Screenland (Nov 1925–Apr 1926)

m SCREENLAND 93 How I Earn Money at Home And In This Way Make Up For George's Shrinking Salary Every Wife or Self-Supporting Girl Can Use Extra Money. Many Are Now Making It Themselves — Right at Home — How Auto Knitting Pays Three Ways By MARY WHITMAN M "Y dear, you should have seen her at church this morning. She looked positively 'dowdy.' It's a shame! Mary used to be such a well dressed girl — until she married that bank clerk. I should think he'd feel — " "Sh-h-h! She's on this car. Over behind you. She might hear." But I had heard — and my face flushed red with resentment and shame. It was true — I did look "dowdy'' — and I knew it. I got off the street ear at the next corner and walked the remaining blocks to my home — and George. My cup of bitterness had spilled over, and I needed a few minutes to choke back my tears that wanted to run down my burning cheeks. I didn't want to make George feel worse than he did already about our money situation. My husband is one of the "white collar men" whose salaries haven't kept pace with the mounting cost of living. I had sometimes hinted to George that I would be glad to take my old position again, but he had always vetoed the idea strenuously. But the bitter experience of this Sunday morning was too much. I resolved as I walked home I was going to find a way to make extra money for clothes. When I got home I was prepared to be cheerful as usual, but George was comfortably smoking and absorbed in his Sunday paper, and his contentment somehow irritated me terribly. To make matters worse he held up the magazine-picture section of the paper as I came into the room, and It helped us over the hard spots oy turning spare hours into extra dollars that advertisement of The Auto Knitter Hosiery Company. To make my story short, I found their prospectus so convincing and reasonable that I sent for and received the wonderful little machine, the Auto Knitter. While George was at the bank, I used it every minute I could spare from my housework. At the end of a month I sent my first shipment of soft, warm, well-knit wool socks to the company's hosiery department. By return mail came a check in payment. Well, I kept on knitting socks — but after a little while not many of them went to the company, for when I let my friend Gracia into my secret and showed* her the socks, she immediately exclaimed: "I know where we can sell them right here in town and nobody need even know who made them!" It worked out fine. I sold them and soon had calls for more. I found I remarked that he had never seen the' girls could make more money selling them in wear "such good-looking duds as they do wa7 than I could sending my stand this year." aid socks to the company. I lost my temper, snatched the paper Then one day, as we were ready to go. from him and cried, "If you like to see out> 1 presented myself before George in ice clothes so much, why" don't you buy a , pretty, new accordion-pleated frock your wife some of them? Then I rushed to my room, still carrying ( the magazine section of the paper, Bhut the door, and threw myself across the bed for a good cry. George came and knocked and spoke to me, but I wouldn't let him in. After a while I sat up, and idlv began to turn the pages of the paper I had taken which I had seen advertised in Park & Taylor's sale and a fancy little sweater I had made up myself with the aid of the Auto Knitter. His mouth opened wide and he just stared at me in admiration. Finally, he managed to say: "Where did vou get them, Mary?" "I earned them myself," I replied away from George. All of a sudden I sat brightly, not just sure how he would take up straighter and gasped. A woman was tne liews. looking out of the page at me, holding a "The sweater, too?" he inquired, and I bank check m her hand, and across the knew he was thinking what an extravagant top of the page were the words, "How I lot such a sweater must have cost " Make Money— Right at Home— Auto Knitting Pays Three Ways." That night I mailed the coupon from "Well, the sweater—" I answered, "the sweater I really made myself!" "But, Mary, I didn't know vou could knit like that!" "I couldn't by hand, George," I replied, "but I learned to do it another way." George looked for a moment as if I had said I had stolen my new things. But then I made him sit down and listen to my story. Then I took the light, portable Auto Knitter out of the closet and showed George how it worked. I had had enough practice by that time, so that I made a sock so quickly that George's eyes almost dropped out of his head. "And you say the Company's hosiery department will buy the socks from you?" he asked. "Yes," I replied, "they will take my entire surplus of standard socks at a guaranteed price, but the best of it is that I can sell my work right here at home and make even more than by sending it to the company, to say nothing of the money I can save by making our own knitted wear just as I made this sweater." George was certainly astonished, said he had no objection to my continuing the work. In fact, he was secretly proud of my ability. So I kept right on making clever little knitted articles for my daughter, socks for George and knitted novelties for home sale. When spring and summer came I took up the knitting of fancy, sport and golf stockings, so that I really had very little knitting to sell to the company, although they helped me in every way, even sending me a booklet telling liow to build up my own home knitting business. Now, I can have the pretty things I want for myself, for Helen and for the house — and I don't have to feel "guilty" when I buy them, because I am not obliged to touch a cent of what I call "the family money" — the money that George makes. Whenever I hear a woman complaining about the high cost of living and clothes, I always try to tell her how the Auto Knitter will help her to make and save money at home in spare time. No matter where you live, I feel sure that you want to know all aboat the Auto Knitter that has meant so much to us. By all means write to The Auto Knitter Hosiery Company at once and find out about this home industry waiting for you. Find out what others have done with the aid of the Auto Knitter and what it offers you. Send your name and address on the coupon below — no obligation of any sort. The Auto Knitter Hosiery Company, Inc., Dept. 2213, 630 Genesee Street, Buffalo, N. Y. The Auto Knitter Hosiery Co., Inc. Dept. 2213, 630 Genesee St., Buffalo, N. Y. Send me full particulars about Making Money and Saving Money at Home with the Auto Knitter telling How Auto Knitting Pays Three Ways. I enclose 2 cents postage to cover cost of mailing, etc. It is understood that this does not obligate* me in any way. Na(me Street and Number.