How to Be a Social Success—With Balloons!
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TRY these games at your next
party! Above: Balloon juggle, in
which each player places his bal
loon on the mouth of a milk bottle.
At a given signal they walk at rapid
clip across the room. The player
wins who first covers the distance
without losing his balloon.
Right: Balloon basketball. Place
a wastebasket or inverted lamp
shade on an object five or six feet
high at each end of the room. Select
two groups of players. Each team
has a basket as its goal. At a sig
nal one player bats a balloon into
the air, then each player tries to
bat it into the opponent's basket.
Anyone breaking the balloon or per
mitting it to touch the floor is dis
qualified.
BEDTIME STORY
By THORNTON VV. BURGESS
There's nothing so bad that It couldn't
be worse.
Is a saying as old as the hills.
Just ask Peter Rabbit, he's proved that
it's true,
And he'll tell you a story of thrills,
you see, Peter has thrills almost
* every day. He has grown so
used to them that a day that didn’t
bring him at least one thrill, a real,
shivery thrill, like reaching the dear
Old Briar Patch only one jump
ahead of Reddy Fox, would seem
as if there was something wrong
with it. But of ail the thrills Peter
has had perhaps the greatest was
when he sat under the pile of brush
in the Green Forest, while just out
side were Reddy Fox, Granny Fox,
Old Man Coyote, and Redtail the
Hawk. There he was far from the
dear, safe Old Briar Patch and
waiting and watching were four of
the hungriest and fiercest of Peter's
enemies. It would have been bad
enough to have had one waiting and
watching, but here were four! Peter
was in a tight place. Yes, sir,
Peter Rabbit was in as tight a place
as ever he had been in all his life.
But Peter isn't the kind to worry
until he has to. He was so thankful
to escape under the pile of brush
i
that he didn’t waste any time wor
rying over how he was to get away
from there. He just worked his way
under the very thickest part of the
brush and there he sat trying to get
his breath, for he had lost it in
that last hard run for safety with
Reddy Fox at his heels. Granny
Fox he hadn't seen at all, nor Old
Man Coyote. It wasn’t that he knew
that they were around. He had
heard the swish of Redtail’s wings
just as he wriggled under the brush,
and he knew what that meant, for j
he had heard it before.
Presently Peter began to chuckle.
You wouldn’t suppose lie could have
found anything to chuckle about
when he was in such a tight place,
would you? But he did. The fact
is, there was a quarrel going on
outside that heap of brush, and
Peter heard it. Reddy Fox was
calling Redtail the Hawk all the bad
names he could think of, and Gran
ny Fox was helping him.
“If it hadn’t been for you I’d
have caught him!” snarled Reddy.
“No such thing!” screamed Red
tail. “You weren’t within two jumps
of him. Besides, he didn’t belong
to you, anyway. I had just as much
right to him as you had.”
“I tell you he’s mine, and I’m
going to have him,” snarled Reddy.
'No such thing!” retorted Red
tail. "He belongs to the one who
catches him, and that is going to
be me.”
Then Peter heard a new voice, It
was smooth and Peter knew it right
away. It was the voice of Old Man
Coyote. Peter stopped chuckling and
listened as hard as ever he could,
for he is more afraid of Old Man
Coyote than of all three of the others
together. He is very crafty and has
an oily tongue, has Old Man Coyote.
“Friends,” said he, and Peter
pricked up his ears, for he knew that
Reddy and Granny Fox hated Old
Man Coyote. “Friends, what is the
use of quarreling over something
none of us has got?” he asked.
“Peter Rabbit is safe now, but he
can't stay in this brush pile forever.
Let us think of a plan to get him
when he comes out. Instead of fight
ing. why not try a plan which will
give one of us a good rabbit dinner.” j
Reddy and Granny Fox looked at j
Old Man Coyote suspiciously, but as
they were afraid of him anyway,
and as they could see nothing to
lose, they agreed. P.edtail the Hawk
thought it over and at last he
agreed, too. And so a plan was
made to catch poor Peter Rabbit.
© T. VV. Burgess —WNU Service.
--J
Sunny Sun Suit!
AMAZE A MINUTE
SCIENT1FACTS BY ARNOLD
Taking water from the air/_
Air conditioning apparatus in~
A NEW BUILDING CAN EXTRACT 8,000
GALLONS OF WATER FROM „ ,
THE AIR IN
A TWELVE- ✓ "
HOUR DAY •
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS
The man who heads the Securi
ties Exchange commission has
made but one stock market trans
action in his life. That was in 1926.
•and he made money, but quit the
game impressed with the hazards
of speculation.
William O. Douglas was born in
Maine, Minn., the son of a Presby
terian minister. His father died be
fore young Douglas was six, and
the family moved to Yakima, Wash.
In 1916 he entered Whitman college
at Walla Walla with one spare shirt
and a second hand bicycle, emerg
ing four years later with a Phi Beta
Kappa key and an A. B. degree.
Working for funds to study law
in the East, he lost $500 on an in
surance agency and then went to
New York without financial back
ing, arriving with six cents in his
pocket. By enlisting the aid of a
Leatrice Joy Gilbert, daughter of
Leatrice Joy and the late John Gil
bert, makes her screen debut in
M-G-M’s “Of Human Hearts.” Here
she is wearing a gay linen print sun
suit with white linen sandals to
match.
How to Utilize
Silly Purchases
Everyone Makes
By BETTY WELLS
So many of us homemakers have
brainstorms in buying every now
and then that we may be heartened
by this story of the lady who bought
a pair of “problem” bedspreads.
Oh, they were pretty enough with a
bow-knot design in chenille—so be
fore Mrs. Martin could say “better
not" they were bought and paid
for. It was their color, you see, that
was the problem—natural back
She was audacious with accessories.
ground with chenille design in
brown and rust.
When she put them on the twin
low-poster maple beds in her room
the result was nothing to brag about.
The walls were cream color and,
with the brown and natural tones
of both spreads and furniture, the
whole effect was along toward dull.
But Mrs. Martin was not to be
stumped, so that bedroom turned
out to be unusual, sedate, and a
little on the masculine side—which,
she claims, is as it should be since
it is her husband’s room too. She
chose a deep woodsy green for her
rug, and painted the walls of the
room a cool, light green as a com
plement.
At the four casement windows she
placed draw-type curtains of brown
linen edged with beige chenille. A
slipper chair she covered with a
slip cover made out of an old bed
spread which was simply covered
I with bands of chenille in natural
. beige. A pillow for the chair was
I covered with a hooked slip she
made herself, copying the lovely
bow-knot designs of the bedspreads
in natural, brown and rust yarns.
Accessories might have proved a
problem if Mrs. Martin had not
been audacious—for it occurred to
her that there was no law that for
bade her using brass in a bedroom
—so her lamp bases are of brass.
A little maple table beside the chair
has a large brass tray for decora
tion and brass bowls on the window
sills hold flowers and, in winter,
small green plants.
The whole effect is as pleasing
as can be and as this smart lady
says—"All because I bought foolish
ly but planned wisely!”
© By Betty Wells.—WNU Service.
fraternity brother and preparing a I
correspondence course in law Mr
Douglas got through Columbia uni
versity law school and rose rapidly
He entered private practice upon
graduation but was soon asked to
join Columbia’s law faculty. Thus
he started a teaching career which
led to the government appointment
last November.
Wall street is suspicious of him,.
Mr. Douglas is a hard-headed west
erner and has introduced reform
proposals that give financial experts
the “jitters.”
| ADVENTURERS’ CLUB
HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF!
“Dead Mans Dole”
By FLOYD GIBBONS
Famous Headline Hunter
Hello everybody:
Luigi Francia of Brooklyn, N. Y., says in his letter to
me that he’s not so good at composing a story. Well—
you’re not bad at it by a long shot, Luigi, but the point is
that you don’t have to be good at composing your yarn.
This column is for Adventurers—not writers.
And you’ve got to admit that Luigi’s yarn has all the elements of
swell adventure story. First, look at the setting. Tripolitania, North
Africa. Ain Zara, a small town 60 miles inland from the city of Tripoli—
a town composed of about 3,000 Bedouin Arabs, and four regiments of
Italian infantry. Luigi Francia was fighting in one of those infautry
regiments in June, 1913, and that was an adventure in itself.
“We were constantly attacked at night hy marauders,” he
says, “and we had many, many casualties. It was no fun getting
hit with a slug from a Mauser rifle. No matter how slight the
wound, it seldom healed. Tetanus set in, and then you died.”
Attacks were getting so frequent around Ain Zara and casualties
were so heavy, that the commandante of the garrison decided something
ought to be done about it. The regiments were issued extra ammunition
and a reserve supply of food, and the word went out that they were going
to make a counter attack on the Arab tribes that had been doing all the
marauding.
Captured by the Arabs.
After weeks of preparation, the Italians were ready for a surprise
attack. One hot June night, Luigi’s regiment got orders for a mass
formation and a square of soldiers was thrown about the camp. Luigi,
who was corporal major, was sent with 15 men on a scouting expedition
The Chief Told Luigi to Shave the Dead Man.
to an advanced post in the desert. When they sighted the Arabs, they
were to give the alarm so that the regiments could close in.
“But I guess,” says Luigi, “that we figured wrong. About twelve
thirty that night, we were the surprised ones, with a horde of Arabs
popping up all around us, yelling Allah I Allah! and shooting as they ad
vanced. It happened so quickly that we were surrounded and about a
hundred of us taken prisoners.
“The hardships we endured at their mercy are unprintable.
In a month, there were but 30 of us left. The others died from
wounds, some starved. Others were butchered outright. The rest
of us had to pump water, wash the Arabs’ filthy clothes, eat grass
hoppers and drink stinking water in dirty sand wells.”
Ordered to Shave a “Corpse.”
But one day, there came a diversion in the routine of that Arab camp.
A big Arab came to the Italians and asked if any of them could shave.
And Luigi said that he could. The Arab led him to the chief's tent, and
there, on a pallet lay the chief's brother, stiff and cold. The chief gave
Luigi a razor and a little soap and told him to prepare the dead man
for burial.
“I started shaving him,” says Luigi, “while outside, a thousand
Arabs prayed to Mahomet, their prophet. I was so skinny from malnu
trition and so nervous that I could hardly hold the razor straight, but I
did my best. I was almost through when the razor slipped, jabbed into
the stiff’s neck, and to my surprise, the BLOOD BEGAN TO FLOW.”
Luigi knew then that the man wasn’t dead. He told the
chief, and the chief put his hand on his brother’s heart, but he
couldn’t feel any beat. Then Luigi told him to get a mirror.
He held it in front of the man’s mouth and it clouded. That
settled it. He wasn’t dead.
“Among us prisoners,” says Luigi, "was a young man who knew
medicine. I called him, and he pronounced the man to be suffering from
sun-stroke, and said he could cure him. I don’t know what he did, but
in three days he had him up and walking around again."
Food and Freedom His Reward,
And after those three days, Luigi and the young doctor had a pleasant
surprise. The chief called them into his tent and told them they had
saved his brother’s life. He was thankful, and to show that he meant
it, he fed those two poor half-starved prisoners, gave them money, put
them on a camel, and told them that they could go. With a supply of
food and a girba full of water, they set out across the desert, the old
chief’s blessings ringing in their ears.
It took them two days to get out of the desert. The first place
they hit was an Italian outpost at Cubella, about 90 miles from
Tripoli. And there, as they approached, they were almost killed
by machine gun bullets fired by their own comrades to whom,
in their dirty yellow Arab garments, they looked more like enemies
than anything else.
The commandante of that post listened to their story in amazement,
and sent them back to Tripoli. There, after receiving medical attention,
they were brought before the chief in command at the Presidio, and had
to tell their story all over again. Both of them were given a six months’
furlough with pay, and—well—many a soldier would go through that
adventure all over again for that sort of a break.
Copyright.—WNU Service.
Weather in a Teacup
Here is a practical way of telling
whether a day is going to be fine
or wet. Drop a lump of sugar
into a cup of tea and watch the be
havior of the bubbles as they rise
to the surface. If they appear as
tiny drops hurrying to the side of
the cup, there* to disappear, then
the day will be fine. Should the bub
bles grow large and float in the
center of the cup for some time,
then be sure rain is close at hand.
The reason? A writer in Pearson’s
London Weekly answers: The be
havior of the bubbles is due to the
pressure of the air. When this is high
—in fine weather—the bubbles burst
quickly; when low, and rain is near,
the bubbles remain intact for an
appreciable time.
Elephant Hanged From Derrick
On September 13, 1916, in Erwin,
Tennessee, a circus elephant named
Mary, having killed three men, was
hanged from a railroad derrick, ob
serves a writer in Collier’s Week
ly. In the first attempt, which re
quired two hours, the steel cable
broke and the animal crashed to the
ground. The second try. however,
was successful and Mary met her
“fitting end” before a crowd of
5,000 excited spectators.
Spice of Health
During the Middle ages it was as
drugs rather than flavoring mediums
that spices were used, and as such
were commercially of great value.
They were also prized because of
their aroma which counteracted the
evil smells prevalent, for disease was
commonly supposed to be the out
come of bad odors. Spices are a
safeguard against disease, for now
we know that they have a definite
antiseptic value, says London Tit
Bits Magazine. Oil of cloves, for
instance, acts as an antiseptic even
in as weak a dilution as 2 parts in
1,000, cinnamon bark oil in a solu
tion of 4 parts in 1,000, though car
bolic acid ceases to have any anti
septic value when 5.6' parts are
mixed in 1,000 of water.
The Ten-Gallon Hat
According to legend, the 10-gallon
hat was named because it was used
as a water bucket and also to carry
food. And at night, the cowboy'even
rested his weary head on his “10
gallon pillow." Although all the
“gallon” hats were pretty much
the same size, they were called not
only 10-gallon, but also one, two and
five gallon hats, varying with the
imagination of the Western story
writer.