Omaha daily bee., 1914-06-24

was grandmothers!
And so, whenever we though of her we
went out and dropped a tear on her
grave
But there are times when I'm in doubt
about whether pity. like charity, doesn't
begin at home and when I'm inclined to
think that grandmother had cinch, and
NThat we poor, modern women are the
ones that stand in need of sympathy.
For If grandmama didn't have many op-
portunties, neither did she have many
responsibilities, and she was beautifully
and gloriously selfish.
She hadn't assumed the burden Of the
world as we have. She did not feel re-
sponsivile for society, nor posterity. nor
anything in the wide world. AS long as
everything went all right with her house
. hold, the balance Of the universe might
go hang for all she cared.
when grandmama fell in love with
grandpa she married him right off the
bat without being bothered with any
eugenic doubts. She didn't trouble her
head with any investigation into the an
cestry Of his family or her family to find
out what congenital traits or diseases
their possible children might have Nor
did she inquire into grandpapa's morals.
For a man to have a dark past was con-
sidered rather romantic than otherwise
in those halcyon days, and If later on
she was called upon TO help him harvest
his wild oat crops she called it all a
mysterious dispensation of Providence
that she could never account for, and %
escaped all. .heartburnings and regrets.
THE modern girl can't marry that
way She knows so much that she Is
torn with Thousand fears and doubts,
and she goes into marriage burdened
with the sense of her responsibility to
her possible children. That's the reason
that there are fewer love idyls now.
Hygient has sore of blocked Cupid out
of the ring.
Then grandmama never had to bother
her head about keeping grandpapa fas-
cinated. Probably men were just as much
OF a rowing nature then as now. but
nobody had invented the theory that in
order to retain a husbands love a wife
should keep herself young, and slim, and
beautiful, in addition to raising family,
and that she should be able to be a
whole vaudeville entertainment upon
. such occasions as grandpapa elected to
stay at home
"Grandmama could read whatever sort
Of flubdub she liked, because nobody
expected a married woman to know any
thing except the cookbook or to be able
to talk about anything except her babies.
She didn't have to be conversant with
the latest scientific discovery. the new
est political scandal, the most-talked-of
picture, the biggest book OF the day, the
last development in the latest war.
Grandmama could get fat as she liked.
or scrawny as she pleaced, because hav-
ing caught her man, she had no further
use for bait, and nobody noticed whether
she was pulchritudinous or not as she
moved sedately around her sedate little
circle.
"Grandmama didn't have to keep up
with the fashions nor bother herself
about the latest Paris craze BY the time
a woman had gotten to 40 years she was
supposed to be so old that she was done
with all earthly vanities, and to have
turned her thoughts toward heaven in
stead of the milliners.
"Grandmama didn't have to worry any
about how things went with the world,
because 1t had never occurred to her that
she had any responsibility for any human
being outside of her own home. II her
daughters walked in silk attire it was
. none OF her affair that other young girls
perished in sweatshops or were driven
by want upon the streets. II her children
had contagious diseases 1t was not her
business to keep the scourge away from
- ther children.
when grandmother's babies sickened
and died from sour milk bottles and lack
Of sanitation and from the ministrations
OF ignorant nurses. grandmother never
laid wide-eyed through torturing nights
as the modern mother does, blaming her
self. Oh, no, grandmother meekly bowed
her head and said, The Lord lovett