Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1913 — LIKE A DUTIFUL WIFE [ARTICLE]

LIKE A DUTIFUL WIFE

. A- / - - ’ FRANCES AGREED TO DRESS TO SUIT HER HUBAY. *

But, as When Most Women Agree to Accede to Such a Request, .There Was a String Attached to 1 . the Promise. Frances glanced up from her morning orange to find Paul regarding her over his paper. It was not an uncommon- experience, but this time There was something out of the usual, a critical, almost disapproving look inhis eyes. “What Is the matter?” she asked. '“lf you must know,” said Paul, laying aside the morning paper, "I was wondering why women wear those sloppy clothes at the breakfast table!” “Sloppy nothing! This is a perfectly clean kimono!” “It may be clean, but it’s sloppy all the same. It reminds me of the darkey’s description of the fit of Dick’s shirt —‘touches no whar ’cep at de neck.’" “But, Paul, all kimoons are made like that. It’s their cut!” “Then I wish they could'.be cut out. How any nice, trim, tidy woman can be contented to wear a—a —clothes bag like that with no line or shape to it passes me! I’d a good deal rather see you come to the table in a pretty nightgown I What’s the special advantage of a kimono, anyway?” “Well, It Is so comfortable and easy to get into —” “I’ve nothing to say against your being comfortable or easy, but I should think a clever woman like you could Invent something which would be both those and yet look trig and neat and have some outline to It. Can’t it be done?” “I —suppose —so,” said Frances. “Of course, if you don’t like kimonos —” “I don’t!” “ —i’ll stop wearing them. Only a shirtwaist is so fussy to put on and this is so comfy!” “What’s the matter with taking a tuck In your kimono or a gusset or a bias or a plait or one of those things women are always putting In clothes, and making even a kimono have some fit to it. Couldn’t you do It?” “Would you really like It a lot better, Paul?” “I really would! Perhaps I’m an idiot, but I have an Ideal of my wife’s looks and that sllmpsy kimono effect Interferes with it. I don’t like to remember you in It when I’m at business.” .. "Then the kimono must go!” said Frances, firmly. “Sooner than that my lord and master should have a painful picture of me In his mind all day I’d get up an hour earlier every morning and make a grand toilette! And, than, If I want you to put on your dress clothes for dinner at any time of course I shall have no hesitation In asking you to have It, for I know you are as anxious to please me as I am to please you.”