mladinski list
MESEČNIK ZA SLOVENSKO MLADINO V AMERIKI
JUVENILE
Issued monthly for the Young Slovenes by the Slovene Nat’l Benefit Society at 2657 So. Lawndale ave., Chicago, 111. Entered as second-class matter August 2, 1922, at the post office at Chicago, 111., under Act of August 24, 1912. Annual subscription, $1.20; half year, 60c; foreign subscription, $1.50.
LETO XVI.—Št. 5.	CHICAGO,	ILL.,	MAY,	1937	Vol.	XVI,—No. 5.
KATKA ZUPANČIČ:
Deputacija malih
JtypSTER, zvedli smo, da ste v pisarni,
pa da boste za otroško mezdno delo glasovali.
Za usodo našo gre; zato želimo, da bi nas sprašali, preden se odločite, nas, ki delamo v tovarni.
A zakaj nas gledate osorno in zakaj molčite?
Morda se vam zdimo, deca nebogljena, za pogovor resen prezelena, in se za ugled bojite?
Res je, mister, nič ne vemo o življenju!
A smo že zabarantani;
za plesnivo skorjo kruha—za mladost ogoljufani.
Nič ne vemo o življenju, mister, pač pa o trpljenju.
Kaže, da je svetu bolj pri srcu pes, ki se po cestah klati, nego mi, ki dan na dan pri strojih, kakor sužnji na galeji, hrepeneči po prostosti, solncu, šoli, igri v aleji— klonemo premisijevaje: čemu nas je rodila mati . . .
In noči? Mezdno izkoriščanje nas ne ubija le čez dan, marveč i ponoči. I v sanjah smo v njegove mreže zapleteni. I v sanjah strežemo pošastnim strojem—trudni, razboleni. Le premislite: biti brez prestanka noč in dan tlačan . . .
Če ste človek, mister, čujte glas zatiranih otrok:
To ne gre, da bi še nadalje pravo do razvoja nam jemali, in bi še naprej dolarje si iz naših nežnih sil kovali— spričo cele vojske posla si iščočih čvrstih rok!
r. tagore:	Oblaki	in	valovi
MIMICA, bitja ki bivajo tam gon v oblakih mi kličejo:
“Mi se igramo, odkar se prebudimo, dokler se nagne dan. Igramo se z zlato zarjo, igramo se s srebrnim mesecem.”
Vprašam: “Ali kako naj pridem gori k vam?”
Pa odgovore: “Pridi na kraj zemlje, dvigni roke proti nebu in vzame te. na oblake.”
“Mamica me čaka doma,” pravim. “Kako naj jo zapustim in pridem!”
Nato se zasmejo in odplavajo.
Ali jaz poznam še lepšo igro, mamica.
Jaz bom oblak in ti boš mesec. Jaz te zakrijem z obema rokama in sleme naše hiše bo modro nebo.
Bitja, ki bivajo v valovih, mi kličejo:
“Mi prepevamo od zore do mraka; potujemo in ne vemo kam potujemo." Vprašam: “Kako bi se vam pridružil?”
Oni pa mi reko: “Pridi na kraj brega in stoj s trdno zaprtimi očmi, pa te odnese na valovih.”
Pravim: “Mamica hoče, da sem vsak večer doma — kako naj jo zapustim in grem?”
Nato se zasmejejo, zaplešejo in odplavajo.
Ali jaz poznam še boljšo igro od te.
Jaz bom val in ti boš tuj breg.
Jaz se bom valil naprej in naprej in smejoč se ti razbijem ob nedrijih.
In nihče na svetu ne bo vedel, kje sva.
Pripovedka o beli kači
g ELA kača je mati in kraljica vseh drugih kač. Šele v visoki starosti postane bela. Glava ji je debela in podobna mačji. Vrhu glave pa nosi krono in v nji dragocen kamen demant, ki se v temi tako sveti, da šivajo štirje krojači pri njem brez druge svečave. Kdor dobi tedaj demant iz njene krone, je srečen za celo življenje, toliko je vreden. Zato so jo že od nekdaj zelo zalezovali. Ali ta kamen dobiti je zelo težko, ker je bela kača silno huda, in poveljnica vseh kač ne stanuje nikoli sama, ampak v večjih kačjih gnezdih, iz katerih pride malokdaj na dan.
Bil je kačji lovec, ki je gadom mast pobiral. Našel je v velikem skalovju med bukovjem veliko kačje gnezdo in je hotel tudi tukaj gade poloviti, da bi po svojem opravilu masti dobil. Vzame s
seboj tovariša, da bi mu pomagal, ker se mu je dozdevalo, da bo kač več ko drugod. Na skalovje prišedši odbere primeren kraj, odlomi leskovo šibico, ki je zrastla v enem letu, načrta s tako šibico ris, vstopi v sredo, pripravi svoje orodje in vzame piščal v roke, da bi kače sklical. Tovariš se je pa zbal bele kače in si ni upal ostati v risu. Zleze torej na deveto bukev od risa, in ko je začel oni v risu piskati na svojo piščal, je videl, kako so lezle kače od vseh strani: rjave, pisane, grebenaste in druge proti risu. Vsaka je položila glavo na ris. Naenkrat pride bela kača, položi glavo na ris, vdari z repom po tleh in v enem trenotku puhnejo vse kače na lovca v risu in ga opikajo, da je umrl pri tisti priči. Ko bi njegov tovariš ne bil na deveti bukvi, slaba bi se godila tudi njemu.
Ivan Cankar:
Vrzdenec
Moja mati je bila doma z Vrzdenca.
Ta vas je, pravijo, tam nekje v Horjulski dolini; jaz ne vem, če je res, ker je nikoli nisem videl in je tudi na nobenem zemljevidu ni zaznamovane. Ali da je na svetu in da je celo prav blizu, je čisto gotovo. Morda sem bil že do nje samo še za uro hoda; morda sem jo bil kdaj na dolgih svojih potih ponevedoma že ugledal, pa je nisem spoznal po imenu in mi je bila tuja in nema kakor vsaka druga vas. Zdi se mi prav zares, da sva nekoč stala z materjo na hribu ter gledala nanjo. Zgodaj zjutraj je bilo, mislim. V dolini so bile še bele megle, iznad megla se je vzdigal holmec, na holmcu je bila cerkev z visokim obzidjem in na vas je sijalo žarko solnce. Na materinem obrazu je odseval ta krasni svit. Iztegnila je roko in je pokazala na vas. “Tam je Vrzdenec!” Njen glas je bil globok, mehak in zamišljen, kakor da bi rekel otrok:	“Tam je lepo!” In
kakor da bi jetnik strmel skozi omrežje: “Tam je polje!” . . . Morda pa je vas čisto kje drugje in čisto drugačna in so bile vse to samo sanje.
Nikoli nisem bil na Vrzdencu in vem, da nikoli ne bom. Tudi ne, če bi bil en sam korak do tja. Spomnim se na to vas, kadar sem zelo potrt, ali zelo bolan. Takrat se mi približa, kakor se časih razboleli in preplašeni duši približa smrt. Prešinila me je nekoč misel, iz temne globočine, iz bolesti je bila segla, da bom ob tisti uri, ko se bo treba napraviti na zadnjo pot, ugledal s slamo krito kočo, kjer se je rodila moja mati, ugledal tudi še njeno zibko, z rdečimi srci pomalano; in videl drobnega otroka v predolgem zelenem krilcu, njegove prve, nebogljene korake, slišal njegov tenki smeh, njegove jecljajoče, napol razumljive besede ... in da bodo vse naokoli, kakor cvetice na polju, cvetele
bele misli srca, ki še ni bilo ranjeno od spoznanja. Prešinila me je taka misel in ne dvomim nič, da se bo res tako zgodilo. Ker spomin, ki se človeku oglasi iz onih krajev, ne leže nikoli.
Dan pred smrtjo se je mati selila. Bilo je že pod mrak in truden sem bil. Mati je mirno sopla in zdelo se mi je, da spi; zato sem šel po prstih iz izbe ter se napotil k sosedu, da si odpočijem ob kozarcu vina. Ostal sem tam dokler se ni do dobrega znočilo. Ko sem se vrnil ter prižgal svetilko, me je zgrabila za grlo neznana groza. Materina postelja je bila prazna. Stal sem in trepetal in se nisem mogel ganiti. Nič ne vem kako in nič ne vem kedaj sem se prestopil, hodil s svetilko v roki po izbi, po veži; in vse, kakor da hodi neki drugi, čisto tuj človek, jaz pa da stojim za mizo ter gledam in čakam, kdaj bo opravil. Tako sem prišel skozi vežo in po dveh lesenih stopnicah v malo kamrico, kjer je imela stara ženska svoj kot. Na postelji je ležala moja mati. Ko sem jo ugledal, mi je stisnilo, do kaplje izželo srce nekaj tako čudnega, da nikjer ni temu imena; bolest in ljubezen, oboje in še več. Mati je bila mlada, lica so bila zdrava, oči jasne in vesele, na ustnicah smehljaj. Gledala me je z nekako tiho, pritajeno prešernostjo, nespametnega otroka, ki trepeče, da sam ne ve zakaj.
“Kako ste prišli v to posteljo, mati?”
“Sama sem prišla. Nikar ne misli, da sem tako hudo bolna! Upam, da bova kmalu na Vrzdencu. Saj se meniva že toliko let! Ko sem vstala, se mi je kar zdelo, da bi se napotila naravnost tja, pa nisem našla obleke. Kam ste jo spravili?”
Ob teh besedah, ob tem pogledu in smehljaju mi je bilo, da bi šel kam v samoto, v temo in tam potožil bolest. Ker občutil sem, da je v kamrici še ne-
kdo tretji, ki se sklanja nad naju bled in visok ter naju posluša.
“Tista postelja tam ni prav postlana: peče me, kakor da ste mi nasuli žrjavice pod rjuho. Tukaj je boljše, le malo daleč je. Saj bi že skoraj bila prišla do Vrzdenca, tako sem hodila. Stopim in tudi zid stopi na stran, kakor da bi se otroci lovili . . . Mislim, da bi si naročila voz do Vrzdenca, drugače ne prideva nikoli tja. Kako bodo gledali, ko se pripeljeva! Saj bi Mrovec dal voz, kaj ne?”
“Čemu bi ga ne dal?”
“Zares, čemu bi ga ne dal? Rano zjutraj se odpeljeva, nedelja bo in solnce. Jaz vem, da bo vse lepo, kakor da bi bilo
v	svetem pismu. Zgodilo pa se bo kmalu; nocoj še ne, ker je že noč, ali jutri najbrž . . . stopi no k Mrovcu in povprašaj zaradi voza . . . Čemu jokaš?” Vroče se mi je bilo izlilo iz oči in me
je žgalo na licih. Mati se je ozrla name z globokim, nemirnim, čudno plahim pogledom; obrnila je glavo k zidu, spet je bil bolan, ubog, od trpljenja in bridkosti izsesan njen obraz.
Človek, ki je imel pelin za kosilo in pelin za večerjo, ki je škropil ljubezen, koderkoli je hodil, sam pa ni okusil nobene kaplje, si natihem, prav na skritem dnu svoje duše ustvari svetle sanje, brez katerih bi moral skoprneti od vsega hudega. Najprej se mu zasveti odnekod le prav ponižna lučka, spomin na nekaj milega, želja po nečem lepem, mehkem, kar morda nikoli nikjer ni bilo in nikjer ni. Luč pa je zmerom lepša in svetlejša, kolikor več je bridkosti in kolikor bliže je odrešenje. Dokler se svetloba nazadnje veličastno ne izlije v ono, ki je zadnja in večna; ter je tako izpolnjena obljuba, srcu dana, in doseženo plačilo za verno zaupanja
Kette:
Mačka in miška
JYJLADA miška je videla nekoč mačko, kako je slanino. Hitro steče k njej in se ji prijazno pridruži, rekoč: “Bo-terca, tudi meni diši slanina, saj mi pustiš, da jo tudi jaz nekoliko pokusim?”
“Ti tatica tatinska, ti!” zareži mačka nanjo, “jaz ti pokažem krasti, čakaj me!” In v hipu jo zgrabi in zadavi. Nato pa mirno liže dalje okusno slanino.
Drugi dan pride pa v klet gospodinja, najde slanino snedeno, a miško zadavljeno. Kakor hitro zagleda muco, pokliče jo s sladkimi besedami k sebi in jo začne božati:	“Da,	da, ti si moja mucka.
Prav, prav, da si zadavila to požerušno miš, ki mi je snedla vso slanino.”
In mucka je zadovoljno godrnjavsala in predla, prav kakor da je ona najbolj nedolžna žival na svetu. . . .
♦
Courtesy of Chicaeo Art Institut«
KMEČKA družina
K. Franc:
Živalca v uri?
p RED leti je v večji vasi opravljal u-rarsko obrt skromen bajtar. Posestvo mu ni donašalo toliko dohodkov, da bi mogel preživljati svojo družino. Zato se je bavil tudi s postranskim zaslužkom. Bil je jako nadarjen in izvež-ban ter je veljal za naj bistroumne j šega v kraju. Kot samouk je svoje znanje tako izpopolnil, da ni popravljal sosedom samo vozov, vršil je namreč tudi mizarska, steklarska, kovaška in ključavničarska dela, temveč je izdeloval celo stolpne ure. Na svoji hiši je napravil uro, ki je kazala čas v sobi in na dvorišču ob javni cesti. Cela vas jo je i-mela za javno uro, saj je vedno kazala pravi čas. Ta ura je prvič obstala ob smrti urarja in pozneje ni tekla nikoli več natančno, saj ni bilo nikogar, ki bi opravljal to uro, dokler ni končno obstala za vedno. Poleg stenskih ur, ki jih je tudi sam izdeloval in popravljal, se je bavil še s popravilom žepnih ur. Te ure so se navijale tedaj s posebnim ključkom na drugem hrbtnem pokrov-cu. Prodajal je pozneje tudi kupljene žepne ure in si tako služil svoj vsakdanji kruh.
Vsako leto enkrat ali gotovo vsako drugo leto nas je obiskal s svojim orodjem ter v hiši popravil in uredil vse ure, da so pravilno tekle in kazale pra-
vi	čas. Ena od teh je bila celo njegovega izdelka. Bila je poleg ur tudi četrtinke. Vsak čas ponoči si lahko vprašal uro, koliko kaže? Le pocukati je bilo treba za posebno vrvico in ura je takoj povedala, četrtinke in uro preteklega časa.
Takrat smo otroci imeli imeniten dan, da smo lahko napasli svojo radovednost. Odkrivala se nam je tajnost notranjosti ure in vseh mogočih vprašanj, čemu je potrebno to in ono kolesce, ni bilo ne konca ne kraja. Najraje
pa bi se bili igrali z zlatorumenimi medeninastimi kolesci, katere je lepo očiščene urar takoj zopet vstavil v ogrodje in ura je zopet tekla svojo pot. Razdrl je tudi očetovo žepno uro. Tedaj smo šele zijali in občudovali, koliko kolesc je bilo zgnetenih v tako malem prostorčku in strašno nas je skrbelo ali bo urar vsa ta kolesca zopet spravil pravilno, vsako na svoje mesto. Vse se mu je posrečilo in očetova ura je zopet kazala pravi čas.
Najbolj smo občudovali urarjev “reš-petlin” na eno oko ((povečalno steklo). Kakšno vajo je imel. S posebnim migom je v očesu držal to enooko lupo in opazoval v uri drobna kolesca. Na vprašanje, čemu to potrebuje, nam je razlagal, da tako malih kolesc ne vidi in bi jih ne mogel pravilno prijemati, še manj pravilno vstaviti nazaj v uro. Tudi vsak prah in vsaka smet je na ta način dobro vidna v uri. Kako potrebna mu je taka enooka lupa, nam je dokazoval s sledečo zgodbo:
Nekoč mu je prinesel v popravilo žepno uro, ki se je navijala na ključek — berač. V teku tedna je bila ura popravljena in berač je popravilo plačal in o-dnesel uro. V teku 14 dni se je berač vrnil s pritožbo, da mu je ura danes v jutro kar nenadoma obstala, dasi jo spravlja vsak večer pred spanjem pod vzglavje. Ura ne teče več in ne teče. Urar je bil mnenja, da jo je berač v spanju premetaval in kaj razbil. Ta se ni spominjal ničesar, tudi na tla mu ni padla nikdar. Sedaj stoji in se kolesje nikamor ne premakne.
Urar je odprl uro ter pogledal v notranjost s prostim očesom, vendar ni zapazil ničesar. Nato je pogledal še s povečalnim steklom, kaj je na stvari. Opazil je, da nekaj miglja med kolesci.
Pri natančnejšem pregledu je opazil ma-
lo	živalco, zapleteno med kolesci. Kmalu bi izbruhnil v smeh od samega začudenja, vendar se je z največjim naporom vzdržal in napravil resen obraz s pripombo, da je eno kolesce polomljeno in naj pride berač čez nekaj dni po uro. Berač je zadovoljen odšel. Urar
je med tem ponovno odprl drugi pokrov beračeve žepne ure, nataknil lupo, vzel pinceto in izvlekel iz ure mršavo živalco, ki je še brcala. Ura je zopet tekla v redu. Čez teden dni je urar izročil beraču njegovo žepno uro. Tista mršava živalca, ki je prilezla pri ključkovi luknji v uro, je bila—uš.
ELAINE TURPIN	TIHOŽITJE
Elaine Turpin, članica društva Pioneer št. 559 SNPJ, pohaja ljudsko šolo v Ciceru (čikašku predmestje) in je v razredu 6B. Stara je 11 let in ko je narisala prvo sličico “Krvaveča srca”, ji je njena učiteljica nasvetovala, naj se uči slikanja. Njena prva dela so bila razstavljena v Springfieldu na okrajni razstavi. V kratkem se vpiše v čikaški Art Institute. Elaine je tudi članica Rdečih sokoličev pri skupini Toma Mooneyja. V tej številki sta reproducirani dve njeni sliki in v prihodnji bo tretja.
136	MLADINSKI	LIST
Zalivski tok
JZ pokrajin ob Mehiškem zalivu gre mogočen vroč tok skozi atlantsko vodovje. V Mehiškem zalivu se suče kakor v velikanskem kotlu, potem pa teče severnovzhodno proti Evropi. To je tolikokrat imenovani Zalivski tok. To ni samo ena struja, marveč tri različne, ker se tok dalje proti vzhodu razcepi v tri veje. Prva je glavni zalivski tok. Ta tok gre skoraj v ravni črti preko Atlantskega oceana. Druga struja je severni rokav zalivskega toka. Ta gre okrog severnega konca britanskih otokov. Tretja struja pa je južna. Ta ne teče tako ravno kakor ostali dve. Ta rokav se v smeri proti Gibraltarju obrne popolnoma proti jugu in se tako rekoč vrača k svojemu izhodišču v Mehiškem zalivu. Sredi pentlje, ki jo tvori ta del zalivskega toka, je upodobljena zvezda. Ta zvezda naznačuje, kje je tako imenovano Sargaško morje. Ta del Oceana, ki je zelo velik, je pokrit z velikimi množinami blata, ki jih je zalivski tok postopoma grmadil pri svojem čudnem krožnem potovanju. To morje je imelo pri Kolumbovem odkritju Amerike precej pomembno vlogo. Praznoverni mornarji trdijo še dandanes, da se nahajajo sredi tega blata vse neštevilne ladje, stare in nove, ki so se izgubile, ko jih je moštvo zapustilo in tvorijo tako imeno-
vani “Otok mrtvih ladij.” Ali je to resnično, se da le težko ugotoviti, ker se tudi še dandanes ne upa nobena ladja v te ogromne gmote blata. Lahko pa mirno rečemo, da mora biti v tem blatu ogromno lesa, ki ga nosi morje.
Dolgo ni bilo znano, v kateri smeri se prav za prav premika Zalivski tok. Tudi zdaj to vprašanje še ni čisto jasno rešeno. Vendar pa so s pomočjo steklenic, ki so jih z ladij spuščali v morje, vsaj v glavnem odkrili tokovo smer. Tako so n. pr. našli septembra 1927 ob za-padni obali Francije steklenico s sporočilom, ki ga je spustil neki telgerafist marca 1926. v kopališču Miamiju ob obali Floride v morje. Steklenica je bila 18 mesecev na poti in je napravila 7,600 km, torej skoro 13.4 km na dan. Odtlej so našli še več takšnih steklenic in dokazano je vsaj to, da se glavna veja zalivskega toka vali proti francoski obali.
Da bi še bolj proučili ta mogočni tok, so v zadnjem času spustili ob ameriški vzhodni obali v morje celo vrsto steklenic s sporočili in zdaj napeto pričakujejo, kje se bodo pokazale ob naših obalah. Znanost ima nedvomno prav, če trdi, da je vprašanje gibanja Zalivskega toka zelo zanimivo. To lahko spoznamo po enem samem pogledu na zemljevid.
Mravlji
£veCer se sta sešli mravlji, sosedi v mravljišču.
“Joj, kako sem zdelana,” reče prva, “ves božji dan sem prevlačevala košček sladkorja, pa ga nisem mogla spraviti do doma; na sredi poti sem ga morala pustiti.”
“A tako, ti misliš drobtinice od sladkorja, ki ga je razsula neka deklica tam
na cesti? Pa kako je to, saj je bilo polno majhnih koščkov tam. . .”
“Da, ali jaz sem se lotila naj večjega.”
“Brezumnica,” reče druga, “vidiš, jaz pa sem nosila le bolj majhne koščke: 'e pojdi pogledat, kakšen kup jih je! Seveda, ti hočeš vse naenkrat. Nu, pa imaš. Boš vsaj vedela za drugokrat!”
Courtesy of Chicago Art Institute
MLADI PLESALKI
KATKA ZUPANČIČ:
Begunka poje svojemu otroku
^ JA Uda nija—!
Dan se v noč previja. Zvezdice se vžigajo,
Tebi, glej, mežikajo.
Spi, zaspi otroček moj, nič se ti noči ne h ni!
A ja tuta nija—/
Dom je podrtija.
Tuje prage briševa, tuje strehe iščeva.
Spi, le spi otroček moj, nič tujine se ne boj!
Aja tuta nija—/
Lačna zver zavija.
Psički tod jo čujejo, glasno se hudujejo.
Spi, o spi otroček moj, nič se ti zveri ne boj!
Aja tuta nija—/
Brata brat ubija.
Tla s krvjo zamakajo, njih sirote plakajo.
Spi, le spi detece moje:
Boj se bije za pravice tvoje!
Aja tuta nija—/
Strašna ta morija spremenila Španijo v novo je Kalvarijo.
Spi, le spi moj sinko dragi, očko v sanjah mi pozdravi . .
ANNA P. KRASNA:
Mala Italija
(Iz zbirke Babilonski stihi)
ftEŠILNA stopnišča so polna klepetajočih žensk in otrok,
preko pritrjenih ograj se smeje cvetje in zelenjava v siromašni blok.
V	kovačnici za vogalom obrezujejo staremu kljusetu kopito,
v meddurju čez cesto vpleta zaljubljen mladec belo rožo v signorinino kito.
Preko vseh zanikrnih ulic se razliva česnov vzduh,
tu in tam se v velikem oknu rumeno nasmiha okrogli pšenični kruh.
Okrog stojnic prežijo razcapani paglavci na priliko izmika,
streljaj stran se po široki cesti mrzlični tempo velemesta pomika.
Jomi:
Odkod rudarji
y DAVNIH dneh je bilo, ko je namesto skrbi bedelo nad ljudmli vse polno rajskih vil. One so skrbele, da so polja cvetela in so mlinska kolesa od veselja klopotala noč in dan. Skrbele so, da so izpod skal izvirale bistre vodice, sladke ko med. In ljudje niso bili ne lačni, ne žejni . . .
Imele pa so vile pomagače, drobna bitja — palčke. Ti so živeli globoko pod zemljo in čuvali so tam svoje zaklade, ki jih je bilo dovolj za ves svet. Kadar pa so videle vile, da se očka odpravlja v mesto, so potrkale v mraku na majhna vratca v temnem gozdu in njih zavezniki palčki so jim odprli. Vile so povedale, kateri očka gre rano zjutraj v mesto in palčki so mu še to noč nanosili vse polno zlatih cekinov, da je bil mošnjiček kar premajhen. — In če so zvedeli palčki od svojih prijateljic, da je v vasi drobna nevestica, takoj so ji nesli zlato krono v dar, da se ji je svetila v zlatih laseh.
Ljudje so bili zadovoljni in hvalili so bajna bitja, ki jim pomagajo še preden
bi prišli v stisko; kar jo nekega dne pri-maha čez hrib potepuh, iz drugih krajev. Tega pa vile niso marale, ker je bil hudoben in zato mu tudi palčki niso donašali svojih darov. Tako je bil potepuh nevoščljiv dobrim ljudem in sklenil se je maščevati nad njimi. Pričel je hvaliti zlato in bisere, katere so dobili od palčkov in pripovedovati, da bi lahko dobili še lepših darov, ako bi hoteli. Vprašali so ga, kako bi lahko to dosegli in potepuh jim je povedal, da on ve, kje je vhod v skrivne rove in če hočejo, jih popelje tja. — Ljudi se je lotil pohlep in veleli so potepuhu, naj jih vodi. V temni noči so odpahnili vrata v temnem gozdu in sedaj so bili v rovih polnih zlata in biserov. — Ali,
o	joj! Zaman so iskali blestečih darov, povsod levo in desno je bila le črna temina. Palčki so kaznovali njihov pohlep in spremenili zaklade v prah. Le tu in tam po širni zemlji so še pustili polne rove črnega dijamanta — premoga — ki ga še dandanes v potu svojega obraza kopejejo — rudarji.
R. Tagore:
Sočutje
0E bi bil samo majhen kužek, ne tvoje dete, ljuba mamica, ali bi mi rekla “Ne,” če bi hotel jesti s tvoje mize?
Ali bi me zapodila proč, rekoč: “Poberi se, ti malovredni kužek?”
Potem pa pojdi, mamica, pojdi! Nikoli ne pridem k tebi, kadar me boš klicala in nikoli več ne pokusim ničesar od tebe.
Če bi bil samo majhen, zelen papagajček, in ne tvoje dete, ljuba mamica, ali bi me priklenila, da ne bi odletel?
Ali bi mi pretila s prstom in dejala “Kakšen nehvaležen, malopriden ptič! Gloda svoj lanec dan in noč?”
Potem pa pojdi, mamica, pojdi! V gozdove pobegnem; in nikoli več se ti ne dam vzeti v naročje.
Benedikt Frantner—Iv. Vuk:
Legenda
'J'UAN-CHO je bil kitajski kurjač na parobrodu. Njegovo telo je bilo sama kost, koža in mišičevje. Četudi so kotli na parobrodu sijali od neznosljive vročine, Tuan-Cho je enakomerno in vztrajno kakor stroj sipal premog v njihova razbeljena žrela. Znoj in premogov prah so pokrivali njegovo izpito telo; znoj je blestel na gladko obrti lobanji, na nizkem čelu in na izbočenih kosteh. Dolnji del parobroda je bil njegova domovina. Tam je jedel in spal — kakor pes. Zgoraj, na krovu, pa je vel svež morski vetrič, na krovu je bi-
lo	razkošje in muzika, vsakovrstne ledene pijače, udobni naslonjači, lepe ženske in elegantna gospoda. Doli je bil pa pekel.
O
Tuan-Cho je sedel z drugimi ljudskimi beštijami, ki jih je izbljuval pekel v urah skromnega počitka, v neki pristaniški beznici. Iz enega kota so jokali glasovi jazzbanda, razlegalo se je petje in hripavi smeh in kriki pijanih pocestnic so se mešali s truščem.
Bilo je zelo veselo. Resnično, fine in dobro vzgojene dame bi se s studom o-brnile, ko bi vse to videle. Ali poži-vinčenemu parobrodnemu spodnjemu svetu — peklu — je to prijalo.
*
Vnel se je prepir. Za prepirom je sledil kreg, zmerjanje, razbijanje. Nato so zagrmele mize in stoli. Steklenice so žvenkljale. Zabliskali so se noži. Orjaški zamorec je naskočil Tuan-Choa in mu porinil nož globoko med rebra.
Tolpa se je razbežala. Ostal je samo umirajoči Tuan-Cho. Kri je curljala iz rane. Z rokami in nogami je suval o-krog sebe. Oči so mu postajale steklene. Tuan-Cho je bil mrtev.
*
Duša Tuan-Choa • se je zbudila v čmerni in mračni pokrajini. Temna re-
ka je tiho valila svoje valove med globokim grmovjem.
Ljudske sence — duše nedavno umrlih — so korakale k reki in se razvrš-čavale na obrežju. Ni res, da bi prihajale duše gole pred sodnika . . . Tudi duše imajo svojo obleko — oholo in rozko-šno ali skrmno in ubožno, v katero so zagrnjene. Duše velikašev so z neizrec-nim prezirom pogledavale na siromašno in raztrgano gručo senc.
*
Crna ladja je pristala k obrežju. Duše so se vkrcale na njo. In čeprav jih je bilo mnogo, imele so vse dovolj prostora. Na desni so bili Židani in mehki vzglavniki. Na njih so sedele duše velikašev. Na levi strani so stale duše siromakov, senca poleg sence. Med njimi je bil tudi Tuan-Cho.
Izkrcali so se na nasprotnem obrežju. Stopili so v sodno hišo. Zbrali so se vsi v veliki dvorani. Stene dvorane so bile pokrite s črnimi preprogami. Nad dvorano se je vzpenjala ogromna kupola. Polmračna, modrikasta svetloba je bila v dvorani. Na desni so stale duše velikašev, na levi sence siromakov. Vsemogočni sodnik je sedel na prestolu. Pred njim, na črno pokriti mizi, je ležala tehtnica in meč. Vsemogočni sodnik se obrne k bogatašem in vpraša:
“Ali ste kradli?”
“Privatna svojina je svetinja”, so odgovorili. “Mi smo samo trgovali.”
“Ali ste ubijali,” je vprašal vsemogočni sodnik dalje.
“Za to smo imeli vojsko”, so odgovorili velikaši.
“Ste spoštovali zakone”, je vprašal vsemogočni sodnik.
“Spoštovali smo državo”, je bil odgovor velikašev. “Kajti država smo bi-
li	mi. Bili smo patrioti.”
“Pravični ste”, je rekel vsemogočni sodnik. “Vstopite v kraljestvo veselja.”
Obrnil se je k siromakom, vsem raztrganim, ki so stali na levici.
“Ste kradli”, je vprašal.
“Včasi kakšen košček kruha, gospod”, je vzdihala ena izmed senc. “Lačna sem bila.”
Ostale duše so izpovedale, da se jim je isto zgodilo, ker so bile lačne.
“Ali ste ubijali?”
“Bojevali smo. Morali smo. Postopa-
li	so z nami hujše kakor z živino in . . . sami smo radi tega postali živina. 0-
Felix Fechenbach—Iv. Vuk:
Volk
"U- NEKI nenavadno hladni zimi je prignal glad volka do neke osamljene hiše. Tam je naletel na domačega psa, ki je takoj začel lajati.
Volk je poskušal, da bi psa pomiril. Pozival ga je na njuno sorodstvo. Nekoč sta imela oba iste pradede in sta ta-korekoč neke vrste brata, čeprav eden živi v hlapčestvu, a drugi v svobodi. Mesto da kliče gospodarja, naj raj še odvrže verige in z njim zbeži v prostrane gozdove in široke stepe . . .
Ali pes ni hotel ničesar slišati o svobodi v stepah in gozdovih. Tako življenje je negotovo. Je polno neprilik in nevarnosti, polno lakote, skrbi in pomanjkanja. V službi pri človeku pa je zagotovljena eksistenca. In to mu je drago.
“Ti imenuješ tako življenje zagotovljeno eksistenco”, se je rogal volk, pozabljajoč na svoj glad. “Ko te gospodar vklepa v verige, ko te neusmiljeno biča, dokler mu ne poližeš roke in se ne splaziš pod njegove noge, je po tvojem zagotovljena eksistenca in brezskrbno življenje? In iz hvaležnosti za zagotovljeno eksistenco dovoliš, da te porablja zoper tvoje lastne brate?”
Pes, čeprav obsut s takimi grenkimi
bup in beda sta nas ubijala in nas silila, da smo se branili.”
“Ste bili pokorni in poslušni svojim predpostavljenim?”, je vprašal vsemogočni sodnik.
“Bili smo puntarji,” je odgovorila duša Tuan-Choeva. “Iz našega znoja so kovali zlato. Mi smo delali, a oni so uživali.”
Bili smo puntarji”, so ponavljale vse duše siromakov soglasno.
“Prokleti ste!” je izpregovoril vsemogočni sodnik.
Tedaj se je Tuan-Cho divje nasmejal. In z njim vred so se divje smejali vsi njegovi sotrpini.
in pes
očitki, je ostal vseeno pri svojem mnenju.
“Bič začutim včasi, da”, je priznal. “Ali zato vse svoje življenje nisem poznal skrbi, kaj bom jedel. In zdaj najdem vedno polno skledo pri svoji pasji hišici. Ti pa med tem moraš gladovati, se potikati po gozdovih in stepah. Lepota gozdov in step ti ne preganja lakote. Ce si pameten, vpiši se tudi ti v službo mojega gospodarja. In videl boš, da ti bo glad tuj.”
Volku so se od groze kar naježile dlake.
“Strašno”, je zatulil. “Da more moj bližji sorodnik pasti tako nizko, da smatra celo svojo sramoto za vzor, je nekaj neverjetnega. Ne, svoje svobode ne prodam za poln želodec.”
V	tem hipu je prasknil strel. Volk se je zrušil.
“Vidiš”, je triumfiral pes. “To imaš od svoje toliko opevane svobode. Ta svoboda te pušča najprej gladovati, potem ti pa še prinaša smrt. Zato ostajam rajši v službi človeka. Kajti živemu psu je še vedno boljše kakor mrtvemu volku.” “A jaz rajše umrem kot volk, nego da živim kakor pes”, je prezirljivo odgovoril smrtno ranjeni volk in izdihnil.
ENAJSTA KONVENCIJA SNPJ
ENAJSTA redna konvencija SNPJ se odpre dne 17. maja v avditoriju Slovenskega doma na St. Clairju v Clevelandu. Vseh zborovalcev—delegatov in glavnih odbornikov —bo okrog 240. Zadnje konvencije so navadno trajale po dva tedna. Toliko časa bo menda tudi letošnja. Med glavnimi vprašanji bo tudi problem, kako povečati mladinske vrste v jed-noti in kako pospešiti jednotino delo med mladino. Druga važna vprašanja se bodo tikala bolniških in finančnih odnošajev ter glasila.
Naši bratci in sestrice v Clevelandu in okolici bodo imeli lepo priliko, da prisostvujejo raznim konvenčnim prireditvam. Naša mladina ima odmerjen poseben večer za svoj program. Vse te prireditve ima v svojem področju clevelandska federacija jednotinih društev.
Ker je naša SNPJ največja in najmočnejša slovenska organizacija te vrste, je seveda zanjo in za njene konvencije tudi največ zanimanja. Njeni glasili—Prosveta in Mladinski List—sta vsled tega tudi najvplivnejši slovenski publikaciji. SNPJ so organizirali in zgradili zavedni slovenski delavci in ji dali napredna delavska načela. Taka je ostala vse do sedaj in je uspevala. Upamo, da bo rasla in napredovala tudi v bodoče. SNPJ je bila na delavskem in prosvetnem polju prava vodnica slovenskim delavcem v Ameriki zadnjih 33 let. Potom svojih glasil pridno širi delavsko zavest med našim ljudstvom in tako bo nadaljevala!
MLADINSKI POZDRAV ZBOROVALCEM It. KONVENCIJE SNPJ!
UREDNIK.
Konvencija SNPJ je tu!
Dragi urednik! Danes (dne 10. aprila) že zopet tukaj sneži. Res, čudna je bila pretekla zima. Za velikonočne praznike je vreme tudi zelo nagajalo. Sneg in dež, zraven pa ostra burja, ki je pihala kar se je dalo. In tako so lepe obleke ter novi klobučki ostali v škatlah na polici, ker je bilo premraz za pomladno obleko. Zimske suknje so zelo prav prišle v takem mrazu.
Popolnoma se z vami strinjam glede konvencije SNPJ. Res, skoro bi zavidali Clevelandčanom srečo, ker bodo lahko šli na konvencijo. Izredno lepa prilika se jim bo nudila, da se sestanejo z mnogimi ljudmi iz raznih krajev na-
še velike dežele. Udeležili se bodo konvencije in cele vrste konvenčnih prireditev. Upam in želim, da bomo tudi mi slišali njihov radioprogram, ki se bo oddajal iz Clevelanda ob času konvencije SNPJ. Morda bodo zapeli tudi “Škr-jančki” in drugi pevski zbori?
Pozdrav Vam in čitateljem!
FELIX VOGRIN,
2419 N. Main ave., Scranton, Pa.
*	*
Slovenija v ameriški reviji
Dragi urednik! Velikanoč je odšla in z njo njeni pirhi. Prvič se je letos zgodilo, da mi ni velikonočni bunny (kunec ali zajček) prinesel velike košarice z običajnimi darili. Kljub temu nisem
bila razočarana, četudi take košarice vsebujejo razne slaščice, kajti sedaj sem že velika. Pobarvana jajca zadostujejo za moje otroške spomine.
Zadnjič sem pisala o naši šolski igri “Očarljiva šola”, ki je prav dobro u-spela. Uprizorjena je bila dvakrat v šolskem avditoriju, v katerem je 1200 sedežev. In pri drugi uprizoritvi je bilo premalo sedežev, tako da so jih morali dodati. Kolikor mi je znano, je bil dobiček precej šen j, iz katerega se pomaga šolski knjižnici in drugim šolskim ustanovam.
Oni dan sem v šolski knjižnici videla revijo Travel Magazine za februar. Na moje začudenje sem videla v tem magazinu slike iz naše Slovenije — Blejsko jezero, mesto Ljubljano in Kranjsko goro, zraven pa obširen opis Slovenije, ki se mi je skoro bolj dopadel kot opis v Adamičevi knjigi “The Native’s Return.” Dotični opis je napisala Ethyl Chamberlain Porter in je zanimiv.
Pozdravljam Vas in čitatelje!
OLGA VOGRIN,
2419 N. Main ave., Scranton, Pa.
*	*
Mladinski zbori na konvenciji SNPJ
Dragi urednik! Pomlad je prišla in vsi smo jo težko pričakovali, posebno pa mi šolarji, ker se spet lahko zunaj igramo v prosti naravi. Spet so se oglasili ptički, pa tudi mi “Škrjančki” (mladinski pevski zbor) nismo zaostali s petjem, kajt dne 4. aprila smo priredili naš pomladanski koncert. Kakor sem slišala, smo se dobro postavili, tako
v	zboru kot v kvartetu, duetih in samospevih. Vsa hvala g. L. Šemetu za njegovo požrtvovalnost in trud, ki ga ima z nami. Mi smo namreč precej poredni in naša mlada kri nam ne da miru.
Kaj pa bo šele na konvenciji v maju, ko bodo skupno nastopili vsi naši mladinski zbori v Clevelandu — “Škrjančki”, “Slavčki”, “Kanarčki” in sploh vsi. Z nami pa bo tudi vse staro in
mlado, vse kar je živega. Takrat se bo marsikdo počutil, kakor bi sedel kje v ptičjem gaju.
Še nekaj — to za naše mamice. Na 9. maja, to je na materinski dan, bomo spet imeli priliko videti lepo igro, ki se imenuje “V posredovalnici”, pod vodstvom našega marljivega delavca g. Kovačiča, kateremu gre tudi zahvala za njegov trud. Po igri pa nekaj pesmic, ki bodo veljale izključno našim mamicam, katere, upam, se bodo odzvale skupnemu vabilu njihovih hčerk in sinčkov. Saj pa je vsaka mamica lahko ponosna, ko vidi svojega ljubljenčka na odru, ki poje milo slovensko pesem. To bo v Društvenem domu na Recher ave. Na svidenje!
Iskren pozdrav vsem!
VIOLET VOGRIN, 19515 Kildeer ave., Cleveland, O.
*	*
Pismo slovenske učenke
Dragi urednik! To je prvo moje pismo Mladinskemu Listu. Večkrat sem že hotela pisati, pa nisem imela časa. U-pam, da bom imela več časa sedaj in da bom bolj pridna. Mladinski List rada čitam in vsega pregledam vsak mesec.
Moj prvi učitelj v slovenski šoli je bil g. Marijan Urbančič. Slovensko šolo sem takrat obiskovala v Slovenskem domu na Holmes ave. v Collinwoodu. Tri leta sem hodila v to šolo, seveda samo enkrat na teden ob sobotah. Sedaj hodim v slovensko šolo v Slovenskem narodnem domu na St. Clair ave. in naša učiteljica je ga. Mary Ivanush.
Jaz sem članica društva “Little Comrades”, ki je mladinski odsek ali oddelek društva “Comrades” št. 566 SNPJ. V Collinwoodu sem bila članica društva “Mir” SNPJ. Moj brat in moji dve sestri ter jaz smo vzeli prestopne liste. Moj brat je 17 let star, ena sestra bo 6 let stara v maju, ena 14 v juliju, jaz sem pa 12. Pri društvu “Little Comrades” se mi zelo dopade, ker imamo svoje seje. Poleti se odpravimo v Gordon Park in včasi tudi kam drugam.
Na Holmes ave. hodimo tudi k petju in naš pevovodja je g. L. Šeme. Moj pr-
vi	učitelj petja pa je bil g. Anton Šu-belj. Ko sem pohajala slovensko šolo na Holmes ave., nas je podučeval petje g. Vantar.
Sedaj hodim v Collinwood high school (srednjo šolo) in sem v razredu 7A ter imam devet učiteljic.
Kmalu se bo vršila konvencija Slovenske narodne podporne jednote. To bo v Clevelandu v Slovenskem domu na St. Clair ave. Takrat bo zanimivo in prijetno. Pomlad bo med nami in prišlo bo mnogo ljudi iz raznih krajev. 0-krog SND bo vse živo. Upam, da se bomo vsi zabavali. Upam tudi, da bo vse skupaj uspelo.
Mnogo pozdravov vsem čitateljem in delegatom!
MARGARET STEFANČIČ,
1426 E. 172nd st., Cleveland, Ohio.
*	*
Pomladno veselje
Dragi urednik! Že spet ste me razveselili, ker ste moj dopis tako lepo uredili za aprilsko številko Mladinskega Lista. Hvala!
Pomlad je končno prišla med nas in nas razveselila s svojo prijetnostjo. Dolgo jo je vzelo, predno je ostala med nami. Zima jo je skušala prepoditi in jo tudi je, pa le za nekaj časa. Pomlad je zimo premagala!
Sedaj imamo obilo dela na vrtu. Vse je ozelenelo, cvetlice molijo svoje glavice iz zemlje in drevje je pognalo svoje nežne liste. Oživelo je polje in oživele so livade. V naravi se je pojavila pomlad. Iz zemlje je poklicala rastline in brž so jo ubogale. Saj pa jih je toplo solnce veselo pozdravilo in se jim nasmejalo.
Na vrtu je dosti dela s čiščenjem. Treba je pospraviti dračje in suhe veje, pograbiti gredice in jih zrahljati. Kjer so se veje odlomile, jih je treba odstraniti, rano na drevesu pa s celilnim voskom namazati, tako da ne bo drevo pričelo gniti.
Ali so čitateljem znane tele uganke? Je belo ko mleko, rdeče ko kri, na smeh se drži. Je tenko ko konoplja, gartroža rdeča, bela ko makov cvet in peče kot žrjavica. Ce vam niso znane, nič zato, ker ni važno.
Povedal sem Vam o pomladi, kako je polagoma prišla v Cleveland. Kako je spremenila pusto okolico v lepo zelenje. Kako je treba na vrtu delati in čistiti itd. Omeniti pa moram, kar že sami veste, da prihaja čas enajste konvencije SNPJ. To bo sredi meseca maja. Konvencija se bo vršila v Clevelandu v Slovenskem narodnem domu na St. Clair ave. Clevelandčani se veselo pripravljajo na ta velik dogodek. To bo lepo za nekatere, ki bodo lahko šli v SND na konvencijo in zvečer na prireditve. U-pam, da bom šel tudi jaz.
Šolsko leto gre h koncu in kmalu bomo dali naše šolske knjige v penzijon. Potem pa spet poletje in poletno veselje. Takrat se bomo šli kopat in drugače se bomo zabavali. Ampak šola se ne bo zaključila še en cel mesec. Potem bodo šele šolske počitnice, ki se jih že vsi veselimo.
Pozdrav vsem!
JOSEPH ROTT, Cleveland, Ohio.
mJUVENILE
MONTWT.V MAHA 7TMTP	VATTxrr*	or	mn?\n?o	txt	ivmm*«.
MONTHLY MAGAZINE FOR YOUNG SLOVENES IN AMERICA
MONTHLY MAGAZINE FOR YOUNG SLOVENES IN AMERICA
Advice to The Perplexed
D° NOT look on and marvel
And shake your head and say,
“No use. The world’s a mystery,
And I’m a mystery. I can but live and hope.”
For hoping and vain praying also Exact their toll of energy. What then?—
’T were better far to practice thrift And say, “My energy must be reserved And leashed to probe and search—
And search and probe.”
“My reward? ’T ivill be appraised in terms By future aeons, through ivhose life The fruits of my research will show.”
There! Do not stand aloft and marvel At some “superbly-gifted” Man with verve Who delves into the unknoivn life that is.
Nor sit secure in your own station,
Leaning back and resting.
Lend your support of mind and strength To open the book that is Nature forever As long as the sun shines and holds us in our course.
Volume XVI.
CHICAGO, ILL., MAY, 1937
Number 5.
By MARY JUGG
Anna P. Krasna:
Adieu!
(From: Nightingale Sang)
'J'HE day of farewell dawned grey and damp, with a sharp wind whistling and whining around the house corners, shaking in a mad fashion the crowns of old oak trees that grew on the edge of clover-field near the house. It was late autumn already, and the leaves that stubbornly clung to the half-bare branches were golden-brown, moist, and flabby, and the wind twisted them irreverently into queer, grotesque forms. Mila watched the early morning’s play from her bedroom vindow, remembering suddenly and a little sadly, all the fanciful tales she had read about the leafy folks of story books. She recalled her own versions of such stories: the golden leaves were faces, weeping, swaying, and sighing because the spring and summer were past, and their life at end. And again, as the clouds receded and the sun shone forth, they became fairy creatures of gold, dancing gracefully, seeking their abode on the grounds, amid the bushes, grasses, along the paths and roads, in odd corners, where the winter winds would not disturb them.
How simple life was then! How beautiful the world!
And how strange, thought Mila, that that very life seemed so often sad and unhappy, so dreamless, and lacking in those sweet memories that one takes along to far-away lands to spin garlands of happy thoughts about them . . . Was it because there were no dolls, except such as she made up herself out of old rags; and no ribbons flying gaily from summer straws, or from the old made-over dress in which she attended her first school days' festivals? Oh! It did hurt, Mila remembered, to see other girls bedecked in pretty prints while she walked to the church or festival behind
older women, deeply conscious of her drab garment, tightly pulled-back hair, braided and pinned up after the fashion of mature women . . . never a ribbon entwined . . . never enhanced with fragrant blossoms at festival times.
Mila turned around to look at her sleeping little sisters, their simple but sweet and gay little dresses hanging over the chair by their bed, waiting to be pulled over loosely and becomingly —arranged heads of fair hair. She smiled at the thought of how she strived to prevent their suffering pains of humiliation; how proud she was to have them step lightly along with the happy flock of girls, all of whom perhaps were, after all, far less happy than she had been in her always-outmoded and old rags. Being denied vanity of ribbons and finery, she looked for and found beauty in everything about her. But it was only this final day that brought the deep realization.
. . . Suppose these two darlings should go away the way she was going today— how much beauty they would leave behind untouched. They’d never slipped quietly out of bed at dawn as she used to do to watch the tiny, singing speck up in the old oaks . . . yes, from this very room she had watched. The sun would peep from behind the mountain, the mist give way to light, sky turning blue, smoke starting from chimneys, but she would sit there on the windowsill gazing, listening, and marveling that the little dark speck sang, and sang, and sang . . .
And there were deep blue skies of spring dewy grasses under her bare feet, blossoms dropping all over her head from the orchard trees . . . and a little later first red cherries, yellowing pears, plums, peaches, grapes, figs,
so many other nature’s gifts that she so loved to discover ripening early in the mornings while the dew still veiled the new first secret of a laden tree.
She visioned all the fantastic rainbows that followed summer rains and spanned the valley from one end to the other, so clear and wide that one imagined all the fairy-land characters crossing a gay arched road to lands of tales still untold. Then the red sunsets, glorious nights when the moon was so big and bright that the stars paled in its silvery light . . . that night when a comet rode majestically through the sky . . . and the one during which she traveled with father through the pine forests, lying wide awake in the back of the wagon that was taking her, for the first time, to a distant city. It was amazing how beauty, unparalleled, lofty, and eternal in its fadeless charm, stretched before her into a borderless world of childhood remembrances. Mila was aware as never before that this life she was leaving behind was like a song of nightingale, like the wonders of the dawn in spring, like the soft flowing of the brooklets, hidden and tucked away into sandy beds by green shrubbery and trees, from which birds chirp and sing delightful lullabies. And again, it was like those deep war-scars on the old oaks, gaping, black, and sad as this grey November morning, strangely tranquil against the fury of winds and torrents of rains.
Mila recalled bleak, windy days when the force and velocity of windstorms tossed her about as she struggled to get a foothold on her way to school. There were upturned umbrellas, desperate clutching to the roadside growth and trees, fear of being late, and finally the satisfaction of reaching the class, sitting there, learning things that made one feel important and capable of facing perhaps wider worlds some day in the future. But then suddenly, everything came to an abrupt end, while “wider”
worlds marched right in to be faced and to face the terrible time of war.
What a complex combination of a beautiful, strange, horrible, and fascinating world to which to bid Adieu! Thousands upon thousands of dead and brave soldiers resting in its soil, new flags waving over its lands, fast foreign tongues breaking the even tempo of word that spoke and sang happily, calmly, and with a purpose as great as the word itself.
Mila wished the two little girls, waking up now and wondering why she stood so motionless there by the window, could share with her the world she knew at their age . . . She wished she had told them colorful stories about it, taught them all the sweet songs she sang . . . wakened them up at dawn to show them wonders of rising sun, singing birds, the indescribably refreshing and sweet nature of the early mornings of spring and summer, the deep quietude of afterharvest time, the violent outbursts of angry wind-storms in blackclouded nights.
She longed to pour out to them all the rebellious thoughts that surged to the very surface of her consciousness, because she saw her world and her people enslaved, robbed of their word, their songs, even bread taken out of their hands on their own soil, which they tilled, loved, and cultivated with care and tenderness that came from the souls filled with beauty created by labor, sacrifice, and never-deterred courage that faced centuries of struggles to pre-srve the right to live as free people . . . to sing as they please, to speak as they would. How it hurt to go away instead of staying and defying the black forces that threatened peril. Of course, it would mean suicide, the enemy’s ranks were stronger ... and yet... and yet, thought Mila, only roads remain of Roman conquests ... we still live, in our proud, calm way; we still defy . . . regardless where we go, our cause goes with us . . . our world beckons from the depths of
memories . . . our strength grows because oppression threatens extinction ... it must have been that way always . . . the little girls will grow up and know as well as she does at this moment . . . they, too, shall have rebellious thoughts in their minds, and when they say adieu, because invaders will have wrenched the bread out of their hands,
they will take their world along and won’t forget it . . . and they, too, will remember that only roads, deeply-buried hoofs, bones, and rust-eaten sabers remained of those that conquered by force and brutality . The
really strong and brave cultivated the soil and soul, and lived . . . and were never vanquished . . . never will be. —
*C-: ,
LAINE TURPIN
TREES
A New Kind of Hero
By Carl L. Leathwood
(Conclusion)
0UE last hunger fighters are of another sort. They searched for the “hidden hunger.” And we may congratulate ourselves that society has treated Dr. Stephens Moulton Babcock and Dr. Harry Steenbock with much more consideration than it did Mark Carleton. They remain poor, but they are happy in their researches, and Dr. Babcock in the autumn of his life managed to enjoy this living. Why, here was a scientist who actually accumulated enough money to buy an automobile, which he drove over the splendid state highways of Wisconsin. And both Babcock and Steenbock have enjoyed fame in some degree.
But what is the “hidden hunger?” Well, suppose you had all you wanted to eat, but lost weight all of the time. Never heard of anything of the sort? Yes, within the life span of the present generation, Babcock and Steenbock and other scientists discovered the “hidden hunger” and proved that when certain things are missing from the food of man and animal, that man or animal sickens and dies.
What they found they called vitamins. There are several sorts, and we need all of them, some more than others. Uncivilized men and untamed animals never suffer from the “hidden hunger.”
Without the vitamin in fresh milk, fresh eggs and fresh meat, we develop pellagra. Thousands of children in the mill villages of the south die from this hidden hunger. They live on corn meal mush, salt meat and molasses. They aren’t hungry, for these foods are cheap and they can eat as much as they want. But they are still hungry. It is the “hidden hunger.” Their mouths get sore. A rash breaks out on their skin. They become nervous and in the later
stages sometimes insane. Yet the cure is so simple! A fresh egg or a glass of milk a day, and the “hidden hunger” vanishes, the sores go away, and the rash disappears and they become healthy, normal children again.
When Babcock was at the New York State Agricultural Experiment station, he conducted some tests on the diets of dairy cattle. The results were astonishing. They upset everything the animal experts had been teaching about diet. Why, these experts had prepared tables showing that every cow should have so much hay, so much corn, so much rye, so much cotton-seed meal, in order to give her the right amount of proteins, minerals, carbohydrates, and fats. (Big names for kinds of food —the white of an egg is protein, sugar and potatoes are carbohydrates, buttes and lard are fats; salt, phosphates, etc., are minerals.) The experts were almost right, but still they weren’t. And in science, the difference between ALMOST right and EXACTLY right is enormous. No guess-work for the true scientist. So it was that young Babcock began to have his suspicions of the “hidden hunger.”
He remembered it. When he went to the University of Wisconsin to teach chemistry, he was constantly talking to the live-stock men, the professors who knew all about cattle and hogs and horses. He just had a hunch that diet was not quite so simple as a table of proteins and carbohydrates and fats and minerals contained in the various feeds. His mind gnawed over the matter all the time he was revolutionizing the dairy industry by discovery of the Babcock milk tester and gaining fame for himself. (He could have had a million dollars from this invention had he been a money-grubber instead of a scientist.) But how was he to prove his theory?
Who would give him valuable animals on which to experiment with his funny theories about diet?
We will skip several years. Babcock is ncrw an old man, but his great bellow of laughter booming from the laboratories at the University of Wisconsin is a standing joke. He always enjoys life. But now he gets his chance. The “fool theory” is to have its trial.
Sixteen healthy heifers are the “guinea pigs” of this experiment. Into four pens they go, four in each. One pen is fed nothing but corn, including corn fodder and corn meal. Another pen is fed nothing but wheat and wheat straw. A third only oats products, and the last, a mixture of all the feeds which the
ohers got.
It looked like the experiment was a fizzle. At the end of six months, nothing much had happened, except that the animals in the wheat-fed pen acted somewhat strange, they seemed nervous and developed a strange habit of rolling up their tongues and unrolling them. But science can’t more than take note of that. Also, it was noted that the corn-fed heifers were fatter. But that was all.
The experiment went on, however. The heifers gave birth to calves. And now in the stress of the heifers’ task of providing for a young life as well as their own, things began to happen. What in the world was the matter with the calves of the wheat-fed heifers ? One calf lived two hours; another manages to live four days, but never stands on its weak slim legs; another lives a half day; the last was born dead.
The children of the oats-fed heifers did so-so—three out of the four lived, but they weren’t such good calves.
The heifers fed on the mixed feeds had healthy calves, but not especially good.
But now to the corn-fed pen! Four calves as fine as a man ever laid eyes upon.
The hidden hunger is no wild dream
of Babcock’s. Certainly there is something in the corn necessary to sustain life. The world began to set up and take notice.
The discovery made, Babcock went back to his other experiments. Others could continue the search for the hidden hunger. Harry Steenbock, a Wisconsin farm boy trained under Babcock’s eye, was the one who made the greatest disioveries in the field of vitamins, although the experiment with the sixteen heifers had started scientists the world over looking for foods which contained and which lacked the vital substances without which life faded out.
Steenbock’s story is not so romantic as that of Carleton or Pasteur or his old teacher, Babcock, unless—
You can see romance in a darkened laboratory, where thousands of guinea pigs and rabbits are kept for experiments, where there were strange chemical smells.
Day after day, until late at night, this Steenbock experimented, to learn what foods contained the vitamin, and what foods lacked it. Guinea pigs and white rats by the thousands died or were stunted and starved. The story of vitamins unfolded before his eyes like an Arabian night’s tale.
Steenbock one day noticed how much different a cow looked after a few weeks on early spring grass. Was the food value in this green grass so much different, so much better, than the grains with which she was fed when the snow was on the ground? In the habit of hunger fighters, this thing gnawed on his mind. Was there a something in sunshine that made animals grow fat while they were eating lean diet and whose lack kept them poor on a fat diet in a dark barn?
Well, let us see. The violet lamp should tell us. Its rays are like the rays of the sun. So what does this Steenbock do but turn the rays of the violet lamps on his experimental animals. (At the same time in Germany, Dr. Hundschin
sky was learning that babies with rickets could be cured by exposing them to the rays of the violet lamp.) It works. Animals fed on food lacking in vitamins thrive anyway when they get a bath of light from the violet lamps for a few minutes each day. Animals fed on the food lacking vitamins and kept in the dark sicken and die.
But, what’s this? A rat that is growing fat because he has got the vitamin from the violet lamps is put in a cage with the lean rats, fed on the deficient food!
“But this was wrong. This was unscientific. This was against all rules. Who’d ever heard of a beast catching growth from another? It was contrary to all human experience, it was beyond what a crazy man might imagine . . . Again and again Steenbock tried that experiment, refusing to believe it, rubbing his eyes at the figures of the fantastic growths of these rats who invariably caught growth simply by living in the same cage with light-bathed pals that were growing.”
News came from England that a woman scientist named Hume had improved on Steenbock’s experiment and had fattened the sick rats who had no vitamins by simply keeping them in jars that had been exposed to the rays of the violet lamp or laboratory “sun.” Steenbock doubted. As yet he could scarcely believe his own experiment. We quote a paragraph from De Kruif:
“ ‘Look here,’ said Steenbock to Archie Black, who was another of the many slaves his thousands of experiments required—‘Look here, Hume doesn’t say whether or not she left the bedding, the shavings, in her rat jars when she rayed them . . . And did she leave the food in? And when she blew out the air in them with her bellows, didn’t those bellows blow out the shavings and the food too?’”
It meant another experiment for Steenbock. He makes up a mixture of
hog millet and other foods for the rats. He has tried the same thing time after time. He knows that young rats can live on it, but can’t grow on it. He divides the mixture. Half he puts under the violet lamp for ten minutes. The other half is untreated. He picks his rats, all young. The rats fed on the simple vitaminless mixture fail to grow. They never do. But the rats which are fed the same mixture treated with the laboratory sunlight from the powerful lamp—thrive. They all double their weight in seven weeks. One triples her weight. “ . . . all from an invisible, un-weighable, completely untangible nothing, that had entered the millet during its ten short min ites beneath the sunlamp’s bell.”
So the plugging Steenl ock trapped the rays of the sun, which makes calves grow and horses fat, and babies healthy!
Even yet, comparatively little is known about vitamins. But what we know is doing a-plenty to this old world. We’re making sick babies healthy. We’re getting kids out in the sunlight. We’re slowly getting people to know what foods they must have if they must grow and live. And all the time, scientists like Steenbock bending over their test tubes and microscopes and sun-lamps, and using countless thousands of guinea pigs and white rats • in as many thousand experiments.
Real scientists, proving again and again until the evidence stacks sky-high, that the differences between men disappear when they have the same chance, food, shelter, clothing, sanitation ! Shaming their brutal fellows who call themselves scientists, who potter over old wives’ tales and Marco Polo travel stories to prove to their own satisfaction that there are superior races of men, that the poor are poor because they are inferior!
Now, do you think microbe hunters and hunger fighters are heroes, and worthy of your admiration?
A Letter to Edward
By Mary Jugg
Dear Edward:—
Last month I set in to answer some of the questions you had written me, but I found that I could not nearly begin to cover them in so short a space. Today
I	have decided to take up some more of them as you sent them in.
1. Would you call thinking ivorkl
Most certainly, it is work to think.
The brain is an organ of the body the same as any other. To it is given the job of thinking just as the legs are given the job of carrying the body about. Every time the brain is called upon to think, it has to work hard to make out a road or path. The brain is supplied with many little blood vessels. These carry the blood—which gives energy— to the brain. Every time a thought flashes through your brain, it eats up so much energy. Would you say that that is the reason why so many people don’t bother to think? Well, maybe.
2. Why did people invent gods in the first place?
There is a very good reason why people invented gods. You know that the intelligence of man is supposed to have grown. At least we like to think of ourselves as much “smarter” than the savages that inhabit different islands of the Pacific.
Well, when a man has even less intelligence than we have—a savage, let us say—there are many things around him he cannot explain. He only learns that certain things seem to be good to him and certain others seem to want to cause him trouble. For instance, he may see that a certain man’s face becomes swollen and covered with little red marks, and that when this happens to the man, he is in pain and groans. Then he sees a streak of lightning flash across the sky. It is so sudden and bright that it
frightens him and he cannot tell where it came from or where it went. Again he knows that the sun is pleasant and makes him feel good. But he cannot know where it goes or where it comes from. Naturally, there is only one thing that will pop up in this savage’s mind. That is: that there must be some “supernatural” being who looks out for him when he is good and that punishes him when he is bad. So he makes a god for everything he sees about him and cannot understand.
You will notice one thing: that the more simple and uncivilized a savage or tribe is, the more gods they will have. The very lowest savages had as their gods objects or animals. In the Field Museum there is an exhibit showing Man many, many thousands of years ago, coming out from behind caves (which were his only home) and raising his arms in worship of the sun— which he believed to be “holy.” As Man progressed, he began more and more to think of gods as being more like himself. So, all through the ages different civilizations have set up different kinds of gods—gods that looked like themselves. Did you ever see statues of Chinese gods? They look Chinese, don’t they? But the Greeks had as their god Zeus, and he had a perfect human form. This was because the early Greeks thought so much of the perfection of the body.
Today as you walk through Museums, you see people smiling to themselves as they look upon the various kinds of gods different savages and even civilized peoples worship. Each tribe has its own worship built up. But they forget that they themselves (in a great number) are doing something of the same thing. They may think Buddha or Jupiter is funny, but they secretly pray to
a god of their own—one that looks more like they do, but who, in reality, is just as funny to other people as these others are to them.
If all down through the ages they claim people have been mistaken about which was the right god to worship, isn’t it just as possible that they, too, are mistaken about the god they are now worshiping?
3.	Isn’t it true that because the universe is here, somebody must have made it?
No, you can’t say “somebody” must have made it. If you say that, then I must ask you, “And who made that ‘somebody’?” If you say, “God made the universe,” then you must answer me, “Then who made God?” Was it another God? Then, who made that other God? And so on and so on. Can’t you see there would be no end to that?
You must try to understand, if I can make it simple enough for you, that the universe is matter and matter, in some form or another, has always been. In every region nebulae are continually being formed into other new worlds; other worlds are dashed into bits and lost, while the matter from which they were made goes into the formation of something else.
You have learned that on this world of ours there are 92 “elements”. That means that everything—from first to last—is made up of these elements in some form or another. A poisonous gas which was used in the World War is made up of the same things that the salt you use every day is. The only difference is that in one there are more of one kind of element and the elements are combined differently. So it is with everything you can imagine.
It is just like taking three letters: O, F, and D. Take them like that and make “oodf.” This doesn’t make any sense or mean anything to you. But rearrange them and you have “food.” This can mean everything to you.
Elements are the same way. The way they have become arranged makes the thing what it is.
When Man discovered the elements and learned to name them, he began to experiment with their arrangement. That is why many times we say that “So-and-so invented something new.” The fact is: that it has been here all the time. The inventor or discoverer simply arranged the elements or compounds in a different way and so made something that seemed entirely new to us.
This is an interesting study, and some time I hope we can give more time to it.
4.	Why do people say there is a devil?
This question comes right on the heels of the one above. Those people who do not care to believe that the earth is what it is because of the “nature of things” say that “God made it.” But then, as I told you in the last letter, you have a right to say to these people, that if God made it, then he must be responsible for all the wrongs and ugliness in this world, too.
To have an excuse for all the things that are wrong in this world, religion has said that all the evil was invented by the Devil. These people try to hold up for God by saying that he made everything good, but that the Devil came along and tried to spoil it all.
This belief was so strong at an earlier period in our civilization that many people actually believed that all the time there was a continual war going on between the devil and God. Everything that happened on earth was supposed to be because either God or the devil won out. And so the people went to all kinds of trouble,—prayers, sacrifices, offerings, and what-not, to try to win the favor of God so that he would win out.
All of this was not exactly harmful. It might have been silly, and it surely looks that way to us today, but at least it didn’t hurt anybody. But when the people went too far with this kind of thing it did harm.
People began believing that the devil got into people’s souls and that he “possessed” them. And so, they branded these people as witches and all other kinds of unbelievable names. They started putting people to death, just because someone said that he was “possessed” with the devil. This went past the point of being just funny any more. People’s minds actually became poisoned by carrying this superstition too far. Any normal person of today would say that they were actually insane. Thousands of innocent people suffered for this insanity.
5.	Isn’t it possible that even though the body dies, the mind will continue to live on?
You will see how impossible this is when you stop to realize and learn that “mind” is only the work of the brain. Without the brain and the nervous system there could be no mind. This is very easy to see.
Look at your physiology and you will see that each part of the brain has its own work to do. One part controls the nerves that let us “see” things. Another controls the part that gives us “speech.” Another controls the arms and the legs—and so on.
Now you know, too, that when any of these parts of the brain become in-
jured, the part of the body that it controls stops working, too. For instance, if you injure the section of the brain that controls “sight,” you may become blind, but you will continue to live. In the same way you may have paralysis of the arm or of the leg while the rest of your body will continue to live. But if your whole brain dies, then all of your body is dead and so also is your “mind”.
The reason Man is the most intelligent of all the animals is because he has the most highly-developed brain substance.
So you see, you cannot think of the mind as separate from the brain. And after the brain is destroyed, how can you possibly say that the mind continues to live on. How? Where? These questions cannot be answered, because it is too evident and has been proved too many times that there is no such thing as a mind or soul living after the body dies.
Of course, religion must say that there is such a thing as a soul, because that is what it lives on. If people were not made to believe that they have a soul, then they would not continue to support religion any more, either. Perhaps in some not-too-distant future, the great majority of people will see how foolishly they were led, because they did not use the energy to “think.”
GAME TO PLAY
What is Wrong?
In playing the game “What is Wrong” one player stays in the room while all the others go outside the door. The player in the room makes some little alteration in the position of a thing that usually stands upon a certain spot, or is placed in a certain way, and when he admits the other players he asks them what is wrong. The players, as they discover what is wrong, sit down until all have made the discovery or
given it up. Then the player who first found what had been changed remains in the room and moves something in his turn while the others go outside. Before we begin to play the game, we should fix a certain time, say, two minutes in which the changed object must be pointed out. If in that time no player succeeds in discovering the thing changed, then the object is shown and the players go outside again the same player remaining in the room and altering she position of something else.
CHATTER.
CORNER-,
EDITED BY JOYFUL MEMBERS
ofifie S.N.P.J.
‘EKE ELEVENTH CONVENTION OF SNPJ
Convention Month
rHE month of May is the Convention Month of the SNPJ. Its eleventh convention will open on May 17 in the Auditorium of the Slovene National Home on St. Clair avenue in Cleveiand. The assembly will consist of about 2U0 delegates and executives. Our conventions usually last two weeks and are held quadrennially. One of the main problems at this gathering will be how to increase our juvenile ranks and how to spread SNPJ fraternalism among our youth. Other important questions will center around various benefit and financial problems.
Convention Programs
Our juvenile members in Cleveland and vicinity will enjoy the envious opportunity of ivitnessing the various convention entertainments. A special combined juvenile and youth program will be arranged at which local SNPJ talent icill participate ivith interesting vocal
and other numbers. These evening entertainments during the convention will be coducted by various juvenile and adult groups under the auspices of the Cleveland SNPJ Federation.
SNPJ and Its Influence
The SNPJ is the biggest and strongest Slovene fraternal organization. As such it commands the greatest influence among our people morally, educationally and materially. Its two publications —Prosveta and Mladinski List—enjoy the supremacy in their field among us. The SNPJ was founded and built by progressive Slovene workers with liberal principles. It has grown and prospered on these principles, and today it has a splendid chance to advance its noble purpose even into larger spheres. The SNPJ has been a real guiding force to our workers during the past 33 years. It will continue to live and prosper!
EDITOR.
SNPJ Convention
Dear Editor:—As I write this article preparations are rapidly taking shape for the SNPJ convention May 17. Since I am a Clevelander I am very much interested in the proceedings. The convention will be held in the Slovene National Home in Cleveland.
Many important problems will be discussed and debated. Some of the main issues that are to be discussed are very important to the
youth of the SNPJ. Further plans will be made for different youth activities in the lodges. The many different lodges are very busy electing delegates and making plans for the convention. The many musical and dramatical societies are also preparing to provide entertainment for the members and delegates at the SNPJ convention.
There will be a day reserved for the English speaking lodges to show their ability to put on a program and also an evening for the Cleve-
lan children’s singing groups. The people who like to hear speeches on different subjects will also have a chance to hear the many noted speakers in the SNPJ. I am sure everybody that attends the convention will have a very enjoyable time.
Yours fraternally, Edwin Poljšak,
6319 Carl ave., Cleveland, 0.
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“Soca” Singing Club
Dear Editor:—I enjoy reading the Mladinski List very much. I wish it would come every week instead of every month. I like the letters in the “Chatter Corner” and the stories very much.
The “Soča” singing club gave a concert at the Slovene Home for Easter. They had a very large crowd. They had a play which was called “Gospa Kordula”. The cast talked clearly and distinctly and you could hear them even if you were in the back of the hall. I liked the play very much. They sang many Slovene songs. Some of them were: “Delavski pozdrav”, “Studenček”, “Ljubezen do domovine”, “Hej Slovenci”, “Eno devo le bom ljubil”, “Dekle”, “Glow-worm”, “Žalost”, “Kaj ne bila bi vesela”, “Bells of St. Mary’s and “Večernica”. I think they can sing very nice. John Janko and Frank Ravniker Jr. played the accordion. Two girls, Mildred Brate and Jane Maria Mills, did a soldier dance, which was very good.
I wish I could join the “Soča” singing club when I grow up. I know a few Slovene songs but would like to know more. Here are three songs I know: “Kje je moj mili dom”, “Sem slovenska deklica”, and “Kje so moje rožice”.
Our new High School has been completed; in fact, they’re using it already. We didn't have very much snow last winter and I didn't like it as I enjoy sleigh riding.
Jeanette Martinjak,
25 Fourth st., La Salle, 111.
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Fairmont, W. Va.
Dear Editor:—To the wonderful response I received from Pen Pals, I have once more gained the strength to get a pen and write a letter to the Mladinski List. Among those letters that I have received from Pen Pals are from states such as Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. I am very grateful to these persons for writing to me, and I’m sure I’ll appreciate every one I get.
I would like for you to get acquainted with the State of West Virginia, and the City of Fairmont. Fairmont is a city with a population of about 30,000. Schools from kindergart-
en to college are in this city. We have about 10 public schools, 5 junior high schools, 3 high schools, and one teachers’ college. The colored children have their own public and high school.
In Morgantown, W. Va., 20 miles north of Fairmont, the University of West Virginia is located.
Fairmont also has a radio station, WMMN, 890 kilocycles. It is also the county seat of Marion county.
Coal mining is mostly the occupation of men around here. The mines work 5 days a week since last summer. The second largest Glass factory in W. Va. is situated in Fairmont. Factories — ax, clothespin, chemical, marble, and others — are in West Virginia. The largest clothespin factory of the world is located in Richwood, W. Va.
I am not acquainted with this state very much yet, for we only live here about 3 years. We formerly lived nead Johnstown, Pa., and now we settled here in Fairmont, W. Va., which I like very well. At first I felt homesick but soon found many playmates and got over my . sickness.
We had spring weather before March 14, but since then it snowed for three days steadily, and we’re now having the biggest snow in the last two years. Before that date we played outdoors without wraps on, and we girls played hop-scotch, and the boys played marbles, flew kites and had all out-door amusements, but now we are shut in (March 17). People here are now wearing snowsuits instead of their spring autfit. I have several hobbies that I enjoy. Some of them are, collecting Shirley Temple’s pictures, and the Dione Quintuplets’ pictures. My favorite sport is basketball. Our school was in the county tournament, but we were beaten and received runners up. Runners up is the second place. For getting second place we received a fifteen-dollar basketball. We like second place, but we would rather have first place and the silver cup.
In 1933, our “Beta Zeta Club”, which is our dramatic club, bought a trophy ease and donated it to the school. We have all kinds of trophies in it that our school has won.
“A Proud Member”,
Dorothy Prelc,
Westchester, R. D. 1, Fairmont, W. Va.
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Dear Editor:—Since my last letter was published, I thought I’d write again. I was surprised to see my letter published. I hope you all had a happy Easter. It was snowing here on Easter, but the next day it was very warm. We don’t have long to wait until school will close. I was surprised to seen Justina Lousin’s
letter in the M. L. I wish some of my friends would write and make the M. L. really chatter. I guess I’ll have to close now, hoping to see my letter published. I wish some friends would write to me and I’d gladly answer their letters.
Genevieve Pauzely,
(Via Krayn) R. D. 2, Windber, Pa.
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For Spanish Democracy
Dear Editor:—Putting aside my school books with a sigh, I will attempt to give the readers my opinion of the current events at the time of my writing.
The most outstanding event taking place in this day and age is the chaos in Spain. I believe that the people of our nation should send their flaming greetings to the brave and noble men and women now fighting and dying on the battlefield of Spain in order that liberty and democracy may live. We all should hope that the Spanish Republic and International Socialism will live long.
Another outstanding picture in the catalog of events is the many strikes throughout the nation. It seems to me that the working masses are finally realizing that they are being exploited by the upper half, as they are so called. Many people believe that the sit-down strikes should be abolished and it even has gone so far, that a working man’s wife wrote to a well-known paper and said that the sit-down strikers should be spanked; quite to the contrary indeed. Certainly the men should be encouraged to fight for shorter hours and higher wages, for isn’t it true that the standard of living is increasing daily. It is also true, that the men will not go on strikes if they got what they want, and what they need. — “A Torch”,
Sylvia Rose Fradel, Latrobe, Pa.
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Dear Editor:—Hello everybody! This is the first time I am writing to the Mladinski List. My next year’s resolution will be to write to the Mladinski List every month. I am nine years old. Our whole family belongs to the SNPJ Lodge 53, I go to Memorial school. I have seven teachers. Here are their names— Miss Ross, Miss Lindsey, Miss Demaree, Miss Maalfid, Miss Belt, Mrs. Corning, and Mrs. Gardner. My homeroom teacher is Miss Ellison. Today was papersale and our class won third prize party.—I hope M. L. members would write to me, I will answer their letters gladly.
Wilma Glazor,
434 East 160th st., Cleveland, 0.
Dear Editor:—This is my first letter to the M. L. I am eleven years old and am in the sixth grade. I go to the Horace Mann school and my teacher is Miss Batzer. Virginia has won four championships this year. The boys’ team won the swimming championship for boys, and the girls’ team won the championship for girls; also, Virginia won the basketball championship of the 27th district and the 7th region in Minnesota.
Come on, Virginia! Wake up! I have seen no letters from Virginia in the M. L. So wake up, you boys and girls of Virginia, the “Queen City of the Arrowhead”. Show the other cities and states that we are alive.
I would like to have some Pen Pals. Will someone please write to me? I will gladly and promptly answer all letters sent to me.
Albina Ruth Kozan,
112 — 10th st. So., Virginia Minn.
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Dear Editor:—This is my very first letter to the Mladinski List, and hope it is not my last. I am interested in baseball, naturally, because my uncle plays for the Montreal Royals. Here in our locality we are organizing a baseball team. My favorite baseball players in the major league are “Dizzy” Dean and Paul Waner.
ANTHONY PRIMC, Lodge 118,
5436 Harrison st., Pittsburgh, Pa.
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Dear Editor:—I am in the 7th grade in school, I am 12 years old and am writing my first letter to the Mladinski List. I have seven teachei’s, Mr. Hilaire being my home-room teacher, at Verona high school. Our family of four members belongs to SNPJ Lodge 216. I wish other juveniles of this lodge would write to this magazine every month, and I will continue writing to the M. L.
JOE BERTOSA, 522 W. R. R., Verona, Pa.
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Dear Editor:—Our school will be out May 5, and I like to go to school and I like my teacher, Miss Roenigk. There are six in our family. I must tell you that I like the M. L. and I am a member of the SNPJ. I wish some members would write to me. This is my first letter.	JENNIE	PUZ,
Box 192, West Winfield, Pa.
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Dear Editor:—I have two sisters and three brothers and all are members of the SNPJ. I like to read the M. L. — Hurray! School will soon be out and then we’ll have a real picnic, as there will be two busses to take us to the picnic grounds. I like to read the letters
written by Milka Mileta. As this is my first letter, I will sign off and will write more next time.	KATHRYN	PROCHASKA,
Eagle Nest, New Mex.
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Dear Editor:—I go to Paul Revere school at which I am in the 2A grade and am 8 years of age. My teacher is Miss Flouren Bartoly. Our family consists of four and all four are members of the SNPJ. I am a member of the Junior Singing Club “Kanarčki” and our singing teacher is Mr. Louis Seme. We had four concerts and parties so far, and we are planning a Mother’s day party on May 15. Every mother present will receive a carnation. This is “my first” to the M. L. (Lodge 667.)
EDWARD VATOVEC,
9719 Prince ave., Cleveland, O.
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Dear Editor:—This is my second letter to the Mladinski List. I always enjoy reading its fine letters. We had two days Easter vacation. I have a singing teacher, Miss Hoppin. She is giving me lessons on a harmonica. I can hardly wait for my birthday to come, May 25, when I’ll be 11 years old. I wish some of the members would write to me.	VIOLET	MAE	PERMAN,
R. D. No. 2, Windber, Pa.
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Dear Editor:—Writing my first letter to the M. L. I wish to tell you that am 14 years of age and have no brothers or sisters. There are only three of us in the family and we all belong to the SNPJ Lodge 313. I’m a freshman at the Frankfort Community high school and have five teachers: Mrs. Joplin, Mr. Hodges, Mr. Summerville, Mr. Tucker, and Miss Gloyd. — I’m glad spring has come because it means that it wont be long until —school is out. This summer I hope we have more rain than last year because I want to see our swimming holes rise to the tip-top of their banks. My favorite sports are: fishing, swimming, hunting and a little of basketball. I hope some of my cousins would write to me.	JOSEPH	B. ZORTZ,
613 So. Locust St., W. Frankfort, 111.
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Dear Editor:—I sure am glad I got my sister to write. She can write very interesting letters when she wants to. I am learning how to play a quitar and enjoy playing on it. have to practice upstairs so I won’t give anybody a headache. It sure gives me a headache when I can’t figure out a note or where to put my fingers. I learned to play on a ukulele by myself and didn’t do a bad job at it, so I’m told. Our school will present
an operetta, “Cowboys at Play”, with cowboy songs, southern songs and one or two modern songs. The cast in the play is all made up of boys.—I wish that “Cowgirl” Pauline Fatur would write to me about the life on the ranch. I am always dreaming about visiting a ranch some time, as I like the wide open pacec.
Proud Member,
DOROTHY KLARICH,
809 So. 21st st., Tacoma, Wash.
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Dear Editor:—Not so long ago I said “this is my first letter”, now I am writting my third one, and soon I will be able to say I wrote quite a few letters to this marvelous M. L. First I want some more Pen Pals. I have noticed most letters start with “This is my first letter”, which means more members are interested and are writing to the M. L. Eest-er in Joliet was fair, and of course most people wore their spring outfits. I remain a proud member,
LOUISE PUCEL, 105 Hckerave, Joliet, 111.
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Dear Editor:—This is really my second letter to the M. L. I had already sent my first letter but when I received the M. L. and read the Editor’s note about writing on only one side of the paper and not both sides I decided to write again for that is exactly what I did. I am eleven years old and in the sixth grade. — I would like to have some Pen Pals. Will someone (boys or girls) please write to me? I will gladly answer all letters sent to me.
ALBINA RUTH KOZAN,
112 — 10th st. So., Virginia, Minn.
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N. Y. SNPJ All-Americans
Dear Editor:—1937 has proven to be a success for the New York SNPJ All-Americans. At the beginning of the year we celebrated our tenth anniversary. Here, we had the great opportunity to meet Mrs. Anna P. Prasna, who delivered a very entertaining address. She is a well know writter in the M. L. and Prosveta. Mr. Frank Zaitz, Chairman of SNPJ Board of Trustees, made a special trip to New York City in order to akl us in making our affair a real success. His speech marked a great influence on the vast audience. Unfortunately however, he was not able to remain after the concert. The other entertainers were: The great Slovene operatic and concert baritone, Anton Subelj, the Juvenile Tamburitza orchestra and the male Singing Society “Slovan”. Anton Subelj placed the audience in a great uproar with his variety of melodious songs. It was necessary for him to make a
number of encores. The great number of talented musicians of the Tamburitza orchestra filled the air with a few national songs and ended with “Hej Slovani” while the audience rendered their voices. Following this program Jerry’s Starlight orchestra furnished the music. Immediately the dance-floor was filled to the capacity with young and old. To this day many comments are made in favor of this anniversary.
Due to the results of this fortunate affair, a party was held for the adult and juvenile members on Sunday, March 21. Approximately all the members attended. We, as juveniles enjoyed ourselves so that soon the a-dults intermingled with the children. As result of this party many non-members joined the fun and are planning to join Lodge 580.
We have at present a campaign during which each member will receive fifty cents award for each juvenile and the medical fee
rewarded also. Each member proposing an adult receives one dollar award and one dollar paid towards the initiation fee and one dollar for the medical fee upon paying three assessments.
Let all of us members try our utmost to do our best in order to make 1938 a still greater success. We hope, that in the near future at least one letter from New York City will appear in the M. L. If this letter is published I know that it will encourage us a great deal to write more. We would like to receive personal letters from other juvenile members from all over. This would enable us to hear from different parts of the country.
We close our letter hoping to hear from you.
Your friends:
JENNE PADAR, 22 Wyckoff ave.;
CATHERINE SCHNEIDER,
308 Stanhope street. (SNPJ Lodge 580.)
Dolores
T WAS leaving my friends, and hurrying to catch an electric elevated train, with the intent to later board a steam train which would take me back to Cleveland from Chicago. Once on the electric elevated train, the thought suddenly came to my mind that I hadn’t seen one of my old lady friends. So, I got off the elevated at the Racine avenue station and went to see her and have a little chat with her and her son, and then say “Goodbye” to them.
La Salle station, at the junction of Van Bur-ren and La Salle streets, Chicago, Illinois, is the location from which arrive and depart New York Central, Nickel Plate, and Rock Island railroad trains. I figured I had plenty of time to get the No. 4 fast mail train, as it was scheduled to depart at 9:50 a. m. and often-time stays over for 40 minutes ere it departs, so I talked longer than I should to my friend and when I arrived at the depot, the train had gone, and it left me behind. All that I
could do would be to wait for the Fifth Avenue Special which would leave at 11 o’clock.
Having a lot of time to wait, before my departure to Cleveland, Ohio, I decided it was necessary to get some soup, doughnuts, and coffee. It was a case of going out of the station and to a restaurant. When I returned at 10.50 a. m. it was just the right time to board my Fifth Avenue New York Central train.
Up the steps we went to the big shed housing on one track a big engine followed by ten cars. When you see a train running through fields, forests, and cities, it does not look very big to you. When you pass by it in the train shed, it is a regular giant, and the locomotive that pulls the cars appears like a Goliath.
Trains these days carry Pullman cars, and the Fifth Avenue Special No. 6 was no exception; it also had three coach cars. There was
a conductor, brakeman, and a colored Pullman porter. I pointed to car coach 1492 and asked the brakeman, “Cleveland?”, he replied, “Yes.”
We stepped up and found that only the last two seats in the rear of the coach were empty. I took one of them and spotted across from the aisle in the other, a small girl. I did not know to whom she belonged, and did not think that she would travel alone.
“All aboard!” yelled the conductor, and the engine puffed smoke and steam. The train began to move faster and faster. The little girl began to get rastless. Soon she drew a small purse out of her pocket and started counting nickels and dimes. She followed this pursuit by opening a box about 12 by 6 which contained a doll which she looked at, then she grabbed a sandwich wrapped in paper.
The conductor came along examining and punching fare tickets. As he neared the end of the car, the little miss turned back, reached into her coat pocket and pulled out an envelope on which was pinned the railroad ticket. Then, I knew, that she was traveling all alone.
“Englewood! Englewood! next station”, called the brakeman, and he and the conductor hurried to the front door. The little miss got excited and went to the drinking fountain which was near my seat, and asked me if the conductor had taken my ticket. “No, he has not taken my ticket, but he’ll come back,” I answered.
I began to question her. Was she all alone? Where was she going? To Sandusky, Ohio. But why alone? Mother was sick; she could hear you talk, and the girl was going to her uncle Billy. Did her uncle know that she was on that train? Her father had sent him a letter and a telegram.
By this time, the conductor returned and collected the ticket. He wrote on paper, “Off at Sandusky”. I said to the conductor, “I am going to Cleveland, and will help the girl when she leaves the train at Sandusky.” “All right,” remarked the conductor.
“What time is it?” This query was made by the little girl every ten or twenty minutes. She came near my seat and popped another question. Were we near Toledo, Ohio? I told her that it was 11:45 and that we would not arrive there till 4:50 p. m. We had 5 hours yet to go. I said that I would tell her when we arrived in Toledo, and Sandusky. Why did she ask so much about Toledo? I suppose her father had told her this was the last stop before Sandusky.
“Sit down by me and keep me company,” I said. She did, and I began to question her
more. What was her name? Dolores Wunder. Oh, I had already heard of “Wonder” bread. Yes, but she spelled her name, W-U-N-D-E-R and the bread is spelled W-O-N-D-E-R. Is uncle Billy the driver for the Wonder Bakery? Oh yes. Where did she live? (She had the address.) How old was she? She was 8 years old on May 23, and on her next birthday she would be nine! When do we get to Sandusky? Oh, only four more hours to go.
Again she became restless, and began whistling, singing, moving, went back to her seat, pulled out a jam sandwich and began eating.
“Elkhart station”, called the brakeman and the train stopped. “Coffee, coffee”, called the boys who entered the car. Dolores pulled out her purse. She had 6 nickels and 2 dimes, and wanted coffee. I said to the coffee man, “Give her coffee,” and to her “I’ll pay for it, Dolores, here are two more nickels and you’ll have 60 cents”. She said, “Thank you; are we in Toledo?” “No, Dolores, not yet”.
After she drank her coffee, she pulled out of the box some chocolate, ate some and offered me some. No, I did not want any. Thank you. What time was it? Were we near Toledo?
Was she ever in Sandusky before? Oh yes, she had gone fishing with uncle Billy. She did not catch any fish, but uncle Billy did. They had gone to Cedar Point (an amusement park) and liked it very much. Her uncle delivered bread. “Toledo! Toledo!” We arrived in Toledo, Ohio, right on time at 4:50 p. m. Aboard came the sandwich man. I ordered a sandwich for her, which she wanted, and some coffee for myself. Again I paid for it so that she could save her money.
“No, Dolores, fifty more minutes and we’ll be in Sandusky”. She would leave me all by myself. I would be lonesome. I would help her with the satchel, she would carry the box, books, and jokes. All right? “Yes,” she answered. Our train would run over the water in Sandusky Bay. The girl did not like water.
“Sandusky! Sandusky!” called the brakeman. “Now, Dolores, put on your cap and coat. Button on your belt, take your box, jokes and books. I will carry the rest.”
The train stopped and two men waited. One was her uncle Billy.
Dolores forgot about me and the satchel “Mr. Wunter, here is her grip. She kept me company all the way from Chicago, and
I	shall miss her very much.”
“Oh, thank you. Dolores, say goodbye to the gentleman.”
“Goodbye, Mister.”
“Goodbye, Dolores. I hope your mammy will soon be well.”
Frank Barbie, Cleveland, Ohio.