Page 40 - 1913 November - To Dragma

TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 45

we never knew of before. America reminds me of a huge snake that's
swallowed too large a meal. She has become sleepy and inert from
repletion."

"You are half right, Joe," from Harris, "but in this case it's
the exception. The Americans seem to be giving it to the emigrants.
The families who bleach and boil and wave it t i l l it's ready for the
market know nothing about sanitary measures. We haven't time to
teach 'em. Naturally the process through which the raw material
goes would kill the germs but the same combs and brushes are used
before and after, and the work is carried on in the same air-tignt
room. You can imagine the result. We aren't playing the game with
these incoming people, and, by George, it's a cruel thing!"

This conversation had been carried on during the pauses between
the acts and Cimbria found that her attention was divided between
the story unfolding before her eyes and the numberless ideas called
up by the earnest discussion behind her. Perhaps, because of it,
her interest in the dungeon scene was more intense. At its close
Sophy wiped the tears from her cheeks and said with a sol)—

"Ain't this elegant? I just love a play I can cry over. That last

act was a dandy, but mustn't it be fierce to have that sickness. Why

didn't they have a doctor?"

"There weren't many there," explained Cimbria, "besides leprosy
could be cured then only by a miracle."

"Well, that's one thing we don't have to worry about nowadays,"
said Sophy, with a careless laugh. "Doctors can cure most anything
now, but," she went on with a curious persistence, " i f a person should
get it. would he have to go round the streets hollering 'Unclean,
Unclean.' Wouldn't it be funny?"

"Don't, Sophy, can't you see how awful it is? Don't speak as i f
it were a joke," entreated Cimbria.

Sophy's volatile mind had flown off at another tangent and she
shrugged her shoulders at the protest.

To Cimbria's keener imagination the scene had been a torture.
Tho' she knew the two women were but figures in fiction yet the
pity of their situation had gripped her t i l l she found herself with
clinched hands, and waked to the fact that the last act was almost
finished.

After the close air of the theatre, the cool out-of-doors was wel-
come. The mystery of the night and the subtle appeal of the city
came to both girls tho' in different ways. Cimbria was content to
be an on-looker. She enjoyed watching the men and women who had
laid aside their daytime habit of hurry, and seemed satisfied to drift