The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-05-10
Dorothy Dir
Discusses the
Fascination
of Widows
The Lone Male Who Invites Twenty Widows To Dine
With Him Will Never Escape Single

had heard all there was to tell. Dim
pies play hide and seek in her
cheeks, and her laugh is rich and
merry and Is hung on a hair trigger,
| warranted to go off at any old story.
| a woman who smiles is either an
angel or a devil, but the woman who
| laughs is a good chum who will never
| have Mysteries over domestic misad-
ventures, or be too hard on man
when he stays out late. Young girls
never laugh. They giggle. Old maids
| have a sardonic smoker. 1t is only
the widow who Is wise enough to
| know that jolly laugh Is a bait, to
which man will rise as a Trout does
| to a fly.
| Will the weeping widow get him?
| She possesses the invalua BILE accom-
plishment of shedding tears poetical-
ly, and when woman can cry with
out Der nose getting red, her danger
words.
Moreover, the lachrymose widow is
| one of these clinging vines that al
ways get mon. She is SO helpless, and
dependent, and forlorn in this cold
and cruel world. and she doesn't know
anything about horrid business. SO
that man feels that he would be
brute II he refused to take care of
her. Dear John" used to attend to
everything for her, and before a man
knows it he Is wearing dear Johns"
shoes.
Drying a widows tears is one of
| the most hazardous deeds ever per-
formed by man, which is doubtless
the reason that it Is mentioned in the
Bible as one of the meritorious acts
whose reward is Heaven.
Will 1t be the comfortable widow?
She owns her own home, and has
tidy little sum of insurance money,
and sets before a man the food that
softens his heart and inclines him to
matrimony. To drop in Of an evening
and sit beside her well-swept hearth
and to perceive the thousand deft
touches with which she knows how
to make one comfortable. makes a
bachelor suddenly feel as IL he were
an orphan in cold, cold. world.
Here's woman, he says to him
self, who would appreciate the bless
ing of getting good husband, and
would know how to take care of him.
No more wrestling with washladies,
no more boarding house or restau-
rant abominations of dinners. In
stead, wife who has learned how to
keep house on your predecessor-God
rest his soul.-and who Is in no dan
ger of giving you dyspepsia while
she experiments with cooking school
recipes.
The comfortable widow looks like
taking out paid-up policy on do
nestle bliss, and she can generally
get any settled. middle-aged man she
desires.
Will it be the diplomatic widow?
To her, man is an open book that
she can read at sight. and she plays
upon his weaknesses as upon harp
with thousand strings With her
remarriage is merely matter of Sc
lection. She besides upon her man,
and he has no more chance OF escape
than the mouse in the claws of cat.
She is past mistress in the gentle
art of spreading the salve. She hangs
upon the words of every man who
talks to her. She agrees with his sen.
timents. She laughs at his jokes. II
he is strong for domesticity. she tells
him how she dotes on kitchen
range. If he is pious, she goes in for
church work. If he is sporting, she
memories the sporting page.
But always, and at all times. she
keeps busy with the incense pot until
she dopes man up so with flattery
that all he wants to do Is to curl up
and lie on her hearth rug and let her
wipe her feet on him.
VIII it be the giddy widow?
She is generally tall and splender
with golden hair, and she wears black
not so much in memory OF her dear
departed as because it throws out the
sheen of her hair and the whiteness
Of her shoulders. Her weeds are dis
tinctly frivolous, with frills and
wicked spangles. and she's naughty.
but she's nice.
Being a widow gives woman
many privileges that no other woman
possesses. 1t eliminates the chaperon
who must be dragged around for thu.
young girl, and the husband who
must be accounted to for the married
woman. Also a widow may do MANY
things that would be little risquu