The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1917-06-28

ing to dress, but she explained she
didn't put on this coronation robe for
you, but for q treat for me before /
telephoned, and hadn't time to change
back"
And when Jane cried out, as they
entered the drawing room: "Good
heavens, Rodney, what house" he
answered: "It isn't ours. We rented
1t for year In some sort of honey
moon dellrium, guess. We don't live
up to 1t, Of course. Nobody could but
the woman who built It."
The gaiety In his voice clouded a
little as he said 1t, and his grin, for
moment, had q rueful twist. But
for moment only. Then his untem-
pered delight in the possession Of his
old friends took him again.
They talked-heavens how they
talked! It was like the breaking up
of log jam. The two men would
rush along, side by side, In perfect
agreement for q while, catching each
others half-expressed ideas, and hurl-
ing them forward, and then suddenly
they'd meet, head on, In collision over
some fundamental difference of Opin-
ion, amid q prismatlc spray of cpl
gram. Jane kept up sort Of obllga-
to to the show, inserting provocative
wltticisms here and there, sometimes
as Rodney's ally, sometimes as her
husbands, and Turing them, when she
could, into the quiet backwater OF
metaphysics, where she was more
than q match for the two Of them.
But the main topic of the evening
got launched when Rodney seized the
advantage Of pause to say:
"a series of articles on women, ell
What are you going to do to them"
With that the topic Of feminism
was on the carpet and 1t was never
thereafter abandoned. After half an
hour of 1t Jane turned to Rodney.
But what do you think about itf'
she demanded. you've been grinning
away there all this time without say
ing word. Are you for ltf"
"For whatr Rodney wanted to
know.
"For what women want" said Jane.
Economic independence - equality,
easy divorce-all the new stuff"
"rm not against It," Rodney said,
"any more than I'm against tomorrow
being Tuesday. It's going to be Tues
day whether / like 1t or not. But
that conviction keeps me from crusad-
ing for 1t very hard. What I'm curl
Gus about is how It's going to work.
When they get what they want, do
you suppose they're going to want
what they get?"
81 knew there was something dead
ly about your grim" said Jane. "What
are you so cantankerous about?"
"Why, the thing" said Rodney,
"that sours my naturally sweet dis
position is this economic independ-
ence. I've been hearing it at dinner
tables oil winter. When l hear a
woman with five hundred dollars
worth of clothes Orwell, no, not on
her back-and anything you like In
jewelry, talking about economic inde-
pendence as If 1t were something nice
jam on the pantry shelf that we men
were too greedy to let them have a
share of have to put on the brakes
in order to stay on the rails.
"We men have to fight for economic
independence from the time we're twen-
ty, more or less, till the time we die.
It's sentence to hard labor for life;
that's what economic independence Is.
How does that woman think she'd set
about 1t, to make her professional
services worth q hundred dollars q
day-or fifty, or ten? What's she got
that has market valuei What Is
there that she can capltallze2 She's
got her physical charm, Of course,
and there are various professions
where she can make 1t pay. Well, ana
what elseW
"She can bear children" said Jane.
"She ought to be paid well for that"
you're only paid WELL" Rodney re-
piled, "for something you can do ex-
ceptionally well, or for something that
few people can do at all. AS long as
the vast majority Of women can bear
children, the only women who could
get well paid for 1t, would be those
exceptionally qualified, or exception
ally proficient. This is economics,
now, we're talking. Other considera-
tions are left out. No, I tell you,
economic independence, If she really
got 1.-THE kind of woman I've been
talking about-would make her very
sick"
"She'd get over being sick, though,
wouldn't she," said Rose, "after
awhile? And then don't you think
she'd be glad?"
Rodney laughed. "The sort of wom-
an I've been talking about he said,
"would feel, when all is said, that
she'd got gold brick"
Rose poured his coffee with q
steady hand. They were In the library
now.
"If that's so," she said, then the
kind of woman you've been talking
about has already got profession.
AS Doctor Randolph says, she's cashed
In on her ankles. But maybe you're
mistaken In thinking she wouldn't
choose something else If she had
chance. Maybe she wouldn't have
done 1t, except because her husband
wanted her to and she was In love
with him and tried to please. You