Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1918 — Caroline Thinks It Out [ARTICLE]

Caroline Thinks It Out

By Mona Cowles

(Copyright, 1918, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) “To get up in the morning and make your own coffee and boil your own egg and make toast for -yourself is all very well and good for a girl when she is single, but to have to do that sort of thing is quite different when one is married,” Caroline had said with a very definite air five years ago on the memorable afternoon when Horace Blair had proposed to her. “I don’t in the least mind living here in this two-room apartment now and I suppose you are quite comfortable in the boarding house, but to have to live In three or four rooms or to have to go to boarding after we are married would be really quite Impossible.” Horace fondled the hand he held and looked dejectedly at the graceful finger that Caroline had just permitted him to measure'for the engagement ring. “You are a very sensible girl, Caroline,” he said, “and I suppose you are right—” “Of course, I’m right,” she agreed. ■“At twenty I might have been foolish and romantic. Then I might have supposed that I could be happy and make you happy on my thousahd-dollar-a-year income and your salary of three thousand —” “Twenty-eight hundred.” Horace corrected with a sigh. “With an occasional picture I could sell that would come to no more than forty-five hundred.” She sighed and shook her head.

"I’m sorry, Horace, but it can’t be done. I’ve seen try to do it and —well, perhaps they are happy—but we couldn’t live the way we. do. You wouldn’t want .to try. It would mean living in a suburb somewhere with an Incompetent maid and wearing ready-made clothes —yes, I know I have to now, but I won’t always be young. At thirty I would look a mess in a ready-made suit —and we would have to keep eternally counting the money, and if we went to the theater we’d have to sit in the gallery—■” “We’ve had rather good fun that ■way, haven’t we?” Horace murmured. “Yes, Horace dear, but doing it now Is one thing and doing it then is quite another matter. You’ll thank me some time for the stand I am taking.” “Then —you mean you won’t marry me?” “Not in the least. I simply mean that I can’t marry you till our income Is doubled at least 1” Horace took out an envelope and pencil from his pocket and began to figure. “Nine* thousand —that means that I must have about seventy-five hundred.” “I’ll relent a little,” smiled Caroline. “I’ll marry you when you are making six . thousand. You Can work up to that—” “It may take five years,” sighed the unhappy suitor. - “What if it does? We love each other, and we can go on quite nicely this way. You know marriage isn’t something to be entered into emotionally." “You are a very sensible, girl,” said Horace accepting his sentence grimly. “I think I see your point of view.”

And-so it was settled and Horace and Caroline began their long engagement. There were never any quarrels —Caroline was too sensible for that and never once did she weaken from her wise decision that to make toast for yourself was one thing, but to have to do it for two was another. Even in his most impatient moods Horace had to admire the lofty ideal that Caroline maintained toward marriage. It was something that had to be undertaken on a dignified, rather grand scale or not at all. And a day or so ago Caroline Was still making her own toast and drawing an occasional picture that sold, quite content on her small income and Horace was working on patiently with the concern with which be had begun ten years ago, grimly waiting for another chance ahead that would bring him the coveted six-thousand dollar income. It did not seem then that there would be long to wait, for already he had reached the fifty-five hundred mark and he had saved enougfy to make possible the prospects of starting in life with a rather more pretentious abode than the suburban cot-, tuge that Caroline had held in such contempt. , Caroline worked at her drawing board as patiently and eagerly as ever and her ability as an illustrator had mot become impaired but owing to wnr z conditions, as the editors told her' there was less demand for her \ particular kind of talent than in years gone by. When she did get an order\lt meant a smaller check than formerly. She ■did not flinch at the economies this necessitated. Single poverty was one thing, she insisted, and married poverty another. < ' ' Then a day or so ago Horace came to spend his usual Sunday afternoon -with her but Instead of hurrying up the two flights of stairs to her apartment when he reached the house where she lived in spinster sedateness, he hesitated and Uien walked dejectedly around the block. Again he started to -enter and with a heavy sigh retracted his Steps around the block. It took considerable courage finally for him to ascend the steps he had trod so many -times and to give his accustomed fcnodt at her door.

So well did Caroline know lus every expression that It was in vain that he attempted to dissemble his depression. “I’ll have to tell you some time,” he began, when he had settled back in his favorite wicker chair with Caroline sitting opposite to him by the window. “If ever a man had reason to be discouraged Tin that man—after five years. Oh, Caroline,’it is too cruel of fate—” He buried his ‘head’ in his hands, and If he had been anything but the every incfi American man that he was he would have shed a tear or two. /' Caroline was not the young woman to put caressing arms about his neck and assure him that everything was lovely whether it was or not, and Horace liked her better because she was not She simply waited for him to tell the rest of the story. “I have to tell you, Caroline,” he said, “because I know you / Will feel the blow almost as much as I do. I am sure of your love;4f I I couldn’t endure this terrible calamity. I’m sure you’ll wait —perhaps five years more,” He winced as he thought of another long sentence of waiting. “It’s just our share of the war conditions, I suppose. The shipping tie-up has knocked our business sky-high. I’ve been hoping against hope we’d find a way out. But we’ve had to close down one of our plants—and that means that the- salaries of men at the top will have to be cut in half. If I get out and start In some other line I’ll have to begin at the bottom—every business in our line is crippled—it may mean two or three years after the war ends even before things are back on their feet.”

Caroline was still calm- “That leaves you with just about twenty-seven hundred, doesn’t it?” she asked,' and the surprising bluntness of her reply served as a bracer to Horace’s wilting spirits. “Now listen to the sequal. My income has been dwindling. My little money is all in K. and B. and that is worth about half what it was before the war. I’ve been meaning to tell you. I hated to —but I’ve got to give up the apartment. I’d do more work but there’s no market for it now.” Horace forgot his own troubles and was leaning over Caroline with two outstretched arms. “Poor, dear girl,” he said. “How you must have worried —and now comes my tale of woe—and even now you aren’t crying about it. Caroline, you’ve more pluck than any man I ever knew.” He knelt beside her, looking with Infinite tenderness and admiration into her unflinching blue eyes. “Have you thought what you are—are going to do about it?” “There’s only one thing to do,” she said slowly. “I’ll have to give up this place and I suppose you’ll have to live some place cheaper than the Hotel Bradford." “Yes, of course.” “Well, why couldn’t we both live here?” Caroline’s usually firm voice faltered a little as she made the suggestion. “You don’t mean —Caroline —how could you? You don’t mean that we can be married? Don’t you know what you said about making toast and frying eggs for two —you’ve told me so often that you couldn’t —Caroline don’t let me hope if you don’t really mean it” “I’ve thought it all out,” she said, resuming her calm manner that Horace thought the finest thing he had ever seen in any .woman. “It Is one thing for two persons to live separately on two small incomes—and It IS another thing for those two people to live together on their joint incomes. Don’t you see how simple it is. It’s just a matter of plain arithmetic. We can pay rent for one apartment Instead of for two; we can read by one light instead of two, and we don’t have to go out to the .theater and places for amusement, because we’ll be married and can just stay home. It’s such a simple solution, Horace, that I’m surprised we never thought of it before.”