Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 213, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1917 — BITTER LESSON FOR DADDY [ARTICLE]

BITTER LESSON FOR DADDY

Listening Parent Brought to Realize _>■ That the Children Must Have Their Hour of Life. Then, looking out tf of hi? bedroom window', the father saw a tableau at the gate, Pldl saying good-night to Alice, his head bent to her uplifted face. A depth of tender understanding was expressed In their attitude and expression. Well, that was the way of the world after nil. And what was it Helen had said? Something about letting them have their hour? Apparently, he’d have to; parents were helpless spectators before this nil-conjuring scheme of the universe. He’d simply have to make tip his mind to It. i ' C- -■ - He lit his old pipe again. But even that had lost Its flavor. He heard the last good-by. Then his girl called her mother to the porch. And he did not mean to be an eavesdropper, but he could not help it in the summer stillness of the night. “How’s daddy? ltonring around like a lion in his cage? Oh, you should have seen his face, mother, when he passed us. Did be tell you?” The confounded little minx had her mother’s same low, Infectious, tantalizing laugh. It was all very well until you__are_jnaEried_JtQ_lt;_then it crept in under , a man’s defenses and made him seem a poor thing after all. For a fleeting Instant Rollins sympathized with Phil. Then the talk rippled on. “I’ve told Phil that if be turns out the sort of ijusband daddy is I’ll divorce him in a month. Mother, what an angel you are to put up with his humors the way you do!” “Alice!” The assertiye mothering in the rebuke reached the ears of the man upstairs. “Your father is one of the best men that ever lived.” He heard the girl laugh again. “Oh, you! The only way anybody can get a rise out of you is to slander daddy. Dear old daddy! I love him most to pieces, but he is an old grouch. Tell me, mother, were you very, very much in love with daddy when you married him? And was he very, very much in love with you? And does it all seem so long ago? Phil and I mean to be an improvement on all the married couples we know. But, oh, dear! I’m most sick worrying because father is being so horrid about us.” It was that last quiver on the edge between a laugh and a sob that brought the man to his feet. His girl unhappy! And on account of him! Maybe Helen was unhappy, too. —People’s Home Journal.