| Show DO SMALL Sl TOWN GIRLS FIND HAPPINESS IN CITIES jm t N NIa Ia e III u j f r J Aw Now she has nothing but bat her graying hair her two fifty years her eager ealer following up of any aDY new any friend friend any new enthusiast of 01 the Village who ma may afford alford her an opening to sell seU a play pia or story atory Dy Oy KATHLEEN NORRIS MORRIS pIE problem of 01 the girl just lust T TilE out of college reduces itself very often to one simple sit She wants to getaway get getaway getaway away from home she ahe wants to go iO anywhere and do anything that has haa nothing to do with home and home duties and she knows her people dont don't want her to go Life seems dull at home in the tiresome familiar small town and Few girls are wise enough to realize that to the dull aU all things are dull and that to the finely tempered spirit spir it all life is fa thrilling They break with home if It they possibly ca can and if It the family can afford It lt and often years later they tee see that the young impatient decision de cislon was an expensive one that none of the new experiences none of the new ties compare with the theold theold theold old ones As a matter of fact one is a always al ways meeting dissatisfied women who once belonged in comfortable country homes homel with neighbors and anda a library and a mother and a dad and a garden but who now belong be long nowhere They are professional profession al stragglers and on hangers-on eternally eternally eter nally hopeful of a success eternally eternal ly Iy embarrassed for funds eternally eternal ly changing about Perhaps they have tried marriage once or twice without finding any happiness In hi it perhaps there is a child who Is kept In school boarding-school nine months a year and parked with some amiable amia amla ble bin aunt or grandparent for thelong the thelong thelong long vacation Such women talk a great deal and are volubly confident cool d dent nt that they have something Important Important Im to give the world but they rarely give It for the simple reason that they haven't got It to give Molly MoUy Kent is such a woman She is essentially town small in type as indeed most of us perhaps us-perhaps perhaps all of or ofus ofus orus us are That is she likes a circle of intimate and admiring friends likes an o occasional party likes good meals and sunshine and holidays at atthe atthe atthe the shore and would like a ago go good d husband She has hac none roone of ofU U these se things They all aU existed in her home town when she left it thirty thin thir ty years ago they're aU nU there still with considerable augmentations inthe in inthe the way way of ele electric stoves movies motorcars motor radios circulating li II li libraries I bra des and so EO on But Molly isn't there to enjoy them She graduated with considerable dash and almost immediately had bad the the he flattering opportunity to refuse in marriage one of the town richest richest rich est eat young oung men Molly l hadn't a penny pen ny fly herself so we were aU all impressed impressed im pressed with Ith the fact tact that she was unusual Her father was WaSa a minister whose parishioners were presently convinced con vinced by MoUy Molly herself for she ahe never lacked incited seU self confidence that was much too small for her They l ey collected a purse of or three hundred dollars and MoUy bought a thirty dollar tourist ticket and was of off for New York For a year or two she occasionally wrote them she never came back She was an only child and they were a gentle affectionate couple the minister and his wile wife It would seem that they might have had some of the joy and pride of parenthood parenthood parent hood after her eighteenth year But Dut t they both died without ever seeing Molly MoUy again Three years lears later MoUy Molly came u up p to me in a little restaurant called calls d the Dutch Kitchen in New Yorks York's Bohemian quarter She was waa coarsened coars coarl ened reed and end hardened outside but un tm she was the tame same smalltown small town Molly MoUy giggling and breathless s over the great folk folic she was Wll meeting meet ing the geniuses who let h her r ten lend d them small turns soma of money She had a job hi In n a department store a aJob ajob job over which she made merry b because be be- cause awe it was wan al so ridiculously practical cal eal but a a job which fed her and he her friends nevertheless She lived with witha a Russian girl named Tora wh who often had men in the cluttered un uncomfortable uncomfortable cor comfortable bedroom U Ls the afternoons after MoU Molly MoUy would come home hom e exhausted on bargain nights frights to fin find d a cocktail party In m progress a gas gas- collector waiting at al the door I For or or twenty five twenty twenty- five years yearn lears Molly ba has haa s been beeD dashing around the same dingy streets of the same name city dry lie Her lIer r room loom is deep between the great gees shafts shan of enormous buildings an and c d gets ceu no sun nun It is Pa bitterly cold cok d from November to W March and in in- sufferable in July and August Molly Mol Mel ly sleeps in ba vt Inter with an old furI fur coat t wrapped about her ber and in I summer lummer she teUs tells me goes down with the Ute crowd to Coney and sits on the beach talking aU all night She has tried marriage twice failed tailed twice One good look at each husband explains the failures bythe by bythe bythe the way She had a little girl about whom she said she was crazy and andI I believe belleve It was as deep a love as her strange restless heart ever was to know but Joan died Now she has nothing but her graying hair her two fifty years her eager following up of or any new friend- friend any new enthusiast of the VII Vil Village lage who may afford her an opening open open- opening ing Ina to seU sell a play or story get into a dramatic production work onstage on onstage onstage stage sets or costume do anything go anywhere Last year she told me In hi gales of triumphant laughter that she and some of her pals had gone up to th the Garden one night during the circus engagement and ridden round the ring on the elephants ele ele- We do the craziest things exulted MoUy Molly Well at twenty it is rather fun to get in with the Ute circus people and ride on the elephants Years Year ago it was quite the smart aid d rakish thing to do and society i ent In hi forIt for forIt forit it one wonders now exactly why I remember one clean and sweet and beautiful woman who suffered bitter bitter bit bit- ter pangs of humiliation and wept long and loud because after after arter she had gotten herself herselt Into the Ute hot smelly lined and Interlined c costume of or the Queen of Sheba the circus manager decided that the big elephant elephant ele was too much excited that night and that one of the men should ride him That a woman of fifty who has known disillusionment in marriage and the heartbreak of losing a achild achild achild child who can remember halt half a century of living suffering workIng workIng work work- Ing still sUU feels that this is a great lark is only to prove once again that Molly's mind and spirit never have been keyed to big things things that that she never belonged anywhere but at home in the cottage with the Ute ye yellow yel low and the Dorothy Perkins Per kins foaming over it like a tide of color ever spring with the cool green ocean only a afew few miles s away and with Jim Bates mad to marry marry mar ry rl her And the moral of or all this as the Duchess would say is that while ItIs it itis itis is right and natural for c ci ildren to want to break free and try their own wings whigs and right and generous for parents to make it possible for them to do so the girl who is not smart enough to learn within six months or a year at nt least that she doesn't belong in the wider environment environment environ environ- ment that she Is going to be a fifth firth rate on hanger-on all her days ends by belonging nowhere As the wife of one of or the towns town's fine tine men as the proud mother o oa of or ofa f a line of children as ns her own mothers mothers mother's mothers mother's moth moth- I. I ers er's good daughter an Influence hi In hithe I the Ute club in hi the Ute charitable organizations organizations I of her church Molly Kent Ken t might have had her occasional m moments mo mo- o ments of unrest it is true Sh She I might have wondered if It her life Ufe wa was going to be nothing but cribs an and d bottles having the piano tuned and an d sending home strawberries for din ner Women usually find this home program pretty filling but she might have been the Ute exception exception- the Ute woman whose thoughts do occasionally occa stray to a more mure exciting g sphere But even so the hours o of f happiness and content would outweigh outweigh out weigh the Ute other oUter hours by hundreds A few months ago I went bar back k for another visit to Littletown I It t was very sweet In hi spring beauty o of f and iris and roses eve even n the shabbiest houses were wreathed wreathe d la In A glory The old Bates house balconied bal bat coaled and windowed bay has un on un some changes Lucia Bates Bate s she she was waa Jima Jim's fathers father's secretor secretary y for six Ix drab years yearn has six almost almost- grown children Theres There's a swimming swim mini ming pool now beside the Ute tennis court and several sleeping porches Lucia is to a quiet woman but she Is s no fool tool She went to Washington last year to represent a hospital organization she is local head of the Ute Girl Scouts She takes long long- legged boys and red red headed headed girls off oft for weeks at beaches she goes goel down to San Francisco for opera week she he belongs to a reading dub club Nothing sensational But in all I truth she gets ieta more real living real feeling and serving nerving and end loving out of one day than Molly Kent gets leU out of a year ear O 0 IkU aeu I I |
