The Washington herald., 1911-07-21
MAN TELLS WHAT HE WOULD
Do If HE HAD HIS LIFE TO
LIVE AGAIN WITH DOLL-WIFE
By DOROTHY DIX.

MY married lfe," said a man to me,
had a home, because have been ruled
by the tyranny of tears, because have
had doll instead of a woman for a
wife.
Il fell in love with a pretty, vivacious
and charming young girl, and with a
mans fatuous folly under such condi-
tions it never occurred to me to even
investigate whether the woman I Fro
posed to make my wife had any do
mestic training or qualifications. =
.thought in my simplicity that just the
act Of getting married somehow worked
a miracle that turned the 1ightiest but
terfly of girl into a wise and prudent
heipmeet for a man.
''On my part was ready to give her
all the honest love of, my heart and the
best work of my hand. I didn't want
to make a slave of her. I wanted her
to have all the pretty clothes, all the
amusements, all the pleasures that
could possibly give her.
That was the little matrimonial
schedule that 1 had marked out for
myself, but it did not take long for
my wife to put it out of joint. We
went TO housekeeping in a beautiful
little apartment that / had furnished
most artistically, for 1 have a taste in
such matters. And then our troubles
began. My wife had been taught notn-
ing of housekeeping, and she did not
know whether to order a quarter of
beef, or a pound, for. a roast, hence
We were the victim OF all sorts of
trades people, and our bills were some
thing to turn a mans hair gray in a
single night.
"At first I was deeply sympathetic
with my pretty little wife, and when I
would come home and find her curled
up in limp heap in a pink silk and
lace neglisee on the sofa and the house
in a muss. with no cook and no din
rer, 1 would take her in my arms and
talk inspired nonsense to her and kiss
her little, over-manicured fingers, and
tell her to put on her prettiest frock.
and we would go out TO a smart res
taurant to dinner.
You know 1 just can't cook, Harry
she would say, and I just hate and
loath that horrid old kitchen. And, of
course, you couldn't expect me to sweep
and make beds, for it would make my
hands so big and coarse!
And. like the blithering idiot I was,
I would say that I didn't want her to
ever do anything but just be my own
darling little girl.
Can't Live on Sentiment.
But man can't live on sentiment
alone. Neither can he stay his stomach
on antique rugs, no matter how beauti-
full, nor eat old carved mahogany,
though i have been hungry enough many
4 time to do it. Literally, there was
never a decent meal in our house, there
was never a thing in place, and the
apartment always looked as if 1t had
just been struck by a cyclone. And my
wife's only excuse was that she was not
domestic in her tastes and hated house
keeping anyway
''Ouf expenses were something fright
full for the energy that my wife failed
to apply to her housekeeping she put
in on the buying of finery. At first
demonstrated with her, gently and low
ingly, explaining to her that I wanted to
be generous with her, but that a young
man starting out in business could not
afford to dress his wife like a million
siress, and that II We ever hoped to get
along III the world we must be prudent
in our living expenditures, and that she