The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-03-07
EVENING CHAT
By RUTH CAMERON.

I have a story in three chapters to
tell you today.
CHAPTER I
Eleanor and Katherine had been
chums from primary school days.
All through grammar school and
high school they had walked to and
from school together and had done
their lessons, today at Eleanor's home,
tomorrow at Katherine's. Two chums
of the opposite sex had obligingly be-
come enamored of the twain and had
"beaued' them to most of the high
school parties in cozy foursomes.
Then Eleanor went to college and
Katherine stayed at home, but If any
one thought that would break up the
friendship he was much mistaken.
The two girls correspondent as regu
larry as plighted lovers all through
the school year, and the first day of
vacation found them linked arm in
arm, and thus they remained all sum-
mer.
Then Eleanor graduated and came
home to live, and the following June
Katherine and Eleanor crowned the
Damon and Pythias act by announcing
their engagements on the same day.
The frances. although not the two
high school SWANS, were obliging
enough to be very good friends, so the
foursome continued through the en-
gagement.
Katherine was married in Septem-
Der, Eleanor in November. Katherine
and her husband boarded the first few
| months until Eleanor and her hus-
band returned from their honeymoon.
, Then, as neither of the grooms was
| overloaded with the worlds goods, no
one was startled when the word went
round that the four were going to
housekeeping together in a much nicer
house than either couple could have
afforded alone.
| CHAPTER Ii
| I'm not going to write this chapter.
You see, I don't really know much
about it. So I'm just going to leave
you to infer 1t, as do. from what I
know is apt to happen when any two
! families, however congenial, attempt
/ to live together.
CHAPTER III.
| The third chapter is simply that
Eleanor and Katherine now live at OPP
posite ends of the town and are barely
! ''speech-friends.
Do you think that any two families,
however congenial, can live together
and have as much peace and harmony
in the home as If each had had an i'm
pregnable castle of its own?
| I don't.
The families may be closely linked
| by relatiOnship-they may consist OF
| father and mother and married daugh-
| ter's family-or of two married sisters,
or of a son and wife and his father
and mother, and they may be the
most congenial and affectionate people
in the world, but the moment you put
two heads of a house in one house you
st a trouble germ to work.
There may never be any open fric-
| ton, but / don't believe there will ever
be the complete happiness and home
satisfaction and harmony around that
hearth that there is about the hearth
where the housemates are all membe
of one family.
1 don't even believe it is good policy
for two related or very intimate fam
lilies to live in two apartments in the
same house.
Now that may sound overstated, but
it is the testimony of many. many
people whose wisdom is not of theory,
but of experience.
Perhaps you think that all this is
overstated-you who are contemplat-
ing some similar move-doubtless you
think YOU can get along with people
whom you love. All this may be true
as a rule, you say, but YOUR case is
differen YOU and YOUR friends are
peculiarly congenial.
Maybe so. maybe so-but, please
remember, my friends-"that's what
thew all saw