iladelphia as long as the other segments of
the ride put together. Stoically, and beyond the power of words, they
lean on one another. At last the train slides down a grade. In the dark
and picturesque tunnel of the West Philadelphia station, through thick
mists of steam where the glow of the fire box paints the fog a golden
rose, they grope and find the ancient stairs. Then they stagger off to
seek a lonely car or a night-hawk taxi.

SAFETY PINS

[Illustration]

Ligature of infancy, healing engine of emergency, base and
mainstay of our civilization--we celebrate the safety pin.

What would we do without safety pins? Is it not odd to think,
looking about us on our fellowmen (bearded realtors, ejaculating
poets, plump and ruddy policemen, even the cheerful dusky
creature who runs the elevator and whistles "Oh, What a Pal Was
Mary" as the clock draws near 6 P. M.)--all these were first
housed and swaddled and made seemly with a paper of safety pins.
How is it that the inventor who first conferred this great gift
on the world is not known by name for the admiration and applause
of posterity? Was it not the safety pin that made the world safe
for infancy?

There will be some, mayhap, to set up the button as rival to the
safety pin in service to humanity. But our homage bends toward
the former. Not only was it our shield and buckler when we were
too puny and impish to help ourselves, but it is also (now we are
parent) symbol of many a hard-fought field, where we have
campaigned all over the white counterpane of a large bed to
establish an urchin in his proper gear, while he kicked and
scrambled, witless of our dismay. It is fortunate, pardee, that
human memory does not extend backward to the safety pin
era--happily the recording carbon sheet of the mind is not
inserted on the roller of experience until after the singular
humiliations of earliest childhood have passed. Otherwise our
first recollection would doubtless be of the grimly flushed large
face of a resolute parent, bending hotly downward in effort to
make both ends meet while we wambled and waggled in innocent,
maddening sport. In those days when life was (as George Herbert
puts it) "assorted sorrows, anguish of all sizes," the safety pin
was the only thing that raised us above the bandar-log. No wonder
the antique schoolmen used to enjoy computing the number of
angels that might dance on the point of a pin. But only
archangels would be worthy to pir