The Ely miner., 1932-06-03

1 aHairs.
She met Donald Mutrie on
Sunday and married him that day
week.
Her friends and some of his, said
Ann was too good for him. Meaning
that up to the time of her marriage
Donald had been what might be called
a prodigious sower of wild oats.
Ann knew this, after fashion, and
her sweet eyes were alight with the
determination to reform Donald. She
married him for love. She could re-
form him with that love.
In whatever fashion Ann was to be
the loser by this marriage, she bet
tered herself economically. Donald
was a born money-maker. AS his
friends said of him, about everything
he touched turned to gold. Donald
even a little the worse for drink could
turn a better bargain than most men
In the power of their full faculties.
Ann up to the time of her marriage
had been sort of forewoman in
fairly large uptown department store
of Urban City. One Of those great
shops of convenience that occasionally
dot the residential districts of large
towns. The kind of shops that cater
to the housewife who does not have
time for the long trip to the down
town districts.
After her marriage, Ann lived in a
lovely stone-facaded, ten-room home
in a residential district where heavy
traffic was forbidden.
But almost from the first, the re-
formation did not pan out as Ann had
dreamed it would. Donald was as set
in his ways as he was wild in his
ways. From the very first he began
to come home roaring drunk two and
three times week. The lovely home
that Ann had taken such pride in Gre
ating became a storm center of the
most painful and difficult scenes from
the very first. 1t was almost with hor-
ror that Ann regarded the coming of
their first child. But for a while,
about a year after its arrival, change
came about in Donald. He seemed
humble, chastened, deeply contrite and
in love with the mother of his lovely
little daughter, and for brief twelve
month the pretty home became some
thing of the thing Ann had dreamed it
might be.
The coming Of her second child was
a period of happiness and thanksgiv-
ing for Ann. Life assumed tran
guilty and a beauty. Donald, who
could be very, very nice when he was
nice, was not only the provider mag
nificent, but for three months after
the coming of the little boy remained
a devoted husband and father.
Then one night Donald came home
drunk.
With her heart in her mouth Ann
greeted this suddenly strange horror
Of a companion Of hers and made up
her mind to fight a valiant fight with
him and nip in the bud the possibility
of return to his habits of debauch-
cry. There were tears and reconcile
alton after that dreadful night. But
something had snapped in Donald.
Not only did the drinking continue,
but Donald became untrue and faith
less to Ann in the most fragrant and
offensive sense of the word.
Poor Ann, sometimes she was
obliged to hold her head up and pre-
tend not to be scared with insult when
these companions of Donalds passed
CT of
the city in which they lived.
The next FIVE years of her life be-
came a nightmare.
1t was AIMS horror, it was AIMS
humiliation to see her lovely children
constantly subjected to the spectacle
of a maudlin father and of home
scenes of high, angry and bitter words
that should never have reached their
tender little ears.
In vain Ann sought to avoid these
scenes, preferring often to suffer in
silence than to subject her sensitive
little girl and boy to the gross spec
tacle of a family row. Because that
was all they could ever amount to,
with Donald half craZed with drink
and blear eyed from too much dissi-
patton and too little sleep.
'Why doesn't she leave him" said
some of AIMS friends. On the other
hand, those of her more conservative
relations, owing to religious scruples
and fear of public opinion, advised her
to stick it out for the children's sake.
"For the children's sake" was
phrase that lay constantly on poor
AIMS bitter lips. If not for her chill
dren, she would never have endured
it. If not for the indignity Of visiting
upon these innocent little products of
her unfortunate alliance the stigma
of the public separation of their par
ents, Ann would have gone back to
her old position long ago.
She did not crave divorce. She, too,
had certain religious scruples. and. be-