Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-03-12
By MRS. WILSON WOODROW

BY MRS. WILSON WOODROW
He is puzzled and bewildered. He
has tried to do everything he thinks
is fair and right, and he is in the
middle of a deep blue muddle. Sc
he has written me a letter.
Letters, by the way, are charac-
ter revealing. This one is straight
forward and we'll expressed. II
shows that the writer is man OF
kindly impulses and deep affec-
tions, one who in the adjustment
of a difficulty is willing to go two
thirds of the way to the other
persons one-third.
This is his life as he describes
it. He is a driver, and he is paid
good wages. These he turns over
to his wife, Withholding only
enough for tobacco and minor ne
cessities. He gets up at five in the
morning and prepares his own
breakfast. His working hours are
ostensibly from six in the morning
is q mere term for any time when
he gets through-sometime it is
eleven.
If he gets home at normal hour
he finds his wife and baby all dress
ed up and ready to go out. His wife
insists that he accompany them on
visits to friends and relatives, or
else take them to the motion pic
lures. If he demurs, because he has
had an extra hard day, there are
tears and tempers. If the quarrel
ing is prolonged she goes to her
mothers, taking the baby with her,
and does not return for a day or
so.
He asks this question:
do you think a man who works
sometimes from fourteen to sixteen
hours a day at hard work is ready
to go home and carry a baby around
visiting, or sit at show when every
muscle aches and rest and sleep
seems the only and grandest thing
in the world?"
II feel like chucking up the whole
business" he goes on, land letting
her do as she likes. But, Mrs. Wood
row l have the grandest little baby,
and I would rather stand anything
that give it up"
Oh, marriage is certainly a COM
plex affair. l wonder If his wife
is one of those canary-bird women,
or If she just hasn't yet looked the
facts of life squarely in the face?
The symbol and counterpart of a
SSI ItlIl type VI WOlldIi 10 IIl0 td
nary bird. 1t is a pretty, fluffy, silly
little thing, quite content to hop
about in its ornamental cage and
twitter. It dreams of no indepen-
dent flights, or of seeking it's own
food, or of choosing its own toca-
ton for a nest. It's mind is occupied
with it's bath, the fish bone upon
which it sharpens it's bill, and such
table delicacies as chickweed and
bird seed.
But the instinct of self-preserva-
ton, or rather self-interest, is i'm
planted in it's tiny brain. 1t sings
for its living, and so it pays as 1t
goes. 1t wouldn't have the orna-
mental cage and the chiclweed if
it didn't. It wouldn't get them If
it were not for its light and exqui-
site song and the cat would get it.
There are women who haven't the
instructive foresight of the canary.
They want the equivalent of the
ornamental cage and the chick
weed, etc., but they refuse to burst
into song. They have no idea of the
quid pro quo.
This mans wife entered into a
business partnership with him when
she married him. His agreement
was to make the living; hers to ex-
pend it in maintaining their mutual
home. But what is the reserve
capital on which they both depend ?
1t is the mans health.
To preserve that, he requires
nourishing, well-cooked and suf-
ficient food, proper hours of rest,
decent, clean and comfortable sur