Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1918-01-03
The atEler ! 5
Helper
g.
By Osborn Jones
By Osborn Jones
1871, by the Mcclure Newspa
per Syndicate.)

| Copyright, 1871 by the Mcclure Newspa-
per syndicateJ
When Dick Steiner, after q stormy
and galloping sort of seaside court
| ship, had actually heard Madeleine re-
turn all his vows of devotion lie
| thought his struggles to win her as
his Wife We're practically over Made
| leine was visiting boarding school
| chuln when the romance occurred, and
for that reason, perhaps, Dick had for
gotten that Madeleine probably pos
sessed parents and that those parents
might have something to say before
permitting their eighteen-yeal-o
beauty to become Mrs. Dick Stoner.
But Dick knew that, as parents usual
| ls rated sons-in-law-to-be, he was not
undesirable. His record at college
and in business since then, though
not actually brilliant, was clean and
| progressive, and any father-in-law or
mother-in-law-to-be would not have
much difficulty in discovering that his
share OF the Stoner fortune was a
large one.
L
| tied till, after sudden burst of en-
| thusiasm on the part of Medicine, as
| they sauntered in and out around the
| sand dunes at the Seashore, she sud-
I IDENTIFY changed her tone and her eyes
| grew round.
I'D forgotten about father" she
Said. "He will never let us do any
NO n fpin
| to him, you know, and / don't know
how in the world can ever be mar
ried if he doesn't consent. I just
couldn't elope."
Dick didn't like this intrusion of an
objecting father-in-law. 1t was much
| nicer hearing Medicines guideless
praise of his own many manly virtues
and good features. So he tried to per-
suade her that the father whom he
had never seen was not such gruff
sort after all and that it would be an
easy matter to "bring him around"
you haven't any idea how stria. lie
is Madeleine protested. "IS,s Il pro-
fessor of psychology and this year he's
trying TO write lbs greatestbook audi
and, well, it is very hard tc be the
father of five daughters and Arthur
and Bennett and write a book on psy-
chology. It's hard to be the father OF
five daughters anyhow, he says, espe-
ciaIly when they are the kind of daugh-
tiers that we are"
why can't he shift responsibilities
till the book is done?" suggested Dick.
couldn't your mother manage to keep
you within bounds?"
"Oh, mothers just as busy as she
can be mending us and darning us and
planning meals and things. She has a
mothers helper to help her and still
she never seems to have time to
breathe. And poor old father said he
was going to try to get fathers
helper'-to make his task of being our
father easy, just as mother does With
her mothers helper SO far he hasn't
found anyone that wants the job
r "What would this fathers helper
amazed ut the turn of Iadeleine's con-
yerSatlon.
ooh, l suppose he would have to
help Bennett With his Greek and spank
Arthur, and he'd have to ccIue to meals
and see that we we're all there and
maybe say grace, and sometimes just
happen in the drawing room when Mi
nerva's suitors were there. MiGlrv:, s
the sumner. you know, and she has
just coolies of suitors, and mother says
that father ought to appear once in q
While just to show that there is some
| one keeping track of how often they
come. But father can't stand that
sort of thing. And / suppose the ia
'ther's helper would have to scold me
sometimes because / am SO reckless
when | ride-lnother keeps at father
| to scold me for it, but he hates to; and
| he would have to scold the servants
| when mother couldn't manage them,
| and sometimes, if one of us girls didn't
| have an escort to Il dance, suppose
| the fathers helper would have to go
With us. Father ought to, mother
! says, but he hates to-
MY Greek is a little rusty" an
| nounced Dick, when Madeleine had fin
ished her monologue, "but I think I'll
/
take that position. You say your IA
| Their hasn't found anyone for it. All
right, I'll make tracks for your place
tomorrow and by the time you have
come home I'll be installed and per-
i haps one of the first things L can do
1 will be to show father that it is to
his interest to let his daughter Made
leine become Mrs Dick Stoner."
When Madeleine reached home at
the end of that week she found the
| young man whom her father had re-
Gently employed to be identical with
the man to whom she had recently be-
| come engaged, except that, he was
dressed in dark blue serge and her
tiance had inclined to light tweeds
and white flannels. Besides he spoke
| in a voice that was subdued and the
speech was free from slang-not very
much like the explosive discourse of
Il a..