The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-07-04
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

Skeleton In the Guest Chamber.
"A young woman was telling me the
other day that she and her husband
intended to break up housekeeping
and go to hotel to stay.
Don't do it," 1 counselled her,
that is no proper way to, live. Stick
to your own little two-by-four home
and your own cooking. The moral in
fluence of thier own pots and pans
will do more to keep any young cou-
pie in the straight and narrow path
than all the ten commandments"
II know it," responded the young
wife with tears in her eyes, "and 1t
breaks my heart to give up our little
apartment and to think of living in
a public hotel, but it is the only way
we can save ourselves from bank
ruptcy and get any of what the poeIs
call the solitude of deux!' We have
literally been eaten out of house and
home by our relatives, and crowded
out of our nest by them. And we
have never had a chance to say
private word to each other since the
day we were married.
so we are going to a place where
they can't visit us. and where we can
have some privacy, and a chance to
get acquainted without being chap
eroned by our loving relatives, who
never found out how fond they were
of us until they discovered that we
could save them from paying hotel
bills.
TT isn't that don't like Bob's fam
lily, or that Bob doesn't like my fam
lily, or that we are inhospitable. Both
of us feel the most affectionate senti-
ments towards our in-laws. Both of
us like to entertain our friends and
relatives. But in reason: And we
have been visited to death. There
fore, we are fleeing to hotel as TO
a temple of refuge.
"And our case isn't a peculiar one.
I know a dozen others just like us,
for you can have no idea of how pop
ular you can be until you live in a
There Is no other aggregation of
charms and virtues that draws all
hearts to you as does the possession
of a spare bedroom.
'It would appear as IL, when a
young man and woman got married,
that the mans relatives smote upon
the cymbals with joy and cried out,
Hal Now Bob is married and has set
up a home, we will have a place to
| stay in the city without money and
without price" And thereupon they
descend upon the luckless couple like
the wolf on the fold.
"And the brides people likewise
emit shouts of happiness and say. Be
hold. another meal ticket has been
given US this day" and they forthwith
DGSlH TSdllZiIS upon new asset
"Of course our families are never
honest enough to put the thing thus
brutal1y to themselves, but that is
what it amounts to. When anybody,
on either side of the house, feels as if
| they would like to go on little spree,
| they pack up bag and baggage, write
Bob and Mary that they are coming.
and they arrive for an indefinite stay
without even asking If it is convenient
| to have them as visitors.
Sisters Susie thinks nothing of ask
| ing you to let her Ina Belle come and
spend a winter with you and take mu-
| sic lessons, because Ina Belle she is
certain, is a second Mary Garden and
J only needs to have her talent devel-
! opend. And Sister Susie thinks it is
! just providential that you married and
| went to the city to live so Ina Belle
won't have to pay board, and she
knows it will be such a pleasure to
you to have the darling child with
you and listen to her caterwauling