Puslapio vaizdai
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outpouring of even richer emotional con

tent:

After giving the number,

Listen to the operator

As she repeats it;

If she repeats the number correctly,
Say "Yes" or "Right";

If she does not repeat
The number correctly,
Say "No."

That strikes the note of deep humanity, mingled with a vein of latent romance-the mastery of distance aided by the ewig-weibliche genius before some switchboard at "Central." It is anonymous, this plangent chant in the telephone; and, like all the rest that I have quoted, its true nature lies hidden in solid printing.

How much longer will the captains of industry, just for the sake of saving the cost of extra paper, try to mask this flow of verse? How much longer must these humble, nameless poets continue to waste their sweetness on the desert air of apparent prose when stuff not half so good is every day given to the public as poetry?

You to

The Ideal Husband

By PAUL WING

are probably a woman. Few men would pause to read an article headed "The Ideal Husband." Man knows his fellow-men too well.

Of course it is true that nearly every married woman has at some time in her life claimed to have found the one ideal husband; but not for long. He is not a stable article; he is only a fleeting glimpse.

Shortly after a young married woman declares hers to be the ideal husband, he exhibits a tendency to crumble his crackers

in his soup or to place a slice of bread in his empty dinner-plate and submerge it in gravy. These things "are not done."

While a man is still engaged-held under option, as it were, but not definitely contracted for-he is for a short while considered ideal. However, he just begins to enjoy his perfection when it is discovered by his general manager elect that he rests his knife and fork half on the tablecloth and half on his plate, while they should be draped artistically across his

plate midway between meat and potatoes. To save time, probably he also cuts his meat into small pieces before starting to eat it.

He has good reasons for doing as he does, but they do not excuse him. His sort of conduct and perfection simply do not walk hand in hand.

No young couple should be engaged long enough for either one to discover the other's shortcomings. So long as a man and a girl are so mutually mesmerized that the eyes of one never leave the eyes

of the other, he is perfect; but the moment he allows her glances to stray below his Adam's apple, -the moment he loses control, he loses also perfection. She realizes that his knowledge of esthetics was gleaned from an abridged edition; that his tie is not in vogue, that his collar is too loose and too low, and therefore too comfortable.

Ah me! I have strayed from my subject, the ideal husband. Let me return to it and proceed.

There is no such thing.

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WISH I was home ag'in,

'Way down Souf once mo'!

Roses bloomin' in de sun
Roun' de li'l' ole cabin do';
Cotton-fiel's a-gleamin' white,
All de niggahs pickin';

Smells o' suppah-time 'long todes night-
Lou done kill a chicken.

Up hyah de snow so deep,
All de groun' is froze;
Win's go, "Oo-en oo-en oo!"
Piercin' frough yo' clo'es
En bones.

O Lawd, I hates de cole,

Hates dis freezin' stawm. Bad place doan' look bad to me, Ef I jus' gits wawm.

Ef I was home ag'in,

'Way down Souf once mo', Reckon I'd be standin' hyah

Shet outside de kitchen do'? "Y' ole black rascal," cunnel say,

"Damn yo' wufless hide! Git in dah to de good hot stove En fill yo' fool inside!"

Ef I was home ag'in,

'Way down Souf once mo', All de niggahs be standin' roun'"Hi dah! Clah de kitchen flo'! Step up lively, 'Mandy Lou!

'Lijah, grease yo' heels!

Unc' Tawm's fiddle hit sholy know
Zackly how yo' feels."

Ef I was home ag'in,

'Way down Souf once mo', My li'l' Mis' she smile so sweetLawdy! I's a-dreamin' sho! Teef a-chatterin' while I pats,

See my frozen bref!

Calls me "Mistah," but yo' lets me stahve

Lets me freeze to def.

Up hyah de snow so deep,
All de groun' is froze;
Win's go, "Oo-en oo-en oo!"
Piercin' frough yo' clo'es
En bones!

O Lawd, I hates de cole,

Hates dis freezin' stawm. Bad place doan' look bad to me, Ef I jus' gits wawm!

THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK

[graphic]

The market-place in front of the cathedral, Senlis

By

Orville Peets

Vol. 91

FEBRUARY, 1916

No. 4

As

Staking a Larkspur

By ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK
Author of "A Fountain Sealed," "Tante," etc.
Illustrations by Henry Raleigh

S a matter of fact (one has often to take one's stand on fact when thinking about Vera), it 's I who am the gardener; it's I, that is to say, who draw the plans and compute the cost and give the orders and see that the men carry them out. I often lend a hand at carrying them out, too, for I love planting seedlings and staking plants and tweaking out weeds here and there when I 've the chance. That wonderful blue border Vera had on the south terrace last summer,—it was just going over when the war broke out, -I put in all the new blue larkspurs myself, three hundred of them, -the larkspurs that Mrs. Thornton was to remind me of, and I designed and planted and with my own hands helped to lay out the dream-garden, Vera's special garden. It was she, certainly, who had had the idea, standing on the site of the little, old, abandoned sunken garden in its circle of stone wall and cypresses, and saying, “I see a dream-garden here, Judith; a place where one can come and sit alone and dream dreams." She often has charming

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ideas, Vera, but she knows nothing about gardening. I sound already as if I were crabbing her, I know; and perhaps I am. Certainly I never think of her relation to her garden without a touch of irony, and this story, which begins in the dream-garden, is n't to her advantage. It was there that I felt my first definite irascibility in regard to Vera and little Mrs. Thornton, and felt the impulse, as far as I was able, to take Mrs. Thornton under my wing.

It's a rather clipped and confined wing, and yet I can do pretty much as I choose at Compton Dally; I don't quite know why, for Vera does n't exactly like me. Still, she does n't dislike me, and I think she's a little bit afraid of me; for I am as definite and determined as a pair of garden shears, and my silence is often only the good manners of the dependent, and Vera knows it.

I am her cousin, an impecunious cousin, my mother a sister of her father's, old Lord Charleyford, who died last year. Vera herself was very impecunious until she married Percival Dixon; impecunious,

Copyright, 1916, by THE CENTURY Co. All rights reserved.

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