Sunday News from Lancaster, Pennsylvania • 14

THE SUNDAY NEWS, LANCASTER, MARCH 25, 1928 I INDIAN HANNAH, LAST OF THE DELAWARES HEAD HUNTING STILL PRACTICE OF ISLANDERS She Stands Out As Tlie Most Engrossingly Picturesque Figure Of The Great Tribe Of Indians That Once Roamed Chester And Southern Lancaster Counties, Though Her Name Is Remembered By Few THE WORLD of the LIVING DEAD! 1 COW, PIG AND TWO DOGS ON A ROPE WERE EVER IIER CONSTANT COMPANIONS Solomon Group Natives Revert To Old Customs, Visitors Fear MISSIONARIES ATTACKED How the Pain Killer Builds a Secret Commonwealth of Criminals and Sufferers, With Financial Czars, Markets, Speculators, Wholesalers, Retailers and a Law Code of Its Own Despite the Most Stringent Control Act Ever Devised A SERIES OF SIX ARTICLES INDIAN HANNAHS BIRTHPLACE Clouds and leaping fish and warbling birds; Learning natures secrets through the seasons, Chanting of her love In liquid words. In these ancient meadows here about us Stood the wigwam of her infant days; Here her father set forth on his hunting, Here her mother worked their patch of maize. Here the maiden watched the summer sunsets, Heard the frozen forest's wintery roar, Heard the hills reecho songs of triumph As the warriors hastened home from war. Here she heard the tribal incantations Chanted to a wild and wizard tune, Here she Joined the mystic tribal dances Underneath the drowsy harvest moon. And wherever was her future biding.

To whatever valleys she might roam, Still she cherished lifelong recollections Of those ancient fields, her childhood home. Now beside the waters of Wawassan, Northward from these meadows of her birth, Lies the last of Chester Countys Indians, I Wrapt In slumber in the quiet earth. JOHN RUSSELL HAYES. Working mid marigolds and zinnias. I found some arrow-heads the other day; Straight I Journeyed in imagination To an earlier era far away.

When these New lln Township hills were peopled By an older, simpler race than ours, Folks perchance with little time for musing Mid low orchard bows and summer flowers. Little time to watch the slow unfolding Of the silken-petalled hollyhocks And the straight and fragrant fascination Of the pungent peonies and purple phlox. Or did perhaps those simple forest children Look with wistful wonder now and then On wild daisies dancing on a hilltop Or Quaker ladies in a mossy glen? While their fathers tracked the fleet-foot foxes. Did the little woodland children there Gather berry-blooms to weave in garlands And roses wild to wind among their hair? I can picture one bright-eyed damsel Roaming often by Wawassan stream. Wandering far apart from all her playmates By those grassy shores to muse and dream; Happy in her world of winds and waters, tie strode into a doctor office demanding drugs.

The doctor i ought and fired, and though he did not hit the man he be came tanicstricken and fled San Francisco. Fears that the natives of the Solomon Islands, pin-prick dots in the far South Pacific, may have reverted to an ancient practice headhunting were expressed today by seafarers and other persons familiar with the customs of the islands in comment upon the latest reported uprising there. It was recalled by persons who have visited the spot which forms one of the last remaining strongholds of primitive savagery in the world that the customs of the natives still are largely barbaric despite the Influence of the white man. This was Indicated by the fact that the natives were reported to have their most recent attack upon a missionary station while armed with their traditional accrements of war, the huge, grotesquely decorated canoes, the long spears and variegated body-paint. It is believed among South Sea authorities here that the attack may result in a leverslon to head-hunting which was general in the islands up until 40 or 50 years ago.

Religious Practice Before the missionaries had begun to dispel native tradition and custom, head-hunting was one of the predominant religious practices in the Solomons. A head-hunting expedition would be planned months in advance. New canoes would be constructed and sanctified by smearing the blood of a prisoner of war on their bows. On the night of the start, the chief and the warriors would gather In the Gemal, (native clubhouse), and work themselves into a religious frenzy before departing to another island for their victims. The raid would be executed usually in the small hours of the morning.

Women and children never were spared, their heads being considered as valuable, if not more so, than those of men. Some prisoners would be taken back to the village, their legs and arms broken to prevent escape. The bodies of the victims would be decapitatel on the scene of the raid, their heads taken back, dried and placed upon shelves projecting from the front of the Chieftain's house. Lost To Civilization Tlie Solomon Islands were discovered by the Spaniard, Alvaro Mendana, in 15G7. After Mendana's discovery, the islands were lost to civilization for 200 years.

It was not until that the Englishman, Captain Cartaret, landed there, Cartaret's explorations were the beginning of a series of whitemens exploitations of the trading and producing possibilities of the group. Under the leadership of Eishop Epalle, the Mission of the Society of Mary, the first missionary project in the islands, was established in 1845. The Bishop and three others of his party were massacred and the Mission was abandoned in 1847. In 1859 the British man-o-war, H. M.

S. Cordelia, visited the islands in response to a report that three white traders had fallen victims to the headhunting practices of the natives. By this tune most of the islands in the group were under the protectorate of Great Britain and English battleships visited them annually as the result of the slaughter of white settlers. The natives of Solomon Islands still firmly believe in the power of magic and upon this belief base a great many of their weird religious ceremonials. Certain persons are believed to be Invested with witchery or Mba, as the natives know It.

Mba is a form of malignant magic, enabling its possessor to cast disease upon the body of another person. By WILLIAM X. YOl'XG FW students of Chester and Lancaster County history have studied local Indian-lore without wondering what Ultimately became of the Led Skins who once dominated this section of Pennsylvania. The story of The Last of the Mohicans has been woven into as fascinating a tale as anyone would care to read. The story of the last of the Eelawares, who once hunted through the wooded hills and velvety green valleys of Chester County, Is equally as fascinating.

Indian Hannah was the last of the Eelawares. To the romanticist, she, too, stands out as the most engrossingly picturesque figure of her tribe. But fate has been unkind to the memory of Indian Hannah. No author has immortalized her. Few story tellers mention her name.

Today she is lmown only to a small clan of historians. Yet, she is as truly interesting toJovers of books as any character of Dickens, Hardy or Bayard Taylor. JNDIAN HANNAH was born at Northbrook, Chester County, in a small Indian village on the banks of the Brandywine, that long, winding stream which extends from one end to the other of Chester County. Here she learned the ways and secrets of nature, the weird incantations and the barbaric, dances of her tribe. Here, too, she suw her race dwindle until she, herself, was the only survivor In Chester County.

Her life was a pathetic one and history records few bright moments for her. At the time of Indian Hannah's birth, Indian tribes were scattered all over Lancaster and Chester Counties. Their villages were as common as the fortresses and settlements of the whites. But the Indian was slowly being pushed westward, his hunting lands had already been partially fenced off and his fishing was being spoiled with the construction of scores of dams. The long Indian trail leading from the Chesapeake Bay northward had become a winding roadway, now used mainly by the whites.

Today, this trail is lined with road-stands and is daily filled with motorists. It is the Limestone road, leading through the lower end of Lancaster County up through Oxford. While the Delawares bitterly opposed this invasion of the whites, hls-tory fails to record a single instance when they took up arms against their foe. The Delawares were a peace-loving tribe. They were interested more in hunting and fishing than in warring for their rights.

At the time of the birth of Indian Hannah, Chief Checochinican headed the tribe. In 1725, according to the musty records of the Assembly of the Province, "Chief Checochinican appeared before the Assembly protesting against the manner in which the whites had broken their Ho did not possess the eloquence of the white men about him. His plea was plainly spoken and devoid of oratory. But his sincerity convinced the tribunal before whom ho appealed and he won his case. A lull record of his speech as given in the records of the Assembly reads as follows: a.

"Wm. Penn came to this he settled a perpetual friend-ship with us, and after we sold hint our country, he reconveyed back a certain tract of land upon the Brandywine, for a mile on each side of said creek, which writing was by burning of a cabin destroyed; "but we all remember very well the contents thereof that Wm. Penn -promised that we should not be molested whilst one Indian lived, rtgrew old and blind and died so another to thd third generation; that is the way of expressing it, --from generation to generation; and now it is only half the age of an old man since, and we are molested and our lands surveyed off and set- tied before we can reap our corn off; and to our great injury, the Brandywine creek is so obstructed with dams that the fish can not come up to our habitations. We desire you to take notice that we are poor people, and want the benefit of the fish, for when we are out hunting, our children with their bows and arrows used to get -fish for their sustenance, therefore, we desire that the dams be removed that the fish may have their natural course." While historical documents and an-Bals could not be expected to record the incident, Indian Hannah undoubtedly slept through the plea ot her gieat chleftan. For on such occasions, tyhen the Indian Bucks went to make a piea for aid or assistance, they invariably were accompanied by their squaws.

It Is not beyond the era of supposition, that Indian Hannah was carried into the Assembly Hall along with other equaling papooses of the tribe. While the plea of the Delawares Copyright, 1928. rpHE strangest figure in "The World of the Living Dead is the dope peddler. He is the salesman, the recruiting officer, the missionary. He comes after the smuggler, the big Investor in Junk coke and snow," in the chain whereby forbidden, havoc wreaking narcotics seep 'ey United States customs officials, narcotic agents, State and civic police into the hands, and the veins, of the doomed happy dust devotees.

Sometimes he has a little capital and buys from the smuggler. Just like any little business man; often he works on commission amounting usually to nothing more than his own daily drug need, a need that makes him the most abject slave of the man higher up. Naturally, he compiles lists of customers, prospects, names of confirmed acidltcs and their addi esses if any. But ho has one source of leads possessed by no other salesman in the world. Through some odd physical insight, some perceptive bond set up by Knowledge of common suffering and struggle, he can spot other addicts unerringly, and they can spot him.

Wise to their illegal secret habit, he approaches the user he set for the first time and intimates he has Junk lor sale with perfect confidence; and, by the same token, a user utterly unknown to him may accost him and say, "Tell me, bo. where can I get a shot around here? But your peddler, unfortunately, is no more content with old business than an insurance man nor an agent for ready-made clothing. In fact, he has a mania for proselyting. With infinite patience, guile and cunning he Inculcates the habit In whoever will listen and trust him, whether it be brother, sister, best friend or sweetheart, mature man or schoolDoy. If all the world were addicts, thered be none to criticise, shun or punish me, seems to be his philosophy.

Curiously, though, as a rule he cant bear to see a fellow user suffer from lack of "the stuff the sight brings back too vivid memories of his own tortures and and hell cut his price, or even give the penniless sufferer a shot and hurry away, probably cursing "his luck. He has only one sales taboo the squealer. let a user squeal and the word goes round. Boon, the loosemouthed one is outcast even The World of the Living Dead. No peddler will sell him; it Is then he is driven to extremes of thievery and violence.

Murder, arson, assault theyre not so bad; but squealing that's crime Take the case of addict, peddler, squealer, convict. In his cell up at Sing Sing, he is now an old man; old, that is, for one of his kind I think they said ne was actually thirty-three. But ten years ago he was a shipping clerk, had a young and pretty wife and a baby son. He had ambition, plans for not only his own future, but the future manhood of his boy. Perhaps he worked too hard for his own health; at any rate, he was taken ill, some breakdown of a major organ.

It was one of those things that steal upon us, and had a good start before he was forced to the doctors. He went through a pretty serious Illness, came nut of the hospital at last, victor over the disease, but hopelessly in debt. He went back to his Job with two strangely, even fatally incompatible appetites. One was an appetite for work, he still believed that he could struggle and save until he won a competence and happiness for himself and his. The other was an appetite, a haunting memory of the drug that had been given him to dull the apexes of pain in the hospital.

He found he tired much more quickly than he did before his illness, and, of course, he had to work harder. Soon the pains tortured him; he felt worn-and tired always. One day his desire for surcease grew unbearable, come what might he would have morphine, such as they had given him in the hospital. He went to doctor after doctor, and while ten refused his request, warned him, the eleventh gave it to him. What a relief tfipre was in "the stuff; he felt like a boy! The usual debacle followed very quickly.

The complacent doctor at last refused to help him, but in the street outside he encountered a peddler who did help him. You see, the peddler knew about the doctor; he had picked up more than one prospective customer at his door. After four or five weeks, couldn't endure life without the drug; the pain, the "drag" of aches when he wasnt under the Influence was unbearable. Then, too, at such times, he could not sleep without dope insomnia, terrible, seemingly endless, cabin to purchase herb concoctions. In this manner she was able to live comfortably for many years.

But always she dressed in rags and tatters. And always she persisted in taking her cow, pig and two dogs with her until they seemed as old as she. When her health gave out, forcing her to abandon her pilgrimages into the woods in search of herbs, 6he become truly poverty-stricken. Her wants grew until she was a picture of charity. A group of 30 farmers of that section of Chester County than banded themselves together, agreeing to keep her in turn lor short periods and help pay for her support.

Regularly after that, Indian Hanah, her cow, pig and dogs would appear at each farm in lurn, remain there several weeks, and then move on. Slumped into a corner at the side of the fireplace, Indian Hannah, a long tapering pipe in her mouth, smoking natural-leai, would listen intentively to all that went on about her. Seldom did she speak. When she did her mind seemed unusually clear, her wisdom startled her hosts. Naturally many colored legends grew up about this odd woman.

Tales oi witchery blamed upon her powers are still told in some sections of Chester County. But times were still changing. The Indian villages were soon completely forgotten. Many of the farmers who had agreed only too willing to keep Indian Hannah died. She became a burden.

With the founding of the Chester County home at Embrecvllle in 1800 Indian Hannah was taken there. Confined to this Institution, her spirit was utterly broken, her health became worse. Soon she realized that she, too, was soon to go the way of all other members of her tribe. On her death bed, Indian Hannah made a single request. She asked that she be buried on the banks of the Wawassan, where she had been born, where she had grown to womanhood and where she had sat for hours, mixing herbs, making multi-tinted baskets, and gazing out upon the stream she loved.

But those who had known Indian Hannah when the Delawares were still a tribe, had died before her. Unrecognized as the last of her clan, Indian Hannah was buried in Potter's field, the only Indian in the burial grounu of countless poor and poverty-stricken nonentities. "Last of her race, she sleeps in this lone grave. Lowly and lone, and dim and half-lorgot In these last hundred summers since she died; Last of her race laid here so long ago And gently mourned by folks of alien stock, But not of alien hearts, kind Quaker folk. Who cherished the lone Indian, cared for her, And made her loneliness less sorrowful, Till life went out.

was heeded by the tribunal, the oppression of the Red Men failed to cease. Additional dams were built and acie after acre of their lands taken until none was left When still very young, Indian Hannah went with members of her tribe to the banks of the Susquehanna each Spring. Here they would take shad which made up an important item of their menu throughout the year. Each Spring the Delawares gathered at a small island near Peach Bottom. The trail they followed on this long Journey extended south of West Chester, Chester County, directly through the southern end of Lancaster County.

At this stage of life, the picture of Indian Hannah undergoes a complete transformation. From the alert, brighteyed, Indian lass, she became a figure bound to drawn one pity. As she grew older, she fell heir to attack after attack of rheumatism. She grew tlun, her face haggard and her shoulders stooped. At this stage of life the last of her tribesmen died or disappeared.

The Indian villages no longer dotted the banks of the Brandywine. The Red Man was no longer seen tilling small plots of land with crude and primitive plows and harrows. Years later, wo find Indian Hannah a lone old woman, her back nearly doubled by the pains of rheumatism. She was often seen walking slowly along the road leading south from West Chester. But old and ill, she always retain a certain picturesqueness.

On her walks she was always followed by a cow, a pig and her two dogs, all four animals tied to a single long rope, the end of which she held in her hand. All were her pets. Where she went, they, too, must go. Stones are still told among the old Quakers of the southern end of Chester county of how Indian Hannah would come sauntering past their farms, walking with the aid of an old cane she had made from a grotesquely-crooked tree limb. Some still remember the names of her two dogs which were called Ita-mon and "Poonamon." As she walked along she called both repeatedly Come Itamon" Come Poonamon, Indian Hannah lived in a small, tumble-down cabin of logs built on the very bank of the Brandywine.

Here she would sit for hours weaving and coloring baskets. Her color designs were unexcelled and much sought after. As she would sit weaving until well after dusk, she would chant songs of the wild and turbulent Wawssan, the Indian name for the Brandywine. She loved the stream which ran by her home it seemed almost a part of her, as though the two could not have been separated. For days this old woman, the last of a stalwart and brave tribe, would disappear from her home on expeditions into the woods in search of herbs.

Her ability to find and mix rare and mystifying cures soon gained lor her an uncanny reputation. Persons from all parts of Lancaster and Chester Counties would visit her would keep off the Junk forever. tried, heaven knows, but the on ly Job he could get, to start, was a routine labor Job, and it grew terribly tiresome and yielded little income. Depressed, morbid, mentally broken, inevitably, sought the tempor ary Nirvana of morphine. Oust one shot! But in three weeks, he was as bad off as ever.

Again he was in debt; then discharged. Unreliable, a liar, an egotistical braggart, was what his employers said of him; though others said he was crazy as a loon, because of his wild verbal dreams. Only a few took these signs for what they were, in his case, as in that of the usual addict, the outward symbols and trappings of his dope-induced decay! Bo in the end, decided to set up in business. He had learned a lot of tricks in prison. He had learned how the peddler hides his dope, how he has secret closets behind mirrors, that slide back when a board is touched in the floor.

He learned of the scheme whereby others keep the Junk thousands of dollars worth In little boxes so attached to a circular string running on two spools behind a baseboard, that it can be pulled our of sight, or on occasion pulled up to a little slot, or sliding door. He thought all these things over and selected a modification of the mirror racket. Then he drew his money from the bank and furnished an apartment In a teeming section of New York. To get the dope was easy but by no means simple. You had to look out for the polce, narcotic agents, etc.

You could not walk right out and hand over your $1,200, which was what he had, for dope. You never could tell when the police were shadowing you, and when at the moment the dope would be produced they would seize both Junkand coin Knowing his dope world, he soon found a runner for a big Junk ring who agreed to produce the stuff for him. He was to bring his money to a certain corner on a certain night. This he did, and the man took the price, put it in his pocket. Then he said, "At precisely 5:30 oclock tomorrow night youll find a package on the end of the soda fountain at such and such a street.

Itll be there only a minute or so. And sure enough, next night went into the store, a busy, bright store, and picked his stuff off the counter and walked out I Even thought this a good dodge, though he had been told in prison many variations of indirect delivery to circumvent total loss of moneiy or drug in case of capture. had another period of prosper ity. He went around to his old haunts, personally telling of his new place. True, some who had known him thought he looked terrible, so pale, sickly, furtive, nervous but he looked well-heeled, and he had begun to effect fleshly, plangently hued attire.

Hs place flourished; it was even rumored he was paying for protection. roweled him by night. "A shot would bring him back to normal; he had to have it. Then he found it took more and more of the stuff to achieve this effect, until at last he was taking thirty grains a day. Again, debt gripped him; he began to steal from his firm and one day he was fired.

By one of those lesser miracles he managed to get employment without references, but in the interim his wife found out his secret. There was, it seems, a dramatic moment wherein he had to choose between giving virtually his last cent to the grocer or the dope peddler. His wife urged him to take some sort of cure, but he found that only two courses were open: He could submit to ar rest and as a criminal be treated by the city, or, giving up his Job, go to a private sanitarium at a minimum of $50 a week, payable four weeks In advance, with an additional doctors fee of $200. Either recourse was, all things considered impossible! Was it so astonishing, then, that began to peddle dope to others? In no time at all he bad sixteen or seventeen new users in the place where he worked. Whenever a girl complained of being tired and done up at the days end.

he sold her a little happy dust and it did make her happy for a time. She wanted, maybe, to feel well at a party where her sweetheart was be, and "fixed her up. It was the same with the men. Eld the sixteen or seventeen finally come to hate r.o, he was too necessary to them; he could throw them into paroxysms of pain at any time. And, curiously, while this was going on, never looked better in his life, his family had plenty, he took better care of himself than ever before, and looked comparatively well and prosperous.

He even saved a considerable bit of money, for his profits were large. He had a bank account. He even persuaded his wife he was "off the Junk, that his profits were from his Job, and that he never would take dope again! But one of his young girl customers went on a wild Joy ride after a dance, and the car "piled up against a telegrapn pcle. The girl, hurt, was taken to a hospital. They learned there, easily enough that she was an addict, and she squealed on to a sympathe tic nurse.

Now by some freak of Justice was sent to the island, and when he come off he was, in effect, a real peddler. True, they had taken him off the stuff by cutting down his dally allowance gradually, and by giving him a tonic to build him up. Physically he felt no particular need of the drug. His wife, outraged by his deception, had gone to her mothers home and in a tearful interview she told him that, despite her love, which was, it appears, real and deep enough, she would not return to him until he had a Job that would keep her and the boy, and assure her that he could and He gave the night clubs a play, hung around Broadway, now and again doing a little business turn. But the inevitable happened; the police got around to him at last.

All his business, his money went the way of all waste, and his trade drifted elsewhere his pitiful trade. When came out of the work- house next time, for some strange reason he got the workhouse again, as is common enough practice he was cured of the habit physically at any rate. Likewise, he was a broken down, weakened, hopless, penniless man. Again, he got work odd Jobs here and there; again he dreamed of dope, the only true love of his life; at lat he took her this only true love in his arms again, Just once! And soon he was hopelessly, Irrevocably hers. He had to have dope, he could earn nothing.

So he was reduced to peddling "the stuff for his dally "shot and a few pennies for food. He was, for all the world, another Mickey, the Rat, of whom I wrote in the first of these stories, a shiftless, furtive, walking dead man. And one day, an agent stood him up. as they say, and held him drugless till he squealed cn his last employer. Word went round.

And whether general taboo was the cause or not, he strode into a doctor's office, not so long afterward and drew a revolver, demanding drugs. The doctor fought, and fired, and though he did not hit the man he became panicstricken and fled. His condition was pitiful and a few days later he was picked up and charged with assault. Some brother of the world of the living dead had squealed on the squealer. TJUT certainly, I can imagine a rend-er protest'ng, all peddlers dont go as did.

Some must Le strong enough to sell without using drugs, and money-mad enough, and unscrupulous enough. Which reminds me cf of Frisco, whom I learned about from my acquaintance, the one-time California narcotic agent. A man of political and sport world prominence, the agent said, owned a saloon in the Frisco theatrical district. was his lunch counter man. There was a window behind this counter looking upon a small court.

It was a mysterious window for this saloon, so gossip went, had made a fortune in no time for its owner. who had werked there faithfully for years, and who was a most temperate, careful man. had come to own an apartment house worth $30,000. The trick of it was that was a dope peddler for "the boss." His wife kept the dope in an upper floor apartment that looked down on the court. would stick his head out the window and his wife on his signal would toss down one or two little bundles of "the Junk, worth from $2 to $20, according to the amount wanted by the customer, and the market price that day.

And v.fiuld slip the little paper with the doper's daily dose across the counter. But Federal agents got wise to the scheme finally and raided the place. was caught red-handed, and on two or three charges faced long years in Jail. He was need on ball and fled. A year or so later, the agent was in Havana, resting.

He saw a man who looked like shambling along the street and stopped him. It was or rather what was left of him. It seems when he fled the country he had put his property in the hands of friends who were in the saloon racket with him, lest the Government or the bail bondsman get it. He dared not go back to America for ferrr of arrest, and his "friends would not answer his letters about his property. His wife had deserted him, and was posing as the wife of a one-time crony.

Worried and depressed, ho had ot last taken to the false comfort he used to sell but not use. As the agent turned blowly away, resolved to leave to his misery, said: "For Gods sake. give me the price of a shot. Youll give me that, wont you? For old times soke. Thanks, thanks, youre a friend in need.

Slong. ISNT LOVE LOVELY? By FANNIE HURST The Worlds Highest Paid Short Story Writer Author of Humoresque, A President Is Born ters who hacl so dazzled their vision, and their imagination. To Marcia and her daughter, something incredible and too delightful to analyze had befallen. They were In love The rest tells glibly, easily and romantically. It is one of those stories that works Itself out to the satisfaction of all concerned, but perhaps with the possible exception of one condition.

And up to now, with tne two handsome households of Marcia and her daughter so comfortably established in the town of Bradford, there is no reason to believe that this condition is ever go- ing to matter to the detriment of anybody's happiness. The condition, however, is this: Lester Grover, the lather, married Elsie. Raymond Grover, the son, married Elsie's mother. IT was as the lovely Elsie crept up toward her late teens, that fe-s, apprehensions and dread began to creep out of the placid years that Marcia had enjoyed with her daughter as her private own. It began to dawn upon Marcia, as mens eyes turned more and more upon the loveliness that was Elsie's, that life was about to break in upon the placidity of which she was so greedy.

It is true that throughout the years of Elsies little girlhood, men's eyes had not failed to turn toward Marcia. But Marcias indifference to them was the indifference of a woman who is satiated with contentment. Her life with her daughter was sufficient unto Itself and so there had arisen no problem. But now suddenly, the disquieting awareness had come to Marcia that Elsie was desirable. To Elsie, her adolescence came as a surprise and a delight.

The youths who paid her homage were as novel as they were stimulating. Life was suddenly a Christmas tree hung with sparkling ornaments that seemed within her reach. Watching, Marcia knew -that she was helpless. pastel-colored frocks In which they travelled. TWO pretty women.

Pretty In the same way. Just the right sort of prettincss for successful vaudeville performers. Cheerfulness, too. A smile and a glimfise of while teeth gleaming between parted, curved lips. A smile that bespoke friendliness, a happy, care-free attitude toward life, a feeling that each day was worth living for the fun and happiness it held.

They were the typical vaudevilllans, all right. The usual brand of "sister-act." About the same height, same weight, same accomplishment. Marcia was a little taller than her daughter and had a contralto voice which blended passably with Elsie's fluty little soprano. Elsie was the more accomplished dancer after all, the years were irrevocably in Marcias bones but Marcia still closed their act on the split done with a litheness that Elsie could not equal, much less surpass. They were not "big time players.

They were not sufficiently outstanding in any manner whatsoever for that, but THE remarkable thing about the vaudeville act known as "Duvene Sisters was not that they were not 1 sisters, most sister-acts arent. But in this case, the two yellow-haired, blue-eyed, nimble-kneed. buck-dancing, somersaulting "sisters were mother end daughter. Marcia Duvene had been born in a theatrical boarding-house and reared in her mother's dress-room. Marcias daughter Elsie, had been born in a theatrical boarding-house and reared in her mothers dressing-room.

Marcia was Just eighteen years older than her daughter Elsie. She looked so few of those eighteen years the elder, tnat even in the theatrical world where youth is not a luxury but a neces-ity, she was a sort of ninth wonder. There was really only one kind of light that could reveal the actual difference in the ages of Marcia and her daughter. God's daylight. And since Marcia and her daughter were seldom exposed to it, the illusion of the sisterhood of these two from behind the footlights, at least, was about perfect.

For that matter, even to behold them walking down the street revealed scarcely more than flvo years between them. Those differences lay In the tiny shadows beneath Marcia's eyes. And perhaps In the slightly loose muscles nf her face. But temperamentally, where the scatter-brain. Together, like any two sisters, they twitted and scoffed ever their suitors and exchanged Intimate Jokes after they were tucked Into bed at night and gossiped over their breakfast cups with all of the school girl absurdities of the undergraduate social world.

IT was in a town called Bradford where they had played many a time before, that Marcia and her daughter met a man named Grover, who had recently taken over the management of the theatre in which they were appearing. He was a well-preserved, Jovial sort of fellow, euor-mously fascinated by the world of the theatre that was so new to him, a person of fresh, unjacted spontaneity. The second night of the Duvene Sisters engagement, he Invited them out to late supper and brought along as a foursome, his own son, Raymond Grover, a young physician in the town. Then ensued one of those whirlwind situations that frequently happen in book3, but occur with the greatest rarity Jo life. It was a case ot iove-at-first-slght on the part ot two adult males.

For the three subsequent weeks, Lester Grover and his son Raymond followed from town to town the sis her feet aching and her throat aching and her heart aching, Marcia and one of the youths accompanied Elsie, whose feet and throat end heart were not aching, to dance cr cabaret. And all this Elsie took for granted as part of the natural regime of mother and daughter. It was natural to her since she had never known anything else. The obvious entanglement which might arise in such a situation as this did not occur. There wa3 never a moment that the affections of these two women fastened themselves upon the same individual.

The youths who milled around the sisters were amusing as so much pastime. In her own naive little way, Elsie bad a curiosity of maturity. She loved the light, the glitter, the adulation, the adoration that went witn her sweetness and charm, but there was nothing in these transient young men that seemed capable of fastening her interest, or her emotions. It seemed to Marcia in her secret fears and dreads and heart-sickness, that she could never be gratetui enough for this. This girl, who was her life and almost as much a part of her as the very feet upon which she danced, who might ultimately break her heart when the time came to give her up, at least where affairs of the heart were concerned, no wrinkles did not show, never were two sisters more en rapport than Marcia Duvene and her lovely Elsie.

They slept together, they awakened together, they gossiped together, they loved together, they hated together, they lived the full and busy, the picayune, the carefree and the irresponsible life cf the theatre together. IT is doubtful if who was her mother all over again, ever thought of the strangeness of the situation. She had never known her father, who had died one month before her birth; her first crib had been a trunk and for as far back as she could remember, her mother had been someone who could turn a double somersault, flounce a naughty ballet skirt and combine sweetness and tenderness and a bit of temper, with youth, nonsense and a strange wisdom that might have been maternal. But not so that you could notice it. They thought, these two, not as mother and daughter, but as sisters.

Stormy little scenes between them invariably ended In tearful reconciliation. They dressed alike with the rather startling naivete of the theatre, and even in the day of the sophisticated little silhouette of the modern, bobbed-hair flapper, went about in poke bonnets with pale blue facing and yellow ringlets dancing to their shoulders and panions hip, Elsie's youth craved the homage that was offered to her. Craved it and answered to it as normal, happy, healthy girlhood does answer. Elsie was unconscious that anything had happened. All she saw was that the world was a rosier, happier place, that it was a more Joyous thing to be alive.

That she had more Joy to give, more love and affection to give, than she had ever known before. Elsie knew nothing of the struggle that was going on Inside Marcias troubled breast. Knew nothing of the hours of panic and trouble. Hours, almost, of jealousy that anything so completely lovely and satisfying as her companionship with her daughter should be disturbed. For Marcia knew that it would be disturbed.

Knew that she was helpless before the call of youth to youth, love to love. AND then there began in Elsies mother the fight to maintain her place in the affection of her daughter. She did It by entering the competition, so to speak. Elsies wooers found themselves after a while, bewildered between the two of them; the rather dazzling charm of the mother, the less-sure. Out nonetheless appealing charm of the daughter.

For every corsage that arrived at Elsie's door, another and sometimes two arrived at Marcias. Often, with Two Scotsmen took dinner together in a restaurant. After dinner the waitress brought the bill. The two sat and talked lor a couple of hours, after which conversation failed, and, they merely smoked In silence. At I A.

M. one of them got up and telephoned to his wife. "Dlnna wait up any longer for me, lass, he said; it looks lifce a deadlock." Ideas. Helpless as any doting mother is when her daughter reaches the age by the time Elsie was eighteen, they when youths pay her homage. Close had been averaging forty weeks a year as was the bond between mother and for five years.

They were a staple act. daughter, delightful as was thejt com- I 4.