The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-09-02
THE NEW
GENERATION
JOAN HAS HER HAIR ROBBED.
By JANE PHELPS

II ..
Joan had beautiful hair 1t was
thick and heavy, like spun gold.
Margaret had been Unfortunately proud
of the two heavy braids that hung be-
low the child's waist, and had be-
slowed great care upon it.
One day Joan had gone to play ten
mis- with one of her young friends. 1t
was an oppressiyely warm day and
Margaret had worried a little for fear
the heat would affect her.
Later than usual Joan came in.
Around her face was a thick halo of
soft yellow curls. cleaning gold above
her big blue eyes, and curling upward
from her white neck in bewitching
fashion. Margaret was startled, hurt.
She longed to cry, and-did nothing.
you don't mind, do you, Mumsie
was SO hot. And all the girls are
being bobbed."
She looked so like tiny child,
nearer than II, with her big, blue
eyes staring out from under that mass
of curls, so like the baby she had been
Margaret felt the tears starting. But
it would sadden Joan if she cried. So
she winked the tears back, and ad-
mired the soft curls, running her hand
thru them caressiHgly. N
81 brought these back as a present
y
shining braids in Margaret's lap.
If the mother had held back her
tears when with Joan, she made no
effort to do SO when she laid the two
golden braids tenderly away. 1t was
months before she ceased to regret she
was no longer needed to brush and
braid Joan's hair. 1t had been, like
all she did for the child, real labor
of love.
1t was typical that Joan had not
consulted her mother as to cutting her
hair Really it was not her mothers
business. 1t was her hair. She was
the one to decide whether she wanted
it long or short.
There was no disrespect for her
mother in this attitude of Joan's.
She was only following out her
mothers teachings. She was hui
She must carve out her own life, fol-
low any bent she wished in her
actions.
Joan had a nice sense of honor in
culcated by her mothers converse
ton and example. She was honest
and plain-spoken at all times She
was kind and generous to interiors.
even tho she might /be insolent to
her equals. She had many of the
virtues girls in her position are sup
posed to have, also many of the
faults That the virtues outclassed
perhaps, to her blood-clean ancestry
Naturally at her age. Joan did not
reason out what she did or did not
do along the lines she followed. Her
actions were almost If not entirely in
voluntary. She wanted to do some
thing-she did it!
Margaret often smiled as she sat
thinking of Joan after the child had
retired. =. She could count on the
fingers of her hand the times when
Joan had really needed reproof.
Always followed the thought:
"How wise 1 have been to not in
terfere." Then she would think of
her own girlhood, how she had been
obliged to fight for the simplest, the
most elemental rights. She had not
been supposed to believe anything save
what her parents told her, what they
believed. If they said a thing was
wrong, she was expected Immediately
to believe it wrong, and never to
figure anything out for herself as
Joan did. If they told her she must
not do this or that, she waz not sup
posed to question why. She was, in
fact, to have no mind, no will. OF her
own.
Margaret had longed to go to COL
lege, to think along other than cut
and-dried lines But her mother be-
lieved a governess was better for
girl-that it kept her from becoming
tainted. Now Margaret smiled when
she recalled that expression her
mother had used-"tainted." She re-
how she had rebelled that
day in the privacy of her room
she had likened herself to a fish or
other food that was SO stale it became
tainted.
It had been such incidents as these.
still fresh in her memory when she
had been left alone with Joan, that
had determined her upon the course
she was pursuing with the child.
Her child, her little Joan should
never live the repressed life she had
lived-she had arrived at this con-
clusion after much conscientious con-
much reading upon the
subject of allowing children self-ex-
preston.
X (Tomorrow-Joan wins her bet)