Evening star., 1925-10-25

won neber do as we'll with yo' fust
husband as you will de rest, but yo'
don't need to make no mo- mistakes
dan you has to. You can do a good
deal by jes' gittin' stated right"
There it was again, you see-get
started right. After America came
Dulcie, Lane, who has been married
only year. She told me TO start out
by making VIII give me an allowance
from the very first week, that just be-
cause it was fun to ask for money the
first time not to kid myself into think
ing it would be fun right along.
Then came Mrs. Viola Henning,
who is the only grass widow / have
ever known except Mrs. Coron. who is
most Of it. Mrs. HenninS is very
| worldly. She asked me if viii knew
that l knew how to sew and cook. I
said L didn't really know whether he'd
ever thought anything about 1t or
not. She said:
well. If he doesn't know, don't
ever let him. If he thinks you don't
know how. why. there's one thing
sure, you'll never have to. OF course.
at the start. you like to show off
make him think you're the eighth
wonder Of the ancient world, and so
on. But take it from one who has
been through the woods ahead of you,
if you start out by being the eighth
wonder, you'll have to work like a
Greek slave the rest of your life to
live up to it.
The clinging vine isn't bad idea
you know, sweet and adoring. and
helpless, don't know how to do any
thing that's work. If I were trying
it again, that's the line I'd try"
l had to laugh to myself thinking
what mother would say to this ad
vice. But by the time Mrs. Holiday
had warned me that if l let Will
get started smoking u pipe I'd have
curtains that smelled of tobacco all
my life, and Mrs. Burton had said
that if | began by having soup, Will
would soon get to thinking that no
dinner without soup would sustain
human life, the whole general idea
began TO get to me.
| began to realize that all married
life depended on how you got started.
a husband, it seemed. was raw
human material. You could do any
thing with him-if you just got start
ed right.
Well, it was plain TO the naked
eye that I had been on the brink of
starting wrong at the very begin
ming. Almost, you might say, before
the beginning. ! had already begun
by giving up the kind of wedding /
really wanted. / wanted simply
huge wedding in the Blocker street
church. Madge and Ruth and Corinne
and Marjorie Hayden for bridesmaids,
the organ playing The Voice That
Breathed Ger Eden" father step
ping out of the front pew when
DR.. Radcliff said. who gives this
woman" and two columns in the
Montrose Monitor the next day. tell
ing what everybody Wore. But VIII
couldn't see this at all.
Here comes the groom" he sang
TO the wedding march. stiff as a
broom. Get onto the crease in his
new pantaloons!"
Don't You think it would be
grand" I had asked him.
Sure, 1 think 1t would-not," he'd
said. I'D as soon play the lead for
a funeral as the bridegroom for a
show like that. I'd probably stub
my toe coming down the aisle. Gee,
Doll, we don't have to have a court
procession like that, do we?"
He was so sweet and humble about
tt knew he'd go through with it If
insisted-that 1t kind of touched
me. Besides, nobody but VIII ever
calls me Doll. everybody else just
Dorothy or Dot, and it always has a
weakening effect on me. So, instead
.f being firm, as I suppose 1 should
have been, I made the mistake of
saying:
We'll. what kind OF a wedding
would You like"
I'D like to walk into a perfectly
strange ministers that I'd never seen
before, with two strange witnesses
that I'd never seen before. and get
married by the shortest, easiest way
that's legal" said VIII.
Honestly. aren't men funny
n X X
WHAT it finally amounted to was
that we compromised We
would have rather small home we'd
ding, not anywhere near as big as my
sister kathie's, just our relatives and
very best friends. The main trouble
with compromise is that 1t doesn't
suit anybody. VIII felt almost as bad
about having to make n monkey Of