Life — December 15, 1904 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OUR BOYS AND GIRLS. CHARLES. ITTLE CHARLES is a nice boy who loves the choo-choo cars more than anything else, and now he has a railroad all his own, which he calls the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. Charles loves to run his railroad, and the more he can run it into the ground the better he likes it. His road is different from most other tin and corrugated affairs, because it carries real passengers, has real sthoke, and makes real money and real discom- fort. Sometimes the passengers get real angry at Charles and tell him his cars are tumble-down structures and that he keeps them full of hot air just be- cause he wants to make money, but Charles only laughs, and takes off a few trains just to get even, You must not get the idea from this that Charles is a vicious boy, because he isn’t, but he feels that his railroad is a sacred trust, as it was handed down to him, and he wants to preserve all the traditions he can from the past, the principal one of which is that the public be damned. Christmas gifts per se. Hecither gives presents of money directly, or supplies it to the feminine members of the house- hold, begging them to select the actual gifts for him. When a man does choose from the shops a long list of uncompulsory gifts, he is showing such an effeminate nature as to be almost a unique instance. To return then; I venture to say that every woman in the Christmas- giving world gives some presents for reasons other than the pure prompt- ings of the ‘* Christmas spirit."” And I will further dare to assert that the majority of women give the most of their gifts because, for one reason or another, they feel that they must. The most common reasons are habit or a sense of indebtedness, And it goes without saying, that all gifts given for these reasons are a nuisance. But on the other hand, the major- ity of women cheerfully accept and even seek for the conventional ‘ nui- Calling is a nuisance ; the sending of cards is a nuisance ; acknowledgments of social favors is a nuisance ; accept- ing and returning undesired hospital- ity is a nuisance. Yet the average woman of to-day would deeply regret being forced to get along without these nuisances. And so, the terrible bugbear of selecting a long list of conventional 619 Christmas remembrances is a bugbear largely in the conventional imagina- tion, and the woman who says, ‘Ob, isn’t this whole Christmas business something perfectly fearful? I am completely worn out and on the verge of nervous prostration,”’ is as insincere as the average feminine chatterbox usually is. The woman of perceptions knows that many, perhaps most, of her gifts are made without a touch of the Christmas spirit in their selection or their bestowal. But she tolerantly accepts this con- dition as she does many other social forms, and enjoys in a totally different way the gifts that she gives to her loved ones, to her child-friends, or to her poor beneficiaries. That the giving of conventional Christmas gifts is a nuisance, all think- ing women will admit, but they must also admit that the very fact of its existence proves it to be a gladly- tolerated nuisance, A nuisance? Yes. But such a gay, merry, exciting, aggravating, tiring, exhilarating nuisance that few of us could get along without it. Carolyn Wells. Proud Lineage. “ QHE comes of an old and distin- guished family **T saw no portraits of ancestors in her house.”” “Very true. That is not the Ameri- can mode, In her safety deposit vault she has the vermiform appendices of no fewer than four generations in the direct line, preserved in alcohol."" Pug: “*Lucky Doo ” UMEAR THAT FIDO'S WIFE LEFT HIM,