The Coolidge examiner., 1932-06-03
FOR THE
CHILDREN'S
SAKE
a
By FANNIE HURST
&c by Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate)
(WNU Service)
A nm MEREDITH'S marriage
~ was one of those runaway af-
n fairs

l. n fairs.
She met Donald Mutrie on a Sun
day 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 a fashion,
and her sweet eyes were alight
with the determination to reform
Donald. She married him for love.
She could reform him with that love-
In whatever fashion Ann was to
be the loser by this marriage. she
bettered herself economically. Don
aid 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 bar
gain than most men in the power of
their full faculties.
Ann up to the time of her mar
riage had been a sort of forewOman
in a fairly large uptown depart
ment 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 house
wife who does not have time for
the long trips to the downtown dis
tricts.
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 1t would. Donald was
not as set in his ways as he was
wild in his ways. From the very
first he began to come home roar
ing drunk two or three times a
week. The lovely home that Ann
had taken such pride in creating be-
came, the 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
while, about a year after its ar
rival, a change came about in Don
aid. He seemed humble, chastened,
deeply contrite and in love with the
mother of his lovely little daughter,
and for a brief twelve-mOnth the
pretty home became something Of
the thing Ann had dreamed it might
be.
The coming of her second child
was a period of happiness and
thanksgiving for Ann. Life assumed
a tranquility and a beauty. Don
aid, who could be very, very nice
when he was nice, was not only the
provider magnificent, but for three
months after the coming of the lit
tie boy remained a devoted husband
and father.
Then one night Donald came
home drunk.
With her heart in her mouth Ann
greeted this sudden 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 a return 10 his habits
of debauchery. There were tears
and reconciliation after that dread
full night. But something had
snapped in Donald. Not only did
the drinking continue, but Donald
became untrue and faithless to Ann
in the most flagrant sense of the
word.
Poor Ann, sometimes she was
obliged to hold her head up and
pretend not to be scared with insult
when these companions of Donald's
passed her on the very streets. of
the city in which they lived.
The next five years of her life
became a nightmare.
1t was AIMS horror, it was AIMS
humiliation to see her lovely chill
dren 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 ears.
In vain Ann sought to avoid these
scenes, preferring often to suffer
in silence than to subject her sensi-
tive little girl and boy to the gross
spectacle 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
dissipation and too little sleep.
"Why doesn't she leave him?"
said some of AIMS friends. On the
other hand, those of her more con-
servatiye relations, owing to re-
ligious 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
children, she would never have en-
dured it. If not for the indignity of
visiting upon those innocent little