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✓ . THE NEWBERRY SUN. NEWBERRY, S. C. ^FICTION CORNER BACK SEAT SAX By CATHERINE BARRETT M Y NAME is Joe. but the fel lows in the orchestra call me Bunny. They’re nice fellows all right and they don’t do it to hurt my feelings, but I'm scared of audi ences, see, and every time I get up in front of one my mouth starts to twitch and it makes my nose wiggle—like a rabbit’s. I’ve seen myself in a mirror and I got to ad mit if I. was one of the fellows I’d be calling me Bunny,’ too. You get what I mean. Ninj> years I’ve been in Jake Little’s orchestra playing the sax and the bassoon. First we went all over the country but now we’ve got a neat little spot in Hollywood. Jake likes me and he thinks I play the sweetest sax he ever heard, but a long time ago he quit passing me solo parts because sure as I ever got up where I faced an audience I’d get nervous and my damed mouth would start twitching and well, there I was. I’ve had to sit back and watch plenty of other fellows come and go, getting the solos, getting the hands, getting the raises in pay, and getting new and bigger con tracts some place else. Now it’s Charley Welch. I play better’n h' does—oh, that ain’t bragging—even Charley’ll tell you that. Only Charley’s got the personality. And he’s good looking. And Marge likes him. That’s the rub. Marge is head usher here at the Zenobia. One of those cute little flashy-eyed girls in the satin uni forms. You’ve seen ’em. Brass buttons down the front and swallow tails over their tight blue satin pants. You wouldn’t think to look at Marge that she’s like she is. Practical and hard working. She’s had a tough time, see. She’s twenty-two but you’d never guess it. And she’s got a kid five years old. The cutest little trick you ever saw. Vingje. Vingie likes me too. “Why do they call you Bunny?” she says to me, and she looks at my ears like she thinks maybe they’ll grow up out of my hair. “Because I’m a rabbit, see,” I tell her. Only I’m looking at her mother. Marge frowns and then she says, “That’s what makes me so mad at you. Why do you let yourself be a rabbit?” ‘ Marge is like that. What she don’t want to be, she won’t let her self be. Marge got married when she was sixteen to some rich folks’ kid. He run out on her before Vingie was bom and ever since Marge has taken care of herself. She’s got a nice little apartment and she dresses Vingie up clean and cute. Oh I tell you. Marge is smart. She’s too good for me. She ought to have a fellow that could do a k>t for her. She says to me, "If you were only the sort who’d ever get ahead.” And she looks at me cross. "I like you. Bunny,” she’11, say “better than any fellow I ever knew, but I don’t want to get mar ried to a backseat sax player who’ll never be anything else.” Charley Welch has been making a play for Marge. I like Charley, only he’s the darnedest guy about getting to work on time. Always the last one. Skating across the stage and freezing into position the very second the curtain starts "ip. We’ve kept telling him some time he’ll miss it. He laughs and says he’ll commence starting earlier. But he never does. "Charley’s fun,” Marge says to me. “And he’ll get ahead too.” “Honey,” I says to her, "you’re not going to marry Charley, are you?” "Well, I don’t know.” she says. "I could calm him down a little. And if he had a wife to see that he got started to work on time. . . .” It gets me worried, see, and I begin to think that I want to get married to Marge so bad that may be now I could handle a solo spot and not go twitchy and muff it So I ask Jake Little to give me a try. And he does, on one of the mati nees. Do I go over big? No, I sit back there and I don’t look at the audi ence but I know it’s out front. All them eyes. I begin to sweat and my mouth goes to jumping. I sig nal Jake and he gets Charley to take over. I don’t even ask Marge to let me take her home, I just go on to my own place. And I think about out there. Charley’s playin’ his piece. I stand there and go through th< motions. First thing I know I find myself lookin' down at that audience. You know, it’s funny, but that’s the first time I ever saw the peo pie in an audience. It ain’t an octo pus any more. It’s fellows and girls, and women that look Ilk* the woman that runs the restau rant where I eat, or the one who sits across the way on the bus. And what do you think I see Why, right there in the front row is Vingie. With a grin all the waj across her little pink face. And clear in the back is Marge, and she’s watchin’ me so hard her eye? are round and shiny. Well, sir, my chest begins work ing again and I can breathe. My lips unfreeze. In a minute I’n> standing there *as easy as can be. Boy, is that a swell feeling!—Like sprouting wings. I'm still feeling like a bird on the loose when the show’s over and Marge comes back. She rushei right over to me, “Joe," she sayi —first time she's ever called me Joe. “Joe, you were wonderful. I knew you could do it.” And she takes my arm and hugs it to her “ ‘Joe,’ she says, ‘you were wonderful. I knew yon could do it. 1 Vingie was there, too, dancing around and clapping hands.” Charley probably taking her home in his roadster. Charley’ll laugh and say, “That poor Bunny.” Then comes the matinee when Charley don’t show. His seat’s empty and Jake is gettin’ nervous and the fellows.are saying like they always do, “Don’t worry, he’ll be here.” But he don’t come, and the buzzer sounds . . . and Jake makes me come up and take Charley’s place. He looks down at me like he’s sore and he says, “You’ll do the solo. Get it?” So I’m stuck with it. And I tell myself11 right, you got to. You ain't going to be a rabbit all your life. Think of Vingie. And remem ber, Marge is out there. I ain’t begun to twitch because I got my lips held so tight they’re moving my teeth back into my mouth. I KNOW the part all right. I al ways know all the parts. And I can play ’em like a million dollars at home. I can even play ’em for Marge. It’s the audience that gets me. All them eyes. Okey, I tell myself, you do it this time, or you’re through. And I mean through. My time comes and I stand up. I start lifting my sax. I’m not twitch ing. . . . But my lips has frozen solid over my teeth. I try, and get out of breath and my chest col lapses. But my sax is up. The cue comes. And the sweetest music I ever heard comes floating in from the wings. I look quick sideways. Charley’s .S>ncwiOLOS Grace Noll Crowell I I/OVE the sparrows, bad though they may be, And you would love them, too, if you had lain Long hours with them alone for company, And if their friendliness had eased your pain. Gray days, gray skies, gray sparrows on bare trees, Yet something in their tuneless song so true, 1 often think a sparrow's voice muSt please The Lord as much as larks' and thrushes’ do. Right behind her is Vingie and she’s saying, “I saw you, I saw you,” and dancing around and clap ping her hands. Well, if I’m still a bird, I’m a dead one. All that swell feeling is gone. One thing I’ve never done is lie. I’ve been told I’m too dumb to lie. Well, maybe. But still I don't lie. Only so help me if I didn’t want to then. But I said, “It wasn’t me. Honey. Charley was playing from the wings.” So I tell her how it all was. She looks at me and her eyes get shiny, and I’ve never seen het mouth so soft. “And you carried right on,” she said, and her voice sounded like it does when she talks to Vingie just before Vingie goes to sleep. "That was cute of you, Joe,” she says. And she takes hold of my arm again and says, “I promised Vin gie you’d take us out for a bite oi dinner. Wiil you?” Just then Charley goes by. “Hello, Charley,” Marge says, and turns her back on him, plain as day. I’m beginning to see how much I owe the guy and I says “Thanks, Charley,” and he just shake's his hands above his head and grin* and keeps going. And Marge just says, “Come on, Vingie,”- and holds out her hand. Vingie frowns a little. . “Can’t 1 walk on the other side and hold Joe’s hand?” So she does. That night Marge put her hands on my shoulders and says: “Joe, 1 think you’re going places.” Then she leans against me and puts her face into my coat. “Will you take me with you?” she says. And there’s Vingie dancing around us clapping her hands, and saying, “Me, too, Joey, me, too!” 2. by NANCY PEPPER OBSTACLE RACES Next time your party whows sign} of malnutrition along about the mid dle of the evening, nourish it along with either of these two / • gags. They’re al ways good for giggle. Speed Suction Give every guest a bottle of pop and award a prize to the one who can drain y t v it to the last drop first. Sounds easy, until we tell yoi that you put a baby bottle nipph over the top of each bottle first. Th« sight of all the Joes and Jills des' perately pulling on their nipplec bottles is enough to lift any party out of its doldrums! Straight and Narrow—Walking < chalk line sounds easy to do, but no when you have to look through ttu small end of a pair of opera glasset while you’re doing it. It’s just an other teen-tested gag that’s guaran teed to be a party picnic. SCRIPTURE: Acta 19:23-41. DEVOTIONAL. READING: Roman. 18:1-10. For a Better City Lesson for September 19, 1948 Dr. Foreman The question J7 good slogan. No one would think of objecting to it. If the gfeat city of Ephesus, capital and metrop olis of the wealth iest and most thick ly populated prov ince of the Roman Empire, had had a chamber of com merce, no doubt they would all have been in favor of a Better City. There would be no argu ment about that, is: What makes a city better? Four different ideas on that line—two very bad ones and two good ones—can be seen in the story of Acts 19. You should read the story itself before looking over these com ments. Because we are beginning toward the end of the story, with the very lowest and silliest of the four ideas how to make a city bet ter. It is a very simple idea: Just “holler,” yell, make a demonstra tion. Make it long, make it loud, and the city will be the better for it For two mortal hours that ab surd mass-meeting kept the uproar going: “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” A curious thing, the mob- mind. If something is true, how c^n noise make it truer? If a thing is a lie, how can all the shouting in the world make it respectable? But the mob-mind thinks that if a thing is said loudly enough and by enough people, it is bound to be true. So that theater-full of fools wasted a good afternoon shouting a lie into the deaf blue heavens. It did Diana no good. She was as dead as Mar- ley’s ghost, she had never lived, in fact. It was no use drumming up the decibels. Do you know people who think they can make your town better by shouting about it? It won’t work. You can make a town or county famous if you shout long enough; but you won’t make it bet ter. • • • Making Money T HE SILVERSMITHS there in Ephesus had another theory. The way they looked at it, the big thing is money. They used to make money selling their little silver shrines. Now this fellow Paul had come along, persuading people that hand-made gods are no gods at all, and the trade in "sacred” trinkets had fallen off. It looked like a bad year for the silversmiths. To make things better, they decided, they needed more money. More busi ness! More production! The fact that what they produced was not only worthless but actually harm- fuL did not seem to bother them. Do you know people like that to day? • • • Abiding By the Law T HE TOWN CLERK of Ephesus had a simple idea, vastily bet ter than these other two. He saw no sense in the mass meeting, he seems not to have been taken in by the silversmiths’ crocodile tears. If anything was wrong in Ephesus, he said, the courts were open, and trials were open, and trials could be held. We have laws—let us live by them; that was the gist - of his idea. That is not bad advice. All honor to the honest ser- ants of the public who now as then give their best efforts to seeing that good laws are made and well enforced. * * • Changing Lives S PEAKING OF LAWS, there are three kinds of people in the world. One kind will not obey the laws whatever they are. These are the criminal classes. A second kind say “inside the law” but they never Advance a step beyond them. A third kind, too rare, will go far beyond the law’s requirements in personal living and in social help fulness. Now Paul had been in the city of Ephesus for some months, and he had nothing to do with the laws of that city. Yet what he was doing was more effective in making that city better than anything the courts could have done. For what he was doing was nothing less than changing lives. “The trouble with people is that they’re people,” and the busi ness of Christianity first of all is changing people. It Is no use hanging out the slogan “For a Better City” unless you are working for better people. A tree is no healthiet than its roots, and a community’s roots are the characters of her people. And from St. Paul’s day to this, the one and only organization which sets out to change people from the in side, is the Christian church. * * *. (Copyright bj the International Connell ol Religious Education on behall oi 40 Protestant denominations. Released hr WNU Features.! Bachelor Professor Searches for Answers To Family Problems CHICAGO—A little, white-haired man with a slow, steady smile and a needle-point memory has the answers to a problem which began when Eve insisted Adam share the forbidden fruit. The man is Dr. Ernest Burgess, University of Chicago sociologist, expert on marriage and family rela tions. The kindly professor has no wife. For seven years he has worked to untangle the kinks in more than 500 marriages, discovering what made them happy combinations or wash outs. The study convinced Dr. Burgess that “stability is the thing that counts in a happy marriage.” But, still curious, the professor began a new study. His current re search will tabulate the lives and sentiments of 700 couples. • Already the 'energetic researcher has learned that couples who let time heal insight blinded by impet uous-love are happier than couples who fall in love at first sight and elope at second. Advising a two-year engagement period as a sure bet. Dr. Burges? so id his study proved that: "Couples who solve personal ad justments before the ceremony have less to fret about after the knot is tied.” From his subject couples he found that chemical engineers have the most highly developed stability and adjustability. The study proved a chemical engineer offered the best chance of success in marriage. He listed as a second choice a min ister, then a college professor, an athletic coach, a student, high school teacher, accountant or office worker. On the other side. Professor Bur gess lists' a laborer as a dangerous risk. Just a little better are travel ing salesmen. Moving up the ladder toward the happy unions are me chanics, carpenters, plumbers, mu sicians, barbers or railroad work ers. SEWING CIRCLE PATTERNS Lucky Motorist Gets Free Roller Coaster Ride in Car SHELBYVILLE. IND. — Jef fery Pfaff Was driving on a four-lane highway when the steering column broke. He was thrown against the dashboard. The sudden stopping of the car threw a big bucket against his head, nearly knocking him un conscious. About that time he felt a hard jolt. Finally getting the car stopped he found he was headed the wrong way on the left lane, the left side of his car badly dented. Another automobile, some distance down the highway was wrapped around a tree. Waff’s car had sideswiped it, causing it to crash. The happy ending: No one was injured. 41 Department of Labor Cites Advantages of Older Workers WASHINGTON.—A survey by the department of labor indicates that men and women workers in the 45- or-older age group offer "distinct advantages” to employers over younger workers. The survey, made put}lic by the department's bureau of labor sta tistics, is a six month study of the work records of about 18,000 workers of all ages, including 1,300 womeu. The summary, according to the BLS, showed that: “Not only may the worker in the 45-and-over age group offer more highly developed skills, more ma ture judgment and chore settled work habits as against the stamina and agility of youth, but he is fre quently less likely to be absent and is less prone to injury than the younger worker.” The survey showed that the younger worker has an advantage over the older one in this respect, however: Although the younger worker is injured more often, the older worker, when hurt, takes longer to recover. Workers not yet 20 had the high est absentee rate—an average 5.8 days out of 100 work days. The absentee rate for the 45-year age group was 3.4 out of 100. Englishman Walks Across the River Thames in IT Minutes LONDON.—Joe Simms walked across the River Thames—in the water. That is, he walked in the water, not on it. Simms, a Sf-year-old railway checker at Southampton docks, was demonstrating what he claims to be a new method of progressing through water developed after W years of research. Simms entered the river wear ing a pair of bathing trunks and an old tweed cap. With his, arms folded and his hands on his shoul ders he took 17 minutes to cross the river using “slow 1 cycle action.” Two or three times he waved to crowds on a bridge and once took off his cap. Newspapermen who followed him in a boat said he seemed to be erect the whole time. Arriving on the other side he said, “That is something the Yanks can’t do.” looting, f?or (general WJe (Comfortable Oailorecl CCtgle ear B ti; Choice of Sleeves. UTTONS in three on shoulder and hip make an exciting trim for this versatije daytime dress. Nice in a college wardrobe; for the business girl; for general wear. A choice of sleeves is pro vided. • • • Pattern No. 8235 is for sizes 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. Size 14, 3f4 yards of 35 or 39-inch. Extttaded Shoulders. ■^EATLY tailored and slim as can be is this well mannered shirtwaist frock. Extended shoul ders are extremely comfortable; the panelled skirt is a favorite with women everywhere. Note the clever button closing. Patterrt No. 8356 comes in sizes 36. 38, 40. 42. 44. 46. 48, 50 and 52. Size 38. 4*4 yards df 39-inch. Send 25 cents for your copy of the Fall and Winter FASHION. It’s smart, color ful—and filled with sewing ideas for every home sewer. Free doll pattern printed inside the book. SEWING CIRCLE PATTERN DEPT. 530 South Wells St. Chicago 7, 111. Enclose 25 cents in coins for each pattern desired. Pattern No -Size- Name Address- Korea’s Isle of Amaxoas Lives on Ocean Harvest As shallow-sea divers for pearl*, 1 shellfish, edible seaweed, and va rious items of commerce, women of Oriental coasts for centurie* have outdone the men. Those of Cheju, 50 miles off Ko rea’s southern tip, have been nota bly adept. An estimated 10,000 to day live by harvesting ocean acres, while their men in some cases tend the children and prepare the meals, notes the National Geographic so ciety. \ #rom this feminine monopoly Las grown the tradition of Cheju as an Amazon isle. It took positive form in the West about 1900 when a traveler brought back the tale that the island until 1850 had been popu lated solely by women and young children in storied Amazon style. In the 1946 census, Cheju counted 276,148 inhabitants, virtually all oo the coasts of the 45-by-20-mile oval of land. There were 113 women te each 100 men on Cheju in 1946, whereas on the Korean mainland men outnumbered women. Cheju port on the north coast Is the island’^ capital and chief cen ter, counting 30,000 inhabitants. They live largely In crude, thatch- ed-roof huts of mud apd stone. An cient walls to defend against pirate attack still stand along the shore. Life of Samuel Colt After being expelled from Am herst, Samuel Colt was sent to sea. The ship’s paddle wheel gave him an idea for the revolving pistol cylinder. At the age of 14 he whit tled out a model and It worked. Later, he quit his father’s dy« plant to seek his fortune as “Dr. Coult”. In 1832 he sent his plan <A a gun to the U. S. patent office, and was awarded a patent in 1836. After the original company failed, Colt invented the submarine “minS”, while still in hi? twenties, died He wealthy at the age of 48. StfAP/ /VrfS4V... MORE MOTHERS buy Kellogg's Rice Krispies for their families than any other brand of rice cereal. Um! 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