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LIFE 18 WHAT WE MAKE IT. BY T. C. HARBAUGH, Life is simply what we make it as we hasten heedless on To the future that awaits us just beyond the gilded dawn. We can plant our path with roses, age, or water It with tears. We can shadow it with sorrow that will stay throughout the years. We can make our neighbors happy with a laugh or with a song. We can scatter sunshine always as through life we pass along . Life 's simply what we make it; let us make it bright and gay. For the bird that carols sweetly gladdens all the Summer day. As a little s mile costs nothing, with your smiles be ever free. And off a laugh will calm the storm that aweeps the human sea. The heart attuned to melody will never know despair. The touch of friendly hands will make a clouded sky more fair. For what's the use in brooding o'er a sorrow or a woe? For sorrows, like the birds, take wings and quickly from us go. Then let our barks have snowy fails and pen nons gaily bright. That those who see them on the wave may greet them with delight. Why live and think the busy world is cold and hard to please. And drain the vintage of unrest down to the filthy lees? The smiles of childhood haunt us, as the years go drifting by, A baby’s laugh will often clear. a storm enshrouded sky . Then, laugh till those around you ‘eated. the merriment you own And you have firmly seated. Queen ‘Enjoy ment on her throne; For the world is not for sorrow, ‘or ‘the ‘skies would not be Dlue, co And you can give.to life's: landscape. the colors that are true: Aye, life is: what: “we ‘make, It, bright or h ar ‘from your door, He In whose heart, a laugh is ‘born: “cannot be counted: poor; S80 make le bright,“and’ merry, sunshine never killed a flower, And never came a smile amiss unto the weary The pines doth fill with happiness: the mea dows where they throng. And we can set the world agree with laughter and with song. — BY J. P. COUGHLAN. I am a staid, married man now, and there fore I suppose my infatuation may..be_pre sumed to have passed away, but still there are times when I sit in my fireside armchair, and in the circling, clouds of smoke that gr ip from my pipe, for I still affect the pipe Indoors, I see a fancy that face, that adora ble face, those big soft eyes beneath whose glances even Anthony might have succumbed, that glorious halr with It a shimmering Titian touch, that hat tilted captivatingly sideways, and that delicious mouth parted temptingly for an eternity of kissing. Ah! yes, my soul! and often, too, I still feel that delirious thrill I felt when first that head, poised on its superb neck, fasci nated me, making me i ts devoted worshiper. My first sight of her was but a mere casual glance, but surely even that is sufficient for the divine electric spark of love. It was, In truth, a fleeting glance, for I was on board the “business express” provided for its patrons by the owners of our elevated rail road system. At the moment I saw her she was adorning one of those unsightly board ings on which the vendors of soaps, tobaccos, whiskeys, etc., laud the excellencies or al leged excellencies of their wares. She was there to make attractive the announcement that “somebody's cigarettes (for reasons that I will appear later, I seer to give them the benefit of the big advertisement that the mention of their real name here would be to them) were the best in the market. As I passed on the swiftly whirling train I caught that flirtative sparkle in her eyes that I afterwards came to know and love so well. It was a plain, direct, but lithal, modest challenge, but I was dully human and the train bore me on before I could definitely realize what were my feelings. I was conscious only of that sudden pain ful, madly delightful, heart jump that comes we rezone falling deeply In love at first T well remember that night. What aching longings, what innumerable waking dreams of my divinity. What fancies did I not revel In. What Chateaux en Espagne did I not build and inhabit that night. I was seized with the fever, and my first symp toms were terribly bad. By stating {t in handy convenient form, suitable for immediate quotation, someone— @ poet, I presume—has made us all tolerably well acquainted with the say’ a “The course of true love never did run smooth.” Such, in brief, was my case. For some weeks my Cigarette Girl, as I grew to call her, and I were strangers. Not once hid ing a clear circle of light on—on an adver tisement fence and surrounding us with a halo the head of my adorable Cigarette Girl. My heart jumped with joy at this heaven seat meeting. I made haste to offer to my loved one my affectionate recognition, but her eyes were filled with a sad reproach and her luscious lips pouted reprovingly. My neglect pained her. She made that much apparent, and her reproaches made me sad and sorry. I apologized and with all the soft flattery at my command explained to the best of my bent and then softly breathed kisses across to her. After a due amount Well, I did write to the Somebody Com pany, and, unhappy day, this is how they, soulless corporations that they are, treated me. Three days after the dispatch of my letter the following paragraph, In one shape or another, went the rounds of the whole metropolitan press, and, for all I knew, ap peared in every paper In America: “The Somebody Company, manufacturers of the justly celebrated tobacco and cigarettes, whose poster advertising, their specialty, is now one of the most artistic and conspicuous adorning the dead walle and sign fences of the country, have received an her bright face greet me, and my violent passion was in danger of languishing through lack of stimulation. Then, as will happen in all true romances, private and personal worries cropped up, and through financial stress I was obliged to change my quarters to ones more modest and less expensive. I was compelled to move far away from the centre of the town and what was to me the centre of life. “Moving” is always a horrible tere, and !f only to be compensated for by the delight of being fixed securely in one fresh habitat. My first evening In my thle room——It was a litle one In those days—overlooking a quiet street in Suburbia I spent In arrang ing my few personal belongings to the best possible advantage to cover the shabbiness of my landlady's melancholy furniture. That done I took up my pipe and sat down by the window to enjoy the cool beauty of the even ing. How long I sat there, blowing the blue clouds of smoke into the street, I am not conscious. I had sunk into a reverie, from which I was aroused by the busy lamp lighter, rattling with his long rod at the lamp on the other side of the road. Suddenly the jet of fame flared up, threw of coy hesitation she became appeased and smiled back delightfully at me. We remained talking late into the night, until my sense of propriety told that It had come time for bed. Then I bade her a linger ing good night and retired to dream softly of her. Why tell the story of the next few weeks' delight in detail? Day by day we held loving communion. In the mornings she looked shy ly toward my window to return my first salute. At nights I opened my window wide, and we whispered across the street things meant only for one another. They were days of ideal love making and evenings of soft and sweet dreams. I often asked her name and where she lived when she wasn't in the poster, but for answer a she would only give me a perplexed shake of the head. Still I did not give up the quest, and one night I had my reward. I had asked her for about the third time, when she seemed to relent and signalled me to write to the “Somebody Company.” ‘Per haps they can tell you,” she added. You see that owing to her delicate posi tion, constantly before the public, we had to carry on our entire courtship at long distance. The width of the street always separated us, amusing and extraordinary letter, of which the following is an extract: ‘I am madly and devotedly in love with the counterfeit pre sentment of your adorable Cigarette Girl. Do, gentlemen, be kind enough, compassionate enough, to give me the address of the origin al. For her sweet sake I have smoked your cigarettes and shall go on smoking them until they kill me. * © © TI hate cigarettes— yours especially do I hate—but I smoke them because she asks me. Surely such devotion should not go unrewarded. As humane men, I ask you, I implore you, that I may know her! Such base commercialism, such paltry man ners, such depraved humanity to thus seek to add to their advertisement by giving to the world my letter. Such sordidness made my heart heavy with sorrow for my fellows. It made me too sick and weary for words. That evening I joined a socialistic society and seriously contemplated becoming an an archist. Such was my sudden and instinc tive hatred of heartless trust. But in the hour of my greatest grief came my greatest consolation. My Cigar ette Girl sympathized with me. Sweet sym thy. As I told her of the Somebody Company's appaling baseness, I saw a teardrop giated distinctly in the corner of her eye. What thought were but a splash left by a care less bill sticker—tIt acted Its part well. My poster angel wept for me—I was comforted, and it was with aight heart that I habited myself in my dress suit and set out for Mrs. Browne-Jones’ dinner party. Before I went I wafted a kias to my Cigarette Girl. At dinners and receptions I am Janguld It is my pose. It is much good form to affect ever so little of boredom, but at Mra. Browne- Jones’ I forgot all about my characteristic attitude. My stars, my Cigarette Girl, my divinity, my adored one. Those pearly teeth, those ripa red lips, those rougish eyes, that glorious hair. My blood coursed madly. in my veins, my knees trembled, my heart beat wildly with a new delight, a fresh Intoxicating hope took prssgession of my whole being. Mrs. Browne-Jones was passing. I paised her arm in a fierce grip. “Introduce me,” I hissed In her ear. She looked surprised at my vehemence, but, heeding her not, I continued, “To her. Look over there. Mrs. Browne-Jones—oh,, miserable matron —could not understand me. I am always misunderstood... Again I indicated my di vinity,, and she replied, coldly. “Oh, I see, you wish to be Introduced to Mrs. Dauber-Rubens?! , “Who? My grip tightened on her arm, “Mrs. Dauber-Reubensa—you know, wife of the great artist—she pores, for most of his pictures,you know—the great poater man.” — I fled from that unhappy room. Alas, for my baffled hopes, my shattered dreamer. waa-crushed! pulverized | 1 .anni hilated ! 11. For thus had 1 found 4 Wife, oe PS
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USA 23 Nov 2025
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