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Show A ' Game of '"Old1 Maid" Once upon a tinto there was a pretty, pret-ty, oh, a very pretty girl. Her eyes were the big. soft, doe-eyes, brow n and heavy-Jidded, the kind that grow old beautifully. She lived on Ihe short of a wide, deep, slow-flowing strpam that was alive with a peculiar kind of fish One kind has a strange crest on his ugly head, in the shape- of a coronet, cor-onet, ajd when the single fascinating jewel on its tiptop cut Hie water like a diamond, in certain of the four seasons, all the mammas of the little girls wh. lived 'along the shore lore their way to tho edge to adore his gi.ld-lare chest in the sun And then, too, other barbaric mammas mam-mas brought their slim little homegrown home-grown daughters along, dragging hack with their thumbs between their sweet red mouths, and threw them straightway straight-way In ihe river to the crested fishes. Uut there were other fishes in the big water. And this one maid had shied at the fishes all her young life; she had adored Ihem and been ad'red, from tho.'safe edge; she had even pricked the stream s bright mirror, sending the ripples chasing with the pink tip of h"r finger, but had never fallen in "HV- all luck anyway." mused the maid ninny Hnics "If I do hop In. I'll never got the Psh I pick out. Whichever one happens to be nearest when ! splash ' But the maid played a ' game of old maid'' that was the uncomfortable kind It wasn't her fault at all. at all. She was handsome, and the big water kept calling hor And her folks knew she was handsome, an dthey. ! Utile by little, as the years went by pushed her out on the thin, frail tip-J tip-J top of the family tree where she j clung kept sagging and sinking and brooding noarer and nearer the slow-flowing slow-flowing water. It got very lonely up there, She wandered about no more. She vvas only busy "hanging on by her little toes. The water called, and her folks, her sisters and her mother, cried on her for heaven's sake to drop. "1 don't want Ihe water and I don't want this tiptop! I want lo be let alone I want to wal't tree abroad' Some day maybe I'll drop in of my own accord. Hut I don't choose. And I'd rather come down!" called the maid. Bet she was veiy, very pretty and good to look at. and the fishes circled cir-cled tirelessly under her, and her kin egted her on and shouted at hei from below. It was just a case of banc on till she got tired and couldn't stick any longer au.l then she dropped and the fish who had bc?n the most patient pa-tient and hadu't gone home disgusted, goi her. Or the fish who just hap poned to be swimming ender when she hollered " nough" and l"t jto. Are you a fish who has Hipped and circles patiently below a handsome bachelor girl until she got tired and took you" Or did you Just happen to drop In and tell her again that yon loved her on the night ihnt she was tired out, I There are many kinds of gani of old maid that demosels play, but this is the pretiy iineomly brand. A band-some band-some face rnd the fagging end of tlje family tree go to make It up. |
