The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1941-04-04
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
(Bell syndicate-WNU Service

w TOMEN are much more
! w generous to each other
v than they used to be, the
old "catty" femininity has gone
pretty well out of fashion, and
still the very hardest thing for a
woman to do is to admit that
another woman is more attrac-
tive than she is. You never hear
a woman say: "Well, to tell you
the truth, she is really nicer
than I am. She has better man.
ners and more charm. People
like her better"
Of course men don't admit
this of other men, either, but I
am writing Of women at the
moment.
| If a girl wins away another girls
| beau, the second girl never con-
cedes that the first girl is anything
but designing and fiatterer and
/ two-faced and INSCRIPTIONS. That
| is human mature; unless we may
console ourselves that the vampire
is thoroughly INSCRIPTIONS crea-
ture, we have to admit that we our
selves are rather second rate.
And yet. some wives really ARE
second rate, they really are whining
and stupid and unattractive, and
man might reasonably turn from
them to the friend in whom he finds
sympathy and gentleness and affec-
ton. Just because man marries
a woman at 20, when she is sweet
and fresh and laughing and devot-
ed to him and his plans, doesn't
mean that he is going to adore her
IA years later, when she has lost
all bloom and charm, when her
voice is discontinued and her house
keeping disgraceful. E
% Sally's Problem.
The problem of the woman am
going to call Sally Waters has some
thing to do with this situation; Sally
Is 81 now, and hers is a real tragedy,
sadder perhaps even than death.
This is part Of the letter.
"Paul and were married when
was % and he two years older.
had a good job teaching and for q
year I kept it. Then his anxiety
for d real home with a wife in it,
and a child, persuaded me to stop
work, and a year later Jean was
born. Money was rather scarce at
the time and the baby was delicate;
had hard year or two, when
Paul, who never paid the slightest
attention to the child or helped me
in any way with the housework,
was wasting most of his evenings
with a crowd at the club, and COM
ing home so late that he was ex-
hausted in the mornings and was
continually losing jobs.
"When Jean was two, he suddenly
discovered that he adored his daugh-
ter, but by that time was thorough
ly discouraged. I was offered the
job of house manager in a home
for defective children at a good
salary, and Paul and I were di-
vorced. He went to live with his
mother, who came twice to me aft
erward to help her get him a job,
which I gladly did. The arrange
ment was that they should have
Jean for two months a year, pure
generosity on my part, for I could
have asked different terms. Paul,
without a job and with a bad record
of intemperance was not in a posi-
ton to question anything. At that
time his father, a most exacting in
valid, was living.
Daughter Wants to Leave.
81 managed my job and my child,
keeping a little girl to watch her in
business hours, and stealing every
minute could to be with her. She
grew lovelier and lovelier, and at
about six, her invalid grandfather
having died, began to spend sum-
mer vacations with her grandmoth-