The Washington herald., 1907-04-07
The fact that marriage makes a man
aiuch broader. one would not
Dispute, and marriage often makes
Him shorter, by q Let.

III LutI nuSDanUSs buL 10 questioning the
very Institution OF matrimony. II does
one good to hear of a genuinely eontented
woman. Such a one is Nancy, whose
surname has never been mentioned in my
hearing. Nancy is a fine. Weathered oak
color and lives over in Alexandria Now
and then she comes over to do a days
work for a family TO whose forbears
her ancestors belonged Sometimes she
looks a bit battered, and not infrequently
one eye is temporarily closed. but these
being intimately personal details. her
family" usually affects not to notice
them. The last time Nancy came. how
ever, she was wearing a long strip of
adhesive plaster on one cheek. and some
body asked how she had hurt herself
Nancy grinned contentedly.
Jim done that" she explained-Jim is
her husband IT gets fractions some
times. an jim he jes' knocks me down,
an then he grabs me up an takes me
off 10 the Doctors. We was goin up the
doctors stairs before I come to las time.
an Jim was a huTryin like a klldee.
Jim'-and there was a world Of salts
faction in her tone-"Jim certainly is
good to me-"
Nancy. by the way is not Jim's first
wife. AT an early age he was united
in the bonds of holy matrimony to
Nancy's sister, jimmy, but Jimmy was not
his affinity. When he met Nancy there
was mutual recognition Of the fact that
be and Nancy were made for each other.
so jimmy lost her husband, and whether
the laws delay postponed the honeymoon
of Nancy and Jim or not I have never
inquired. Jimmy speedily found another
husband and a year or so later. when
she was i'll with pneumonia, she sent
Tor Nancy 10 nurse her. This procedure
shocked her next-doOr neighbor.
Il shouldn't think you'd want Nancy
here" she said to the sick woman. "She
done taken one husband an run away
with him. You can't tell She might up
and run off with the husband you got
now"
The sick woman raised herself uu her
pillow, and then sank back. discouraged.
''Uh-huh," she said. shaking her head.
"Nancy's kind. but faint reasonable TO
expect her to help me out twice that-a-
way"
In these days Of massage and beauty
Pint columns the age of any woman is
a mystery. and bold Is the man who tries
TO solve il. There is Mr. A, for example.
In ali the years he has been keeping
company" with Miss B. he has never been
able 10 entrap her into any admission that
would help him TO guess in what year she
was born. That she is past twenty-One
IS sufficiently obvious, but just how long
ago she celebrated her twcnty-first birth
day. Mr. A. would dare and do a great
deal 10 md out. Going to see her one
afternoon, he was entertained for a quar-
ter of an hour by her small brother, and
after leading up 10 the question tactful-
ly. ne asked the yOungster his sisters
age. The boy shook his head:
L don't know exactly how old she IS,
he said but I can tell you one thing.
She is old enough so a cup Of tea rests
her"
My friend DR. Blank. who practices
over in Fairfax County. has recently
lost a patient. Her death was somewhat
unexpected, for she had been what one
may call a ''creaking door for several
years, and no longer ago than last jan
uary she was seriously i'll. Just after
she died, the bereaved husband followed
Dr. Blank to the gate. Grief choked his
utteranc&, but he managed to express
himself
I'm all outdone," he said "Why. !
had more hopes Of her dying in January
than had this here time"
Talking about doctors reminds me Of /
something 1 overheard in a drug store
the other day-something that shook my
lifelong faith in medicine 10 its very
foundations. My Christian Science friend |
and / were taking our pineapple sundaes
II can't for the life Of me imagine how 1
the soda water men ever thought up that /
name, and found out how to spell it. after /
they'd thought it up-and we listened to |
what man, who was taking White Rock 4
had to say to the man who chose plain /
soda for his.
NO, SIR he was saying. I've never !
given either Of my children one single /
dose Of medicine The girl is ten and /
the boy is seven. and neither of them |
has ever been dosed The boy has lust 1
come through measles, and water, plain /
water. was all / gave him"
My Christian Science friend smiled /
You see how the thought is spreading, - |
she said. There q man who has ceased /
70 cling to the false beliefs of materia /
medica. Who is he?" she added to the |
soda water man.
The soda water maxwell the man
who had no use for medicine in his oWr
family Is "a very well known physician,
and when other peoples children have
measles, he doses them as il medicine
We're the only possible thing that could |
bring them through alive Still, I sup
pose it's thing one might expect from
"a physician. Medicine is his business
You don't find an army officer drilling his
family, and l never yet knew OF a den
fists family whose teeth weren't neg
lected.
Recently ] went to spend the night
with a department woman, who lives in
one of those new-fashioned apartment
houses, where a suite consists Of two or
three rooms the size of a trunk. and a
ktchenette that one might easily mis-
take for bandbox,
Wen have oatmeal for breakfast.
she told me- and ] said nothing in reply.
because 1 knew it would not kill me to
so without breakfast, and I felt that Ia
much rather do it than eat oatmeal
cooked less than five or six hours. One
really can't afford to cook anything that
long on a gas stove. but women who do
light housekeeping take all sorts Of lib
critics with their internal mechanism. Cat
meal, she said and oatmeal I meant TO
decline At o'clock next morning she
knocked at my d0or-I was sleeping on
the divan in the parlor
Il want to get the oatmeal" she said
1T must be done by now.
/ watched her curiously. She went 20