Bundles for Brownie

From the windows of their Fifth Avenue apartment, overlooking Manhattan's Central Park, an insurance broker and his wife saw a middle-aged woman carry a package into the park, put it under a bush and walk away. That seemed queer. Next day, at the same late afternoon hour, they saw her again. They watched to see what happened to the package. Nothing happened. But in the morning it was gone. No matter how late they watched--and sometimes they sat up very late, with binoculars--they never saw anyone take the box away. But in the morning, it was always gone.

The mysterious woman got to be their favorite mystery. For weeks they watched her daily visits, pointed her out to friends who came to dinner, speculated on what it was all about. Finally the broker got the idea that the woman might be a spy, in which case it was his duty -. Reluctantly, he called the police.

Two detectives waited near the bush, arrested the woman, took her and her package off to a police station. There they found that they had captured none other than famed onetime Metropolitan Opera Soprano Frieda Hempel.

Mme. Hempel was mad as hops. She said the box held food for a dog. Poisoned, perhaps? Nonsense! cried Mme. Hempel. She reached in, pulled out a piece of boiled beef, ate it herself, to show them.

Five years ago, explained Mme. Hempel, she had met a stray dog in the park, whom she christened Brownie. Brownie was a very hard dog to get to know, wouldn't let her get near him. Finally she began taking him food, leaving it for him under the bush. Between them they worked out a system: Brownie waited till she was gone, then carried the box away to another spot--always the same one--some distance away, where he removed string and paper, opened the box, ate the food and left the empty box for Mme. Hempel.

Mme. Hempel saw nothing extraordinary in her behavior, or Brownie's. Next to German Lieder, she loves animals best. She once hired a special plane to whisk her Pomeranian from Paris to a London vet, once carried a sick Great Dane home to her apartment, refused to sing in an Ohio town until authorities ministered to an unhappy mule lying in the street. One of her adopted strays won a Manhattan pet show prize--for dogs "combining the most breeds." She buys 25 Ib. of bird seed a week, which she spreads on her window sills--to the delight of birds and the chagrin of her fellow tenants; the bird-droppings make quite a mess. Says Mme. Hempel: "I am quite, quite foolish about animals."

The police listened thoughtfully to Mme. Hempel and let her go. Muttering some strong lines from German Lieder, Mme. Hempel rushed off to feed Brownie.

Ten minutes later the watching broker's curiosity was at last rewarded. Brownie appeared, picked up the box and dragged it away.

Victor Mature, from a bed in Hollywood's Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, announced the breakup of his eight-month marriage to Martha Stephenson Kemp, complained that she was a "playgirl." Beautiful Mr. Mature was also suffering itchily from primrose poisoning acquired when he was tarred, feathered and dumped in a bush for a film scene.

The Services

Rush Dew Holt, 36, ex-Senator from West Virginia, ex-isolationist, passed his draft board's physical exam, was ordered to report for a final checkup Feb. 18.

Congressman Martin Dies's 20-year-old son, Martin, enlisted in the Navy, hoped for a mosquito-boat assignment.

George C. Hopkins, parachutist who lighted on Devil's Tower in Wyoming last October and was stranded there for six days (TIME, Oct. 13), was accepted as a parachute instructor for Fort Benning. The Army rejected him at first because unhappy landings had knocked most of his teeth out, finally waived requirements.

General Douglas MacArthur's troops held the thoughts of a church congregation in May wood, Ill., as the Rev. Roy W. Merrifield read at the close of services the names of "the boys of our church who are fighting for their country." He reached the last name, paused, looked into the eyes of his three children among the worshippers, then concluded: "And also my son Jacque . . . killed in action . . . according to a message I received this morning."

General John Joseph Pershing's son, Francis, 32-year-old Manhattan broker, grandson-in-law of famed Banker Jules Bache, enlisted in the Army, went off to Virginia's Fort Belvoir to train as an Engineer Corps private.

Hail & Farewell

Marlene Dietrich, after twelve years of Hollywood, decided to try the U.S. stage, picked Oscar Wilde's The Ideal Husband, planned to start rehearsals in March.

Joe Cook, 52 and suffering from Parkinson's disease, a form of paralysis which has crippled his left hand, retired from the stage after 35 years of chatty clowning, juggling, prestidigitation, acrobatics. Born Joseph Lopez, orphaned son of a Spanish father, Irish mother, at 17 the kewpie-faced "one-man vaudeville show" announced his arrival on Broadway in a full-page ad in Variety; last week he said farewell the same way.

Home Front

Senator Tom Connolly gave more than a half pint of his blood to the Red Cross. The 64-year-old Texan was the first member of Congress to become a donor.

Princess Abigail Kawananakoa, one of the last members of Hawaiian royalty, offered her sprawling villa near Honolulu to the U.S.O. as a rest home and recreation center. Hawaii's Republican National Committeewoman for 12 years, she is the mother of ex-playboy Prince David, given a ten-year manslaughter sentence in 1937 for cutting his half-caste sweetheart to death.

Admiral Ernest J. King got a present of a sleek, dark green town car to use in Washington. The donor: A. & P. Vice President Arthur G. Hoffman, who has no yacht to give the Navy.

Jesse Owens, 28, brown-skinned track sensation of the 1936 Olympics, went to work for OCD as head of the national body-building program among Negroes.

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