The owner of this picturesque name was a copper-colored native employed as a missionary to his fellow smokes out in Oklahoma. A tourist once asked him what he did for a living.
“Umph!” said Big Smoke, “me preachum.”
“That so? What do you get for preaching?”
“Me get ten dollars a year.”
“Well,” commented the white man, “that’s d——n poor pay.”
“Umph!” replied Big Smoke, “me d——n poor preacher.”
* * *
The Eternal Feminine
Women want marriage and a home. They should. And there are more women than men. Even before the war there was, in Europe and America, an extra sixth woman for every five men, and the sixth woman brings competition. She bulls the market, and makes feminine sex solidarity impossible. And, of course, added to that is the woman who requires three or four men to make her happy, one to marry and support her, and one to take her to the theatre and to luncheon at Delmonico’s, and generally fetch and carry for her, and one to remember her as she was at nineteen and remain a bachelor and have a selfish, delightful life, while blaming her.—Mary Roberts Rinehart.