her
titles are always unusual). This was followed by _Roast Beef, Medium_,
in which Mrs. McChesney appears as the successful distributor of
Featherloom skirts. _Personality Plus_ tells of the adventures of her
son Jock as an advertising man. _Cheerful--by Request_ introduces Mrs.
McChesney and some other people. By this time her favorite character had
become so well known that the stage called for her, so Miss Ferber
collaborated with George V. Hobart in a play called _Our Mrs.
McChesney_, which was produced with Ethel Barrymore in the title role.
Her latest book, _Fanny Herself_, is a novel, and in its pages Mrs.
McChesney appears again.

Her stories show the effect of her newspaper training. The style is
crisp; the descriptions show close observation. Humor lights up every
page, and underlying all her stories is a belief in people, a faith that
life is worth while, a courage in the face of obstacles, that we like to
think is characteristically American. In the structure and the style of
her stories, Miss Ferber shows the influence of O. Henry, or as a
newspaper wit put it,

O. Henry's fame, unless mistaken I'm
Goes ednaferberating down through time.

AFTER THE BIG STORE CLOSES

_We all go to the Big Store to buy its bargains, and sometimes we
wonder idly what the clerks are like when they are not behind the
counter. This story deals with the lives of two people who punched the
time-clock. When the store closes, it is like the striking of the clock
in the fairy tales: the clerks are transformed into human beings, and
become so much like ourselves that it is hard to tell the difference._

BITTER-SWEET

BY

FANNIE HURST

Much of the tragical lore of the infant mortality, the malnutrition, and
the five-in-a-room morality of the city's poor is written in statistics,
and the statistical path to the heart is more figurative than literal.

It is difficult to write stylistically a per-annum report of 1,327
curvatures of the spine, whereas the poor specific little vertebra of
Mamie O'Grady, daughter to Lou, your laundress, whose alcoholic husband
once invaded your very own basement and attempted to strangle her in the
coal-bin, can instantly create an apron bazaar in the church
vestry-rooms.

That is why it is possible to drink your morning coffee without nausea
for it, over the head-lines of forty thousand casualties at Ypres, but
to push back abruptly at a three-line notice of little To