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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Be a Good Captain Before the Storm (Bell Syndicate WNU Service.) Mary got into such trouble when she kept her girls and boy at home that during the first unbearable summer she opened a vacation school, with beach picnics and back-yard cookery included in the course. TROUBLED SEAS With war ever creeping closer to our shores, and living expenses ruing ru-ing faster than income in many cases, Kathleen Norris warns us of future difficulties, unless we plan wisely for the future. Her examples of how others have weathered their troubles will encourage many who are now concerned about the problems prob-lems that may lie beyond. trying for commissions and Mary, with three children of grammar school age, counted up her liabilities and found herself $1,880.22 in debt. Just how she extricated herself I've told here before. First she moved to an old barn of a house in a long-deserted part of town, behind factories and warehouses, but quiet and spacious enough. Then she turned four rooms into an apartment and rented it. The nearest school was a dreary great structure swarming swarm-ing with the children of foreign-born foreign-born parents; children who had to be taught American speech, taught to take baths and use toothbrushes, tooth-brushes, taught to stop swearing. Not like her children! Opens Own School. Mary got into such trouble when she kept her girls and boy at home that during the first unbearable summer she opened a vacation school, with beach picnics and backyard back-yard cookery included In the course. In October she began regular school work with 16 paid pupils at $10 a month. That winter she enrolled 21, and the next autumn opened the school with a registration of 40. Now there are 20 boarders and about twice that many day scholars. Mary has bought the old house and the adjoining property with two houses; she has painted back walls green and planted trees. Her school will never be fashionable, but it is inexpensive, as private schools go, and it is good. And Mary licked the first depression and she knows she can lick the next, if and when it comes. In years when dismay and doubt and change were shaking domestic economy everywhere, the Casemans knew nothing but progress, prog-ress, prosperity and security. You can assure these to your own family by taking matters in hand now. For the next few years, more than at any time in our history, we will need family unity, family co-operation and family strength. We will need freedom from entangling entan-gling indebtedness and extravagance, extrava-gance, so that our hands won't be tied by yesterday's mistakes. Entire Family Must Help. We need, all of us, each other's help and confidence. Tired men must come home these days to peaceful and cheerful households, to a hundred little items of good news to make up for the waves of bad news sweeping over a troubled world. Children need lessons in unselfishness un-selfishness and self-sacrifice; these are the months when they must learn to contribute what they may to the general home atmosphere of love and service and absolute belief in the eventual victory of good. We will survive these days. But meanwhile we must throw overboard over-board everything that we may of unnecessary cluttering extravagance, extrava-gance, debt, waste, pretense, and with them their spiritual counterparts counter-parts of hate, fear, revenge, prejudice. preju-dice. So that when it comes we shall be ready for a brighter day. By KATHLEEN NORRIS THE fact 'that thousands of American women were dragging their households along in a continual contin-ual state of debt and disorganization disor-ganization was one of the supporting causes of the long depression. Now, with the conditions made by another great war upon us; supplies costing more than they did, money worth less, it might be well for every woman to get her house in order. To shorten sail and batten down the hatches before the storm. If you are in. debt, get out of it. Begin tomorrow to pay off longstanding long-standing bills by small degrees; two dollars on this one, three on that. Make a cheerful list of everything you owe, and show it to the children when they demand dimes and quarters quar-ters for movies and cones. Wear it slowly down, and while you are wearing it down cut out every possible pos-sible needless expense. Even if it means following the experience of a friend of mine years ago. Living in a quiet, respectable New York street he was once forced to hunt in desperate pain and emergency for a doctor. The family baby Had poked a firm little finger into Daddy's Dad-dy's eye, and Daddy was mad with pain and apprehension. Reducing the Overhead. The big eye specialist across the street was "at the clinic," the butler but-ler announced. So Daddy dashed three blocks to the clinic, waited 15 minutes, had his free treatment, paid five cents for a prescription, and went home cured. The office visit would have cost him just $25. A wife I know had her third baby in a hospital ward last year. For the two earlier babies hospital expenses ex-penses had averaged $100 for hospital hos-pital visit, $100 for doctor, $60 for nurse, and about $25 for presents, tips, telephone, taxis and so on. This third baby's bills came to less than $100. "It wasn't quite as comfortable," she reported. "But then a baby party par-ty isn't a picnic, anyway. Jim didn't know anything about it until he got home from a trip, so he wasn't embarrassed em-barrassed or shamed. The ward was amusing, really, and the nurses nicer than any private nurse I ever had. Meals are just the same all over the hospital. And Jim's bewildered bewil-dered face as he looked at my bills was worth seeing! Doctor $35, ward $1 a day, anesthetics and delivery room $20." If you cannot possibly lessen your debts where you are now, with rent and schooling as high as they are, and the car, radio, telephone, gardener gar-dener once a week too expensive, then move. Move to some other neighborhood. Put the children into public schools. Let the maid go and manage with a cleaning-woman once a week. Put Domestic Vessel in Shipshape. For believe me, the time is coming com-ing when you'll want your little domestic vessel to be all ready for heavy seas. If the whole family is pulling together then, children understanding un-derstanding and helpful. Dad reassured re-assured as to solvency, Mother explaining and managing everything, every-thing, then you're going triumphantly triumphant-ly to weather the storm. But if you can't manage now to keep your heads above water, you most cer-taftily cer-taftily won't be able to do It when taxation and higher prices and the strains, demands, shortages, depreciations depre-ciations of war days gather strength. Mary Caseman is a Philadelphia woman who had to face just these problems 15 years ago. The depression depres-sion struck the Casemans early, from a salary of six thousand a year John Caseman was reduced to no salary at all. He struggled along |