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Show - I " --- THE PROGRESSIVE OPINION Fllrl See Here, eS Private Hargrove! ty Marion Hargrove ..-i?-- . Il THE STORY SO FAR: Private Marion Hargrove, former feature editor of a North Carolina newspaper, has been in-ducted Into the army and has completed a good portion of his basic trainine at Fort Bragg. Classified as a cook and with plenty of extra KP duty because of his failure at times to grasp some of the fundamentals of army life, he has be-come quite familiar with the Company kitchen. He has learned the finer points of "goldbricking" and has mastered the elements of. army slang. As we pick up his story here, Hargrove is listening to a bus driver In a nearby town expand on his former army career. Hargrove suspects (and rightly so) that the truth is being stretched. The bus driver speaks: CHAPTER XIII ' 'Well,' he said, hemming and hawing a little, 'three stripes means he's just a plain buck sergeant. Six stripes is a master sergeant. I'm a supply sergeant. That's two grades above a buck sergeant and one grade below a master sergeant. I'm expecting. to be a master sergeant in a month or so. That's as high as you can get.' "I didn't say anything for a while; just sat there looking like I was letting it soak in. Then I asked him, real calm-lik- e and ignorant. 'How many stripes does a private first class have?' "So help me, he looked like he was going to choke for a while. Then he came back with a snappy answer in a flash. " 'Well,' he said, 'first-clas- s pri-vates have ,one stripe, jus.t like us supply sergeants, only their stripe is bottom-upwar- d from ours. Their stripes point down.' "Well, sir, I thought I'd die. I almost popped trying to keep from laughing, but I kept a straight face. "Oh, that," he said. "I've saved so much on cigarettes since you left the battery that I could afford to eat uptown now if I wanted to. And let's leave any remarks about Bun-combe County out of this. And let's leave your feet out of my waste-basket.- " -I- SS-From now on I must deny myself one of the fundamental rights and joys of mankind. I must quit bum-ming matches from those near and dear to me that is, if I want them to remain near and dear to me. Whenever I ask anyone around Cen-ter Headquarters even Mulvehill or Bishop or Bushemi for a match, I get one of two answers, both of which are getting very tiresome by now. I hear either "What's the mat-ter? Has your fire gone out?" or "Just light your cigarette on one of our conflagrations; there should be a small arson in yonder corner." Since I am a patient and g child, I make no scathing remarks in return for these jaded witticisms. I merely shrug my frail shonlrlprs nathMirnlTv anH coob-above the bed hung a small oil painting of a forest, with an icy white mountain in the background. A writing table had been installed and on a shelf in over his bunk were a reading lamp, a small radio, and a neat array of books. I stood there surveying the place for a while. "What in the sweet name of military hardship have you got here?" I asked him. "All this place needs is a couple of Morris chairs and a sign reading, 'What is home without a mother?' " "Beginning to look nice, ain't it?" he said. "Just a few minor im-provements here and there. Know where I can pick up a small upright piano at a good price?" I looked over the room again and my eye' fell on the resplendent for-est scene. "Where'd you get this canvas knickknack? It's an original, isn't it?" "It ain't nothing else but," he said. "Painted by a friend of mine up in Columbus. Guy knocks them off like that in about twenty minutes. How do you like it?" incii i saia, rnings sure nave changed since I was in the Army. Back then, three or four years ago, supply sergeants were just plain buck sergeants and first-clas- s pri-- I vates were the only one-stri- men.' " 'Yeah,' he said, sort of weak-- I like, 'time changes a lot of things.' "That was all he had to say. He looked sort of foolish and pulled the cord t off at the next stop. "So there was another bull ses-sion shot to hell. Maybe it was for the best, though. I didn't have a chance against a fellow with that much talent." -f- t- I ran out of cigarettes this after-noon near my old cooks' battery, so I thought I'd drop in on First Ser-geant Goldsmith, who smokes the same brand that' I do. Sergeant Goldsmith is the old type of top ser- - geant, with a heart of GI shoe leather and a voice that would put the stoutest bugle to shame. "Great gods and little paychecks," he railed. "Look what's loose again! What's the latest, little man, or aren't reporters supposed to know?" "The only news I've heard today," I told him, helping myself to a cof-fin nail from his desk, "is that they're sending all the first ser-geants in the Replacement Center to Panama for lard-labo- r service de- - greener pastures. It isn't so bad, their refusing the match. The worst part of it is the reminder of an in-cident which might well be forgot-ten. The incident is of no conse-quence, but it might as well come off my chest. Being a slave to the despoiler of human health and well-bein- the cigarette, I still have a fondness for an occasional switch to a pipe. I don't especially enjoy the taste of pipe tobacco, and I don't believe even the most avid pipe smoker especially cares for it. Most of them like me, merely like the feel of a pipe in their mouths and the dignity and solemnity a pipe gives them when they punctuate their conversa-tions by jabbing the air with it. Smoking a pipe only occasionally, I still have not become overly pro-ficient at keeping the little things burning. When I buy a can of to-bacco, I buy a five-ce- box of country matches with it. Half my smoke is tobacco; the other half is Georgia pine smoke from the match-- sticks. I was busy today typing out a story, and I had lit my pipe for about the twenty-secon- d time. I threw the match into the wastebasket and for-got all about the whole thing. I was absorbed in my work. I noticed by degrees that our of-- asiae rrom tne ract tnat tne water-fall is a little frothy and the moun-tain looks like something from a mentholatum advertisement, it would do credit to any mess sergeant's room in the whole Replacement Center." "You didn't notice this," he said, lifting himself lazily from the bunk. From the table he took an ordinary-lookin- g beer can with an extra lid on it. "John Bull Beer," he said. "Can't buy it anywhere except in my fam-ily's restaurant in Ohio and Penn-sylvania." He lifted, the top lid, revealing a businesslike cigarette lighter. I took the can, struck the flint and a roaring blaze leaped at me. It burned merrily away. "Not bad, huh? Good advertising scheme." "It should come in handy," I told him, "anytime the furnace goes blah. That little conflagration would heat a whole barracks in three min-utes flat." He twisted the dial of his radio and a d feminine wail bounced off the far wall. "I've been listening to the opera most of the afternoon The Magic Flute." "What happened to the magic skil-let?" I asked. "How come you're lying around here instead of bustling about your kitchen tickling the pal- - tachments. Polish your brass and you might make acting corporal be-fore the war's over." ' ' ' "Oh, it's lovely to run into an old top sergeant who can't put you on kitchen police when you sass back at him." "Well, son," said Goldie, "any time they need an instructor in coal hauling or fertilizer pitching, I'll write out a recommendation for you. We were going to give you a spe-cialist's rating in cavalry sanitation before you left us." "You haven't got a light, have you?" I asked, taking the lighted cigarette from his hand. I dumped three more fags from his pack into my hand and stuffed them into my shirt pocket. "Our photographer smokes too," I explained. "The first sergeant over in your battery tells me," he said, "that you .spend so much time on KP that the boys all think you're the mess ser-geant." nee was becoming lighter and warmer. I noted the fact with a rich feeling of comfort, but no great interest in finding out the cause. It wasn't until I reached for another match to light that pipe again that I noticed my wastebasket. The thing had in it a cheerful little blaze bright enough to take action photo-graphs on a moonless night. There was nothing to get excited about, I told the remainder of the public relations staff, the sergeant major's corps of assistants, and the filing department. I nonchalantly put my foot into the basket and started stamping out the fire The thing would have worked, tob, ex-cept that the length of my foot was greater than the diameter of the wastebasket. The foot stuck and I could not stamp. Corporal Sager, of Plans and Training, leaped to the rescue, pried the foot from the basket, grabbed the basket and sped away to the water cooler. I followed him and poured myself a cup of water. I still saw no cause for excitement. "Have yon any last words before I pass KP on you?" the sergeant asked. ates of the men with your culinary delights, as they say in the Army cooks' manual?" . "No supper tonight," he explained airily. "We're just changing cycles and there ain't nobody here but the noncommissioned officers, like my-self. I told them to go and eat next door. "This is the life, little man." He "How are things over here," I asked him, "now that rve left and you have to get son.cbody else to do your reading and writing?" "You're a sweet little lad, Har-grove," he purred. "We really do To the bystanders' catcalls, un-seemly laughter, and accusations of arson, I turned a fatherly ear and a guieting voice. I explained patient-ly that setting fire to wastebaskets was an ancient and honored pastime in the newspaper world. I told them that one of the best newspaper men North Carolina has ever seen "Un-cle John" Dickson, former city edi-tor of the 'News used to set his wastebasket on fire at least twice a week by tossing cigarettes or burn-ing matches into it. It was a mark of certain industry, a sign that a man was wrapped up in his work. Nevertheless, the incident has es-tablished for me a new reputation of carelessness and one which I do not deserve. I shall be hooted at from the win-dows of the Service Club; even green rookies will snicker whn I dodder down Headquarters Street. worry about. Just lie around, read and listen to the opera. Sans souci, as we French say without care." -- Ej- The first sergeant looked over his glasses with a rather unpleasant gleam in his eyes. He glanced sig-nificantly at the top of my head, so I removed my cap. The first ser-geant adjusted himself in his chair " and cleared his throat. "Private Hargrove," he began slowly and deliberately, "the govern-ment of the United States, to whom no task seems impossible, has tack-led the job of pulling you a little of the way out of your abysmal ignor-ance. With complete faith that heav-en will help them in this job, they have begun a series of lectures about why you are being trained to fight, whom you are being trained to fight, and all the other little things you should know." The basket had in it a cheerful lit-tle blaze bright enough to take ac-tion photographs on a moonless night. miss you here. When you were here, I never had to worry about where I was going to get another man when there was a stovepipe to be cleaned or a street to be swept. Now I have to go and seanh around search, mind you for someone who's been a bad little boy. Never had that trouble when you were here." "Sergeant," I told him, propping my feet on his wastebasket, "you never miss the water until it's gone under the bridge. This battery owes a lot to me. Look out there at that grass growing in front of the orderly room. That grass wouldn't be there much less be that green if I hadn't spent time and labor sprin-kling it with fertilizer. And think how much cleaner the windows were when I was here to wash every one of them every week. I'll bet you haven't had a clean floor in the bat-tery since I laid down my mop." "How's sergeant Ooton making out with his grocery budget?" I asked. "Trying to feed you on forty-tw- cents a day? The last time I saw him, he was working out plans to feed you on Buncombe County turnip greens or pay you to eat at the Service Club." shemi, who often walks out of the mess hall with his dirty dishes in his hands, or Mulvehill, who puts new blades in his razor without re-moving the old ones and thereby gives his face the old bacon-slice- r treatment. Nothing does any good. Whenever 1 try to defend myself, I get deeper in the mess. Idleness and soft living have made my comrades a bunch of drawing-roo-hecklers. Boy, wouldn't I like to get these babies out on maneu-vers with me! -- ra Maury Sher, my old buddy when we were together in the student cooks' battery, had been on an ex-tended furlough. Before he returned, I had left on a three-da- pass for Charlotte. We had not got together for two or three weeks, so I went over to his battery to look him up. The battery street was almost empty; the mess-hal- l door was locked. The mess sergeant was no-where to be seen. Finally I found a soldier who had seen Sergeant Sher in his room, so I looked for him there. The sergeant lay on bis lazy back on a stilted bunk in his cadre room, reading Dorothy Parker. The win-dows of the room had been equipped with flimsy green curtains, and par-tially deflated holiday balloons flut-- j tered against them. On the wall "Yes, sir," I said hesitantly, run-ning my finger around the inside of my collar. "You mean the radio lectures on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons." "From four until the first sergeant said. "The entire pop-ulation has been invited by Upstairs to gather in the mess halls to hear and discuss these lectures. Yester-day afternoon you weren't on hand. Have you any last words before I pass KP on to you?" "It's a rather long story, ser-geant," I began. "Here we go again," sighed the sergeant. "Have a chair and begin breaking my heart. It will make you feel better to have that off your chest before you go to the kitchen." "Sergeant," I asked him, "were you ever editor of a high-scho-newspaper?" "Is this long story about me or you?" the sergeant asked. "Please continue with your story." "Well, sir," I continued, "only a high-scho- editor could know the pain that is in my heart. Only he could sympathize with me. I have gone back to my old job I had years ago. I am again a true high-scho-editor. I am editor of the Replace-- 1 ment Center section of the Fort Bragg Post." "Meeting such a dignitary is one of the greatest occasions of my life," the first sergeant said dryly. (TO BE CONTINUED) By VIRGINIA VALE Released by Western Newspaper Union. C ALL RUSSELL hasn't seen her brother George for two and one-ha- lf years; he's a bugler in the army, stationed in Alaska. As she's been a movie actress less than a year hes never seen her on the screen, though her third pic- ture, "The Uninvited," is now in the editing stage. So she's send-ing him all the glamour art of her- self that she can lay her hands on, to prove to him that the spindly-legge- d junior in Santa Monica high whom he left behind him is really a movie actress novu, Dinah Shore's getting a new daddy-C-harles Winninger of "Show Boat" fame, who'll be her father in the new picture, "Belle .of the f " 1 j N i Mr ' ' - i - - - iL T a DINAH SHORE Yukon." Dinah will sing, Winninger will play a trombone, and Gypsy Rose Lee will well, she'll be Gypsy Rose Lee. All of the oasualties on "Sus-pense," the CBS thriller, aren't con-fined to the script. When Orson Welles guest-starre- d recently, he broke his ankle as he entered the echo chamber, a box-lik- e compart-pien- t used to give voices a ghostly quality. Dame May Whitty stepped right out of her role as Pierre Curie's mother in "Madame Curie" to testi-fy on juvenile delinquency before Senator Pepper's V. S. senate sub-committee on wartime health and education. They say she was just as delightful there as she is in the picture, especially when telling of her prewar experiences in arrang-ing country vacations for London's underprivileged children. Sammy Kaye was the second Hol-lywood celebrity to back the "Dance With a WAC" program, which origi-nated with film producer Charles R. Rogers. When Rogers was in Palm Springs on location for "Song of the Open Road" he arranged for the male members of his cast and crew to spend an evening dancing with the air WACs stationed at the army's desert transport command base. Mischa Auer's collection of pets is becoming a problem. He had 30 hens and a rooster, and recently re-ceived two dogs, a Newfoundland and a Yorkshire terrier. Wally Ford gave him the Newfoundland, which weighs about 200, and he named it Heddy. The terrier was Mary 's gift; it weighs a scant 2 pounds, and he calls it Tallulah. "Up in Mabel's Room" is his current pic-ture. Joan Davis and Jack Haley ot the air waves are dashing from one picture studio to another these days. After Joan's appearance in V Around the World" RKO signed her tor two pictures a year, and she's also un-der contract to Paramount for two. Jack Haley was originally all set for RKO's "Up in Mabel's Room," but had to drop out because of other picture assignments. As chairman of the Malibu ration-ing board, Warner Baxter took over in the days of sugar distribution; he stuck thruugh coffee and gasoline, but wanted to resign when he re-turned to the screen to star in "Lady of the Dark." He was persuaded to stay, merely appointing a temporary vice chairman, and completed his picture work in time to come back and face the canned goods situation. It's the way things happen to some people. The other night "Big Town" Director Jerry McGill went over to see his friend Fred Bethel, the "Here's to Romance" director, on broadcast night. He was much impressed with the looks and voice of Marcia Neal and the result of that chance meeting is that Marcia has a part in McGiU's, new Broad-way play, "Compromise." ODDS AND ENDS A national comic book publisher is trying to Fibber McGee and Molly m a monthly feature strip based on their amusing experiences . . . Cass Ualey, who introduces the song. He Loved Me Till the r Came in her new picture, "Riding High, has requests to sing it in five differ-en- l languages lor overseas broadcasts They're gilding Marlene Dietrich s in 'Kismet" . . . Basil legs lor a scene Rathbone brings a bottle of milk to the Mutual station suidw in 1 tolly, wood and gives everybody in the cast sip just before "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" starts. We're told that a factual account of what happened to the original Lord Haw Haw, British traitor who broadcast Nazi propaganda from Berlin, will be revealed for the first time in RKO's "Dangerous Jour-ney," which stars Elsa Lanchester. The first snow of New York's Ra-dio Row fell in the script of the "Bright Horizon" serial, according to CBS' sound effects crew. The through and a mes-senger order came was sent tearing out for the necessary shovel and sand. CM THE HOME r FRONTS (jrfjq RUTH WYETH SPEARS THESE gay aprons will come in handy for use at home, for a bazaar, or a surprise gift. Your piece bag is sure to have many odds and ends of ric rac braid and bias binding and bright scraps of material which will do for trimmings with a --yard rem-nant of plain gingham or un-bleached muslin. The diagram gives cutting di-mensions for the skirt and shows how to shape the waistline. It is fVffii ln '!iEDAND 4! I i upwntT V) gricen FOLD APRON MATERIAL ff AND SHAPE THE ,CSi k 'BLUE BANDS WITH Kjjlj ri ORANGE BIAS TAPE easy to add a straight bib if you like. Use wider belts, about 2V4 inches finished, for the bibless type and cut the ties about four inches wide. These three aprons will give you ideas for any number of trim-- i mings. Be lavish with bright color. 'f- - 85161 A ' f- c- Due to an unusually large demand ant current war conditions, slightly more timi is required in filling orders for a few ol ' the most popular pattern numbers. SEWING CIRCLE PATTERN DEPT. 149 New Montgomery Street San Francisco Calif. Enclose 20 cents in coins for each pattern desired. 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It can be lovely in velvet or taffeta as a party frock or it can be cute as an every-da-y frock, in calico! Pattern No. 8507 is in sizes 3, 4. 5. 6. 7 and 8 years Size 4 requires Vb yctds 35 or material, iy8 yards machine made pleating. - maffi" Million rety on Crove'a Cold Tablets for prompt, d eels ire relief. They con-tain eight active ingredients. They're like a doctor's prescription that Is, a multiple medicine. Work on all these usual cold symptoms at same time . . . headache body aches-fe- ver nasal ituffiness. Why just put up with this distress? Take Grove's Cold Tablets exactly as directed. Rest avoid exposure. Your druggist has r Grove's Cold Tablets for fifty years to millions as famous "firoms (known Cold Tablets. 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Doughnuts As Invitations Doughnuts serve as wedding in-vitations in some parts of Mace-- i donia. Families of the bride and bridegroom have young boys dis-tribute doughnuts to the towns-people. When to Be Silent If it requires great tact to know how to speak to the purpose, it no less to know when to be silent. La Rochefoucauld. -- J . liiiiffeiiiii GLYCERINE iude from YOUR SALVAGED FAT GOES INTO TME MAKING OF EXPLOSIVES gUT GLYCERINE 6 USEP IN TME PEFENSr WORKER SOEGICAL DRESSINGS USES GLYCERINE IN AND MANY ANTISEPTICS PRODUCTION --S&ixyr it&Mj i'-f-j --- PROTECTIVE COVERINGS INTO THE' MIRACULOUS FOR BATTLESHIPS, TANKS, SULPU DRU6S PLANES CONTAIN GLYCERINE GOES GLYCERINE - --iva " A TABLESPOONFUL A DAY f) - , |