The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1940-03-07

all happiness out of his children's
lives.
She doesn't know that all elderly
women, unless they are social auto
mata, get trife slipshod in gram
mar as well as in house shoes, and
that spelling grandchildren is one
of the legitimate rewards of a moth
er's life.
She Is the Real Pest.
She won't concede that "gen-
eral" servant, a young creature who
washes dishes and sweeps floors and
answers the door and the telephone,
has right to be pretty and to en-
courage a sweetheart, and that if
this girl was the mental force that
her employer evidently expects her
to be she wouldn't be working in
anyone's kitchen.
The little flaws of dentist, sales
woman, old friend, the loss of
purse, the delay in repairing a car,
the sturdy wear a small boy gives
his shoes-all these and thousand
other matters she exaggerates into
serious troubles; her shrill complain
ing voice makes so much of them
that In the end she herself becomes
much more of pest than any of
these annoyances, or all of them
put together.
Seeing her go off on her compla-
cent, competent way; pretty and
brisk and with head full of plans
and purse full of money, I won
dered what sort of drilling through
marble it would take to convince her
that she herself is the person to
change; that little common sense
and self-control on her part would
make the difference between dark
and dawn to husband, mother-in-
law, house-maid, sons and friends.
What an amazing surprise for them
if suddenly Jean became an altered
woman! If lenience and good nature
took the place of that eternal criti-
cism and impotence. If the nerv-
Gus comments stopped, and an ami
able tendency to live and let live
took their place. If Jean began SIM
ply to make allowances for Carry's
young vanities and giddiness, for
Juniors stamping little feet, for
Georges Observation-Disclosures, for
grandma's indulgences to the adored
grandsons.
Husbands Won't Change.
For husbands will continue to gulp
breakfast to the end of time. Den
lists will sometimes insert filings
that don't stay in. Friends will gig
gle, or develop some other trying
trait. Maids will decline to become
deeply and passionately absorbed in
the welfare of the family that is pay
ing them S35 a month, to the exclu-
sion of all other interests. Purses
and rings and tickets will get lost;
repairs on the car will take longer
than the garage man originally sus-
pected.
Why not take all these things as
the inevitable little roughnesses of
living In the complicated and i'm
PCl1CCL WO1A0 VI tOody. Lie dSIOQ-
ishing thing is that matters aren't
infinitely worse. It's only the very
fortunate women of the world who
can afford to carp at these trifes.
For the more real and the more
desperate our troubles grow, the
more silent and heroic we women
become.
Women In war zones are silent,
philosophical. They starve; they mi
CRATE; they see their loved ones and
their loved homes destroyed; and
they make no audible complaint.
Chinese women are the most silent
of Gods creatures. Generations ago
their rulers chopped down all the
trees of their country; drained their
mines. Now they have no shade;
the floods and the famines have
their way. They laugh as they
search about for the odds and ends
of food that must somehow sustain
them and their children. And the
last thing they would do is worry.