Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1917 — SISTER ANN BUTTS IN [ARTICLE]

SISTER ANN BUTTS IN

By LOUISE OLIVER.

“It was all because Bert asked me how much a pound of sirloin steak costs,” Tad confided to Sister Aup. "And I said that I didn’t know Just how much a pound it was, though I did know that the steak>we had for dinner cost Just one dollar and three cents. He didn’t in the least mind our having expensive steak. In fact, I have it because he likes it. But he wanted me to know Just how much a pound It was. And then he asked me how much lamb was, and I said I didn’t know, though I know Just how much the Joint we had on Sunday cost. And then —” but here Tad’s tear# got the better of her and she leaned on Sister Annis broad young shoulders and shook with sobs. "And then and then he said that —he said that if most men ran their businesses as carelessly as women run their homes they would oil be ruined. Oh, how could he, Ann?” Ann had gone to her brother’s little bungalow after a frantic appeal from her sister-in-law. Tad. ‘Tm In such trouble,” she said, “and I know you can help me out” “But I don’t like to butt in,” protested Ann, who, in spite of the fact that she was fonr years younger than Tad, was looked upon—-perhaps because she was tall and broad-shoulder-ed and level headed —as the natural arbiter of all Tad’s marital difficulties. “I don’t like to butt in, and dear knows I don’t know anything about managing husbands.” "But what am I going to do?” wailed Tad. “Bert has been your brother longer than he has been my husband. You must know how to manage him.” Sister Ann paused for a moment _ “Nerves,” she said at length with the decision of a specialist arriving at a difficult diagnosis. “Both got nerves. What you need is a change. Get your mother to ask you to visit her for a while. Change would do you both good.” “But suppose when I come back Bert Is Just as stubborn as ever. Suppose be still thinks that about the way women run their houses?”

“Leave that to me,” easily promised Ann. “I’m not afraid of Bert—because we aren’t in love with each other, I suppose. Tell him tonight you are going, and if he says anything more about housekeeping Just smile and pretend to be preoccupied with your going away plans.” So Tad went away. Sister Ami found her brother Bert at the office the day after Tad’s departure. “What are you looking so mopie about?” she greeted him, in spite of his cheerful smile. “Mopie, mopie,” wondered Bert. “Oh, maybe it’s ’cause Tad’s gone, though, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t sorry to see her go—needs a change, I gfuess.” 1 “Oh, has Tad gone' to the shore? Where you going to live?” "Martha, the cook, is staying,” explained Bert “I guess we can manage.” “Goodness, can you afford that sort of thing?” asked Ann. "Cook# are always wasteful When you leave them their own devices.”

“Oh, are they?” queried Bert, mildly interested. “WeU, we’ll see.” “But what I came in for is this: I want a job—want to earn some money all my own. Can’t yon squeeze me In here somewhere? Til do anything for fifteen dollars a week, and I’ll bet inside of a week I could be worth three times that amount to you right here.” Bert smiled, but be was used to taking his sister at her word. “How’d you know how to run a broker’s office?” ‘Td just apply a little good housekeeping, I’d keep my eyes open for one /hing. I was just looking in the waste baskets as I was waiting in the outer office to see yon. Why, there was enough paper thrown away there by carelessness to last a stenographer a week. It’s Just that men don’t notice those things, I suppose. And the way the stenographers waste pencils! £ was watching them sharpen some. They didn’t look what they were doing, and of course they didn’t care. But paper is up and so are pencils, and still the waste goes on. Do you know, Bert, I sometimes think if most women ran their houses as extravagantly as most men run their businesses they’d land their husbands in the poorhouse.” Of course, Bert, whose ambition to gain money by saving it as well as by making It was well developed, accepted his clever young sister’s proposition, and within a few weeks he agreed with her that she had saved three times hor sahirF. “Long, head you’ve got, Ann.” said Bert, and Ann simply smiled aftd said “JusT a little good housekeeping. Any woman wonld think of those things if she was given free rein. By the way, when Is Tad coming back?? “Heaven knows." Bert was decidedly dejected. “I’ve asked her to come home thlsweek. Let alone being lone-

some as Robinson Crusoe, Fm spending a fortune keeping bouse without her. Wonder If you’ll take a regular job here as economy expert at, say. thirty-five dollars a week to begin withr “Perhaps.” called back Sister Ann, who was on her way to her desk towrite the telegram that would bring Tad back on the next train. (Copyright. 'g y^,?c^£ < ' ,ure New *®* k - Puttlng Spirit Into the dame. Redd— l told him he ought to pot more spirit into the golf game. Green—And did he? Redd—Sure. He takes four “hookerr* now before he starts playing. »•