The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-11-02
THE CATHOLIC BULLETIN, NOV. 2, 1912

and honesty already broken, to keep
up with their elders and with their
richer friends, turned right about face,
dropped the pretense and came down
to the solid ground which Jeans ex-
ample had broken for them. We were
glad OF this, because we had seen
that everything was going wrong
with these four beginners in life, even
their married love, which usually does
give way under the strain of frets
that are the result Of folly and wrong.
Jean Rugged me enthusiastically in
private after the four had gone, having
"come to announce to us their con-
version to the simple 1ife," as one of
the young husbands put it.
"You see!" she cried, what lovely
things grow around nice little whole
some spots in the world, like this
house. They'll be as happy as
crickets- land they would have gone
to the most awful smash! Oh, Fred
dy, isn't it pity that people are so
Initiative? | don't suppose it ever
occurred to those nice things to live
otherwise than extravagantly! I sup
pose they thought economy and mis-
erv were synonyms!"
sits rather lucky they're initiative
when they've Jean to imitate-but
OF course, there's only one of her, so
the biggest part of the world hasn't
much chance" said I.
And I meant it, for though our
house was beautiful, and our honest
little simple entertainments delightful,
and although any honest life must
be essentially more beautiful than pre-
tence, still Jeans beauty, jeans tai
ents, her tact, her charm, went far to
make her experiment a success
We lived year and half of what
we afterwards came to all "our leaven-
ing life.' for we saw that our home
was doing much more than making
people who came to it pass pleasant
hours. 1t stood for home to people
whose whole life excluded intimate
homelife. Tt stood for truth and self
denial to people who were aDing one
another with more or less insincerity
Above all, it stood for sacramento
welded love, as the Catholic ideal
presents it, to people whose familiarity
with Indifference, or worse, among the
married of their set had made them
REGARD marriage as a contract, but to
he borne, at best often, with as much
! latitude to help in the bearing as was
compatible with a retained position in
this lax society.
That Jean and I loved each other
with love consecrated by faith and
respect was patent to all corners. I
knew myself that our little home was
| impregnated with our love and hap
Diness, with my beautiful and charm
ing wife's goodness. We, but chiefly
lean. had proved the possibility of
happiness in simple economies, but
we had proved and illustrated far more
than that-we, but chiefly, Jean.
We lived our different life in the
midst of our extravagant friends for a
year and half, and then the boy
/ was born. That altered everything.
Jeans father and mother endowed him
at birth with a fortune that was to
be held for him by Jean, and whose
income far exceeded mine at our mar
riage. And my dear old father hur-
RED down to us, when I telephoned
him, to take his first grandchild in
his arms and bless him with a tender
ness he had hidden from me. Then
| he told me what he thought of Jean
and the way she had triumphed over
difficulties, the kind of home-goddess
she had been since our marriage Up
on my word he surpassed even me
| in his praise of her!
you've proved yourselves, you two
youngsters, abundantly," he ended.
''Now I'm going to do for you what
wouldn't do till you had shown what
was in you''
| So we were suddenly made rich.
not only in each other and the boy.
but in actual dollars and cents. But
nothing can ever make our house less
of true home as long as Jean is it's
mistress. With greater wealth we
still live the simple life, for simplicity
is in the heart, not the pocket-book,
and our home is and always will be
a. leaven in our corner Of the world.
For Jean is Jean, and the woman
makes the home for good or i'll.
You see this story of "we" but I was
only I before Jean made me part of
"we," and decidedly the smaller part.
Jean could have told this story far
better than could, with all woman's
understanding of how she did what she
did, and the less obvious why of her
doing so. But Jean would never tell
it, so I had to; it is decidedly worth
telling if I made apparent all for