Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 251, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1911 — The GENEVIEVES I KNOW Also their Jamies [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The GENEVIEVES I KNOW Also their Jamies

By HELEN HELP

The Genevieve Who Took a Boy to Raise

Genevieve was a charming woman. She was, in fact, a charming widow, and that Is very Important indeed. James was as nice a young man as ever executed a clean shave with a safety razor or fretted about the way his trousers were pressed. Though, for the matter of that, James was no ladles’ man either, and not more In love with himself than a young man has a right to be. Genevieve was not only charming; ■he was also several years old. Not an impolite number of course; but more Junes had slipped by her than had cast their roses upon the head of James. She had just about enough money to take lovely care of herself; but she also had to take lovely care of her daughter, who fulfilled to the letter that old, but true saying used by the wise Latin people about “Mater pulchra, Alia pulchrlor,” which, being translated, means that mamma used to be aa good looking as daughter is now. Daughter was sixteen and in a boarding school. James met Genevieve at a dinner, where she was looking lovely, and where he was so happy as to take her in. She was lovely. Her hair was very soft and almost a true corn yellow, and that shade of hair is the easiest thing in the world to keep from turning gray. All a wise woman needs is per— well, never mind what. AH she needs is to take it in time, and ft will never fade at all. Genevieve’s hair was not at all artificial; and her eyes were as blue as could be and had a natural baby-etare that many younger women would have given all their beautiful switches to own. Young Jennie was taller by two inches and her hair was smooth and black and shining. But she was at school. James fell head over heels in love with Genevieve. He was wonderfully good to look at himself, being an athlete and carrying himself with a ■wing and a swagger to his shoulders that spoke of pure, physical arrogance.

Hi* disposition was not arrogant, but ▼ery kind, and so gentle that a lady might lead him. And she did. Genevieve looked at James and thought to herself, “He is a most inconvenient age—just too young for me and just too old for Jennie. I suppose I had better not have him about." But she was not consulte;d because James came calling the very next afternoon in his touring car. And he entered with diffidence tn bls manner and worship In his big. black eyes. Genevieve saw the diffidence and resolutely declined to see the worship. James said, "Do come out for a drive and find out how the spring feels. I am sure you are pale for the need of fresh air." And Genevieve said, “I am always pale, but it is very kind of you, and I shall be charmed.” So she and James motored all that afternoon and James had never had auch a good time in all his life. He had little experience with women, this nice James. James came around the next afterfroon, and then the next. The third time Genevieve was not at home. She gras, in fact, holding a serious conversation with herself. She was saying that James was much too young for her. Of course, anybody knows what that leads to. She could make him happier thin any mere girl—she knew Men, and an unhappy marriage would cause her to appreciate a happy marWhen she doubted about Young Jawif w to bow this would be after • while for him—"He wants me—just she whispered to her doubts and '"dtMhsd them out of sight. Though afr* knew perfectly well the Jook that ■WMM some infertile faces of her friends wbee James was kidnaped, •st She would not think of that, beeaose Gerevfeve was doing that thing

for which people always laugh so at a woman—she was falling headlong in love with a man her junior—twelve years, to be exact. And when she was fifty—which would not be for a long, long time, she told herself—her husband would be just thirty-eight James spoke near the end of a summer of outdoor recreation which had made him neglect his business and reduced her wardrobe to one evening frock and a house dress or two. And when he did speak, she put her two little hands into his and let him gather her right to that throbbing young heart of his. Genevieve felt guilty about not having Jennie to the wedding, which took place in October. But Jennie had visited friends in the west all vacation, and had lost a week of the opening, so she was working vety hard, her teacher said. So Genevieve just wrote and told her; and Jennie was a little hurt and felt that mamma had acted rather rashly without consulting her, and wrote and told her so. Jennie was a capable young woman. James was very happy at the time. Even when she took her hair down, Genevieve was still charming, and that is a test which no woman past thirty likes to meet, unless her husband is a perfectly well-trained husband, and used to her anyway. About Christmas Jennie came home for the holidays. Jennie was now seventeen; and when she was introduced to her stepfather, her new ste> father nearly had a fit. She was as tall as he, and looked old enough to be married herself. When this happens in stories, it is only up to the point of the young man being engaged to the mother of the grownup daughter. Then his father, who has known the mother in his youth, always comes along and rescues his boy at the cost of an Illusion or two. But James was not in the rescuable stage. He was married. That Christmas a college friend of Genevieve came to call on her; and he was stout and bald and had a tall son with him who was in business with his father. Of course, father had married very young.

Then Genevieve had a letter from a girl friend of her youth. “Dear Genevieve,” wrote Kate, “I am to be in your city soon and would so love to see you in your home.” Of course, Kate was invited to see Genevieve in her home. Kate was a bit older than Genevieve, to begin with, and she weighed two hundred. James, tn his anguish of soul, groaned that she was a hundred and weighed three. But one must make allowances. Kate was introduced to James, and she looked down at him—he was so ridiculously young anyway—and then she said, “Why, Genevieve, what a nice boy he is! Just about my Wllyum’s age”—though, goodness knows, Wllyum was five years younger. And then she said, “I am just going to give him a kiss for Wilyum’s sake.” And she did. But James and Genevieve were married. And after a while Jennie had a dear little sister; and she was very vexed about it Now, in this household there are two young people, an old person and a baby. But somehow they are not mated properly. James does not fall in love ■with Jennie. He is a nice man, and he Is sick of falling tn love anyway. And Jennie does not become the victim of a secret passion for her step-papa; because Jennie is a nice girl, and, besides, as things stand, falling In love looks a mighty poor business to Jennie. But to say that they do not feel the Incongruity of their positions would be a dreadful story. However, any incongruity that those two young things feel is a joke, the merest piffle and persiflage to what Genevieve feels. And the other day, when she was out walking with her oldest daughter and her youngest daughter, both of whom are beautiful, they met a gay party of ladles, one of whom exclaimed In an audible voice, “The little girl looks far more like her grandmother than her mother, doesn’t shot” (Copyright, by Associated Literary Press.)

"She Let Him Gather Her to His Heart".