Show KATHLEEN NORRIS must she fret over trivialities liell bell syndicate rea feature tures by KATHLEEN NORRIS Is a fault and a WORRYING habit it is also stupid but of this faulty stupid habit many women make a virtue they are proud of their worrying it nearly drives everyone mad but they are meekly resignedly proud of it take the wife of the man who writes the following letter he jim Is 40 his wife Is 36 these are wonderful ages the very crea cream in of life but for rose the cream Is curdled the girls and I 1 love mama writes jim or rather typewrites typewriters type writes on paper that shows he la is the head of a wood and coal business weve got everything we want a nice home friends and were all normal people no sickness of body or mind so what can keep a sensible woman like rose fretting and worrying nagging and complaining pla ining to Is more than I 1 can see she says her mother was a great worrier and says it as it if it were something rather fine others dont fuss but what she know jim adds is that a man is apt to meet other women who dont make such a darned fuss about everything my agent in a nearby near by town is in a young war widow and is just a streak of sunshine nothing worries her shell fix a little meal up in the office shell laugh it f anything goes wrong ashes sure wall come out right and all clear up and its a pleasure to be with her she ashes got a boy of five and the way she handles that little fellow Is a pleasure to see they laugh together like a couple of kids at home rose begins nagging wh when en I 1 arrive and stop until I 1 leave the next morning our girls are only nine and five but already they are beginning to ignore her criticisms their clothes 1 ACT U 41 the be cream is curdled their health our financial status the weather the people she sees and want to see and the ones she wants to see who nho dont come my manners if im too cordial my manners if im too cool my fam ilys treatment of her when she was a bride 12 years ago theres no end to fo it if I 1 get in a helper the girl eirl wastes everything and clean if I 1 dont get her anyone hes halt dead with work and all the time ashes capable and hardworking and economical and would die tor for any one of us the letter continues but she sure does make life a burden for herself and everyone else criticizes ills his driving then theres my driving she loans leans over from tho the back seat scat and watches the road like a eat cat and there le a chicken or of a red light or a truck that she see way ahead it gets a man nervous the whole thing gets you down this rose of jimmys sounds bounds to me like a too well known type there any advice or alon that will reach such a woman she Is too entrenched in her own conviction and righteousness her defense de would be that jim my la Is careless i that there are many accidents that someone has to watch the family safety and sanity that people would be wasting money and getting sick and spotting their lothes clothes and leaving lights burning and running into traffic it if she on guard she would argue that she kept a perfect house never rested day or night had to assume responsibility because no one else would and altogether considered herself pretty nearly the perfect wife and mother no you cant reach the worriers complainers and naggers with even the gentlest criticism they are letter perfect and they would laugh at the idea that households need the spirit as well as the letter the letter says the wisest book in the world kelleth kil letb leth but in the spirit is eternal life what might reach roses impregnable fortress of perfection is the hint of the other woman in jims letter the other woman in his branch office in a neighboring town the woman who is simple and cheerful and philosophical grief and change already have struck at this woman she to is one of hundreds who were widowed in the war years she be had d a child to pr protect she had her living to make and still she is happy and self reliant and free from the swarms of mosquito cares that beset the more fortunate rose jim sound the kind of man who raises arguments ge gets ts into domestic quarrels easily but any man is the sort that just gets deadly deadly tired of constant nagging reminders that everything is all wrong lots of things are worrisome today but the things that make rose and so many other women as destructive as termites to the walls of home are not these big world problems no with them it is the weather and that the kit nen len clock stopped an and dother i other trivia of that sort to the number of thousands |