1HS OLD GIRL
83
By ETTA WEBB
(?) Associated Newspapers
WNU Service.
^ ^ T OU’LL wear your purple
Y chiffon tonight, Ethel,”
| Joe Peel said as he
carefully folded the
morning paper and crumpled his
napkin into a tight wad preparatory
to making his morning getaway to
the office.
His wife looked at him, rebellion
darkening her pretty blue eyes.
Joe was always like that.
He was forever interfering with
things that she thought belonged en
tirely to her sphere.
For the first few weeks after their
marriage she had rather enjoyed his
telling her what she should wear
and what food she should serve.
Lately, however, Joe's continued re
quests for her to wear this dress
or that dress had begun to get on
her nerves.
"I just can’t wear that dress to
night, Joe.” sighed Ethel.
“Well, maybe you have worn that
dress long enough,” Joe said. "I
guess I'll stop in at the Fashion and
see what they have that 1 think will
make my little Honey look pretty.
You leave it to me, Ethel. Don't
you worry. You'll have some clothes
that will outshine everybody tonight.
With a hasty kiss Joe rose from
the table, snatched his hat and hur
ried away, beaming with joy at the
prospect of bestowing fresh love to
kens upon his wife.
In the course of the morning a
messenger brought several pack
ages from the Fashion. Ethel
opened them. There was a purple
dress, sheer stockings and slippers
with amethyst-studded buckles. The
doorbell rang before she had opened
half the packages. It was a man
from the florist's with a corsage
bouquet of purple violets.
Any other time Ethel might have
accepted as inevitable the purple
ensemble, but today she simply
could not endure the sight of so
much of the color she was growing
to dislike so intensely.
Joe might be blind to the awful
combination her bright red hair and
purple clothes made, but others
were not. She just couldn’t go to
the club banquet if she had to wear
it.
She would call Joe up and tell
him so.
“Joe,” she said when she got her
husband on the telephone, "I can’t
wear purple tonight."
“Can't — wear purple tonight!
Why, what’s got into you?”
Joe was plainly astonished.
“Weren’t the things I sent up all
right? They certainly cost enough.
That mess set me back half my
month’s pay. You’re to meet one
of my old girls tonight, and I wanted
you to look your best.”
“Then that's all the more reason
why I won't wear purple. She’d
think I was crazy. I'm sick and
tired, Joe, of having my things
bought for me just as if I were a
kid,” she managed to say.
Her heart was crushed with hurt
feeling and sudden jealousy.
“Very well, my dear—”
Oh, how Ethel hated Joe’s voice
when he said “My dear” in that
cold tone! "If you don’t think
enough of me to do as I want you to
it’s just as well if we come to an
understanding right now. You will
either wear those things I had sent
up for you, I say, or you can stay
at home. Furthermore, I won’t
come home tonight until I get good
and ready.”
“Suit yourself, Joe,” Ethel said,
but her voice trembled.
A click on the wire warned her
that her husband had hung up the
receiver. It was the first time that
Joe had ever done such a thing to
her.
After a good cry, which helped
to clear the atmosphere a bit, Ethel
began to realize that a mere choice
of color was a silly thing to quarrel
over. But she had started some
thing. It might be a turning point
in her life, and she would not turn
back. Perhaps the thought of Joe's
old sweetheart helped to strengthen
her determination.
She bathed her face, powdered
her nose, and put the purple en
semble back into the boxes and re
turned them herself to the Fashion.
She was gone several hours and
when she returned she brought
many packages.
Joe kept his word.
He did not come home to take
Ethel to the banquet. So she went
alone. She had her own ticket.
Joe was on a committee, so no
one would notice if she did go alone.
When she arrived at the clubhouse
she was late. The doors of the big
dining hall were already open. She
glimpsed Joe well to the head of
the line. He evidently was taking in
a big blonde who was dressed in
spangled purple chiffon.
The big blonde was losing no time
in trying to make an impression.
She was gazing into Joe’s face with
rapture in her eyes.
Ethel’s chin shot out in a deter
mined way. She just would not
cry.
In the dining hall Ethel was di
rected to a seat at a small table
where three other women were al
ready seated. They were all stran
gers to her, so she devoted herself
to the menu and program. She
stole a glance in Joe’s direction. It
was some time before he saw her
and then he did not seem to recog
nize her. She saw him take off
his glasses, polish them nervously,
adjust them and stare again in her
direction in a dazed sort of way.
As soon as her heart ceased its
nervous flutter and the blood
stopped pounding in her ears she re
alized that her three companions
were talking about Joe and the big
blonde. They had not recognized
Ethel.
"I see Joe Peel has Bernice Car
rier in tow tonight. I wonder how
that happened,” one of the women
said.
"Why, don’t you know? Bernice
was one of Joe’s old girls. She
was crazy about him—”
“Why didn't he marry her? She
was a handsome girl.”
“She’s got over it—I mean, looks.
Why, Joe told my husband he never
got so tired of a girl in his life as
he did of Bernice. She was pure
saccharine. You know the kind?
She let him boss the life out of her,
even let him tell her what to wear.
He liked purple, and she wore pur
ple to please him.”
“I wonder if that's the reason
that little red-headed wife of his al
ways wears purple. By the way, I
don't see her tonight!”
“She isn’t here. If she was she’d
look like a purple pansy. You
couldn't miss her.”
The conversation drifted off into
other channels.
Ethel wished she could vanish in
thin air.
The rest of the meal was a dream
to her.
Ethel had slipped out, intending to
go home before anyone recognized
her. She was putting on her coat
when Joe appeared.
“Where you going, Ethel?” he
asked in his dearest voice.
“Home," Ethel managed to say.
“Nothing doing, darling. You are
going to stay right here and meet
the folks. I want you to rescue
me from that dumb Dora I had to j
sit beside. If you don’t help me get
rid of her I’ll—why. I’ll hang my
self. Say, baby, you’re the sweet
est thing I ever saw in that black.
You look like a duchess or some
thing. Gosh! I'm proud of you. I'll
tell the world I’m proud of my
wife’s good sense—”
There was a demure sparkle in
Ethel’s blue eyes.
“Will you love me, Joe, if I still
refuse to wear purple?”
“Say, if I ever catch you wearing !
purple again I’ll—say, will you for- j
give me? I've been a blind fool.
But here comes some of the crowd,
and the old girl leads the way. This
is what happens only once in a
lifetime. Miss Carrier, meet the lit
tle wife.”
To her dying day Ethel would
never forget the pride that swelled
Joe’s voice.
Average California Bird
Something of Smoke-Eater
Proof that the average California
bird has all of the smoke-eating
qualities of the big city fireman is
being furnished to the Museum of
Vertebrate Zoology of the Univer
sity of California. A number of
badly smudged avian specimens
from the citrus belt of Southern
California have been received at the
museum, together with much first-'
hand evidence to show that the birds
kept right on with their singing and
their household chores in the thick
of the black, billowing smoke from
the orange grove smudge fires dur
ing the record cold snap.
Humming birds, house wrens,
thrashers, warblers, goldfinches,
sparrows and towhees were seen
flitting about from one smoke cloud
to another during the smudging pe
riod, their bodies black with soot,
but they showed no outward evi
dence of being bothered. Unlike
the big city firemen, they were un
able to remove the grime after the
smudging period had passed, for it
worked into their feathers like a
dye. Many may be seen in South
ern California disguised as black
birds, while many others have gone
on their migrations still bearing this
evidence of their experience with
the citrus smudge fires. The molt,
however, is expected to bring back
their feathers in their natural hues.
The scientists in the museum ex
plained that the limitations of in
stinct and the necessity for home
building in the old haunts prevented
the birds from flying away and es
caping the smoke. But why the
thick, choking smoke caused no
apparent rise in the mortality or the
conduct of the birds, is a question
that the museum staff would like to
answer.
Tschaikowsky
Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky is the
best-known, if not also the great
est of the Russian composers. He
was born in 1840, and though he
did not at first show any great
musical aptitude, his artistic fac
ulties woke up when he was about
twenty, and he devoted himself to
music till his death in 1893. He
composed eleven operas, six sym
phonies. (of which the last, the
“Pathetique,” is the most famous)
and many examples of other types
of music. His “1812 Overture,”
written for the dedication of a
church built as a memorial of the
Russian victory over Napoleon, is
frequently performed on popular
symphony programs.
Paints Were Edible
According to history, paints made
in early colonial times were edible.
Boiled rice, skimmed milk and salt
were among the raw materials used
in making home-made paints. Early
American cookbooks contained for
mulas for making the various colors
desired.
hl<*tyd
ADVENTURERS’ CLUB
headlines from the lives
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOUR'SELF!
Stretching His Luck’*
By FLOYD GIBBONS
Famous Headline Hunter
l-T ELLO, EVERYBODY:
A 1 Teddy was a wing walker. You know, one of those
birds in a flying circus who does things on the wing of a
plane you wouldn’t try in your own parlor. They must need
money mighty bad, you tell your neighbor.
Teddy always was a runt. That’s why he was a wing walker. You
wanted as little weight as possible moving around out there on the fabric
covered wings of those Jennies the flying circuses were using right after
the war. They weren’t built for wing walking. But Teddy walked ’em,
even in his sleep.
It was old stuff to him. It was so old he began to look around
for something new to thrill the gaping crowds.
Something that gave them a bigger kick than hanging by your knees
from the undercarriage of a speeding plane. He didn't know then it
never pays to play the other fellow’s game. But he learned.
Well, sir, it was in a town the flying circus was playing out in Iowa
that Teddy came across the idea he was looking for. It came to him as
he watched a human fly scale the walls of the tallest building. Reaching
the topmost story, the fly somehow attached an ordinary inner tube to
a window, sunk his teeth in the other end and hung there in the breeze.
Teddy saw the stunt “got" the crowd. And it would knock ’em cold
when he pulled it on a plane a thousand or so feet in the air.
Human Fly Showed Him the Trick.
When the fly came down to earth, Teddy introduced himself, invited
him to supper. Maybe they hoisted a couple. Anyway, the fly warmed
up enough to tell Teddy how it worked.
Before he went to bed that night, the wing walker bought himself
a couple of brand new inner tubes. The next day, out at the flying field,
he rigged them as he had been instructed. High up on a wall he fastened
an end of one. Then, climbing on a chair, he took the other end in
his teeth and kicked the chair away.
The darn thing stretched so far his feet touched the floor. He moved
the tube a couple feet higher and everything was fine.
Day after day Teddy religiously practiced hanging from that tube to
strengthen the muscles of his jaws and neck. It was a heavy strain to
put on the front upper teeth that were bridgework, but they held. And
six weeks later Teddy was prepared to strut his stuff.
Before we go any further I had better tell you Teddy is Theodore
Davidson of Galesburg, 111. They still call him “Dare Devil” Davidson.
He was all of that on a sunny afternoon, in September, 1919, in Mo
line, 111., where the flying circus was putting on its show, making those
His Jaws Clamped Down on the Flapping End.
Jennies do things they were never built for. The weather was perfect.
So was the gate. And the performers were feeling pretty good as they
took to the skies.
Teddy Tried It Out in Moline.
Especially Teddy. He was going to pop their eyes out with a brand
new, death-defying stunt, performed for the first time in any land. It
never occurred to him then, this would also be the last time.
The inner tube was fastened securely to the axle of the undercarriage
of the Jenny. And everything went off according to schedule uritil
Teddy began lowering himself down that wriggling, slippery, flabby length
of rubber.
“Right then,” Teddy says, "I could see I had stretched my
luck too far." «.
Right there, too, he began learning a painful lesson in simple
physics!
He had failed to figure what effect the air resistance of his body
would have upon the tubing. Hanging below the plane, moving sev
enty miles an hour, the drag of the air on Teddy added some thirty or
forty pounds to the weight of that big rubber band.
“That tube started stretching and stretching,” says Teddy, "and it
was like a live thing as I slipped and fought it!”
The more it stretched, the harder it was for a wing walker with a
bright idea to hang on. It had never acted that way in practice. Would
it hold? Could it hold? What was he going to do about it? Teddy says
he was too dumb to climb back. That was probably because he was
too busy holding on.
Well, sir. that’s one of the darned’st fixes I ever heard of. And it
became worse. After rassling for ten minutes with that flexible support
his arms tired.
Then His Bridgework Gave Way.
He slipped lower. Finally, he just had to let himself down to where
ne could sink his teeth into the gadget attached to the flapping end. Hif
jaws clamped down on it. The rest of him was limp with weariness.
His head forced back, he saw the tube stretch alarmingly as
gusts of wind put more pressure on his body. There were six
feet of it between him and the landing gear.
In practice, it had never stretched to more than three!
Teddy tried to relax as the plane circled fifteen hundred feet above
the grandstand. His aching arms were folded, resting for that long
climb to safety. He wasn't sure he could do it. But he was not permit
ted to dwell on the idea for long. There was a wrench, a crunch, a shoot
of pain in Teddy’s face.
The bridgework that was Teddy’s front uppers had crushed!
The ends of the mouthpiece, however, were tucked away back where
they were gripped by molars on both-sides. Still gripping it, Teddy be
gan inching his way upward along that thing, twisted, tough tubing that
had been put to such strange use. Well, boys and girls, there is no use
prolonging the agony.
"I made it, too,” Teddy says, “but by such a small margin I decided
then and there to be satisfied with my old bag of tricks.”
Teddy’s story closes on a note of sadness. Those artificial teeth of
his vanished into thin air during the minutes he struggled up that yield
ing rope of rubber. All the dough he made that dizzy day went to buy
a new set.
The wing walker says, "I’ll never stretch my luck again.”
©—WNU Sex vice.
Surnames In “Ett”
"Ett” is a diminutive ending fre
quently used with surnames which
have their origin in baptismal
names. It can generally be stated
that names ending in “ett” were
originally nicknames. Most fre
quently this ending is found in
names of French origin; but it
sometimes occurs in names of other
nationalities as well, says R. T. Pat
terson, Director of the Media Re
search Bureau of Washington
Always 54 Degrees
It can be truthfully said that
Mammoth cave in Kentucky
breathes only once a year In the
summer the air outside the cave is
warmer than the air within. These
conditions are reversed in the win
ter months. Cool air rushes out of
the cave in the summer and into it
in the winter. It matters not what
the temperature is outside the cave,
the temperature inside always re
: mains at 54 degrees.
BEAUTY ON OCEAN'S BED
■BMi_bdE^gBarai
A Coral Garden in the South Pacific.
Sea Gardens of the Tropics Are
Replete With Lovely Growths
I Prepared by National Geographic Society,
Washington, D. C.—WNU Service.
AS ONE sails over the
coral reefs in the Trop
JL JL. ics in a glass-bottomed
boat and gazes down
at the deep sea gardens, the
coral castles of the reef-build
ers are seen to be adorned
and surrounded by thickets
of waving sea growths that to
the uninitated appear to be a
! plant vegetation of varied hue
and graceful form. These
are the gorgonians and, far
from being plants, are in real
I ity animal structures. Like
| the corals, they are colonies
of polyps, but instead of build
ing limestone habitations
they have specialized in horn,
or chitin, as a building ma
terial.
Descending to the ocean bottom
to examine the gorgonians, you see
that the fernlike plumes, the flat,
lacy fronds of the sea fans, and the
club-shaped branches of the sea
bushes are alive with close-set
ranks of tiny expanded polyps, tint
ed green, yellow, pink, or white.
Myriads of starlike forms extend
radiating arms around open mouths,
hungrily sweeping in their Invisible
prey. The delicate, transparent
columns, which are their bodies,
rise from pitlike openings perforat
ing the branches of their common
dwelling places. There is no ob
vious sign of activity.
Yet beneath the outer crust their
bodies unite in a network which per
meates the entire structure, and the
microscopic cells of their tissues are
ceaselessly engaged in laying down
and cementing the central core of
flexible and tough horn which sup
ports the entire community.
Beautiful Patterns and Colors.
Surrounding this inner skeleton,
the polyps have set in a mosaic of
interlocking needles of lime of most
delicate workmanship and minute
size, the whole forming an invest
ment of rich color.
Yonder rises the reddish-purple,
double-edged gorgonian, its two- or
three-sided branches bordered with
long lines of white polyps standing
in single file like soldiers. If you
remove a small colony of this spe
cies from its anchorage among the
coral heads and carry it with you up
the ladder to the boat, you can place
a portion of one branch in a dish of
sea water under a microscope. In
a short time the polyps expand and
through the magnifying power of
your lenses you cat! see what they
are really like.
At the tip of the branch several
polyps are fully open. Each trans
lucent silvery creature erects itself
full length and spreads a circlet of
eight tentacles, edged with tiny
toothlike projections. This number
of tentacles, with their ornamenta
tion, is characteristic of gorgonian
polyps, as distinguished from their
cousins, the corals. The central,
circular mouth leads down to the
hollow interior of the creature,
The gorgonians of the West In
dian waters are closely related to
the famous precious coral, which oc
curs in the Mediterranean and the
Sea of Japan, but is entirely lack
ing in American coral reefs. This
species, so important in the jewelry
trade, grows in small branching
clusters on the sea bottom. In life
the coral structure is covered with
a brittle outer crust of soft reddish
color, from which the delicate white
polyps protrude. They are quite
similar to other gorgonian polyps.
If the crust is removed, together
with two other concentric whitish
layers, the hard inner core is un
covered. This is the part that
becomes the precious coral of com
merce. It varies in color from a
brilliant scarlet, in some specimens,
to a delicate rosy pink, or even
white, in others. It is capable of
taking a high polish and, as every
one knows, may be carved into
beads or other ornaments.
The relative value of the differ
ent shades depends upon the fashion
of the time. A number of years
ago the deep scarlet was in favor,
to be supplanted later by the rose
colored coral in popular esteem.
While reef-forming corals and
gorgonians are confined to tropical
waters and to comparatively shal
low seas, not exceeding 20 to 25
fathoms in depth, other species,
which are solitary in habit, or that
form small colonies, grow in deep
seas, and in a few instances in
more northern shallow waters.
The beautiful astrangia is found
along the New England coast, en
crusting rocks where the tide flows
freely, in patches about the size of
one’s hand. Its delicate rosy tints
remind one of the terrestrial arbu
tus. Again, those first cousins of
the corals, the sea anemones, adorn
tide pools and wharf piles with their
colorful beauty along the entire
Atlantic and Pacific coasts, while in
the Tropics their brilliant hues add
to the glories of the coral reefs
themselves.
These lowly creatures, together
with other lime-forming organisms
associated with them, have filled a
most important place in determin
ing the geographical and geological
features of the globe. Their mas
sive reefs penetrate the surface of
the tropic seas and must be re
corded carefully on hydrographic
charts for the safety of navigators.
Vast Effects of Tiny Creatures.
Their islands dot the southern
oceans, many of them the abode of
men. Their huge submarine depos
its, elevated by geologic changes of
past ages, have been important fac
tors in determining the outline and
surface features of continents and
have entered into the structure of
mountain ranges. They have fur
nished building stones for houses
and marble for statuary.
Their disintegrated substance has
fertilized fields and grown crops, fi
nally washing down to the seas, to
be worked over again by the
obiquitous polyps for future ages.
Many diverse species of coral
composing a reef form structures,
ever growing higher and higher,
crowding and becoming entangled
with each other in thickets of gro
tesque and weird beauty. ,The soft
colors of their outer surface run
through varied hues of rose, pink,
orange, tan, yellow, green, blue and
purple—all the colors of the spec
trum. These colors are partly due
to pigments in the living tissues,
which invest the surface of the coral
limestone skeleton, and partly to
another very interesting phenome
non.
Microscopic marine plants, or al
gae, live in the inner tissues of the
translucent polyp wall. Each indi
vidual is a disk-shaped single cell,
amber yellow in color. They mul
tiply by millions, often completely
filling the cells of the endodermal
layer.
Since they are plants they use the
carbon dioxide excreted by the
polyp in which they live, and in the
presence of sunlight transform it in
to food for themselves, giving forth
oxygen in the process. The latter
gas, so essential for animal exist
ence, is utilized in turn by the polyp
in its vital processes. Hence there
is maintained a partnership between
the plant and the animal of equal
importance to both.
Gets Strong Colors From Algae.
If the coral colony happens to be
located in strong sunlight, the algae
multiply with great rapidity, giving
the polyp’s tissues a deep golden
hue. This fact accounts for the rich
tans and saffrons of the great elk
horn corals that form the extensive
treelike growths in the Andros is
land reef.
If the coral is growing in a sub
marine nook where the sunlight is
weak, the algae are relatively few
and the coral tissues are seen in
their original pigmented color. For
example, the brain coral is natural
ly green, due to the color of its
pigment, and that is the way it ap
pears in deeper waters and shaded
localities; but in moderately illu
minated areas the microscopic plant
partners are more numerous along
the summits of the sinpous ridges of
the coral, producing a yellow color
in contrast with the green in the
winding valleys between them. Fi
nally, brain corals located in the
brilliant sunshine of the shallows
on the top of the reef are so com
pletely impregnated with algae as
to appear a deep chocolate brown.