Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1912 — Wanted- Ideal Husband Standard [ARTICLE]

Wanted- Ideal Husband Standard

EVERY WOMAN CARRIES In her head- a certain definite standard of iumg of -a pettieoat, the flavoring of a plum pudding or the length of a social call, which never changes. She uses the yardstick, the scales, the measuring cup and the hour glass, and is exact and to be depended upon in her ideals in every relation of life w’th one exception: Man! It is impossible for him to be so mixed and measured and weighed that he is today what she yesterday wanted him to be. Do you deny it, sisters? Then gather, around the platform and behold the two men there—Oscar C. FeuUert, who is paying rent at No. 1527 Park avenue and can’t get in, and James Eagle, who pays rent on an apartment at No. 499 West One Hundred and Thirty-fifth street, and for twen-ty-six hours couldn’t .get out. Both have wives, alas and alas again, and both wives agree on patterns for clothes and recipes for puddings, but one husband was locked out for trying to get in, and the other was tied in for trying to get out. Sisters, you must get together and draw up a set of weights and measurements for ideal hsubands before your changeable notions cause every man in the world to gb spinning around and around like a mad. dervish and, perhaps, if history Were investigated with the fine tooth comb and microscope and every finding carefully Investigated, it would be found that this changing standard of the Ideal in man is what the dervish got mad .about. > Anyway, it is enough to make any man clap his hands to his head and begin to whirl. Oscar Feullert, who had been raised on the theory that to be an ideal husband a man must love his home, went to his home as regularly as his employer and the street cars would let him, and one day when he arrived there, filled to the brim with pride because he is a home-loving man, he found his key wouldn’t fit the lock on the door of his apartment This has happened te many husbands many times and at hours when their employers and the .street railways were not to blame—but Feullert was not that kind of a husband. It was not his habits that had changed, but the lock! Mrs. Feullert had grown tired of having her husband come home faithfully and regularly and had changed the lock anl refused to change his key. Perhaps in these days of untrammeled freedom for women she had her rights, but how about him? He had lived up to what he believed was her ideal of a perfect husband and found when he had reached the heights that her ideal had changed! The other man bn the platform, staters, Is named James Eagle, and-hav-ing such a name who but a woman could blame him for occasionally trying to soar? Like an ideal husband he told his wife of his intentions and never sneaked out of the house when she was absorbed In a novel or the looking glass; he always said to her boldly and, as befits the brave/ “F am going out this evening,” and perhaps, who knows, he may have given her a farewell peck on the lips, and urged her not to sit up for him. At noon, Tuesday, he announced he was going out in the evening, and then took the nap so needful te those who occasionally stay out-till the owls come home, and while he slept his wife grew very, very bu»y. out an injunction the length of the wash line, and she wtat around and around the doors of his bedroom till she had him all bound 'round with a hemp rope, and when he awoke he couldn’t get-out. and for twenty-nine hours he couldn’t get out. She didn't even grant him the privilege of postponing the little engagement that awaited him; she didn’t give him a chance to be the, perfect gentleman he desired to be. She kept him in and the clock hand went around and around and when it was eating time, she handed samples of her best cooking over the fanlight, and all that made her triumph lees was that there were no women there to see. She even refused to let their son call a policeman to rescue him, though he offered to give that son nine dollar* It was a splendid chance to lecture the boy on the crime of bribe-taking, and she improved it, and the hands of the clock went round some more. When .the time came to liberate her bird of freedom she sent for an officer herself, and her husband walked out of their home and has not returned. And there they are! Look at them, sisters dear. Two victims of your feminine changeableness: One man wandering the earth because he can’t get a key to fit the lock on his own door, and the other fleeing, always fleeing, with a spectre behind, and that spectre trailing a clothesline. If Feullert and Eagle are tired of the humdrum business lives they lead, a great opportunity awaits them. They can appear in vaudeville as the Twin Victims (or Twine Victim suits Eagle just as well), and toll the sad story of what happens to man when he has become a husband. If the wives have grown weary of the round of beating eggs and rugs the lecture platform awaits them: Just why one husband failed to suit who wanted to dome home, and the other failed to please because he wanted to leave it, will be interesting to students of human nature. ' > Who knows what great benefits might accrue? The woman whose pudding rises too high and the wo? man whose pudding falls dat finally agree on the exact amount of baking powder and a perfect pudding results. ( The men are nothing more than the ingredients. It la the fault of the women with their varying notions about the measuring eup that makes the trouble. Let them get together, and after hearing these two wives tell their •twvstandard for an