The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-09-15
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
The Dangerous Age for Men.

Ihe OLD woman! whose years are as
a crown of glory to her. was turning
the heel of stocking she was knit
ting for her grandson somewhere in
France, and as her needles clicked.
she talked, out of the fullness of wis
dom and experience, about men.
IF you can only get man safely
thru his second summer he is out
of danger, but it takes wife
who has patience. and poise, and long
suffering endurance to get him thru
it alive
His second summer" 1 inquired.
Yes she replied, nodding her old
head, men have two second sum-
mers. The first comes when they are
about two years old and are cutting
their big teeth. and they are sick, and
peevish, and irritable and unreason-
able, and like to die. but if their
generally grow up into big, fine,
healthy children.
"A mans second summer comes
when he's shaving around the fifties
and when he's cutting his false teeth,
and that's the real danger time of his
life when he's restless and full of
strange fancies and does foolish things
that are apt to be fatal, but if his
wife has got sense enough to nurse
him along thru this period of his ex-
istence she'll have a husband that
she'll never need to be anxious about
again.
i've just been trying TO explain this
to Betty" the old lady went on, but
every wife believes that her husband
is an Especial God, or a Particular
Devil, instead of realizing that hus-
bands come by the bolt and are all
cut off of the same pattern, and that
most of the things that they do is just
the working out of the law of nature
in them, and has no especial refer
ence to the particular women to whom
they are married.
You know, Betty and Jack have
been one of the model couples to
which we have pointed with pride as
an illustration of people being happy
though married. Betty's been one of
the good wives who has been a real
helpmeet, thrifty and economical and
| Industrious, and there's been no man
who's had a more comfortable home
| than Jack or been better taken care
! of. And Jack has been as domestic
as house cat, one of those satisfac-
| tory husbands whose world is bounded
by his business office and his own
! front door, and whose idea of a good
| time has been to have a dinner down
| town and go to the theatre with Bet
ty once a month.
| This happy state of affairs has eX-
listed for nearly thirty years. and now,
suddenly, when they are middle aged
people, Jack jumps over the pasture
bars. Heshas fallen in love-or mag
| ines he haS-with a girl young enough
to be his daughter, and he has taken
to dyeing his hair and his moustache
and wearing the giddiest lot of rah-
rah college sport clothes you ever
| saw.
Worst of all, the poor simpleton
has told Betty all about it, and he
wants her to give him a divorce so he
can marry the little doll baby with
whom he has been playing around
| and she's just been here to tell me her
| troubles and ask my advice"
haf n foil 60V- 7 eli I'D
'Oh, 1 told her." smiled the old
lady. Just to sit tight and keep a
death hold on her wedding ring. and
that if she had enough courage to
realize that Jack was going thru a
brainstorm that would pass and leave
win out. and he would come back
loving her better than ever.
And 1 told her that she hadn't any
right to ruin Jacks life by giving him
a divorce, and thus precipitating him
into a marriage that was sure to BRING
him nothing but misery.
Furthermore, 1 told her that he1
husband was simply suffering from ar
ailment that is as apt to break out OF
men of his age as the measles is il
childhood, and that if she would jus
tend him cheerfully thru the attack
he would be immune from it in tbs
future.
You see, about the time that a mar
gets to be SO, or Whereabouts, he ha:
a sudden second summer of youth
It's an imitation summer but it look:
to him like the real thing while i
lasts. 1t is a false fire, but it burn:
up fiercely for little time, and by it:
light he takes an appraising view O.
his wife, himself and the future.
He hasn't realized it before. bu
he perceives with pitiless clearnes
that his wife is middle-aged. He OBJ
serves her double chin, her thirty
inch belt measure, her grizzled hair
her sagging cheeks, the heayiness witt
which she walks, the fact that sh'
prefers comfort to gaiety.
HE looks at himself and he sees
man who is still young in spite of hi
being five or ten years older than hi
wife. OF course, his hair is graying
too, and he isn't as slender as he uset
to be, but, by jiI-ks, he feels like {
boy. He wants to dance, to run abou
from place to place, to be amused. HI
yearns for thrills and excitement HI
wants to love, and make love, and b'
loved in a romantic fashion.
And he sees the future, by the sid
of his wife, stretching along dull ant
desolate, two old people yawning ant
nodding over the evening paper will
their feet on the radiator.
1.-The outlook for the future appal
him and he begins to look around FOL
an antidote, and he finds it in som'
pretty little slim girl who is abou
J half the age of his wife and wh'
weighs a third as much. He begin
paying her attention, and, being
| cheerful worker who sees in him {
good meal ticket and joy rides, sh'
? opens up the batteries of her filtration
upon him and knocks him dead
I HE thrills and tingles at th'
i thought that he can still make a WON
an love him, and that even young
girl can't resist his destinations. H
: knows that he is doing wrong, but tn
knowledge gives him the same ex
ouisite joy that he had when h
) robbed his neighbours apple orchard
: when he was a boy Stolen fruit il
still sweet on his lips
TT seems to him that he is younl
t again, that he is twenty instead o
: fifty-and that he would always b.
young if he could have this child b.
5 his side She keeps him stirred up
full of vim and vigor, whereas hi
wife pulls him down and depresse
Iao