The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1940-03-08
By KATHLEEN NORRIS

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n else was just little different.
Usually it is several someone's else
who make the trouble.
Her mother-in-law, her children's
teacher, her kitchen assistant, her
friends at the club all fail her in
various small ways. She spends a
good deal of time wishing they
would see things as she does.
AS for the husband and the chill
dren; well, their faults keep her
nervous and fretful. She spends
countless hours in trying to make
herself beautiful, but she forgets the
worried little frown that is perma-
nently between her eyes. She wants
to be considered woman of Gull
ture, woman other women envy,
admire and secretly copy, but she
never thinks of the tones of her
rasping, critical, dissatisfied voice.
In New York bus the other day
I sat next to a well-dressed woman
of perhaps 35 or little less; she
had met a friend and she was tell
ing the friend all about matters at
home.
''My dear, when you have a hus-
band who sleeps until the very last
moment" she began, "and then
rushes through breakfast, nothing
you can say affects him! scold
until even the boys are taking
Georges part, but what good does
it do? He simply goes on scram-
bling through the paper. The chill
dren stop eating, of course, and
then their breakfasts are cold. Per-
haps some women can get their
children to concentrate on eating
when they're at the table; I never
can. Who are they with this morn
ing? Oh, his mother. I never leave
them with Carry, she has beau and
her one idea is to keep her hair
curled and one ear on the tele-
phone. Not that she ever gets a
message of mine straight.
Georges mother is a darling and
the children adore her. But she is
a real farmers wife, and she drops
all her 'g's' and says she's goin' to
lay down, and the children pick up
her expressions, Of course. She
spoils them, too. Junior always cries
to 60 back with grandma when she
goes.
A Stupid Day Ahead.
''Where am I going? Well, I've
got the stupidest day ahead Of me
that you can imagine. In the first
place I'm taking that hat back. I
left the tag in, but you know how
they are about changing hat. Then
I'm going to the Lost and Found bu-
reau, I'm still convinced ! left that
purse at the glove counter. After
ward the dentist; my filling came
out. do think they could put in
filings that would stick, and I'm
going to tell him so. Then Larry's
shoes, he goes through a pair about
every six weeks, and then I pick up
George. He was to have the car
fixed and he didn't-trust Georgei-
so we have to 60 out to the club
with the Greenwoods; and even if
she was my bridesmaid, that giggle
of Harriet's simply gets me down. !
ought to have had my hair done. I'm
a sight"
We had reached her corner; I
heard no more. But ! had heard
enough to know that living with this
woman, despite her pleasant appear
ance, and her evident devotion to
home. husband and children. would
be heavy going. She wanted every
one to change, apparently it never
occurred to her that she herself is
the one who should change.
She never really has faced the
fact that her husband, being a hui
man being, has minor faults. He is
late; he is hurried; he is negligent.
If he wasn't these things he might
be a martinez who fretted her to
death about details and hammered