Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1910 — CAUSES AND CAUSES [ARTICLE]

CAUSES AND CAUSES

Woman Did Not Believe 11 n-band* to Blame for All Divorce*. “I'm not saying that all husbands are angels—l haven't lost my mind,” — said Miss Maria Foote, as she sat entertaining a friend in the front room of her own neat little apartment, “but you don’t hear me proclaiming any more that they are to blame for all the divorces. I know one thing. If I were a man, and had accidentally got myself married to Lilian Barnes ” “Lilian Barnes! Not the brilliant Lilian we knew at college? What about her*”"--,; “Haven’t I told you? She looked me up last summer, and found me on my back in bed in the next room there, without even a maid in my kitchen; so what did she do but insist on staying to take care of me.” “That was good in her.” “It certainly was—but it broadened my horizon. She sailed in here, su-perb-looking as ever, dropped jjer bat and gloves and veil and purse on that tea table, and there they tey among the cups and saucers as long as she stayed—five days. She wore my wrapper and slippers—and her shoes stood in the middle of this floor, where she first stepped out of them. Yes, I mean day in and day out. She Blept on the couch here, to be near me. When she got up in the morning, she .threw back the bedding to air—and there it stayed in a rumpled heap all day, never even smoothed up once. —* . “The bottles she gave me medicine from were all tucked under the edge of my bed on the floor—and this mantel! Everything you can Imagine was piled on it, from a brush and comb and curling iron to a fever thermometer left out of its case. No, not because she was so busy taking care ot me. She had time to sit and read by the hour.” “That fascinating Lilian! Who’d have dreamed it!”

I “And the worst was that my dapper doctor came every day, and never j could -find a spot to sit down. There was always a towel or sheet or something trailing over every chair. Mortified! Yes, but something funny bapepned. One day I was lying here, I thinking what a splendid mind she had, and remembering how I always used to suppose she was a lady of quality clear through, when suddenly she made up her mind that I needed and sat right down in the midst of the muss to read to me. It happened that the first thing she found was an anecdote about a son asking his mother to congratulate him | because he was going to marry the sweetest, most unselfish, angelic girl in the world! and- the mother Just lookA ,dat him compassionately, and answered, ‘My poor boy!’ “Well, I began to laugh—couldn’t stop—and Lillian said I was too weak for jokes; they made me hysterical. At that I let myself go, and laughed harder than ever. It just saved me for the time being—and next day_she had to go.” j “You poor thing! Who took care , of you then?” j “Just a plain, neat, common Swedj ish girl—bleps her heart! But right then, while I was getting over Lilian, I made up my mind that when it comes to the question of divorce, there are causes and causes." —Youth’s Companlon. ■ .