Grand Forks herald., 1917-01-29

that7
She was rather apolosetic ali day.
and got her reward. especially from
the boy, VINO was an adventurous and
rather truculent baby. much. she fan
cted, as his father must once have
been. and who took to her more
quickly than the girl did. Indeed, the
second Rodney fell in love with her
almost as his father had done before
him. But little Portia wasn't very far
behind. Two days sufficed for the con-
quest Of the pair of them.
The really disquieting discovery
awaited the time when the wire edge
Of novelty about this adventure in
motherhood had worn off: when she
could bathe them, dress them, feed
them their very strict regimentcd
meals. without being spurred to the
highest pitch OF alertness by the fear
OF making misunderstanding
something like the juice Of q half
orange at ten o'clock in the morning
the omission OF which might have
VINO knew what disastrous conse-
quences!
That attitude can't last any woman
long. and Rose. with her wonderfully
clever hands, her wits trained not to
be told the. same thing twice. her
pride keeping in sharp focus the de-
termination that Rodney should see
that she could he IS good n nurse q:
Miss French-~nnsa wore off that
nervousnous tenSeurea ovei. her new
job very quickly. Within y week she
had routine established that was
Observation-Disclosures.
But. do you remember how aghast
she was over the forty weeks John
Galbraith had talked aho,,t as the
probable run of The Girl Upstairs"
her CONSERVATION ove- tie idea of
just going on doing the same thing
over and over again. "around and
around. like horse at the end of e
pole?"
Well, it was with something the
same feeling Of CONSERVATION that,
having thrown herself heart and soul
into the task of planning and setting
In motion a routine for two year-and-
a-half-old babies she should flnd her
self Strengthening up and saying:
What next?" and realizing that, S,
far as this job was concerned, there
was no next. The supreme merit of
her care from now on would be
barring emerEencies-the placid con-
tlnuation OF that routine. There were
no herolcs about motherhood-save in
emergency, once more. It was ques-
tlon OF remembering hundred trivial
details and executing them in the
same way every day 1t was a question
OF doing thousand little services,
not one Of which was serious enough
to occupy her mind, every one of
which was capable of being done al
most automatically-but not quite!
me whole OF the attention was never
quite TAKEN. and yet it was never, ali
the way around the clock, entirely
left free. And her love for them,
! which had become almost as intense
and overmastering n thing as her love
for her husband, could never be ex-
pressed fully, as was her love for him.
IT would be cruelty unfair. she recog-
nized that. to emotionalize over them
force them.
1t was fine relation 1t was per-
haps, the very finest in the world
But as job, 1t wasn't so satisfa ctory
Four-f1fths of it. anyway. could be
done with better results, for the chill
dren. by a placid, unimaginative, toll
erahly stupid person who had no
stronger feeling for them than the
| mild, temporary affection they could
excite in anyone not a monster. And
the other fifth of it wasn't a Job at
all.
| On the whole. then, leaving their
miraculous hours out of the account,
their honeymoon, considered as an at
/, golden day which looked neither to-
ward the future complete in itself,
| perfect--was failure.
1T was not until. pretty ruefully
they acknowledged this, tore up their
artificial resolution not to look at the
future. and deliberately set themselves
to the contemplation of a life that
/ would have to take into account com
plex and baffTfng considerations. tina,
! fnntr Eao =
was we'll along in their month that
this happened
! Rose had spent a maddening sort OF
day, a day that had been all edges
trying not to lot herself feel hurt over
| fantastic secondary meanings which ii
was possible to attach to some of the
things Rodney had said, trying to be
cheerful and sensible, and to ignore
the patent face that his cheerfulness
was as forced and unnatural a thing
as hers. The children--aR a rule the
beEt-behaHed Little things in the world
had been refractory. So. after" their
supper. when they'd finally gone off
to sleep. and Rose had rejoined ROC
ney in the sitting room. she was in ::
state where it did not take much to
set her off.
1t was not much that did; nothing
more, indeed, than the fact that sh,
AOAAAA lSh lllisi.tuSi pTUOulnE In ffunt
OF the fire. and that the smile with
which he greeted her was a little to,
quick and bright and mechanical, and
that it soon faded out The Rodnn,
OF her memories had never done
things like that If you found him sit
ting in q chair YOU found him reading
book. When he was thinking some
thing out he tramped back and forth,
twisted his face up, made gestures.
ho1 hi Ipst 49, T.
was just that he didn't care being
natural with her! Couldn't feel at
home with her. Before she knew it,
she was crying. \
He asked, in CONSERVATION, what
the matter was
Nothing" she said. Absolutely
nothing. Really
Then it's just-that you're no,
happy, with me. like this?" He
brought that out gravely, a word at q
time. as though they hurt
Are you happy, with me-like
this?" she countered.
1t was question he could not an
swer categorically, and she did not
give him time for anything else.
Whats the matter with US, Roddy 90
she demanded. We ought to be hap
py. We meant to be. We said that
we'd been through a lot, and that
through-in the way of working things
out, at least-and that we'd take a
month just for nothing but to be
happy in-just for pure joy" Her
voice broke in Il sob over that. "And
here we are-lile this!'
1T hasn't all been like this" he
said. There have besn hours day
or two. that Id go through the whole
thing for again, If necessary"
She nodded assent to that. But the
rest of the time" she cried. "Why