Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1911-Jan 1912)

Mrs. MacMurray was out making calls! The news spread like wildfire down Main Street. She had been seen leaving her house at exactly five minutes before three o'clock, and all Ridgedale knew what that meant. If, however, there had been the slightest disagreement as to clock-talk in the town, all doubt would have been dispelled by her costume, for she was wearing her brown bonnet with the cerise-colored rose, her green bombazine dress with its figured overdress (added two years before to cover up sundry shiny places on the back of the waist, caused by constant friction with Ridgedale 's parlor chairs) and her ancestral cameo pin. Her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Snow, saw the unfailing signs and sent son Tommy on a run down to Miss Potts, who lived at the end of the street, to warn her in time to take down her curl-papers before her caller arrived, for Mrs. MacMurray always began at the last house and zig-zagged from one side of the street to the other all the way home, as if she were executing a sort of "all-hands-around" figure in a Virginia reel. It was half past four when good Mrs. Lucas heard the click of Mrs. Gerhart 's gate across the street. She hastened to the window to make sure that the caller had found Mrs. Gerhart at home, and then went back to her crab-apple jelly, with a sigh of relief. Mrs. MacMurray was all right in her way, and very amusing, but she didn't mix well with crabapple jelly. However, the call at Mrs. Gerhart's would last for an hour at least, for most of the gossip and scandal of Ridgedale was hatched in her green parlor ; and after that it would be Ridgedale 's tea time, so Mrs. MacMurray would have to leave the rest of her calling for another day. 45 But altho Mrs. Lucas had sized up the situation correctly, she had to undergo some sizing up herself, which was far from correct, for she had a daughter — a very charming, winsome daughter — who was quite the favorite of the little town, and Mrs. Gerhart was jealous, having a daughter of her own, who was neither attractive nor popular. The two girls had always played together as children, when Norrine Lucas ' gentle disposition and absolute unselfishness had saved Ethel Gerhart many a day of bread-and-water diet; and now that they had grown older, Norrine 's popularity secured for Ethel many good times which she would doubtless have missed had she not been generally acknowledged as Norrine 's chum. Ethel accepted the invitations as nothing more than her due, but came back quite out of sorts because Norrine was always the center of attraction. "Did you know that Ethel is going away to boarding-school this fall?" announced Mrs. Gerhart, almost before Mrs. MacMurray had stepped into the green parlor. "Norrine is going with her. Just as soon as Mrs. Lucas heard that Ethel was going she wanted Norrine to go too. Of course it's expensive, but we wouldn't be satisfied with anything but the best for Ethel. I dont see, tho, how Mrs. Lucas can afford to send Norrine. Of course it's none of my affair, but I've noticed that they've only had the one woman to help in the kitchen since spring, and their house hasn't been painted for three years — we always paint ours every other year. Of course I dont say that they've lost money, but it looks that way. Too bad, isn't it? One hears so much of that sort of thing. "Yes, the girls are going to room together. I proposed it to Mrs.