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Show Kathleen Norris Says: So Good and So Dull Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. When Jimmy was afraid he wouldn't make the team, she kissed him and said, "You will nevt year, and mother loves you, team or no team." PERMANENT DEPRESSION A woman who gets into the habit of complaining, worrying worry-ing and sighing when she has real troubles to endure often can't change her ways when the clouds roll by. She is so used to the dark view of things that she can't realize that there is another and a brighter sid to life. Such a woman is Emma, who lives in Phoenix, Ariz. She is a capable, thrifty, dutiful duti-ful wife and mother, religious and neighborly, writes her husband. hus-band. In short, he says, she is a fine woman, by all outward standards. But she is hard to live with because of her perpetual per-petual sadness, drabness and anxiety about the future. There is an explanation for her attitude, her husband admits. ad-mits. She had to endure many hardships and face many troubles. trou-bles. All this has worn down Emma's Em-ma's spirit and has given her a permanently depressed attitude. atti-tude. Now, when she has no real worries and a chance at last for real happiness, she seems unable or unwilling to change her mental habits. By KATHLEEN NORRIS f AN'T you write some- I thing about women be- V ing just sweet?" asks a man in Phoenix, Ariz. "My wife is a fine woman," his letter let-ter continues, "but she is so darned dreary! I don't think it ever goes through her head that a man and kids get home tired, too, and that bad news and complaints are sort of discouraging dis-couraging when you first come in. "My wife looks sad all the time. We haven't had it too hard. My work is steady, I don't drink or run around nights; we have a good home and two fine kids. But Emma never cheers up. She looks us over and sighs. Bob got high marks in arithmetic this month; she shook her head and said she hoped he'd keep It up. Mary Lou hates studying and practicing and dishwashing, as all kids do, but her mother never smiles or encourages her. She just says things like 'you'll have them to do all your life. Life isn't any joke, so you might as well make up your mind to it. I don't like it any better bet-ter than you do.' If I say 'let's go to a show' she says 'and wear what? I never have any clothes.' If I say 'it's a grand night for home and the fire,' she says, 'but it's not exactly exciting for a woman who's been oooped up in the house all day.' "I began by saying Emma's a fine woman. She is. She keeps my house spotless, keeps bills down, keeps the children healthy and well-groomed. If the neighbors are in trouble she's the one who takes a turn at night-watching night-watching or mothers a baby for a few days. And she does a lot of praying, too. A Hard Life Before Marriage. "The thing is," the letter ends, "that Emma has had a hard life. Her folks were the shiftless sort, and she supported most of them off and on. Her brothers were a steady anxiety to her. During the first years of our marriage her paralyzed mother was with us. Then I had a long illness and when I recovered I went into the army as a captain. She hated being alone. When I came back she gave me a grand party and now she really hasn't much to worry about. But she can't stop fretting and worrying, and looking anxious and putting the darkest construction on everything. "You get tired of it. Youget darned tired of a person who sets her lips tight, sighs, reminds the children that we can't have what rich people have, apologizes for perfectly per-fectly good dinners and goes into gloomy abstractions when she doesn't hear anything at all. I've tried for years to shake her out of it, now I don't know what more to do. But it's not much of a prospect, pros-pect, to live with a woman who patiently pa-tiently puts up her cheek when you want to kiss her, and if you praise anything she does, begins to tell you what's wrong with her clothes, her house, the market, the pudding and your little girl's hair." This comprehensive summary pretty well describes the way some wives act. They are patient, tireless, tire-less, capable, uncomplaining to a degree de-gree that makes any man of spirit want to kill them. To live with a meek drudge, who only wants the least encouragement to break into a mild whining recital of her wrongs. Is almost the worst domestic tragedy that can befall a man. Some years ago a woman wrote me of this fault in herself. She was making everyone about her wretched, suppressing all the natural natu-ral happiness of her children and sister, because a perfectly unworthy husband had done her the great favor fa-vor to desert her. There was plenty of money and there were .four boys to raise, but the dreariness of the affront she had suffered, .added to her characteristic gloom, was too much for her. Serenity and Sweetness. I suggested that she rise above herself, always a heroic, but always al-ways a possible thing to do, and stun the family by suddenly assuming assum-ing a pose of serenity and sweetness. It would be only a pose for a while, of course, but such a pose brings such immediate results in enthusiasms enthusi-asms and joy to the household, that any sensible woman may find herself turning it into the real thing. Whether my correspondent of that day ever tried it, I don't know. But if she did she must have had many a chance for interior laughter, watching watch-ing the completely bewildered faces about her, hearing the incredulous: "What on earth's happened to Mother? Moth-er? She was laughing at breakfast. She said she loved a day like this, when she was free to get at a thousand thou-sand things she wanted to do at home here. She said I could have Bill over for supper Saturday. She said we were so fortunate to have neighbors neigh-bors like the Jacksons right next door. And when Jimmy said he was afraid he wouldn't make the team, she kissed him and said, 'You will next year, anyway. And your mother moth-er loves you, team or no team!' " A miracle like this is in the power of many a woman to perform. Overnight Over-night she can wipe away the gloomy, self-absorbed past, and emerge as the center of a happy group. The Emmas of the world, darkening the whole 'scene, are very often women who have no real troubles to face. They' have simply gotten into their heads the notion that life is a wearisome? weari-some? drag and a woman's lot especially espe-cially bleak, and they are too obtuse and unimaginative to get it out "She never cheers up." |