OCR Text |
Show KATHLEEN NORRIS Adopted Daughter-Love Hazard mtitHEN our daughter Eileen was two years old we adopted another an-other child," writes John Young, from Kansas City. "Florelle was then 10, the child of a very poor family who had acted as nurse and sitter for our baby, and of whom we had grown very fond. When my business busi-ness moved from Albany to Kansas we could not part with her, and took legal steps to make her our own. As younger children came along, this affectionate big sister was a Godsend; we now have another an-other daughter, now 4, and a boy of 2. Kissless Wife My wife is a reserved woman, not demonstrative. I think she has never kissed me of her own accord, in all our married years. She manages man-ages the children superbly, and is economical, capable and active in social affairs. But she regards emotional emo-tional demonstrations of affection as rather distasteful. Eileen, now 10, is also a cool and unresponsive child, though brilliant and pretty. "My trouble is Florelle, my adopted daughter. She is radically different. She is now nearly 18, although to me she still seems the gipsy child we found ten years ago. She rushes to meet me at night with laughter and a kiss; if there is disturbing news it is Florelle who like this is right in his own home, and his own wife, who ought to be the first to see it, deliberately shuts her eyes?" The Reason Why My dear John, I say in answer, Edna is weighing the invaluable assistance she gets from this daughter-nurse against the overwhelming struggle one woman has with three children of assorted ages, a kitchen, a laundry, marketing, cleaning, cooking. She, being unromantic, feels that Florelle might as well cut her teeth on a first love affair with a sobersided old fellow like John, and that it will all be over soon, and the housework going on undisturbed. But there are elements here that are dynamite indeed, and it is your immediate business to move Florelle to some family group or preparatory school of business that will launch her into a life of her own. Obviously, your wife is a practical person, who expects you to be as detached de-tached as herself in your devotion to home, family, business, and the future. But your 44 years and gray temples tem-ples are anything but a safeguard against wreckage. Wreckage like throwing over all those advantages mentioned above; wife, home, children, chil-dren, position in business. ". . . goodnight kiss . . ." says 'Oh, don't tell him, Mother, until he's had his supper!' "In everything I come first with this devoted little heart. At night she never leaves the room without stopping behind my chair to press her cheek against my hair with a goodnight kiss. Any plan means her quick, 'Is Daddy going? I'll stay with Daddy.' "Of course I like it. I am a loving sort of fellow, and I had a mother who kissed me goodnight and good morning until I was big enough to go away to war. But I've just come to realize what perhaps you have suspected all along, that Florelle means a great deal to me, and that I mean a lot more to her than I ever meant to. "When I saw this first I spoke to Edna, my wife, about it. She laughed at the whole thing; it was just my vanity. Florelle, she reminded re-minded me, has some Latin blood in her veins, and dramatizes everything every-thing romantic. Anyway, she could not possibly get along without Flo-relle's Flo-relle's help with the children, 0 please to forget the whole thing and not be a fool! Later, when a casual remark of mine so hurt Florelle who thought I was scolding her, that she rushed from the room, and was actually ill for a whole day, Edna grudgingly admitted that she might 'have a crush' on me, but observed that the only thing to do was to let it run its course. 'She'll take a fancy to some butcher boy or marine or someone,' she said. And she said again that she could not spare Florelle. What the dickens dick-ens is a man to do when dynamite |