sense of feeling. A numbness stole over me, and I seemed to be falling into a trance, from which I was aroused by a sound of bells borne to me as if from a great distance. Hope again awoke, and I shouted loud and long. The woods echoed my cries, but no voice replied.

The bells grew fainter and fainter, and at last died away.

But the sound of my voice had broken the spell which cold and despair were fast throwing over me. A hundred different devices ran swiftly through my mind, and each device was dismissed as impracticable.

The helve of the ax caught my eye; and instantly, by an association of ideas, it flashed across me that in my vest pocket there was a sharp knife, another instrument by which I could extricate myself.

With some difficulty I contrived to open the blade, and then, gripping it as one who clings to the last hope of life, I strove to cut away the wood that held my fingers in its terrible vise. In vain! the wood was like iron. The motion of my arm and body brought back the pain which the cold had lulled, and I feared that I should faint.

I became desperate, and after a moment's pause I adopted a last expedient. Nerving myself to the awful necessity, I cut off my fingers at the joints and fell to the snow exhausted.

My life was saved, but my left hand was a bleeding stump.

The intensity of the cold stopped the flow of blood, and with my handkerchief I bound up my hand and started for the nearest neighbor's house. My complete exhaustion and the bitter cold made that the longest journey that I had ever traveled. By eight o'clock that evening I had managed to drag myself to their door, where I was well taken care of and a doctor summoned to dress my wounds.

My father and mother returned the next day; and I was carried home, being unable to walk, as both feet had been badly frost-bitten.

C. R. R.

Not Reported at Headquarters

I WAS only about seventeen years old, and didn't consider it very brave at that time; but as I look back twenty-five years I consider it was quite a feat.

It happened while I was working as a freight brakeman on a line in New York State. Just as we tipped a grade and were moving at a pretty good clip, our train broke apart in three sections. There were two carloads of gunpowder in the middle section.

Instantly I realized that if the broken sections of the train ran together, as they generally did in those days of hand brakes, there would be a pile-up; and just about that time there was a passenger train due up the hill on the opposite track. If our train piled up, the chances were the passenger train would run into the obstruction, the cars of gunpowder would explode, and a catastrophe would be the result.

I was riding on the fireman's seat, and as I climbed down I said to the engineer: "We're broke apart in three sections; I'm going to drop off, try and catch the middle section, and see if I can regulate it so as to stop the third section. There's gunpowder in the middle section. Get away with the head end as soon as I'm off."

Then I got down on the step of the locomotive and dropped off.

As soon as I was off, the engineer pulled away down the hill like mad, to get away from the broken section of the train. When the middle section came along, I grabbed a side ladder. The cars were going so fast they nearly wrenched my

Continued on page 21

CASHING IN

By ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

Illustrations by Stockton Mulford

THE movies, a hybrid industry, have bred a hybrid race. They have transformed countless unpromising clerklings, and at least one dock-laborer, into leading men whose salaries eclipse John Barrymore's.

The movies, too, have seized upon girls who were squalling hopelessly in the chorus, and in a year have changed second-row plodders into semi-millionaires.

The same mystic power has lifted penniless immigrants to undreamed-of heights of finance.

To Loris Grod this movie magic did more than to all the foregoing combined. Upon his thin-thatched head it dumped the whole bag of tricks—good and bad alike. And—because he was Loris Grod—he was neither smashed nor inflated by this avalanche. He merely hammered it all into a crown—which he wore a little on one side.

When Loris and Sonya, his wife, were passed through the immigration hopper and tossed ashore at the tip of the thin, feverish tongue that is Manhattan Island, all their joint effects were carried in one lumpy flour-sack and in Loris's right-hand trousers-pocket. The pocket contained forty-seven American dollars and a grease-grimed little pamphlet whose blurred Russian title might best be translated as "English at Sight."

Loris was twenty-two. Sonya was ten years older. Like her husband's, her cheek-bones were high, her nose tended toward flatness, and her eyes slanted just a little. Unlike his, her forehead receded. She was thirty-two. Thanks to field work and scant food, Sonya looked forty-two.

Before he had been in New York a year, Loris Grod had begun to climb—partly because there was no other direction in which he could move, but chiefly because he was that kind of man.

Twelve years later he shook from him the lint of the one-room Division Street garment factory whose foreman and part-owner he had become; and he leased the ground floor of a condemned rattle-trap, far east on Fourteenth Street, which he turned into a motion-picture theater.

The photo-play business was in its shambling and loud-mouthed boyhood, afflicted by quaintly grotesque growing pains. But from some Tartar forebear Loris had inherited the Mongolian dream-habit—along with his nose and cheek-bones and eyes. Hence his desertion of the garment trade and his braving of Sonya's shrill protests at his madness.

Yet presently, when a single week's profits at the nickelodeon were greater than three months' net gain from the Division Street garment factory, Sonya felt a change of heart. She began to look on Loris with something like approval.

LORIS was growing rich. Already he had paid for all his theater's rickety fixtures; and every Monday he deposited in the savings bank a sum larger than once he had known was in circulation. He cast about for new worlds, to string on a chain with the one he was now conquering: a chain of nickelodeons—acquired, one theater at a time—all through the East Side.

Loris was forever studying. Among other things, he had mastered—except in moments of dire stress—the mysteries of the English language. He was growing—growing rapidly.

Then, with no shadow of warning,—to Loris, at least,—came the blow.

Old Jacob Corlaer, who owned the bulk of the block whereon stood the nickelodeon, died; and the estate was cut up. The condemned building and some property on either side of it fell to the dead man's nephew, Royle Hunter: a Wall Streeter, a power in his own social sector, a financier of the lean gray type—gray of eyes, of hair, of clothes, of soul.

In due time a brisk and obese man called at the nickelodeon, just before the opening hour. He informed Loris—who was scouring the vestibule while Sonya dusted the wabbly seats—that on the expiring of the lease, five weeks hence, the Grods must clear out. The building was to come down.

For a whole half minute Loris stood, mouth ajar and back slumped, while the agent recited the death sentence of his hopes. Then he began to talk, in a broken English he thought he had forgotten, while Sonya scuttled forth from the black maw of the theater and added tearful screams and four-syllable Russian lamentations to the din.

The agent cut short the noisy duet by saying, as he stuck a paper into Loris's pitifully gesticulating hand and backed away out of the scene:

"Owner's orders. I'm sorry. See Mr. Hunter if you think it'll help you any— Royle Hunter, 999 Wall Street, he is."

Dodging Loris's hands, that waved hypnotically in the visitor's very face, and ducking an effort of the loud-weeping Sonya to hurl herself at his feet, the agent vanished.

SONYA disregarded the momentarily swelling "gallery" in the vestibule, and poured forth the vials of her vitriolic grief upon her stricken husband. She cursed him; the mother who bore him; his unknown male ancestors, back to Rurik the Lawmaker; his equally unknown female ancestors, back to the Flood. She cursed him for dragging her across seas to this doubly accursed country, for giving up their happy sweat-shop, for embarking on an enterprise too perilously great for his gnat-brain.

Then she passed from objurgation into a faint. After which she trotted quickly around to the cashier's window to receive the nickels of the day's first patrons.

As her tirade had been delivered in voluble Russian,—in Moscow dialect, at that,—the avidly interested crowd at the entrance had not gleaned the full benefit of it. But Loris had. And—inured as he was to Sonya's tongue-lashings—it seared him to the marrow.

There must be a way to retrieve what the agent's decree had cost him. His dazed mind began to work again.

Bitterly he went over in his mind the agent's visit. When his rehearsal brought to memory the words, "Royle Hunter, 999 Wall Street," his idea was born.

He delayed the starting of the day's initial show for nearly half an hour while he wrote and then rewrote and wrote again the following epistle:

Mr. Royle Hunter, 999 Wall Street.
Respected Sir:

I am Loris Grod, who proprietors the moving-pictures at 8756 East Fourteenth Street. It is a small business, but it is my everything. It gives bread to me and to my aged wife. Without it, we are as the beggars at the gate.

Respected Sir, you own the house where our theater is. It is yours. May the Most High grant to you happiness to enjoy such a possession! Your happiness will be a sweeter dish if it is savored with the Blessing of the Poor. Earn that blessing, I pray.

Your servant tells me that you design to tear this house to the ground. If you do so cruel a deed, you will tear my happiness and my livelihood to the ground with it. I beg you to take back that order and to let this house stand, and my business with it.

That you may not suffer from your goodness to a poor man, I will pay you five dollars more each month in rent than now I pay. I can ill afford it. But I can more ill afford to be destitute. Have pity and let stand this house, Respected Sir. And the Most High shall bless you and your dear ones.

Your servant, LORIS GROD.

His mind still agitated as he wrote, Loris lapsed more than once from the carefully stilted English diction he had been at such pains to learn. But, thanks to the pocket dictionary on his single book-shelf, even the longest word was not misspelled—as Royle Hunter's yawning secretary might have noted with approval had not that functionary waste-basketed the appeal after reading the first three sprawly lines.

A week sagged by—a week punctuated by Sonya's railings and tears. A week in which her husband made life a horror for the postman. On the morning of the eighth day Loris attired himself in the garb he wore on his bi-weekly attendance at St. Mary's Russian Orthodox Church in East Fourteenth Street.

The frock-coat was not shiny enough for vaudeville use, and it fitted Loris's stock body reasonably well—for a hand-me-down. The felt hat was clean-brushed and still retained much of its nap. The low collar was not too loose nor too tight. The tie was black and almost new. Loris wore his clothes well. He had an innate taste in dress—a taste thus far unbacked by knowledge or money.

So, when he bowed himself into the anteroom of Royle Hunter's compact little suite of offices, he might have been almost any one—except a man to be thrown out on sight.

"I wish to speak with Mr. Royle Hunter, if you please," he told the office-boy.

"Got an appointment?" grunted the boy, at once despising and suspecting a man who wasted such a wealth of humble courtesy on him.

"I am his tenant," continued Loris, "whose letter he has read. I wish to speak with him. I am Loris Grod. Take him my name, if you please."

The boy nonchalantly shoved toward him a block of printed slips with dotted lines after the words Name and Business.

Loris wrote his name on the topmost bit of paper. Pausing a moment to stare at the printed word Business, he wrote after it:

"About the letter I wrote, begging you not to tear down the house at 8756 East Fourteenth Street."

The boy loafed into an inner office whose ground-glass door had on it no legend at all. Loris, peering eagerly after the messenger, had a flashed glimpse of a small room whose severe good taste appealed instinctively to him. At a flat-top desk was sitting a man in gray. Loris saw the man for barely a second as the boy went in, closing the door behind him—and for perhaps less than a second as the boy came out, closing it again.

"Mr. Hunter can't see you," reported the lad. "G'-by."

"But he must see me. It is necessary. Ask him again. Tell him I—"

"Nothing doing," answered the boy. "He won't see you. Better get out."

Loris's hand slipped reluctantly into a trouser-pocket, to emerge gripping a nickel. This glittering bribe he laid timidly on the young autocrat's desk.

"What's this chicken feed for?" snapped the youth.

"It is yours," said Loris. "Now will you please ask Mr. Royle Hunter—?"

"I'll ask the special cop instead," returned the boy, in a temper, reaching for the telephone with one hand, while with the other he tossed the five-cent piece contemptuously to the floor. "I'll rustle him up here in just three seconds, if you don't get out. Git!"

Loris, at the tone of authority, gave up hope. Sighing, he retrieved the discarded bribe from the floor, and pattered out. But in the elevator, on the way earthward, a dogged resolve crept over him.

HE STEPPED out of the elevator, and took up his station at a pillar hard by. And there, with all the bovine patience bred of a thousand Russian peasant ancestors, he waited.

At one o'clock the man in gray emerged from the elevator and started lunchward. With him were two other men.

Before they had taken a dozen steps, Loris Grod was skittering. and side-stepping apologetically in front of them, with timorous persistence trying to bar their advance.

"Mr. Royle Hunter. Please!" he said, smiling deprecatingly up at the man in gray. "Please."

The trio came to a shuffling halt. Hunter looked down at the excited stranger who had spoken to him. A single quizzical glance told him the fellow was no one with whom he could possibly have any business. Grod's next sentence tabulated him in Hunter's mind as a crank.

"Please, sir," implored Loris, "please do not tear down my theater. It will ruin me. I said so in the letter. It will be so

---

little to you to let it stand. To me it is everything on earth. For the love of my mother and of yours—"

He got no further. With a shrug of very evident disgust, the fastidious Hunter eluded the none too clean fingers that were trying so conciliatingly to pat his gray coat-sleeve. One of the other men laughed. Hunter hated ridicule. He brushed by Loris and moved on.

But this time Loris's fingers found their hold. Self-consciousness lost in the terror of his overlord's escape, he clasped Hunter's coat-sleeve, almost fiercely exclaiming:

"For God's sake, Mr. Royle Hunter, listen to me! For God's sake, sir! It means so much to me. I—"

Several people had paused in curiosity and were watching. The building's big special policeman sauntered up.

"Here, you!" Hunter broke in on Loris's frenzied plea, beckoning the officer as he spoke. "Get rid of this greasy idiot! You've no right to allow cranks to clutter up the hallway and annoy tenants."

"Certainly, Mr. Hunter," answered the policeman obsequiously. "Certainly I will. And I'm very sorry it happened. It won't again."

As he spoke, he collared Loris and gave his neck a practised wrench that well-nigh cut off the Russian's air supply.

"I'm not a 'greasy idiot'!" gurgled Loris, fighting for breath. "I'm a business man. I'm not a crank. I came here to—"

"Shut up!" snarled the officer, throwing more power into the twist.

Then Loris Grod went quite mad. By sheer strength he tore free, leaving his tie and a shredded strip of his coat-collar in the policeman's hands. Flinging himself at the departing Hunter and fighting like an angry cat against the combined restraint of the special officer and the elevator starter, he screeched:

"I'll make you do me justice, you gray-faced iceberg, you! I'll make you! I'll get my rights! I'll cash in! A 'greasy idiot,' am I! I'll cash in on you, you—"

English failed him, and a torrent of lurid Russian came to his aid. He howled it, at the top of his sob-choked lungs, all the way to the police station.

IT was another six months' work—accompanied companied by hunger and by the scourgings of Sonya's tongue—for Loris to establish a paying nickelodeon in a more congested quarter of the East Side. But after that everything was easy. The photo-play industry began its upward surge, and Loris Grod was swept along on the wave-crest. His chain of motion-picture houses swiftly passed from dream to golden reality.

There was an odd change in the man—since his interview with Hunter. He had lost his old-time meekly admiring civility toward everything American. His single experience with a representative of millionairedom had left him with a deathless hate for the man and for his class.

Ten years from the day he was hauled screeching from the presence of Royle Hunter, the Russian was the king-pin—the president—the only visible stockholder—of the Valencia Film Corporation: one of the most successful motion-picture houses in America. The road from sweatshop to financial rulership, along the movie route, had been a new one and strange. But Loris had not traveled it alone. He had had plenty of company in the mushroom horde of movie millionaires that sprang up in a decade.

America was movie-mad. From a shoe-string catch-penny, the newborn industry had shouldered its way to a height barely lower than the pinnacles of steel and of railroads and of motor-cars. And Loris Grod was one of the mightiest men in the mighty and amorphous young realm of cinema.

But he was no longer Loris Grod. He had Americanized his name as well as all else about him. "Grod" being the Moscow dialect word for "town" or "city," a non-publicity act of law had changed Loris's cognomen to "Towne," and at the same time altered "Loris" to "Louis."

Sonya—the only person who objected to the change—had obligingly died about the time when her spouse amassed his first million. So, to all intents, Loris Grod no longer existed. Louis Towne reigned in his stead.

WHILE some of his fellow mushroom magnates were disporting themselves in their new wealth like boys in a swimming-pool, Loris lived almost as an ascetic. He did not wear a scrap of jewelry. The best artist-tailor in America was under contract to furnish him with twenty business suits a year, at a cost, each, that exceeded Loris's yearly sweat-shop savings—suits so perfect in fit and cut and material that no one gave them a second glance.

In his bare workshop of an office, high up in the block-wide Valencia Film Building, sat Loris for anywhere from eight to twenty hours a day, dextrously moving the strings which kept a thousand manikins dancing. He supervised in person every important detail of his giant business—from the opening of a new "territory" to the final choice of actor-material.

It was this question of actors that caused him most trouble; and it was to his choice of actors that he owed a great measure of his artistic success. He read and passed upon and revised every Valencia scenario of five reels or more. He chose the cast for each production. And the result was easily seen in the completed pictures and in the box-office proceeds.

When Loris needed some especial "type," he sent forth a flying squadron of scouts to look for it, to find it and bring it in. It was in this way that a bewildered subway guard suddenly found himself signed up at seventy-five dollars a week, simply to look stupid and to grin. Thus, too, a needy English gentlewoman of high connections had been suborned into taking three hundred dollars weekly for walking about and doing nothing in particular, as the grande dame in the sixteen-episode Valencia serial, "The Opal Woman." Thus, too, had many another outsider entered upon startling affluence for no better reason than because he or she was of a type Loris chanced to need.

Valencia scouts were in a dozen ranks of life. To bring the chief the type he wanted was to reap rich guerdon—and more than one New Yorker who would not have cared to advertise scouting as his profession consented to work, secretly, for the Valencia's president.

SUCH an unheralded scout was Val Croyden, a young man with moderate income and immoderate tastes. By virtue of an uncle who belonged to the old régime of lower Fifth Avenue, Croyden traveled, by fits and starts, along the radius edges of several decidedly worth-while circles of society. Sometimes he profited thereby. It was he, for example, who had secured the needy grande dame for Loris's serial.

It was he, too, who breezed in on Loris, late one rainy afternoon in December, just as the Valencia's president had dismissed a conference that had been called to consider the final details of a motion-picture merger which Loris had for months been organizing.

"Chief," announced Croyden, "I've found her."

"Yes?" asked Loris, in no way impressed by his subordinate's manner.

"Yes, sir," reiterated Croyden impressively; "I've found her."

"You found her three times before, I think," commented Loris. "Not once did you find what I wanted. Who is she, this time? Another restaurant-cashier whom you have coached to enter a room gracefully?"

"No, sir," hastily denied Croyden—adding, in loud self-defense: "And the last one wasn't a cashier, either. Her people—"

"Never mind the last one," cut in Loris wearily. "If I remember, she claimed to be very young and to belong to an old family. She got the facts reversed; that was all. And the one before that was so well bred that she said 'Pleased to meet you, sir,' when you brought her here."

"But—"

"Before you risk another failure," pursued Loris, unheeding, "let me remind you, for the fourth time, just what I want. Then, if this newest candidate doesn't fill every single requirement for the part, you can save my time by not bringing her to see me. Lady Molly is an ingénue. Her father is an earl. That does not mean that the girl should try to be dignified, but that she should be gloriously natural. Lady Molly's breeding is so much a part of herself that she never notices it. (For one thing, she doesn't say 'Pleased to meet you.') She needn't have manners, but she must have manner. Now, do you want to look further?"

No, sir," replied Croyden. "I have her."

Loris sat for an instant, tapping his stubby fingers on his desk front. Then he said:

"I don't doubt your knowledge of people of that class. That's why I hired you. That's why I keep you on after you've tried to fool me by palming off restaurant girls and that sort on me because you thought I'd never know the difference. No; I don't doubt you'd recognize the kind of girl I want for Lady Molly if you met her. And I don't doubt you've often met such girls. But I do doubt that a girl as carefully brought up as all that would be willing to work in our picture, or that her parents would let her, even if the money made any difference to her. Girls of that class are pretty carefully guarded."

"Some of them," agreed Croyden. "And some aren't. This one isn't. My uncle is a chum of her father's. They used to be partners. I've known her since we were kids. But I never knew till to-day that there was a ghost of a chance we could get her to work for us."

"Financial reverses?" asked Loris.

"Not exactly. Though I believe her father has lost a fairish bit of cash this past year. Here's the idea: Dad's heart is all tied up in the girl,—she's the only child,—but he's too busy downtown to see much of her. Mama is too much interested in her beloved Civic League to waste much time at home. So the girl has more of her own way than she really needs. And can you blame her for running in debt at bridge? Well, that's what she's done. She's afraid to go to her parents for cash, because they scolded her good and plenty last time she overdrew her allowance, and they threatened to cut it down to the bone if she ran in debt again."

"They let her gamble?"

"She's told them it's dressmaker bills."

"H'm!"

"I met her at the Ritz this afternoon," continued the scout. "She got to talking about her debts. The poor kid actually cried. Then it just struck me—she'd be perfect for Lady Molly. I was scared stiff to suggest it. But I needn't have been. She jumped at the chance. I told her the same old wheeze—that nobody'd ever recognize her on the screen, and, if any

Continued on page 19

THE AMBULANCE DRIVER

By CAPTAIN A. P. CORCORAN

SELF-APPOINTED hunters of slackers and pacifists are apt to make strange discoveries at times. Not long ago one of them confided to me the following disclosure anent a man whom he did not pretend to like:

"You know, that fellow joined the Ambulance Corps to avoid going to the front."

Which remark decided me to write the present article about the ambulance driver as I knew him.

First of all, I shall tell you what his duties are, and then what he actually does. There is a vast difference between the letter and the spirit of his orders. For his duty is merely to drive a car containing casualties, as swiftly and as carefully as the roads will let him, from the line back to the Casualty Clearing Station. He mustn't bandage the wounded, or give them relief or help: for such kindness would entail delay, and delay often means death.

The headquarters of the different corps is always a Casualty Clearing Station which is a few miles back from the trenches. Here they are organized in what is known as sections. To each section there are twenty cars, and to each car two men. They work in reliefs, ten cars always being in action, in positions chosen as carefully and with as much precision as those of the men on the front.

Say No. 1 car is stationed at the C. C. S. Then No. 10 takes its place at the end of the communication trench, and between these two are ranged the other eight at about equal distances apart. Suppose No. 10 has been loaded. It starts for home, passing the others on the way. Immediately they move up one position, and No. 10, having discharged its burden, remains in readiness at the C. C. S.

Driving Over Shell-Holes in the Dark

VERY simple in outline, as you see, is the duty of these drivers. Now for what they actually have to do. I will not dwell on the fact that the roads they ride on are constantly exposed to shell fire. I fancy the casualties from this danger are fairly well known. And I will merely mention, in passing, that these roads are roads only in name. In fact, they are often as closely pitted with yawning shell craters as a genuine Swiss cheese is with holes.

Try to imagine driving over such surfaces in the dark. The main attacks, of course, come very often at night, and this automobilist carries no flaring headlight. The marvel is that more of these men are not killed in accidents: but, as you may imagine, they are "some" drivers before they are accepted, and "some" mechanicians, too. Still, even skill does not save them always. There are some holes from which only genius will extricate them. Such was displayed by a young "Yankee" named Edwards who spent two years on the line.

He was carrying a load of wounded along a nasty road, when his clutch chose to give out. Needless to say, he was not prepared for such an emergency, and there was no use looking for aid. On the front every man is out for himself. No doubt a garage man will question this, but it is nevertheless true. He patched up that clutch by means of three horseshoes. The car ran for six hours.

But then, ingenuity is a commonplace among Yankees. Here is a case where it won official recognition in France:

An attack had been scheduled for a certain morning. Consequently the drivers had to arrive promptly on their posts. Three of them were bowling over the road to the trenches, when they found themselves blocked by a battery of French seventy-fives which was standing right in their path. They slowed up to see what was the matter, and found the poilus all dead at their posts, half their horses killed, and the other half unconscious. A Hun gas shell had caught them en route.

The Americans were still considering what to do, when up drove four more of their cars, in one of which was the chief of the section. He at once ordered them to take another road. They had started to obey, when up came another French battery, completely blocking them from the rear. Needless to say, that battery had no intention of retreating. It was much too important that they arrive at their place.

But what were the ambulance men to do? It didn't take them long to decide.

First they unhitched the dead horses, and dragged them off the road—no easy or quick job. There was no time to do a like service for the comatose animals; so, digging their pocket-knives into the beasts' flanks, they got them to move out of the way. That done, they proceeded to hitch the battery to their own cars; and so, moving slowly, but as it happened safely, along the road, they got themselves and the guns into place.

And the French government gave each of them a Croix de Guerre, six of them in all being decorated.

But, were all the men honored who perform such unofficial service, it is safe to say that ninety per cent would be wearing a cross.

Working Double Time

THERE was a time, at Verdun, when the firing was so heavy that it was almost impossible to get supplies up to the front line. One wagon after another was bowled over on the way. Things were reaching a crisis, when the ambulance men came to the rescue—but not the men, naturally, who were on duty at the time. For ten hours these chaps who should have been resting carried loads of food-stuffs to the trenches. That done, they carried the wounded out of danger, and, their time for this work being up, they went back to the other. For two days they kept at it, alternating their jobs. I don't know how many were wounded in the process, but the casualties must have been heavy.

You don't hear much of the courage of the ambulance man, for his duty is to be a helper, not a hero. But I can tell one incident that came under my notice illustrating the devotion that these men bring to their work. It was a Britisher who distinguished himself here.

The ambulance was returning with a load of wounded, when over came a shell, upsetting the car and killing four out of five of the casualties and one of the drivers. When the other driver had extricated himself from the car, he found an unconscious man on his hands and no means of getting him to a hospital. However, he did not hesitate long.

Putting the Tommy across his shoulders, he started back for his base. He had gone a mile, when he came to a motor-bicycle whose driver lay dead beside it.

Though the bicycle was damaged, it was not beyond repair. Down on the earth went the wounded soldier, while his rescuer proceeded to apply his skill. Soon he had the machine in working order. Then, with the Tommy slung around his neck, he made his way to the hospital. Only Providence saved both from being killed; for all the time the shells were coming over in a thick hail.

Carrying 2,400 Wounded in Eight Hours

AND it is always when that hail is thickest that the ambulance man is busiest. I have heard that in eight hours twenty cars one day carried 2,400 wounded back from the line. I leave you to calculate how many journeys they made, allowing for the fact that if not prostrate eight men can fit in a car, but if not in a condition to sit up then only six can be got in. On one occasion I passed a machine that was carrying sixteen. Some of the "lighter" cases were hanging on the step, and others were slung over the roof.

I heard an amusing story of one chap who came home at night to find no resting-place awaiting him, and climbed into his own car. It was all dripping with blood, but he was too tired to be particular.

Even here, however, he was destined to find no rest. For five times during the night he was awakened from a sound sleep by some solicitous workers of his section. They thought he was a casualty who had been forgotten!

No, reader; if you're a "slacker" don't join the Ambulance Corps.

A BURIAL SERVICE FOR A SOLDIER

IT was during those terrible, glorious days after the overseas divisions from Canada had flung themselves into the gap in the French front line and blocked the advance of the Huns to Calais.

Two of my friends had been buried out in the front one night with two other officers—all in the one shell-hole [writes Colonel George G. Nasmith in On the Fringe of the Great Fight, McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart]. The medical officer, Captain Haywood, conducted the burial without candle or book. The green-white light from the German flares and the red flashes of the guns were the only light to show the sad little party where their erstwhile comrades rested. The lay parson, exhausted by seventy hours' continuous work, and unable to recall a single word of the burial service, broke huskily into this rugged commendation: "Well, boys, they were four damn good fellows; let us repeat the Lord's Prayer."

What a setting for a soldier funeral! The black night, the roar and flash of the guns, and the green flare of the German star shells silhouetting those bowed heads above the soldiers' grave.

What a fitting tribute! What more would any soldier desire?

THE MOBILIZATION IN BRITTANY

By Grace Fallow Norton

LAST night the men of this region were leaving. Now they are far.
Rough and strong they are, proud and gay they are.
So this is the way of war....
The train was full, and we all shouted as it pulled away.
They sang an old war-song, they were true to themselves, they were gay!
We might have thought they were going for a holiday—
Except for something in the air,
Except for the weeping of the ruddy old women of Finistère.
The younger women do not weep. They dream and stare.
They seem to be walking in dreams. They seem not to know
It is their homes, their happiness, vanishing so.
(Every strong man between twenty and forty must go.)
They sang an old war-song. I have heard it often in other days,
But never before when War was walking the world's highways.
They sang, they shouted, the Marseillaise!
The train went, and another has gone; but none, coming, has brought word.
Though you may know, you out in the world, we have not heard,
We are not sure that the great battalions have stirred—
Except for something, something in the air,
Except for the weeping of the wild old women of Finistère.
How long will the others dream and stare?
From A Treasury of War Poetry
(Houghton Mifflin Company)

WHAT SOLDIERS FACE IN MESOPOTAMIA

THE soldiers in Mesopotamia have had other things to face than Turks and Germans and Arabs. They have had to face heat, worse than all these, an enemy which soldiers refuse to respect and guard against—until suddenly, one day, it kills them.

Martin Swayne, an English surgeon, in his book In Mesopotamia (George H. Doran Company), describes the awful days that take their toll of northern lives in the country fondly believed to have been the Garden of Eden.

"A typical hot day begins with a dawn that comes as a sudden hot yellow behind the motionless palms. A glittering host of dragonflies rises up from the swamps, wheeling and darting after the mosquitos. In the growing light mysterious shapes slink past. They are the camp dogs returning from their sing-song which has kept you awake half the night.

"At five you are bathed in perspiration as you lie in bed. It has been in the neighborhood of ninety degrees throughout the night; you have probably spent most of it smoking in a chair in the moonlight, listening to horses whinnying, donkeys braying, dogs barking and yelping without a pause, and men groaning and tossing in the steamy sick-tents.

"The business of getting up is one of infinite weariness. At eight the mercury is probably 100 degrees. After breakfast a certain amount of energy possesses you, and the morning's work becomes possible. But after a couple of hours, in the neighborhood of eleven, when it may be anything from 110 to 120 degrees in the shade, a kind of enervation sets in. This is partly due to lack of food.

"After midday the world is a blinding glare and the intake of air seems to burn the lungs. Through the double canvas roofing of a tent the sun beats down like a giant with a leaden club. The temperature in the wards increases. At the worst moments you feel distinctly that it would be possible, by giving way to something that escapes definition, to go off your head. A spirit of indifference to everything is necessary. Any kind of worry is simply a mode of suicide. Life becomes simplified. An Oriental contempt of the West with all its preoccupations grows insensibly. When a dripping orderly came to rouse you to see some case, you understood perfectly the attitude of mind that has produced the idea of Kismet. Why move? If the man dies, it is Allah's will.

"At about five o'clock, with the temperature falling and the humidity of the air increasing, a period of intense discomfort sets in. Perspiration becomes so profuse that clothes become wringing wet like bathing suits, even if you are sitting still. A kind of air hunger ensues. The few birds in the groves sit with their beaks wide open. It was then that the ambulances began to roll in with their burden of heat-stroke cases.

"A great many of the new troops had no idea of the danger of the sun. The Tommy does not estimate a situation very quickly. The attempt to change the main meal of the day to an evening hour did not meet with success. The Tommy is obstinate by nature. He goes on marching in the sun, even though he feels bad, and the collapse is swift and fatal."

OUGHT WE TO HATE THE GERMANS?

THAT hate will play a part in the winning of this war, no less than the submarines, airplanes, and "75's," is the contention of Dr. W. B. Pillsbury, head of the department of psychology in the University of Michigan. Here is what he says:

"Be angry. Be angry all together, and all be angry at the Germans. Anger strengthens the punch of nations as well as individuals. But there is a difference between indignant anger and hate. Anger releases certain psychological secretions that give a punch to a blow. That is the reason why soldiers in bayonet practice are urged to snarl as they lunge, and become really angry.

"Anger is transitory. Hate is lasting. Hate has certain depressive effects upon the human system when not relieved by violent action, prompted by anger. A good hater, when he comes into contact with the object of his hate, will flare suddenly into more than his ordinary strength. The psychological secretions released by hate will rush to his very finger-tips, and the offensive will be that of a berserker.

"Germany's psychological policy was based on frightfulness, believing that frightfulness would terrify her enemies, paralyze them with fear, and make victory easy. Germany would have had a better chance of winning the war had she adopted some other method than that of frightfulness. The very frightfulness she practised in Belgium angered the French until their flesh-and-blood strength became equal to throwing back the iron-and-powder strength of the frightful Germans; it made England united in the war as nothing else could have done; and it awoke a resentment in the United States that has never worn down.

"Then followed the U-boat outlawry, the poison gas, and the shooting of Edith Cavell, strengthening all the time the determination of free peoples that a nation which could do such things must not be allowed to conquer.

"So it is apparent that Germany's psychological policy was based on wrong premises; frightful acts did not terrify—they outraged."

BRINGING HOME THEIR DEAD

When Japanese soldiers and sailors leave their native land, they stipulate that if they die their bodies be brought back for burial in the sacred soil of Japan. Otherwise their souls would have a hard time finding the souls of their ancestors. After the sea-fight in the Mediterranean last June, the bodies of Japanese officers and sailors were cremated and the remains sent home. This picture shows sailors bearing the urns on board a destroyer coming into a Japanese port.

RED TAPE

Dear Sir:

During the last week in December I was riding toward my home on one of the Maine Central trains. Near the forward end of the car I noticed two seats occupied by a young man in uniform, and I made my way up the aisle and sat down beside him. I learned that he was a member of one of the Scottish Canadian regiments. His sleeve told a story with its two upright short gold stripes—wounded twice; and besides this he had been gassed once. His regiment went to the front in 1914. He said, "I've been lucky." He did not smile when saying it. The last time he was wounded, a shrapnel burst close to him and shattered one leg, but through their wonderful surgery the doctors had saved him the use of it, though he was yet using canes. The first time he was wounded he had part of his left ear blown away, and scalp wounds. These were all wonderfully repaired by grafting.

Now—I am going to speak of a thing that affected me. Here was a boy of twenty-four, one of our Maine boys, clean-cut of features and clean of speech, with a pleasant face made prematurely old by the terrors passed through,—one who had helped to withstand the worst onslaughts of our enemies,—sitting there alone, unnoticed.

We had the same destination, and I felt a great joy in doing any favor that I could for him. I assisted him from the train and saw him comfortably situated in the hotel. Before I left I made arrangements to go to the hospital with him the next morning, and then to see him off on the train.

We allowed an hour and a half before train-time to go to the hospital and have a simple surgical dressing put upon his leg. The hospital was only ten minutes away. It was well that we allowed plenty of time—we had to wait while a scrubwoman brought a nurse, and the nurse brought the head nurse, who gave the ultimate verdict that this simple dressing—taking approximately five minutes to apply—could not be done unless he entered a ward and became a patient. Wherever he had been in France or England, and in Canada the same, any hospital, public or private, would quickly, gladly, and freely do the service. He and I left the hospital, he with lessened regard for the service and hospitality of his mother land, and I thoroughly ashamed; for I had felt assured that one of our large State hospitals would welcome the chance to serve one of the boys who had done his "bit." We called upon a doctor, who quickly did the work, and, I am thankful to say, would accept no payment.

Let me add that the only comment this young soldier made as we came out of the hospital was: "They'll feel differently when they see the boys that they know come back."

M. B. O.

THE FIGHTER'S SON

The young sons of soldiers dead at the front will have a hard road to travel, but they have also the glory of their fathers to keep their step firm.

HOW LINCOLN HANDLED GRUMBLING OFFICERS

LINCOLN and Sherman were riding together through a camp, in the early days of the war, says Miss Tarbell in her Life of Lincoln (Macmillan Company), when an officer came up. Sherman told the story afterward:

"I saw," says the General, "an officer with whom I had had a little difficulty in the morning. His face was pale and his lips compressed. I foresaw a scene, but sat on the front seat of the carriage as quiet as a lamb. The officer forced his way through the crowd to the carriage, and said: 'Mr. President, I have a cause of grievance. This morning I went to speak to Colonel Sherman, and he threatened to shoot me.'

"Mr. Lincoln said: 'Threatened to shoot you?'

"'Yes, sir; threatened to shoot me.'

"Mr. Lincoln looked at him, then at me, and, stooping his tall form towards the officer, said to him in a loud stage-whisper, easily heard for some yards around: 'Well, if I were you and he threatened to shoot me, I would not trust him; for I believe he would do it.'"

Torchy Gets the Thumb Grip

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by Arthur William Brown

I EXPECT a lot of people thought it about me; but the one who really registered the idea was Auntie. Trust her. For of course, with an event of this kind staged in the house, we couldn't expect to dodge a visit from the old girl. She came clear up from Miami—although, with so much trouble about through sleepers and everything, I kept tellin' Vee I was afraid she wouldn't think it worth while makin' the trip.

"How absurd, Torchy!" says Vee. "Not want to see baby? To be sure, she will."

You see, Vee had the right hunch from the very first—about the importance of this new member of the fam'ly, I mean. She took it as a matter of course that everybody who'd ever known or heard of us would be anxious to rush in and gaze awe-struck and reverent at this remarkable addition we'd made to the population of Long Island. Something like that. She don't have to work up to it. Seems to come natural. Why, say, she'd sit by and listen without crackin' a smile to these regular gushers who laid it on so thick you'd 'most thought the youngster himself would have turned over and run his tongue out at 'em.

"Oh, the dear, darling 'ittle cherub!" they'd squeal. "Isn't he simp-ly the most won-der-ful baby you ev-er saw?"

And Vee would never blink an eye. In fact, she'd beam on 'em grateful, and repeat to me afterwards what they'd said, like it was just a case of the vote bein' made unanimous, as she knew it was bound to be all along.

Which wasn't a bit like any of the forty-seven varieties of Vee I thought I was so well acquainted with. No. I'll admit she'd shown whims and queer streaks now and then, and maybe a fault or so; but nothing that had anything to do with any tendency of the ego to stick its elbows out. Yet, when it comes to listenin' to flatterin' remarks about our son and heir—well, no Broadway star readin' over what his press-agent had smuggled into the dramatic notes had anything on her. She couldn't have it handed to her too strong.

AS for me, I guess I was in sort of a daze there for a week or so. Gettin' to be a parent had been sprung on me so sudden that it was sort of confusin'. I couldn't let on to be a judge of babies myself. I don't know as I'd ever examined one real near to before, anyway—not such a new one as this.

And, between me and you, when I did get a chance to size him up real close once,—they'd all gone out of the room and left me standin' by the crib,—I was kind of disappointed. Uh-huh. No use kiddin' yourself. I couldn't see a thing wonderful about him, or where he was much different from others I'd glanced at casual. Such a small party to have so much fuss made over! Why, one of his hands wasn't much bigger'n a cat's paw. And his face was so red and little and the nose so sketchy that it didn't seem likely he'd ever amount to much. Here he'd had more'n a week to grow in, and I couldn't notice any change at all.

Not that I was nutty enough to report any such thoughts. Hardly. I felt kind of guilty at just havin' 'em in my head. How was it, I asked myself, that I couldn't stand around with my hands clasped and my eyes dimmed up, as a perfectly good parent should when he gazes at his first and only chee-ild? Wasn't I human?

All the alibi I can put up is that I wasn't used to bein' a father. Ain't there something in that? Just think, now. Why, I'd hardly got used to bein' married. Here, only a little over a year ago, I was floatin' around free and careless. And then, first thing I know, without any special coachin' in the act, I finds myself pushed out into the center of the stage with the spot-light on me, and I'm introduced as a daddy.

The only thing I could do was try to make a noise like one. I didn't feel it, any more'n I felt like a stained-glass saint in a church window. And I didn't know the lines very well. But there was everybody watching,—Vee, and the nurse, and Madame Battou, and occasional callers,—so I proceeds to bluff it through the best I could.

MY merry little idea was to be familiar with the youngster, treat him as if he'd been a member of the fam'ly for a long time, and hide any embarrassin' feelin's I might have by addressin' him loud and joshin'. I expect it was kind of a poor performance, at that. But I seemed to be gettin' away with it, so I stuck to that line. Vee appears to take it all right, and, as nobody else gave me the call, I almost got to believe it was the real thing myself.

So this particular afternoon, when I came breezin' in from town, I chases right up to the nursery, where I knew I'd find Vee, gives her the usual hail just behind the ear, and then turns hasty to the crib to show I haven't forgot who's there.

"Hello, old sport!" says I, ticklin' him in the ribs. "How you hittin' 'em, hey? Well, well! Look at the fistses doubled up! Who you goin' to hand a wallop to now? Oh, tryin' to punch yourself in the eye, are you? Come there, you young roughhouser, lay off that grouchy stuff and speak some kind words to your daddy. You won't, eh? Goin' to kick a little with the footsies. That's it. Mix in with all fours, you young—"

And just then I hears a suppressed snort that sounds sort of familiar. I glances around panicky, and gets the full benefit of a disgusted glare from a set of chilled steel eyes, and discovers that there's some one besides Vee and the nurse present. Yep. It's Auntie.

"May I ask," says she, "if this is your usual manner of greeting your offspring?"

"Why," says I, "I—I expect it is."

"Humph!" says she. "I might have known."

"Now, Auntie," protests Vee, "you know very well that Torchy means—"

"Whatever he means or doesn't mean," breaks in Auntie, "I am sure he has an astonishing way of showing parental affection. Calling the child an 'old scout,' a 'young rough-houser'! It's shocking."

"Sorry," says I; "but I ain't takin' any lessons in polite baby talk yet. Maybe in time I could learn this ittums-tweetums stuff, but I doubt it. Always made me sick, that did; and one of the things Vee and I agreed on was that—"

"Oh, very well," says Auntie. "I do not intend to interfere in any way."

As if she could help it! Why, say, she'd give St. Peter advice on gate-keepin'. But for the time bein', each of us havin' had our say, we calls it a draw and gets back to what looks like a peace footin'. But from then on I knew she had her eye out at me. Every move I made was liable to get her breathin' short or set her squirmin' in her chair. And you know how it's apt to be in a case like that. I made more breaks than ever. I'd forget about the youngster bein' asleep and cut loose with something noisy at the wrong time. Or I'd jolt her some other way.

But she held in until, one night after dinner, when the baby had indulged in too much day sleepin' and was carryin' on a bit, I takes a notion to soothe him with a few humorous antics while Auntie is safe downstairs. You see, I'd never been able to get him to take any notice of me before; but this time, after I'd done a swell imitation of a Fred Stone dance, I had him cooin' approvin', the nurse smotherin' a smile, and Vee snickerin'.

Naturally, 1 has to follow it up with something else. I was down on my hands and knees doin' a buckin' bronco act across the floor, when there comes this gasp from the doorway. It seems Auntie was passin' by, and peeked in. Her eyebrows go up, her mouth corners come down, and she stiffens like she'd grabbed a high-voltage feed wire. I saw it comin', but the best I can do is steady myself on my fingers and toes and wish I had cotton in my ears.

"Really!" says she. "Are you never to realize, young man, that you are now supposed to be a husband and a father?"

And, before I can shoot back a word, she's sailed on, her chin in the air and her mouth about as smilin' as a crack in a vinegar bottle. But she'd said it. She'd pushed it home, too. And the worst of it was, I couldn't deny that she had the goods on me. I might pass as a husband, if you didn't expect too much. But as for the rest—well, I knew I wasn't meetin' the specifications.

The only model I could think of was them fond parent groups you see in the movie close-ups—mother on the right, father at the left, and Little Bright Eyes squeezed in between and bein' mauled affectionate. Had we ever indulged in any such family clinch? Not up to date. Why? Was it because I was a failure as a daddy? Looked so. And here was Auntie taxin' me with it. Would other folks find out, too?

I BEGUN thinkin' over the way different ones had taken the news. Old Hickory, for instance. I was wearin' a wide grin and still feelin' sort of chesty when I broke into his private office and handed him the bulletin.

"Eh?" he grunts, squintin' at me from under them bushy eyebrows. "A father! You? Good Lord!"

"Why not?" says I. "It's still being done, ain't it?"

"Oh, I suppose so. Yes, yes," he goes on, starin' at me. "But somehow, young man, I can hardly think of you as—as— Well, congratulations, Torchy. You have frequently surprised me by rising to the occasion. Perhaps you will in this also."

"Thanks, Mr. Ellins," says I. "It's nice of you to cheer me up that way."

Piddie, of course, said the right and elegant thing, just as if he'd learned it out of a book. He always does, you know. Makes a reg'lar little speech, and finishes by givin' me the fraternal hand-clasp and a pat on the shoulder.

But a minute after I caught him gazin' at me wonderin', and he goes off shakin' his head.

THEN I runs across my newspaper friend Whitey Weeks, who used to know me when I was a cub office-boy on the Sunday editor's door.

"Well, Torchy," says he, "what you got on your mind?"

"Nothing you could make copy out of," says I, "but it's a whale of an event for me.

"You don't say," says he. "Somebody died and left you the business?"

"Just the opposite," says I.

"I don't get you," says he.

"Ah, what's usually in the next column?" says I. "It's a case of somebody bein' born."

"Why—why," says he, openin' his mouth, "you don't mean that—"

"Uh-huh," says I, tryin' to look modest.

"Haw-haw!" roars Whitey, usin' the steam siren effect. And, as it's right on the corner of Forty-second and Broadway, he comes near collectin' a crowd. Four or five people turn around to see what the merriment is all about, and a couple of 'em stops short in their tracks. One guy I spotted for a vaudeville artist lookin' for stuff that might fat up his act.

"Say," Whitey goes on, poundin' me on the back jovial, "that's rich, that is!"

"Glad it amuses you," says I, startin' to move off.

"Oh, come, old chap!" says he, followin' along. "Don't get crabby. What—what is it, anyway?"

It's a baby," says I. "Quite a young one. Now go laugh your fat head off, you human hyena."

With that shot I dashes through the traffic and catches a downtown car, leavin' him there with his silly face unhinged. And I did no more announcin' to anybody. I was through advertisin'. When some of the commuters on the eight-three heard the news and started springin' their comic cracks on me, I pretended I didn't understand.

I don't know what they thought. I didn't give a whoop, either. I wasn't demandin' that anybody should pass solemn resolutions thankin' me for what I'd done for my country, or stand with their hats off as I went by. But I was overstocked on this joke-book junk.

Maybe I didn't look like a father, or

(Concluded on page 15)

PERSONALLY, WE ARE ALWAYS ONE FASHION BEHIND

REGULAR PEOPLE

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MILLIONAIRES FOR DEFENSE

(Concluded from page 10)

act like one; but I was doin' my best on the short notice I'd had.

I will say for Vee that she stood by me noble. She seemed to think whatever I did was all right, even when I shied at holdin' the youngster for the first time.

"I'm afraid I'll bend him in the wrong place," I protests.

"Goose!" says she. "Of course you won't."

"Suppose I should drop him?" says I.

"You can't if you take him just as I show you," she goes on patient. "Now, sit down in that chair. Crook your left arm like this. Now hold your knees together, and we'll just put the little precious right in your— There! Why, you're doing it splendidly."

"Am I?" says I.

I might have half believed her if I hadn't caught a glimpse of myself in the glass. Say, I was sittin' there as easy and graceful as if I'd been made of structural iron on reinforced concrete. Stiff! Them stone lions in front of the Public Lib'ry was frolicsome lambs compared to me. And I was wearin' the same happy look on my face as if I was havin' a tooth plugged.

COURSE that had to be just the time when Mr. Robert Ellins happened in for his first private view. Mrs. Robert had towed him down special. He's a reg'lar friend, though, Mr. Robert is. I can't say how much of a struggle he had to keep his face straight, but after the first spasm has worn off he don't show any more signs of wantin' to cackle. And he don't pull any end-man stuff.

"Well, well, Torchy!" says he. "A son and heir, eh? I salute you."

"Same to you and many of 'em," says I, grinnin' simple.

It was the first thing that came into my head, but I guess I'd better not have let it out. Mrs. Robert pinks up, Vee snickers, and they both hurries into the next room.

"Thank you, Torchy," says Mr. Robert. "Within certain limitations, I trust your wish comes true. But I say—how does it feel, being a father?"

"Just plain foolish," says I.

"Eh?" says he.

"Honest, Mr. Robert," says I, "I never felt so much like a ham sandwich at a Chamber of Commerce banquet as I do right now. I'm beginnin' to suspect I've been miscast for the part."

"Nonsense!" says he soothin'. "You appear to be getting along swimmingly. I'm sure I wouldn't know how to hold a baby at all."

"You couldn't know less'n I do about it at present writing," says I. "I don't dare move, and both my legs are asleep from the knees down. Do me a favor and call for help, won't you?"

"Oh, I say!" he calls out. "The starboard watch wants to be relieved."

So Vee comes back and pries the baby out of my grip.

Isn't he absurd!" says she. "But he will soon learn. All men are like that at first, I suppose."

"Hear that, Mr. Robert?" says I. "That's what I call a sun-cured disposition."

She'd make a good animal-trainer, Vee: she's persistent and patient. After dinner she jollies me into tryin' it again.

"You needn't sit so rigid, you know," she coaches me. "Just relax naturally and let his little head rest easy in the hollow of your arm. No, you don't have to grab him with the other hand. Let him kick his legs if he wants to. See, he is looking up at you! Yes, I believe he is. Do you see daddy? Do you, precious?"

"Must be some sight," I murmurs. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Oh, you may rock him gently, if you like," says Vee. "And I don't suppose he'd mind if you sang a bit."

"Wouldn't that be takin' a mean advantage?" says I.

Vee laughs and goes off so I can practise alone, which was thoughtful of her.

I didn't find it so bad this time. I discovers I can wiggle my toes occasionally without lettin' him crash on to the floor. And I begun to get used to lookin' at him at close range, too. His nose don't seem quite so hopeless as it did. I shouldn't wonder but what he'd grow a reg'lar nose there in time. And their little ears are cute, ain't they? But say, it was them big blue eyes that got me interested. First off they sort of wandered around the room aimless; but after a while they steadies down into gazin' at me sort of curious and admirin'. I rather liked that.

"How about it, Snookums?" says I. "What do you think of your amateur daddy? Or are you wonderin' if your hair'1l be as red as mine? Don't you care. There's worse things in life than bein' bright on top. Eh? Think you'd like to get your fingers in it? Might burny-burn. Well, try it once, if you like." And I ducks my head so he can reach that wavin' forelock of mine.

"Googly-goo!" remarks Sonny, indicatin' 'most anything you're a mind to call it.

Anyway, he seems to be entertained. We was gettin' acquainted fast. Pretty soon he pulls a smile on me. Say, it's the real thing in the smile line, too—confidential and chummy. I has to smile back.

"That's the trick, Buster!" says I. "Friendly face motions is what wins."

"Goo-oogly-goo!" says he.

"True words!" says I. "I believe you."

We must have kept that up for near half an hour, until he shows signs of gettin' sleepy. Just before he drops off, though, he was wavin' one of his hands around, and the first thing I know them soft little pink fingers have circled about my thumb.

SAY, that turned the trick—just that. Ever had a baby grip you that way? Your own, I mean? If you have, I expect you'll know what I'm drivin' at. And if you ain't—well, you got something comin' to you. It's a thing I couldn't tell you about. It's a gentle sort of thrill, that spreads and spreads until it gets 'way inside of you—under your vest, on the left side.

When Vee finally comes in to see how we're gettin' along, he's snoozin' calm and peaceful, with a sketchy smile kind of flickerin' on and off that rosebud mouth of his, like he was indulgin' in pleasant dreams. Also, them little pink fingers was still wrapped around my thumb.

"Well, if you aren't a picture, you two!" says Vee, bendin' over and whisperin' in my ear.

"This ain't a pose," says I. "It's the real thing."

"You mean—" begins Vee.

"I mean I've qualified," says I. "Maybe I didn't show up so strong durin' the initiation, but I squeaked through. I'm a reg'lar daddy now. See! He's givin' me the inside brother grip—on my thumb. You can call Auntie in, if you like."

FACING LIFE ON THIRTY-SEVEN CENTS

TEN years ago I, a nineteen-year-old country girl, found myself at the close of a December day in New York City with only thirty-seven cents in my pocket, no friends in the city, and my bridges burned behind me.

I was decently dressed. I had on good shoes, a serge dress and a warm coat, gloves, and a plain black hat and veil. In my hand I carried a small bag in which were two clean handkerchiefs, a pair of stockings, some small toilet articles, and—thirty-seven cents.

I had been hunting work for several weeks, but had failed, doubtless because I did not look for work intelligently, and also because it was harder to find work then than now. When my money gave out my landlady asked me to leave, and kept my trunk as security for my bill.

Standing there watching the home-going crowd, I realized that I must act quickly. The first thing to do was to find a place to spend the night. I could do without food, I calculated, for twelve hours longer. I knew that newspaper buildings were open and work going on, and I decided to seek the hospitality of the press. I walked to Newspaper Row, and paced back and forth, trying to decide which building to enter. As darkness fell I made my way into the waiting-room of the Tribune building.

I sat there undisturbed for several hours. Once a young man—a reporter, probably—said in passing: "Waiting to see some one?" And I suppose I must have nodded in assent, for he passed on.

Every one was so busy that no one seemed to question my presence there. I settled myself into an easy position, and dozed sweetly, if warily, until midnight, when the roar of the presses began.

Still I waited; and after a while I began to see the editors and reporters hurrying out to go home. By and by the night watchman came in—an Irishman.

"Going to wait here all night, Miss?"

"Yes, if you will let me," was my unexpected reply.

"Mum?" he said, astonished.

In a few words I told him of my plight. He hesitated for a moment; then said: "You come along of me."

We went down to the furnace room on the ground floor. The furnace-man had stoked up for the night and gone. Any place so heavenly warm I never dreamed of. On the floor lay little dark, relaxed forms, all fast asleep. In an instant I understood. Newsboys.

My guide made a pillow of newspapers on one end of a bench that was set against the wall. Then he went out, and came back with an old portière.

"Youse lay down, and cover up with this," he said in the gentlest of voices. "Nobody goin' to see you. Kids won't notice you. I'll wake you up before anybody comes in."

I did exactly as he told me, and I was soon asleep under the portière. The night didn't seem half long enough, when I was awakened by that angel watchman standing before me with a steaming cup of coffee and a bowl of Irish stew. The little newsboys were all gone, and out on the street you could hear their cheerful yells. Never will I forget that breakfast. And I still had my thirty-seven cents, and the dangers of night were past.

My spirits rose high. I smiled at the good watchman, and went out to seek my fortune.

At twelve o'clock I came back to that building again. I had made as much of a toilet and brushing up as circumstances permitted. I asked to see some of the editorial force. I was going to ask for a job—anything that would enable me to live.

As I sat in the waiting-room where I had spent the early part of the night, the door of one of the offices opened, and a man and woman came out. I heard the woman say to the man:

"Frank, I just can't get a nurse for the boy. That last one I had was a fiend; she would have ruined his disposition. I really must—"

I took my courage in both hands.

"I beg your pardon, madam," I said. "Did you say you wanted a nurse? I am looking for a position. I wish you would give me a trial."

The woman, who was young and pretty, looked surprised, stared, and then smiled at me.

"Are you an experienced nurse?" she asked. "You look very young."

"I have never been a nurse," I said. "But I know I can be a good one." And I took from my hand-bag a testimonial—glowing, if general in terms—from my old minister in the village I came from.

She took me home with her and gave me a trial. For three years I lived in her house, the nurse of the dearest of little boys. In all those years I strove to give faithful service, and I had the kindest home and the best of friends. But I never forgot how I stood on the street with thirty-seven cents in all the world. And I never forgot the kind watchman who gave me shelter. I spent my evenings in study, and later on in practising writing. Believe me, I worked hard. Mine was no royal road, for I possess no royal gifts, unless it is the gift of courage. Now I am, and have been for several years, a "free-lance" magazine writer. My income, while not very magnificent, is amply sufficient for my wants. I try to keep my eyes open for those in the position I once found myself, and to extend to them, when in my power, a helping hand.

N. W. J.

THE MELTING POT

In Which the New Books and Magazines are Boiled Down to Give You Fifteen Minutes of Health, Efficiency, Travel, Biography, and Adventure

AMERICA'S GREAT NEW NATURAL WONDER

A VAST barren valley, surrounded by broken mountains, where no living thing can grow; from whose hollow floor thousands upon thousands of columns of white steam are perpetually rising—this is the place that Robert F. Griggs and a little party of explorers, climbing through the mountains of the Alaskan Peninsula against icy, pumice-laden winds, looked down on with wonder and stupefaction. "It was evident at once," says the leader of the expedition, "that one of the great wonders of the world had been discovered."

The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes lies adjacent to Mount Katmai, a great volcanic mountain where one of the most tremendous explosions known in history took place in 1912. The whole floor of the valley is a sort of gigantic valve for a boiling underground caldron. Through its million fissures steam pours up, releasing the terrible energy beneath.

In the National Geographic Magazine Mr. Griggs tells the story of the expedition and their sixteen-day stay in the valley:

As we explored the margin of the valley (the worst place, as we afterward found), we could plainly hear the ground ring hollow beneath the tunks of our staffs, and more than once we felt it shake beneath our blows. What if the ground should suddenly give way beneath our feet and precipitate us into a steaming caldron?

At first we roped up as for mountain-climbing and spread out, so that if one man went through, the others could pull him out. But when we came better to realize the conditions, we discarded the ropes, for we decided that if a man once got in it would be more merciful to leave him than to attempt to pull him out.

In many places the valley is covered with a peculiar blue mud, thinly coated with a chestnut-brown crust, which sometimes supports one and sometimes gives way suddenly, letting one down to his shoe-tops in the soft, scalding mud beneath. At such times one is apt to feel that his feet are taking hold on hell in very verity, particularly if the place happens to look "ticklish" otherwise.

Their camp was pitched on the mountainside, under a snowdrift which served as a refrigerator. In front of the tent was a fissure gushing out live steam, over which they hung their cooking-pots. Nothing ever burned, no matter how long it was left.

When we turned in the first night, we were astonished to find that the ground under our tent was decidedly warm. On examination we found that a thermometer thrust six inches into the ground promptly rose to the boiling-point.

We put most of our bedding under us to keep us cool!

After a few hours we discovered that the ground was not merely hot, but that invisible vapors were everywhere seeping up through the soil. The condensation of this steam from the ground made our bedding first damp and then wet.

In spite of the fact that their clothes were always moist, no one caught cold.

1800 AND 1900

ONE hundred and two years have carved and lined the face of the woman on the left, who not long ago cast her first vote in the New York congressional elections. She is Mrs. Mary Gold of New York City. She was born in Austria and lived there for sixty years. She has seen a century pass over the Old World and the New. In her lifetime modern science has been born, has grown to undreamed-of proportions, and like some Frankenstein has plunged the world in the greatest war that history has known. During her lifetime, also, slavery has been abolished, women have been enfranchised, and the Russian Revolution has taken place. Beside her is a typical woman of the new century. Her smiling face beneath its uniform cap has in it the qualities that economic independence and mental and bodily freedom have given women. Sturdy and self-reliant, she faces the future. What world-changes will she see, if she lives as long as Mrs. Mary Gold?

THE FATHER

By Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

THAT was his sort.
It didn't matter
What we were at
But he must chatter
Of this and that
His little son
Had said and done:
Till, as he told
The fiftieth time
Without a change
How three-year-old
Prattled a rhyme,
They got the range
And cut him short.

From Battle and Other Poems
(Macmillan Company).

THE REAL HERBERT HOOVER

WHEN one hears too much about a man, it becomes hard to think of him as a human being rather than an institution. Herbert Hoover is so much an institution in our American life and such a by-word in our talk that it is interesting to get a glimpse of him as a man with a life and personality of his own.

Vernon Kellogg, who knows him well, tells about him in the Atlantic Monthly:

"He reads surprisingly much for a man so continually heavily laden with affairs. But he does his reading in bed. Even in those many difficult and always uncertain trips across the North Sea from England to Holland, he always had his little electric torch, or even stub of a candle, to fasten to his bunk for a little reading before going to sleep.

"He saves trouble as well as time by wearing, in all seasons and for years, one after another, business suits of the same model and cloth, which he simply orders when needed, two or three at a time, as one would order another half dozen of collars of one's favorite style and regular size.

"In all the Belgian relief diplomacy he recognized discreetly the official position of military officers, ministers, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, premiers. He was patient of form where form was obligatory. But in realities he dealt with each as man to man. He presumes reasonableness, in his antagonist. The higher the authority and more able the man who has to be convinced, the more confident is Hoover of the outcome of the meeting.

"He also has an emotional side. It is a side less apparent, though not less strong, than the purely reasoning one, or the one of forcefulness and authority. In Belgium he avoided the soup-lines and the children's canteens as much as possible. He kept himself to the Brussels office, and had his meetings with the heads of the great national and provincial committees. But one day my wife persuaded him to take an hour to visit a canteen for subnormal children.

"'He stood silently,' she writes, 'as the sixteen hundred and sixty-two little boys and girls came crowding in, slipping into their places at the long, narrow tables that cut across the great dining-rooms; and when I looked at him, his eyes had filled with tears.'"

WOMEN SHOULD REMEMBER PASTEUR

WHEN Louis Pasteur, greatest of scientists, was a young man, the world knew little more about the cause and spread of disease than did the Greeks centuries before Christ. Plagues could still wipe out whole communities, and the causes of infection were unsolved. When he died in 1895, he left medicine revolutionized.

His work in discovering the causes of hydrophobia and other contagious diseases, in preparing preventive serums, in purifying milk by the process now known as pasteurization—all this is well known. But perhaps his greatest achievement was to stamp out the disease known as puerperal or childbed fever, which ravaged the maternity wards of hospitals as late as 1879.

Says Dr. William Williams Keen, in Medical Research and Human Welfare (Houghton, Mifflin Company) :

"In the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1803 to 1833 every eighteenth mother left her new-born baby motherless. In 1872 Lusk, of New York, reported an epidemic in which one mother out of every five died. In my own early professional practice I knew of case after case proving fatal, and in some epidemics the accoucheur for a long interval had to relinquish practice entirely; for Death always peered over his shoulder and slew every fifth, fourth, third, even every second, mother. A mortality as high as fifty-seven out of every hundred has been recorded. Its mystery spread fear among doctors and expectant mothers.

"In 1879, in a debate at the Paris Academy of Medicine, the leaders were at odds as to the cause of this fever, and totally ignorant of any means for preventing it. Suddenly interrupting an eloquent colleague discussing the various possible causes, Pasteur declared that puerperal fever was of bacterial origin, and was carried by doctors and nurses. His colleague retorted that he feared that this strange microbe would never be found. Thereupon Pasteur at once stepped to the blackboard and, drawing what we know as the streptococcus, said, 'There it is!' And there it was indeed!"

Pasteur demonstrated the cause of puerperal fever and the way to abolish it. As a result, the disease is hardly heard of now.

VOTES FOR LADIES

THREE duchesses, three marchionesses, twenty-eight countesses, eleven viscountesses, and thirty-three baronesses have petitioned the House of Lords to pass a clause in the Reform bill giving ladies a right to vote when women do.

They do not ask it, they say, because of their war work, since so many men are giving up their lives that any woman's sacrifice and achievement are small in comparison. Neither do they add, "We can't vote, and our cooks and scullery maids can! Is that a nice way to treat us?"

Yet that is the very crux of the situation.

When England began seriously to arrange for "representation" and "election," she thought the peers had enough, with their House of Lords, so she cut them off from voting outside the House and said: "Only the enfranchised Commons can vote for Commons! And Lords sha'n't be voted for at all."

There you are. Having had their House and its powers, though limited, these many centuries, the peers are content to stay away from the polls.

Not so the peeresses! They have no House of Ladies. They have worked for the vote, fought policemen for it, and gone to jail and on hunger strikes for it. Every servant girl in the land is to have it! Therefore they do "most' solemnly beseech your lordships not to forget us!"

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CUTTING DOWN THE HIGH COST OF CLOTHING

THERE wasn't very much to be said in favor of tattooing until the Samoan Islanders conceived the idea of wearing tattoo on their legs in place of clothing. This extremely practical plan, taken with the somewhat freakish performance of Jack H. G. Gould, the man in the picture, who has devoted his life and his skin to the tattooing art, lends interest to Charles A. Stanton's's history of "Tatu" in the Mid-Pacific Magazine.

The practice originated, he says, in religious superstition among ancient sea-faring men. A man with a crucifix on his chest was supposed to be safe from all harm. A man with a pig on his foot could not drown. A man with "HOLD FAST" on his hands, one letter on each finger, could not fall from aloft.

These early designs were made by cutting the figure in the flesh with a sharp shell, and irritating the wound as it healed, leaving a raised scar of the design. Modern methods employ special inks, nut colorings, and wet coal and brick dust, pricked into the skin with pins or needles.

Hawaiian widows have the names of their deceased husbands pricked in their tongues with thorns, so they won't forget them. In Borneo, Siam, Samoa, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, the Marquesan Islands, and among all Africans, tattooing and religious rites were closely related. In some of these places only the brave or the socially elect might be tattooed. The Australian aborigines marked the left thigh with a tattooed kabong, signifying courage.

American missionaries, it is said, have done more than anything else to wipe out tattooing among these people.

WHEN NAPOLEON MADE PEACE WITH THE CZAR

FEW peace conferences have been more dramatic than that one which was participated in by only two men—Napoleon and Czar Alexander of Russia.

Napoleon had defeated Alexander in fair fight, says Charles Whibley in Political Portraits (Macmillan Company), and he meant to get all the advantage he could out of the victory. The necessary result of his amazing triumph at Friedland was peace. Harboring no resentment against his beaten foe, he resolved to turn the new friendship to the best account. In 1807 he had but one end and one aim—to achieve a general peace by the conquest of England. He might, for the moment, be engaged with other countries; but every march he made, every battle he fought, were but steps upon the same road. England was the enemy, and must be destroyed.

A master of all the arts of flattery and cajolery, Napoleon had no difficulty in outwitting Alexander. He told him tales of victories won in the field, of the vast ambitions which he cherished of universal dominion. Alexander saw himself for the moment a proud sharer with Napoleon in the sovereignty of the world.

The setting of the stage was worthy the impassioned drama itself. Upon a raft in the Niemen they met. Garlands of flowers hid the bareness of the walls, and everywhere the monograms of Napoleon and Alexander were seen interlaced. And, for the first time in his life, Napoleon found himself received without disdain and without rancor by an autocrat whom yesterday he was fighting. With a single phrase the Czar laid what seemed a solid foundation for their friendship:

"I hate the English as much as you do."

"Then," answered Napoleon, "peace is made."

KEEPING THE BALL ROLLING

The choir boys of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, knitting in their leisure moments. What we want to know is, is Number 12, left end of the middle row, reading knitting directions, or has he got hold of a copy of "Coyote Charlie, the Cowboy Chevalier"?

Let the Scissors Help You Make a Living

By JAMES H. COLLINS

Illustrations by Jessie Gillespie

AN excited man dashed into a hotel elevator and rushed upstairs to his room, where a chambermaid was busy sweeping.

"The newspapers I left on the floor!" he panted breathlessly. "What did you do with them? Where are they? Have they been thrown out?"

The chambermaid was a stolid Swedish girl. She dropped her carpet-sweeper and disappeared, presently returning with a handful of newspapers.

"Ay bane keep 'em all safe," she said, glowing with satisfaction. "Ay always bane keep 'em t'ree four days, because in America Ay bane find out gentlemens want newspapers to cut out clippings."

A discerning maid, that. For the hotel where she works is a big hostelry patronized by business men from all over the country, and she had discovered one of the characteristics of the big American business man—that he likes to cut pieces out of the newspapers and periodicals he reads.

One of the most valuable tools you can have in your business is a pair of scissors. And it makes little difference what your line of business is, whether you are president of a big corporation in that line, or just an office-boy beginning the long climb from the bottom.

Between the big man and the little man in business there is usually only one real difference: the big man has more knowledge and vision than the little man. The little man keeps a corner shop or holds a little job, and is not interested in anything much beyond his nose. But the big man is interested in everything pertaining to his work. He wants to know what is being done by other men in his line, and in other lines all over the country, all over the world. He wants to know what the best thinkers and the men with the broadest perspective say about his work, and how it is grounded in technical theory, and where it is going, anyway. So he becomes a reader, and that makes him a clipper.

Before you can improve your work by clipping, you must become a reader, and here enter in the limitations of the scissors as a tool, along with the possibilities. For the kind of clipping that most men do as an aid in their work is very personal. Nobody else can really do it for you as well as you ought to do it yourself.

Get a Big View of Your Work

THE greatest handicap under which most men work, in these days of specialization, is that of not knowing what happens to stuff before and after it comes within their immediate field of operations: they do not know where the raw materials come from, or understand the aims and feelings of the men who take their product to the public. To keep track of the work of these unseen helpers through the journals that they read is easy, however, if you are interested enough to just follow your nose; and your reading ought to include their trade literature.

Clipping is not only very personal in this sense, but it also puts a sort of premium on healthy curiosity. One man will go through a pile of publications with healthy curiosity and scissors, and snip out a dozen things that another would miss altogether.

Work goes so fast nowadays that you have to clip to keep up with it. The professional man finds that the scientific books—even the best of them—are six months or a year behind current progress, and in many lines of work there are few books available—all the new methods and most of the technique are recorded in periodicals, and never find their way into books. No book in the world will embody the best methods in your work as well as a budget of clippings made by yourself—in this respect you are a compiler of your own technical books.

Many of the most useful clippings are those that have no great permanent value, those that you run across and make available to-day and throw away to-morrow. A minister preparing his Sunday sermon, for instance, wants to preach on some question of the day, perhaps a question of the hour, touching only his own community. None of the theological books will help him on that. A salesman can not go to a book-shelf and find out which people in his territory are prosperous enough to buy automobiles or life insurance—he has to clip news items out of the morning paper and put two and two together.

The floor salesmen in a big wholesale house in the Middle West have become known for the intimate way in which they greet each country merchant who comes in to buy his season's stock of goods. "Did that fire cripple you folks much in Smithville last week?" asks the salesman of the customer, to the astonishment of the latter, who does not know how it is done. The answer is—clippings! That wholesale house has several keen young women who read newspapers through its territory, and they clipped the item about the fire last week in Smithville. The telephone girl sends up word to the salesman that Mr. Smith of Smithville is in the house, and in thirty seconds the salesman prepares himself by glancing at a file.

Do Your Own Filing

AS soon as you begin to clip, you must also file; for information is of little use unless you can put your finger on the right thing at the right time. Your filing system should be as personal as your clippings. Arrange it upon your viewpoint, and do it yourself; for it is not likely that anybody else can do it for you.

Trained librarians usually sniff tolerantly as they glance over the personal one-man filing system of a man who uses a pair of scissors to help make a living. "Crude and unscientific," they say. But stick to your own system, and make it as crudely personal as possible.

Some people paste their clippings into scrap books. This is a commendable method for anything that you want to keep in permanent form, and that naturally follows a sequence—say, everything the trade journals said about the building and opening of the new factory. But the mass of one's personal clippings yield the best results when they are kept loose and flexible in envelops or cabinet compartments, each devoted to a special subject.

Scissors are a valuable working tool.

Let them be sharp scissors. And back them up with sharp wits.

List Your Faults

I KNEW I had marked ability in my line and could give excellent references. So it was with some confidence that I stepped into the manager's office, that day, to ask for a job. Imagine my surprise when, having heard my recital, he asked.

"But what are your faults?"

I was stumped, but managed to answer:

"Well, I hardly know. Perhaps one of them is that I never thought to list my faults."

"A lack that is all too common in employees," said this manager. "Our firm can readily discover your ability, but it takes any firm time to list each employee's faults. One man may be jealous, and find himself in constant opposition to some fellow employee because of it; another may be careless in dress, and so lower the standard of our personnel; another may spend his off hours in pleasure that does not make him 'fit' for our careful work.

"When a doctor makes a diagnosis of a case, he doesn't tell you to watch over a sound heart or a normal digestive apparatus. He gives you minute directions how to care for that weakened lung—how to act, to live, to rest, to make your body well again. This is much the way a young man should do—study his weak points and cure them.

"Early in my business life I made out a written list of my faults, and began an effort to correct them. I found that if I quit singing a song of hate I found myself singing a song of joy. If I quit envying the man higher up I soon found myself in the place ahead. When I quit doing careless work I found I was doing careful work.

"In my case this has proved excellent advice to follow. Make out your list to-day."

This Woman is After the Kaiser

WHO says a woman can not express her feminine nature in business? This is Jessie McCutcheon Raleigh, a Chicago doll manufacturer, and when the war cut off our imports of German bisque dolls Mrs. Raleigh started after the Kaiser's trade. And she is getting it.

Some people believe there are one or two live children scattered in this group; because, after Mrs. Raleigh had set Dr. Dun Lany on a long research for an American composition which "out-bisques bisque," she got Emory Seidel, a sculptor, to model her dolls from real children, so that every doll represents a truly American type of loveliness, mischievousness, and coquetry. These dolls are all decorated by artists under a Frenchman, Professor Alary.

Nor is that all; for Mrs. Raleigh expresses herself through her work force as well as her product. To make dolls like this, you must have cheerfulness and enthusiasm in the plant. To keep the proper spirit, Mrs. Raleigh says, she thinks of all the people she employs as personalities, each one valuable to her and the success of the business. Knowing her attitude puts them in the right spirit, and they help a lot.

Her six-year-old son is one of her greatest helpers, with his ideas and childish criticism of toys and dolls. She says that if she put his ideas into tangible form America would be flooded with wonderful toys. Also, that a woman's spontaneous judgment of matters is uncannily reliable. She considers intuition one of the most valuable assets in business.

Mrs. Raleigh comes of the family that includes her three talented brothers, John T., George Barr, and Ben McCutcheon.

Get Her the Mouse-Trap

AS an illustration of how far good service may go, the Hotel Gazette tells this story of the late H. M. Kinsley, proprietor of the Holland House, New York, and a hotel man through and through:

"A nervous old lady came downstairs and asked for a mouse-trap, saying she was sure there was a mouse in her room. The clerk told her that the house was perfectly new, fire-proof, solid from sub-basement to attic, and that there had never been a mouse or any other such animal in it.

"Still the woman insisted on the trap, and the discussion was growing warm when Mr. Kinsley, who had overheard it from his private office, came out and asked for an explanation. This the clerk gave. Mr. Kinsley turned to the complaining lady and said:

"Madame, you shall have the mouse-trap in ten minutes. I regret that you should have been obliged to ask for it twice.'

"At this the guest departed, well satisfied, and Kinsley, turning to the crestfallen clerk, said:

"'If any guest of this house asks for anything, I want it furnished, and without a word. You hustle some one out and get a mouse-trap for that lady. And if she asks for a mouse, you get her that.'"

Those Bad Bills

MAYBE you wouldn't lose so much on collections if you put your credit system on a business basis. These rules in the Montana Trade Journal, by President John Schaefer of the National Association of Retail Grocers, tell you how:

Know your customer. Insist on references from strangers and investigate them. If they hesitate to give them, you hesitate in taking the order.

Name the payment date, and explain that you must meet your own bills with that money. Explain that prompt payment of your own bills enables you to buy cheaper and so sell cheaper.

Insist on payment in full every month. See the customer in person before extending further credit. Don't let the customer decide when to pay. That's your job. A little lost trade won't offset the advantages of prompt payment.

Study each customer's character as well as his financial rating. Don't trust those who leave a bad impression. Have the courage to say "No." Thousands of merchants have lost thousands of dollars because they couldn't.

Never give up a "bad" account. Keep trying. Mail statements only to sure pay folk. See, or have a clerk see, all others in person. Give your personal attention to bad accounts: study them out. Help kill dead beats by not giving them references to get rid of them.

Boost your local credit bureau. Keep a good, accurate bookkeeper, so your customers won't be the ones to discover the errors.

Cashing In—

Continued from page 7

one did, she could deny it and easily get away with the denial. After that it was all I could do to keep her from dragging me here, to sign her up at once. She made me take her home, on my way, and get one of her pictures to show you. Here it is."

He unwrapped an oblong parcel he had been carrying, and laid on the desk a photograph.

Loris took up the full-length likeness and stared at it with cold appraisal. It was of a tall, somewhat willowy girl, whose features were not bad, whose expression was discontented, and who had good hair and hands. The Valencia's president gazed at it for several seconds with no display of enthusiasm, then laid it down.

"She is the type," he said critically. "Not a beauty, but not bad-looking. She will pass—on the strength of her manner. But we'll have to change that expression. It isn't Lady Molly's. How old is she?"

"Not quite twenty-two. Over twenty-one, though: so there'll be no legal comeback if her parents turn nasty. Not that they'll hear about it," explained Croyden reassuringly. "I don't suppose they ever saw a movie in their lives."

"I don't like that," objected Loris. "We'll try to get her father's consent."

"You can't!" babbled Croyden, aghast. "Good Lord, you can't! He'd rip all New York upside down sooner than have her do it. That's the joke of the thing."

"My sense of humor is defective," re-turned Loris dryly. "By the way, I notice you speak of her very carefully as 'the girl' and of her parents as 'dad' and 'mama.' What's her name?"

"Her name is Hunter," answered the the scout—"Bébé Hunter. Full name's Beatrice; but every one calls her Bébé."

"What's her father's name?" asked Loris, with suddenly increased carelessness. "His first name, I mean?"

"Royle Hunter," said Croyden. "He's something or other on the Street."

With the same unwontedly careless manner, Loris swung his swivel chair about till he faced his desk. It was his immemorial way of signifying that an interview was ended.

"Have her here at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning," he bade Croyden, without turning around again. "The contract will be ready for her to sign. You get double commission on this. Tell her I'll pay her two thousand a week. Good day."

"Two thousand a week!" gobbled Croyden, all but dumb. "Two thousand a—"

"Good day!" snapped Loris.

AT noon the following day Loris slouched deep in his desk-chair, reading for the fifth time a contract which the Valencia's lawyer had spent three solid hours, under his direction, in making flaw-tight.

The ink of the signatures on the dotted lines at the bottom of the document was scarcely dry. The bare little office still carried the faint fragrance of sachet. Its unpictured walls were all but echoing to a clear and high-pitched young voice that had thanked the photo-play magnate over and over again for his munificence.

After the fifth reading of the contract, Loris sat back and stared at the white ceiling. His thin lips moved on a queer phrase: "Greasy idiot!"

Then he reached for his telephone and called up the president of the Aaron Burr Trust Company.

"Do you know Royle Hunter?" asked Loris incisively.

"Royle Hunter?" repeated the president. "Why, of course I know him; I've known him for years. We play golf together, twice a month, at Wykagil. And we're both on the—"

"Good!" interrupted Loris. "I'd like you to give me a letter to him."

"A letter? What sort?"

"Introduction. Not the stereotyped kind, but one that will make him drop everything else and see me. Better still—get him on the 'phone. Tell him who I am. Tell him what I can do for him if I want to. Make it strong. Then arrange for me to see him at his office at three to-morrow."

Ringing the bell as he turned from the telephone, Loris summoned his boss printer; and there was a rush of work in various departments of the Valencia for the ensuing twenty-four hours.

Promptly at three o'clock next afternoon, Loris, for the second time in his life, stood in the ante-room of Royle Hunter's office suite.

A smile of self-derision twisted a corner of the hard mouth as he realized how absurd had been his momentary fancy that the same offensive boy who had received him eleven years ago might still be on duty at the outer gate of the citadel.

Another and wholly respectful youth to-day bore the visitor's card to his employer; and Royle Hunter came out in person to welcome Loris and to conduct him in due and ancient form to the inner office.

"Mr. Hunter," began Loris, "I am about to produce a new six-reel feature. It will be advertised as never has any picture in the annals of photo-play. The leading woman's likeness, for instance, in colors, and in all sizes from two to twenty-four sheet, will appear on every billboard fence I can rent, and on every subway and 'L' platform, and on the Fifth Avenue 'buses. A mammoth publicity campaign will make her name and her history as familiar to the public as Geraldine Farrar's. I expect to spend not less than three hundred thousand dollars in exploiting this woman alone. The exploitation will not follow the lines of the best taste, perhaps. Indeed, I intend it shall be spectacular, and even flashy. But it will achieve its purpose."

He unbuckled a thick manuscript case.

Royle Hunter had followed the sense of his guest's words, but their purport was as Greek to him.

"Here," said Loris, drawing from the case a much folded sheet of paper and, with practised speed, opening it to full size on the table—"here is one of my color-prints of her. Rather striking, I think. And here"—with another dive into

Continued on page 20

Who is He?

MANY boys have to quit college because their parents have met with financial reverses. This chap is the only fellow we ever heard of who had to quit because he found himself so very rich all at once that he could not afford to finish his course.

He did not want to leave college, with its golden companionships, its splendid memories for after life: but there were no two ways about it.

The death of the father made it necessary for this boy to put aside his youth and assume the mantle of manhood overnight.

There he was, twenty-one years old, with an assured income of $10,000 a day and heaven knows how much besides. For ten hours a day during the next two years he worked learning how to administer his great estate, detail by detail. He learned it from every angle, economically, socially, and otherwise. Meanwhile he married.

The girl he married was not clever or artistic or ambitious for a career, but she was sweet and gentle and beautiful in character, and an heiress herself. Together they got to work and took stock of their position. It was a position of responsibility. The world had its eyes upon them. They must not make mistakes. The first thing they did was to start a fine experimental farm on the Hudson where scientific problems connected with the production of food supplies could be studied.

Just when he was in his worst quandary as to what career he should follow, the war came upon the world.

So now he is an American flyer in France, and his wife is working in a great field hospital. Meanwhile the career waits. Who is he?

"Cashing In"—

Continued from page 19

the case—"here is a specimen of the press matter I am sending out. I intend to buy advertising space in—"

He got no further. A strangled yell of fury from the faultlessly self-controlled Hunter broke in on his speech. Hunter had glanced at the flaring-colored lithograph spread before him. His sole emotion at first had been one of fastidious disgust at its crudely garish blatancy.

Then, in a spasm of horrified unbelief, he had recognized the woman pictured in the kaleidoscope-tinted lithograph—had recognized the likeness, and had remembered the photograph from which it had been reproduced even before he read the scarlet caption that leaped forth at him from its gilt background:

"Bébé Hunter, Fifth Avenue Society Princess—Daughter of Royle Hunter, the Financier—

"As Lady Molly in the Daring Valencia Feature, 'Cast Adrift.'"

"What do you think of it?" cheerily asked Loris, oblivious of the yell that had shattered his explanatory address.

Hunter, lurching, mouthing, bore down upon him. Loris did not flinch. He stood his ground nonchalantly and with an air of mild boredom. He let his host yell himself speechless. Then, calmly, Loris took up the tale once more.

"I am sorry you are not pleased, Mr. Hunter," he said, with gentle suavity. "But, really, there is nothing you can do. Miss Hunter is of age. I have her contract. Would you care to see it?"

He took from the case a paper. Hunter seized it and rent it to atoms.

"I was afraid of something like that," said Loris, in mild reproof. "So I prepared for it. That was only a certified copy. Here is another. Tear that too, if you choose, for I have three more. If you leave one of them untorn, take it to your lawyer. He will tell you it is iron-bound. I shall leave this second copy of the contract on your table here. If you are so babyish as to tear it, 'phone me and I'll mail you a third copy."

HAVING read and re-read the paper, Hunter rushed home. Bébé was just leaving the house when her father arrived.

The olden artist, who painted the great picture of Iphigenia's sacrifice, dared not depict the face of Agamemnon as the stricken father raised the sacrificial knife to slay his own child. A like reticence can not be amiss in skirting around the far more hideous scene between Royle and Bébé Hunter—and its sequel between the same two protagonists, enforced by hysterical Mrs. Hunter and the hastily sent for family lawyer.

"He's got you, Royle," decreed Willis, the lawyer, as he and his client sat together, after tearful Mrs. Hunter had convoyed the weeping Bébé to the house's upper regions. "He's got you hard and fast. You've made Miss Hunter see how rashly and foolishly she's behaved, and I think you may be certain she will never set foot in the Valencia Building again. But that is only half of your trouble. This clause in the contract, now, entailing a forfeit of fifty thousand dollars cash upon either party who may default in fulfilling every portion of the agreement—he's got you on that."

"It's blackmail!" fumed Hunter.

"Of course it is," agreed Willis. "Blackmail, impure and simple. It's blackmail. But only morally. Legally, it's as sound as the Rock of Gibraltar. He's got you. You'll have to pay. You can't stand a suit against your daughter and the publicity the Valencia people will be sure to make of it."

"I'll pay!" groaned Hunter—who felt all at once that his none too rugged nerves had endured everything they could for one day. "Fix it up as best you can for us. I'll leave it in your hands."

Two days later the lawyer bounced into Hunter's office, in a state of garrulous excitement.

"The man's crazy!" he declared. "I went to him myself, with your certified check for $50,000 and the form of release for him to sign. What d'you suppose he said? Told me he wouldn't accept the check unless you bring it to his office, in person, this afternoon. In person, mind you. That's what he said. He must be—"

"'Phone him that I'll do nothing of the kind!" barked Hunter, in sudden heat. "I'll see him rot first. You have tendered him my check for the forfeit. If he refused it, that is his lookout. Our hands are clean. I know enough of law to—"

"I'm afraid not," contradicted Willis. "I knew how you'd feel about it, and I told him you wouldn't humiliate yourself by coming to his office with the money. What d'you think he said?"

"It doesn't interest me," answered his client heavily.

"But it does!" insisted Willis. "He said the Valencia had never disappointed the public by promising anything it

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couldn't perform. But it was going to make an exception now. He realizes Miss Hunter won't fulfil her contract, he says. But, unless you hand him that check, in his own office, this afternoon, he's going to placard the city and fill the newspapers, to-morrow, with pictures and announcements of her appearance in one of his photo-plays. And—and the deuce of it is, I really believe he'll keep his word. He's not a blackmailer, Royle. He's a paranoiac. Better humor him. He's dangerous."

PROMPTLY at four o'clock, the ragingly apoplectic Royle Hunter entered the outer office of the Valencia's president. An office-boy took his card in to Loris. Then the boy returned to the scowling visitor, and, in the manner of one repeating a hard learned recitation, growled:

"Mr. Towne can't bother with you now. He's busy. Wait out in the hall and he'll let you know when he wants you."

Hunter's gray face went purple. His mouth flew wide open. But, before he could speak, his eye fell on a flaming lithograph of his daughter hanging from ceiling to floor of the otherwise unadorned room. With a gulp that had tears in it, he stalked out into the windy hallway.

There, alternately swearing and snarling, he waited for exactly forty-two minutes. At the end of which time the same office-boy stuck his head out of the door and bawled:

"Come along! You can see him now."

Into the cell-like private office marched Royle Hunter, his head high, his throat contracting, the check in one gloved hand.

Loris sat at his desk. He too was holding a bit of paper, and toyed with it. Hunter guessed aright that it was the "release" he was to receive in return for his check. The sight of it did queer things to his brain and eyes.

Putting fearful restraint on himself, Hunter advanced to within arm's length of the impassively smiling man at the desk. Then, folding the check double, he flicked it contemptuously toward Loris. The check fell short of the desk-edge and drifted to the floor at Loris's feet.

Loris made no move to stoop for it, nor to place the release in Hunter's rudely outstretched hand. He sat moveless, glancing up at the convulsively working face of his guest. Then, quite gently, he said:

"Pick that up and hand it to me."

For a moment Hunter stood gulping, irresolute. Loris's slanting, deep-set eyes never left the visitor's. Behind their Oriental calm seemed to lurk some strange quality that gripped the other man's gaze and will power.

Hunter bent down, picked up the folded check, and handed it to Loris—at the same time snatching the release from the sitter's unresisting fingers.

He made as if to go. Then he faltered—held now, not by his opponent's eye-grip, but by what Loris was doing.

For, very deliberately, Loris was tearing the fifty-thousand-dollar check into infinitely small pieces. As the last of them fell into his cupped palm, he tossed them all into the waste-basket at his side.

Then a dull red light glinted somewhere far behind his stolid eyes, as he looked up once more at his dumfounded visitor. Seeming to be aware, for the first time, that Hunter was still in the room, Loris scowled and pointed to the door.

"Get out of here!" he thundered. "You greasy idiot!"

The Bravest Thing I Ever Did

Continued from page 5

arms out of the socket; but I held my grip, hopped into the stirrup, and climbed on top. Setting a couple of brakes, I gave the head end a chance to get away from me, although by this time the middle section I was riding was ascending the steepest part of the hill, and going at a thirty-mile-an-hour speed.

Pretty soon I saw the smoke of the passenger train on the other track. Then I let off the two brakes in order to get away from the last section, which was gaining on me. When the passenger train passed me and saw I was riding a broken section of a freight train, they whistled the "broke apart" signal. This brought the conductor and flagman out of the caboose on the rear section; and they set brakes on their section to let me get away with the gunpowder cars. I rode these safely into the next station, where the head end of the train was set off on a siding waiting for me.

It was quite a feat for a seventeen-year-old boy to hop on to a freight train on the side of a mountain, and the train moving at a twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed. Had I lost my grip, I should have been crushed under the wheels, and the train would have run together and piled up.

We didn't dare mention this exploit at division headquarters, for fear they'd discharge the conductor and flagman for not being out on top while the train went down the mountain. For in those days, when there were no air brakes on freight trains, the crews rode outside, summer and winter, to guard against accidents caused by trains breaking apart and running together.

F. H. S.

His Little Son

IN the spring of 1914 I was clearing a piece of new ground on my farm in southern Michigan. This piece had once been timber-land; but a few years previous the trees had all been cut, leaving the place covered with stumps. I had already taken out all the stumps that were rotted, but some of them were green and perfectly solid. So I decided to blow these out with dynamite.

One morning I took the dynamite to the field, ready to begin operations. Before leaving the house I told my small son that he must not follow me to work this forenoon, as it would not be safe to have him there.

I first tried a charge on a large stump; but it only threw up some dirt and stones, not doing a thing to the stump. This

disgusted me, so the second time I put in a very large charge.

The earth around this stump was hard and full of stones. From experience I had learned that if the earth beneath a stump was hard and solid, so that the charge could not go downward, it would force upward with more strength and at greater speed.

As I had put in such a strong charge, I decided I would have to be two or three rods away when it exploded.

After lighting the fuse, I ran back out of danger and sat down on a stone. I knew about how long it would take for the fuse to burn up to the dynamite, so I took my watch out to time it.

When it came time for the explosion, I looked up—and there, about three feet beyond the stump, was my three-year-old boy, trotting along as unconcerned as could be. Without an instant's thought, I ran for him—and I know I never ran faster. As I reached him, I grabbed him and ran on, getting about twenty feet

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from the stump when the explosion came. I looked back and saw the stump was not going to reach us here. The only things that could harm us were the fast falling stones. I leaned over, holding my boy underneath me, and got some good welts on my back.

After all was quiet I went back; and when I saw the great hole where the stump had been, and figured that the stump had landed just about where my boy was when I reached him, I felt a shudder. Not once before this had I thought of the danger.

G. C.

In the Blizzard of '87

FOR several years in the '80's I was train-boy on the Housatonic Railroad, now the Berkshire division of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. On February 17, 1887, my train left Bridgeport at 5.25 P. M. for Pittsfield, Massachusetts. There was not a flake of snow on the ground or in the air when the train started. But when we arrived at New Milford, the train crew were notified that there were three trains snowed in, about five miles this side of Pittsfield. So, while the train was taking water, I rushed across the street and purchased a half bushel fruit-basket full of cookies.

When we got to Great Barrington, at about 8.30, we found a blizzard raging, and the wind blowing a gale, so that you could see but a few feet ahead. The storm increased in fury, and the snow got deeper every slow mile the train made, until the train stopped, then backed down a few feet and started ahead again, until it stalled altogether. It was then midnight.

The hungry passengers, of whom there were about one hundred, quickly devoured my basketful of cookies, which I sold them at twenty cents a dozen. The storm increased all night, and at daybreak we were hemmed in on both sides, the snow being level with the top of the car windows, so that you could not see out. About noon I suggested to the passengers that they go to the express car and see if there was anything eatable in charge of the messenger; but all he had was a box of canned tomatoes. The passengers opened the cans with pocket knives, and ate the tomatoes, drinking the liquid from the cans—a sight I shall never forget.

It snowed all that day and night. The following day the train crew appointed me to go out and look for food for the starving passengers and trainmen, since I best knew the lay of the land. I went into the baggage car, picked up the old box that had held the tomatoes to use for a snowshoe, grabbed a plank, took my basket, and passed the things up between the cars, a brakeman assisting me. Then I placed a newspaper across my chest under my vest, and climbed up on top of the smoker. I threw the box before me, put one foot in it, then threw the plank ahead and stepped on that, and struck out for the nearest house, which I knew was about half a mile away to the northeast, though I could not see it on account of the blinding storm.

In about an hour and a half I reached the house—a low two-story farm-house. The snow had drifted in under the veranda and covered it completely up to the second-story window. I reached the drift, climbed it, nearly exhausted, rapped on

the window, and shouted as loud as I could. After what seemed an hour a man came, excited and surprised, opened the window, and fairly pulled me in, where I thawed out, told my story, rested, and inquired for food for the passengers. I was amazed and almost discouraged to find that he had everything cleaned up but apples and salt pork.

I took my basket half full of apples, and started back, while the farmer and his wife wished me a hearty safe return to the train. It was nearly 6 P. M. when I noticed a brakeman's light a few feet ahead of me. Then I realized I was safe, after the most trying and hardest half day's work I had ever done. The brakeman was swinging his lantern and shouting. I shouted back. He recognized my voice, and when I got to him he lowered me down on to the platform, weary, tired, and benumbed with cold. They thawed me out and gave me a special place near the stove, where I curled up and slept, dreaming of blizzards. In the morning I found my train cap beside me nearly filled with change and a few bills.

A snow-plow that morning relieved our train and the others, and I returned to Bridgeport on the down train after three nights and two and a half days spent in the blizzard.

J. B.

She Didn't Know How to Shoot

I WAS "raised" on the "Idyls of the King," " Ivanhoe," and the like. I knew whole cantos of Scott by heart. They made a world more real to me than everyday, in which cowardice was the unpardonable sin. I often speculated on courage, fearful lest a test might find me unequal, a coward.

One day, when I was sixteen, the test came. My sister, aged six, and I were on a visit to my grandparents, who lived a couple of miles from a little Southern town, half a mile from the nearest neighbor. The house was in the twilight of an orange grove that in front sloped down to a lake.

My grandfather had driven to town for the weekly supplies; my grandmother was lying down in her room, as was her wont after dinner. In the grape arbor, back of the house, I sat reading the "Lady of the Lake."

Suddenly my grandmother screamed, "Help!" twice.

I sprang up, dropping my book, and rushed to her, frightened, but without the remotest idea of what threatened. As I approached, she screamed again: "The gun—bring the gun!"

I snatched it from its corner, an old "muzzle-loader" that my grandfather kept for hawks. I knew nothing of firearms, and remembered as I seized it that my grandfather had emptied it at a marauder that morning, without reloading. It was empty—and I knew it!

Nevertheless, I ran with it into my grandmother's room, where she cowered in a corner, away from a negro who hung on the window-sill, a knife in his hand.

I leveled the gun at the negro. "Get—you dog! If you aren't gone by the time I count three, I'll blow your damned head off!" (I had never before used the word "damn.")

The negro's leer wavered, but he clung while I counted two. At "three" he dropped.

I ran to the window and watched him shambling off, pausing every now and then to look back. When he was out of sight, I leaned the gun against the sash, shaking from head to foot.

"Where is your sister?" asked my grandmother in nameless alarm.

I rushed to find her, calling. To my boundless relief, she came running.

With my grandmother and little sister, I sat on the front steps in the late afternoon, the empty gun across my knees,—none of us knew how to load it,—awaiting my grandfather's return.

The negro, as we learned late that night, went direct from our house to a neighbor's, where he attacked the neighbor's wife, seriously injuring her.

This is the bravest thing I ever did—I hope a severer test may never come. I remember, afterward, how glad I was to find I was not a coward!

F. D. P.

"Not Exceptionally Brave"

WHILE I do not think that I am exceptionally brave, I can recollect incidents from my sailor life which would perhaps be classed as acts of bravery, though I did not feel that way at the time, and acted altogether on the spur of the moment. But there is one incident which I can not recollect without the cold chills running down my spine, notwithstanding the twelve years which have elapsed since.

I was in the seaport of Sydney, Australia. I had run away from a big English full-rigger and had worked my way to Sydney to get another ship; but, as I had no clothes-bag and no money, I could not get into a sailor boarding-house. I was what sailors call "on the beach."

One day I was sitting on the dock, watching the ships. A large excursion boat was pulling out, loaded with gay people out for a holiday. It made me feel awfully blue to watch the happy crowd, and most naturally my thoughts went to home and my friends. I was suddenly aroused by a cry, "Man overboard!" which came from the excursion steamer. It was taken up ashore and people started to run. But I did not stop to look. I was on my feet in a moment, pulling off my coat and shoes. As I made a jump for the edge of the dock, I saw something white struggling on the surface of the water directly back of the steamer. The next moment I went over the twenty-foot dock, head first.

I must explain that Australian waters are infested with large man-eating sharks, and in Sydney harbor they are plentiful. Only the day before I had seen one at least fifteen feet long in the harbor, lazily swimming around directly under the surface.

But at the moment I went over the dock it was forgotten.

When I came to the surface my only thought was to get to that little helpless white thing ahead of me, and I was going toward it at record speed. I am still considered a good swimmer, and, as I was just back from the South Sea Islands where I had good practice, it was not

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long before I reached the object, which proved to be a little girl. I lifted the little head above water, and started toward the excursion boat, which by this time had started a small boat toward me.

But then a cry rang through the air—a cry that every sailor dreads: "Shark! Shark!"

I turned, and there on the surface I saw the back fins of two sharks—quite a way off, it is true; but you have to see a shark swim for his prey before you can realize what speed sharks can make, and they come swiftly and silently. For a moment it was as if the blood froze in my veins, as if my limbs became paralyzed.

For a fraction of a second I believe I even considered leaving the little girl and trying to save myself. Sights I had seen of men being attacked by sharks came to me like a flash.

In that little moment I was no hero; but as quick as it came it disappeared, and gave place to the fighting instinct, the desire to live, which I think is born in every man. I found myself swimming toward the oncoming boat with a swift stroke. Half unconsciously I could see the people lined along the rail, urging me on.

I was now but a few yards from the boat. Would I make it? I remembered a case of a man getting his leg cut off by a shark just as he was being pulled into a boat. Would I share his fate? Oh, how I swam!

Then, all of a sudden, I felt myself relieved of my burden. I had reached the boat. I was no longer fully conscious. Simultaneously as I was relieved of my burden, a cry went up from the steamer. I did not realize its meaning, but when strong arms found my shoulders and pulled me with a quick jerk into the boat, the last thing I could remember was the sight of the shark's white shining belly as it turned on its back to sever my legs—but just a moment too late.

E. R.

One Woman's Story

WHAT is the bravest thing I ever did? Surely the supreme test of both physical and moral courage occurred at two o'clock one morning in midwinter, when the man I married, who had pledged himself to honor and protect me, returned to our little home, after an absence of several days, greatly under the influence of a horrible drug, which had imbued him with so-called courage.

He awakened me, demanded that I arise, pointed a loaded revolver at me, and coolly informed me that he cared no more for me and that he would end my life in two minutes.

I had suspected for some time that there was something wrong—just what I did not know. We had been married nine years, and had two dear babies. I was just twenty-eight years old; life was very sweet to me, in spite of the fact that I knew my husband fell very far short of the man whom I thought he was when I married him.

My baby daughter was sleeping the peaceful sleep of babyhood in her crib not three feet from the spot where stood her father. Our other child slept in an adjoining room. There was no one else in the house, which was a little bungalow in a country town.

There was no one to summon to my aid. The man was coolly intent upon his purpose. My whole life seemed to flit past me in that moment—all my hopes, aims, ambitions, my moments of happiness and my many disappointments. I can not express the feeling of helplessness that overcame me. To appeal to his mercy was useless; he was crazed, and could not be reasoned with.

He opened his lips to announce that the time was up. I interrupted him by saying:

"Please do shoot me. My life with you has been nothing but misery; I would rather not live any longer. I am ready."

I delivered this speech calmly, not showing the horrible fear I felt. I knew the moment of life or death had come. I think I had heaven-given strength to meet whatever was in store for me.

The gun fell from his hands, and the wretch groveled at my feet, vowing that, if I could forgive him just this once, never again, etc., etc. His abject misery was pitiful in the extreme. Of course he did not keep his promises.

I have no husband now; but I have my dear children, and peace and contentment. Had I faltered at the crucial moment, had I shown any fear, I know I would not be writing this gruesome story to-day. I trust there are not many women who have to have such terrible experiences; but I am thankful every day that I did have the courage, both moral and physical, to meet my test.

MRS. I. M. H.

"A Yellow Streak"

I AM an ex-soldier and marine with thirteen years of continuous service to my credit. I am not naturally brave. I am one of those little insignificant individuals whom most people dislike.

It was in the Boxer war, July 13 and 14, 1900. We had been (the 2d Battalion U. S. Marines) on the firing line for two days, wedged in between the 9th U. S. Infantry and the Japanese contingent. It was hot and dusty, and we had been trying to take the Old City, that is, the Walled City of Tientsin. We had made several advances beyond our hasty intrenchments, but were driven back by heavy shelling.

About midday we made another effort to advance, but were immediately driven back by a storm of bullets to our trenches. We huddled down close in the bottom of the hasty intrenchments, and I became possessed of a deadly fear, shaking as with the ague so hard that the man next to me asked if I had a chill.

Another man in the company overheard the question, and remarked, "Chill nothing; he's got a yellow streak."

Well, I am afraid he was right, in a way. I positively had cold feet. I was actually scared speechless, although I had been in action before.

There was a bush or small runt of a tree about fifty yards beyond the trench. A human being was lying there, and it was seen to be an officer, a first lieutenant. After a little confab among our captain and two lieutenants, they called for two volunteers to go out and get him, as he was seen to move and was still alive.

One man at once volunteered to go; the rest looked at each other. No one else moved.

I jumped up and said, "I'll go," right on the impulse of the moment.

We two jumped over the parapet, rushed to the little bush, picked up the officer, and carried him to the trench. During all this time do you think things were quiet? Not by any means. The Chinese on the south wall spotted us almost at once, and let loose a veritable hail of lead. The bullets cut the dust around my feet; they hummed past my face and over my head—I did not discover until afterward that a bullet had actually gone through my hat. But my partner and I kept going (in fact, there was nothing else to do) until we were safe with our wounded officer back of the trenches.

Officers and men alike shook hands with us when they got the chance. This is the bravest (if it can be considered brave) thing I ever have done. I'll admit it was all done under undue excitement. When I was safe, I just slumped right down and went all to pieces. Some may question this as bravery.

Well—the government thought it was, when they presented me with a medal some time afterward, and honorable mention as well.

W. C. S.