The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-24
READING CHARACTER
 ON A RAINY DAY.

Two women are obliged to be abroad in the streets on rainy day. They walk together over the same pave ments and crossings, sometimes In the same tracks, yet when they go home one of these women will be "sopping wet" as she calls 1t, while the other will be quite free from bedraggled skirts and stockings, and even her shoes will be little soiled She will be all the prettier from trudging about in the soft, complexion improving rain. The other woman will be a sight to be- hold. Her skirts will be "drabbled" almost to her knees with that most offensive of all kinds of soil, street mud. Her feet will be soaked.
 Now. what Is the difference between these two apparently equally nice. in telligent women?
 The difference is that one of the wo- men is either by nature or training neat. wide awake and careful: the oth- CT is sloppy and needless. Three kinds of women get "sopping wet" when they walk in the rain-the scatter brained. the absentminded and the slovenly. The scatter brained woman is incapable of fixing her mind steadily upon one point long enough even to pick the driest spots in the street and to cal culate just how she can avoid mud and slush. To keep oneself clean and dry | on a rainy day 1t is necessary to use concentration of mind. The scatter brained woman sees everything and | nothing. The absentminded woman gets sopping wet from different l cause. Her thoughts are ever drifting. drifting. drifting, like bits of wreckage
 on the ocean. So far as achieving any | fixed purpose Is concerned. they are
 useless. too. as bits of wreckage. The | absentminded woman does not see | where she is going. She forgets to be
 polite; she never notices the nice little
 points of etiquette and kindliness
 which give to the wide awake. sympa-
 thetic woman her sixth sense-tact- fulness. Unfortunately the absent
 minded woman's thoughts are general | ly absorbed in herself.
 Then there is the slovenly. sloppy
 woman. She goes through the world
 higgledy piggledy, hit or miss. slipper. | stopper. Her skirts always dip and
 draggle. she wabbles heedlessly from | side to side in her walk. her shoes are
 often only half laced and run over, and
 her hair seems tumbling down. Splash,
 dash. she goes, quite as apt to set her | foot in a puddle as anywhere else Now, whatever a woman is by na-
 ture. she can train herself to avoid get ting stopping wet" on rainy day. To | begin: Have the skirt short; then hold
 1t up. A skirt an inch and a half off | the ground can now be worn on the | street, rain or shine, without exciting | comment. If we could watch a Parisi-
 an woman on a rainy dy we would see | her reach around behind her with her left hand. grasp her skirts firmly all | together, leaving none to dip down and
 be bedraggled, draw them around at
 the back from the right side toward | the left and thus hold them. At the | back the skirts are drawn plain and flat to about a level with the lady's
 shoe tops and there held. No woman
 need hesitate to display q neatly shod | foot. ThA right hand is meanwhile free to hold the umbrella or anything | else.
 l Finally. the woman who does not get | sopping wet walks erect and steady,
 not wabbling and splashing. She looks
 ahead of her and all around her. find
 nig always the best places whereon to | plant her feet.
 l MARY GOULD LITTLE.