Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-31

He was a soldier in khaki from some
where in Ohio. A regular American,
tall and slim, and broad-shouldered and
deep-chested and smooth-faced and
keen-eyed.
She was a French girl-attractive,
clever, piquant.
They say she can take two or three
wards of Bingham and make a dress
SO smart that everyone who passes
her in the street will. want to copy 1t.
And her hats-my dear!
A pretty wit she has, too, a pair
of roguish eyes and a way with her
oh. decidedly a way with her!
And they met in France. And he
thought she was too cute for words and
she thought he was tres chic-and they
fell in love and they promised to marry
each other, just as soon as the war
was over and the American got back
home and could send for her.
For the Best
And the war was over and the Amer
lean did get back home and he wrote
to the French girl and sent her the
money for a ticket, and he told her he
had the dearest little house for her all
ready and furnished and it was in Ohio
in the little town he loved and where
be grew up from boyhood.
Tt wasn't big or extravagant at all,
but it had a nice yard with some trees
in it and a front porch and n back
porch and a built-in icebox. and screens
and hardwood floors and everything.
and he was crazy for her to come and
see it and be married and live in the
little house and be q real Amerlcan-
at last.
And the French girl thought the
house must be funny, not at all IKE
anything she knew in France. And
she thought the people on the ship COM
ing over were too odd for words-the
women and, oh, the men-all Anerl-
cans. And when she got to New York.
really it was too ridiculous.
To call that a city-and civilized
what a joke,
And the American vas cross and then
he was thoughtful and then he wrote
and told his little French sweetheart
that he thought she would be happy
in France, where she knew the ways
and was accustomed to the people. She
was lovely and sweet and all that. the
American thought but, of course, he
couldn't blame her for hating the new
ways and the new ideas.
As for himself-he was an American
and he never could live anywhere else,
and SO perhaps
And now she is on the ship going
back to France and her dreams are
over and so are his.
Quite for the best-it seems to me.
But 1t Often works"
IT takes n deep love and a strong
one. something sway above the ordi-
nary to make the eagle and the little
barnyard hen happy together.
It's all very well for a smooth little
duck who loves sailing on the pond and
diving for weeds to admire the skyIark.
And it is charming for the gay skylark
to sigh at the thought of the pretty
little love duck and her chosen home
in the water weeds. But if they should
try to live together I'm afraid either
the duck or the skylark would be pretty
sure to get homesick once in a while.
Old associations, old memories, old
ideas, the things your mother said when
you were little, the things our father
told you when you were learning your
first lessons at school-these grow with
the years, somehow they are like roots
deep down in the soil and it is hard to
pull them up without hurting.
Happy marriages between natives
and Observation-Disclosures of them
but the happiness is in spite of the diff
ference in nationality and education and
habit. not because of it, it seems to
me.
I'm glad this particular American and
this particular French girl changed
their minds before it was too late.
| hope they'll both be very happy, in
deed-with somebody else.