The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1913-08-08
A Theory
BY GRACE OGLEsBY

new IOTudLlOUS, anu SUCH du age is
always attended by a certain amount
of hysteria. When people leave a
beaten track to strike out into new
paths they are liable to bewilderment
and so when they find or believe they
have found that they have been influ
enced by false ideas in seizing new
ones they are prone to jump from the
frying pan into the fire. More than
this, they are liable to jump from
terra firma into water altogether too
deep for them.
One of the new departures of the
marriage as we in America have
known It, Kent Blakeman's father
and mother had lived together COM
fortaDly, bringing up half dozen
children. Kent at twenty-five discov-
cred that they had taken a great risk
In binding themselves so closely to-
gether that there was no easy way for
them to break the chain. In their
case fortunately they had not wished
to break it. But, as for him, he did
not intend thus TO tie himself up. He
believed In experimental marriage. IL
he married he would reserve the right
to leave his wife as soon as he ceased
to love her, and she should have the
same privilege with regard to him.
Miss Estelle Woodruff, being about
the same age as Brakeman, also grew
up in the same atmosphere of hyster.
zeal reform. She heard persons talk.
ing about the frequency of divorce,
subjects. and her mind was very sus-
ceptible to absorb new theories. Blake
man found few women to sympathize
with him In his notions about mar
riage-most reforms begin with
paucity of numbers-and when he met
Miss Woodruff and made an easy con-
vert Of her he was much pleased with
her-that Is, he was much pleased
with himself for having struck into a
new path-and considered the girl
above the ordinary in that she had
appreciated his ideas.
There is an infinite variety of mental
structure among human beings. Blake
man, who married Miss Woodruff, was
of different brain. He kept on de-
veloping in his anti-marriage theories,
while she, with the coming of children,
ceased to take an interest in them and
at last turned against them.
Perhaps it was the discovery that
ne had been mistaken in his wife's
mental caliber that started him in his
Idea that they were not fitted for each
other. Their union had lost its romance
and was becoming humdrum. 1t seem
ed to him that the connubial kiss morn
Ing and night had lost its zest. He had
asserted when a bachelor that the hon.
eymoon should last always and that
when 1t had completely waned 1t was
lime for the couple to separate and
lach find a new mate.
Time came when Brakeman conclud-
I'd to "be true to himself" as he put
1t, and claim the privilege he had re-
served for himself when he married.
He made several attempts to get his
courage up to a point where he could
tell his wife that she was not his af
finity and that he proposed to free him
self from her and make another trial
to find real and lasting mate At last
he succeeded
Between passing influence in youth
and a woman who had been made over,
30 to speak, by the possession Of two
little children-a boy and giri-there
was an enormous difference She was
- Ixv NV har h,xe fxo Nd
announcement; she was thunderstruck.
But IL she had not developed she
had insensibly come into q lot Of
horse sense. To attempt to argue her
husband out of his nonsense she knew
would be futile. To oppose him would
be equally So Moreover, she remem-
bered that at the time of her marriage
she had conceded with his views. 1t |
was he who had been consistent, she
who had changed. 1t had been mu-
tually agreed that when either wished
for freedom 1t should be granted.
She held to her agreement, though |
she recognized the outcome as great
misfortune. But she was plucky as
well as a proud woman and gave no
sign Of what blow she suffered. The
prenuptial agreement gave the children |
If any came-to the mother, and this
was, of course, a godsend to her. She
wondered as she looked back when the
provision was made that she had very /
nearly assented to conditional propo-
sition to divide the children between
husband and wife.
When all preliminary arrangements
had been made Mrs. Brakeman and her
children-the little ones being igno-
rant Of the separation of their parents
took a train for the mothers birth
place, where they expected to live
Brakeman saw them Off and as the
train was starting kissed them all and
left the car.
He stood on the platform, looking
hfter them as they rolled out of the
station, and all of a sudden a great
light broke in upon his brain, and he
said to himself:
What an addle psted ninny have
made of myselfr
Going to the ticket Office. he bought
a ticket for the next train to follow
them, and the same night, when the
mother was ruefuIly hearing the chill
dren say their prayers, the father
swooped down on them like cyclone
and took them all in one embrace.