FACTS ABOUT FATIMA.
It is the style to be tall and slender. Assume a virtue if you have itnot and you who are short and fat, don't grow any shorter and fatter.
The following obesity rules will prove very helpful to my correspondentwho signs herself, Miss Rosy Round:
Stand up for twenty minutes after meals (if you must have meals).
Eat no potatoes.
Eat no bread.
Avoid all starchy food.
Avoid meats of all kinds.
Fish is fattening.
Never touch sweets or pastry.
Eat no fruit for fear of uric acid.
Never drink water with your meals, but between meals do nothing butdrink water, all the time that you can spare from the gymnastics thatmust be kept up to keep down the disfiguring fat.
Always leave the table hungry, but take a pickle with you, a large dillpickle is the best for your purpose. Eat a great deal of pickle; it mayruin your complexion but a good complexion is only skin deep whilefatness goes straight through.
Sleep in your stays if you can, but if you can't just don't sleep. Sleepis a fattening habit at best. Keep a pickle under your pillow and take abite when you think of it.
Lose your temper on all occasions, as nothing is more conducive tostoutness than placidity.
Stop speaking of yourself as a Fatty, and begin to speak of yourself asslender. Remember the power of Mind over Matter. Lead a lean life andthink thin thoughts; dress in diaphanous gauze; make hair-splittingdistinctions; talk and think much of your slender purse; walk the narrowway and have ever in your mind the eye of the needle through which youshall finally have to pass.--Before you know it you will lose pounds andpounds of flesh.
RECIPES TRIED IN MY OWN KITCHEN (NIT).
BY CAROLINE TUCKER.
A GRESHAM CLUB SANDWICH.
Take two tender new pupils (Freshmen preferred, Juniors out of thequestion), stick them together in a corner, with a thin slice of reservebetween them, season to taste with some spicy gossip and a littlelollapalusser. After a year in a cool place they will be fit to eat.
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BROWN BETTY A LA FACULTY.
Take two crusty members of the faculty and let them grate against eachother until both are reduced to crumbs. Place in baking dish a layer ofcrumbs and a layer of tart apples of discord well chopped. Sweeten wellwith high-toned politeness, veiled with sarcasm. Serve piping hot withthe same kind of sauce you give to the gander.
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FRENCH DRESSING AS SERVED AT GRESHAM.
Let the ingredients stay in bed until ten minutes before breakfast, thenin a wild scramble cover with a thin layer of clothes without theformality of bathing or even taking off nightgown when breakfasting _enfamille_. Do hair with a lick and a promise and beat all the other girlsto the table.
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FASHION NOTES.
BY VIRGINIA TUCKER.
The newest fad among the women who know and know they know, is to havetheir perfume harmonize with their costumes. An up-to-date society womanwould no more wear a blue dress and smell of lavender sachet than shewould wear a lavender hat with said blue dress. Vera Violet must go witha purple dress; Attar of Roses with a pink; New Mown Hay withgreen,--and so on.
One very smart grande dame at a fine function, given lately at Gresham,gowned in a biscuit-coloured broadcloth, had a faint, delicious odour ofhot rolls.
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Hats are still worn hind part before and veils are put on to stay withno visible opening. One wonders sometimes "how the apple got in thedumpling."
Some of the newest veils have a sliding dot, to be worn over or near themouth. This can be opened by one knowing the combination and then asmall aperture is discovered that will admit of a straw. The soft drinkdrugstore man need not despair.
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It is not considered good taste to wear more than three shades of falsehair at one time, and a similarity in the texture of the material usedshould be aimed at. The puffs must be of one shade and material althoughit would be too much to expect of a woman to have them match absolutelywith the switch, rat, pompadour and bun.
Rats are no longer in vogue but traps are now considered the sanitaryand proper things. This steel construction lowers the fire rates, whichis much in its favour. If we keep on with this false hair craze whatwill we come to? Perhaps to the fate of:
"This old man with a very long beard, Who said: ''Tis just as I feared, A lark and a wren, Two owls and a hen Have builded a nest in my beard.'"
If you have not hair enough of your own to cover the springs, there areplenty of kinds, colours and materials resembling human hair to bebought for a song. Goat hair is used a great deal as it is very durableand strong,--too strong in one sense, as:--
"You may break, you may shatter The vase as you will, But the scent of the roses Will cling 'round it still."
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JOKES AND NEAR JOKES.
NANCY BLAIR, EDITOR.
The son of an eminent preacher was greatly interested in the story ofAdam and Eve. One night the child seemed very restless, tossing andturning in his crib. The father leaned over him, asking: "My child, whatis the matter? Why don't you go to sleep?"
"Oh, Father, I can't! I've got such a pain in my ribs. I'm awful 'fraidGod is sending me a wife."
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Little Anne, aged five, was asked what she was fasting on during Lent.She answered, "Washing my hands."
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A little girl who had never been to a wedding was greatly excited whenone was going on across the street. She was especially interested in thelittle flower girls as they tripped out of the carriage in their daintywhite frocks.
"Mother!" she exclaimed. "If Daddy dies, will you marry again?"
"No, my dear! Never! Why do you ask?"
"'Cause, Mother, I do so hope you will and let me be your little flowergirl."
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Customer--That was the driest, flattest sandwich I ever tried to chewinto!
Waiter--Why, here is your sandwich! You ate your check.
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One of the Sophomores wants to take Psychology because she says sheunderstands that a course in it teaches you to do your hair up in alovely Psyche knot--A Psychic Phenomenon!
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Jean Rice has burst into poetry, viz.:
"Come to my arms, You bundle of charms! With the greatest enthusiasm I will clasp you to my bosiasm."
Lines written to Miss Polly Kent:
There was a young lady named Kent, Who declared she had not a cent, She remembered a quarter She had hid in her garter, But on looking found that, too, had went.
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A touching poem addressed to Miss Grace Greer, of Chicago, Ill.
Miss Greer is the champion gum-chewer of Gresham.
There was a young maid from the West, Who chewed gum with such marvelous zest, That they named a committee, Both tactful and witty Who suggested she let her jaws rest.
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THE CORRESPONDENCE CURE.
BY PAGE ALLISON.
CHAPTER I.
"That's just what I'll do for you, Hal. I'll write to this Uncle Samperson and get him to give you one of his letter treatments," said Mr.Allen, Hal's daddy.
Jo Allen was so young that his incorrigible young son called him by hisfirst name and regarded him as "one of the fellers" instea
d of afather; consequently he thought his own judgment as reliable as hisDad's and paid as much heed to his orders and requests as he would toone of the "fellers."
"Thunder! I ain't sick. What I gotter have a treatment for?"
"I didn't mean anything like paregoric, or milk and eggs and ateaspoonful of this in half a glass of water after meals. It seems to besomething like this: an old man, calling himself 'Uncle Sam,' advertisesin the _Times_ that he will write fatherly letters to difficult boys for$50.00 a course."
"Aw, Jo! I swear, I bet it's a lot of stuff about 'do unto others.'" Halalways objected to other people's suggestions.
"Well, we'll take a chance on it. You don't like my methods, if you cancall 'em that. You are my first and only offspring and I don't seem tohave much maternal instinct and no judgment where you are concerned.Son, it is as hard for you not to have your mother as it is for me notto have my wife."
"It's all right, Jo, you know more 'bout being a father than I do 'boutbeing a son. But bring on your Uncle Sam and we can see what willhappen. I don't have to read the letters if he writes a lot of rot."
"Nine o'clock! I ought to be at the office and and you ought to be atschool. Don't play hookey again to-day," Jo Allen said as he reached forhis hat.
Jo was a corporation lawyer and when he told the other members of hisfirm about his latest plans for bringing up his son, they all laughed.
"What next, Jo? 'Sons put on the right path by mail.' It's a joke allright and so are you and Hal. You can't do a thing with that kid! Whenhe stole the preacher's white horse and painted 'Hell' on it you justlaughed. Why don't you beat him up a little?" inquired Jonesgood-naturedly.
"But he is not downright bad, he is just mischievous and full of life. Ican't do anything to him because it is all just what I used to do whenI was a kid,--behold the monument!"
"He looks so much like you that I always think something has happened tothe clock and it is twenty years ago whenever I see him. He's got yoursnappy grey eyes and black hair and Sally's Greek instead of our honoredpartner's 'Roaming.'"
Jo was always pleased when it was said that his son looked like him, forhe knew that they were both of them extremely goodlooking. And, too, hewas secretly proud of his slightly Roman nose, which did add a certainair of distinction to such a young man.
He dictated a letter to Uncle Sam and two days later Hal got the firstinstallment.
"Dear Hal:
"When I was a boy of twelve, just your age, I had just about the reputation you have. But my father had a family of seven children, of which I was the youngest, so when I cut up he knew just what to do with me. He realized that I had a great deal of surplus energy and having no good way of working it off, I always got into mischief and sometimes into rather serious trouble.
"Your Dad told me about your stealing the minister's horse and putting a large red 'Hell' on one of his sides. When I was a boy I remember that I made a bomb out of a little powder and an old sock and put it under the porch of a Negro church (Hal, as man to man, I trust you not to try this stunt). Of course I stayed to watch the fun. I thought the fuse was longer than it was and came closer to adjust it--Bang! and I was left with no eyebrows. I was too scared to run and the darkeys began to pour out, threatening darkly as to the future welfare of my soul. They caught me and took me to the county lockup. That evening my brother came and bailed me out. My father asked me where my eyebrows were, and I said, 'I reckon part of them are by the Nigger church.' Of course he gradually got the details and a very thick silence followed. Then he told me just what I am going to tell you. But first,--Hal, don't you think it's funny what a passion all boys have to torment the parsons of both the white and black race? I do.
"Dad said that I needed to be kept busy and with something that gave me pleasure. He was never strong on punishment and he suggested something that pleased me mightily. He said that if I would build a canoe and a pair of paddles by the last of May he would give me and three of my friends a camp for two weeks by the river. I was glad my eyebrows were gone, for who doesn't like to camp?
"Now, Son, you ask your dad if he won't make this same agreement. You have a month to do it in and I reckon you can have a dandy canoe made by that time.
"Let me know what Mr. Allen says.
"Sincerely, "UNCLE SAM."
Hal looked over the letter at his daddy and thought a minute. Then hesaid: "Jo, this here Uncle Sam ain't so worse. Here's a pretty decentthought that rattled out of his head." Mr. Allen took the letter andread it and then he, too, thought a minute.
"I'm on, Son," he said, "and you can have your friends to help you."
"All right! Then shall I write and tell our darling Unkil that it's ago?"
And this was the letter Uncle Sam got from the "wayward youth he wastrying to straighten out":