Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1914-10-09
Set Right
By RYLAND BELL
By RYLAND BELL

One night l stopped with a bachelor
who did his own homework. I noticed
that he washed the dishes by turning
a hose attached to the pump on them.
l asked him If he didn't think a better
way would be as the women do it-in
a dishpan, with hot water and a little
mop.
stranger" he said. there isn't any
way a woman does a thing that can't
be improved on by a man. What's the
use O. goin' to the trouble o. heatin'
water and dom the mop work when
you kin do it this wayT
You evidently are not an admirer of
women"
Reckon if you'd been treated by 'em
IS I've been you wouldn't admire 'em
nuther."
What have they done to your
"Oh. thar's only one on 'em ez | got
anything agin. but they're all alike.
You can't trust 'em nohow."
"Well. now we've got it narrowed
down to one. how has she offended?''
BY this time he had washed the dish
es and we sat down together on the
front porch. and he told me the story.
Down the road a spell is the skule-
house where l went to git Iarnin'
when I was a leetle boy. One O. the
gals lived up this way. and she and !
used to come along home together.
Her name was Alice Starkweather.
She was mighty purity, and when we
was goin' to skule together she wore
her hair in one big rope down her
back, and it reached purity nigh to her
ankles. Alice. she sided up to me like
a kitten to a warn brick. | want
much of a boy for gals. but somehow
Alice wouldn't let me alone. Eff |
treated her kind a rough her eyes
would git wet. and she'd look as If
somepin awful had happened to her.
'Bimeby when Alice got to be about
seventeen year old she was sent to
boardin' school. | jest stayed yere
and begun work on the farm. My ia
Their was gittin' old, and he needed
me. | wanted to go on rarnin', but !
couldn't. l argy'd that when Alice
come home from boardin' school she'd
have a lot O. hifalutin notions about
her and she wouldn' look at me.
$50 when she did come l didn't go
near her. | met her one day on the
road to the pestofice. She looked at
me kind O. queer and axed me why
| hadn't been TO see her. | knowed
eho 1fdn,x oor nothips about mo n
more, she havin' been to boardin
school and / havin' stopped larnin' and
gone to work, so / says kind o. keer-
less. You see, thar's lots to do on the
farm this time O. year, and l hain't got
time to go CALM
she walked on without sayin' any
thing more. You see, l was right. If
she hadn't got uppish and considered
me not good enough for her she'd done
the way she used to do when she was
a leetle gal; she'd a-tried to bring me
round"
How old did you say she was at this
time"
"Goin' ON eighteen"
well, go on with your story"
Alice didn't go back to school NO
more. Her mother died that summer.
and Alice had to take keer of her ia
Their and do the homework. Every
time she met me she'd put on some
more O. them airs she'd got at boardin'
school. till after awhile she scarcely
spoke to me at all. 1t only showed l
was right about it in the ~beginnin',
and l was glad / hadn't made a fool
o. myself when she first come home by
lettin' on ! expected it would be the
same between us as when she went
away. II she'd stayed right we're and
not gone away to git a lot o. h~ifalutin
notions into her head like enough she'd
been livin' with me now. But that's
the trouble with wimmen: they slop
over 81 easy"
He had finished his story, and it was
evident that the rupture was as hard
to bear now as it had ever been. He
was smoking a clay pipe, and the ra-
pidity Of the puffs showed the state
Of his feelings.
MY friend" l said. don't you think
it would have been wiser in you when
your sweetheart first came home from
boarding school to permit her to show
her feelings toward you instead Of as
Stunning that she had changedT"
"But she had changed, or she'd have
tried to get me to treat her affection
ate-like. same as she used to-"
"She was changed. but not in that
way. She had passed from child to
woman"
whats that got to do with it?"
Everything. You indicated that you
had changed to her. and. now that she
had become a woman. she was too
proud to win you back by the same
methods as when you were children"
by gosh. stranger. / never thought
O. that!'
What you should have done when
she came back from boarding school
was to let her show whether she had