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Show ( Dorothy Dix Talksl 1 1 WHEN MOTHER WAS A GIRL l j By DOROTHY DIX, The World's Highest Paid Woman Writer mt "Do vou suppose mother and father vft?B were over young, or were they born l CTOnuP3 or wes so ,onff aS whpn ' -mi they "were- young that they have for-"4fll for-"4fll Rotten all about how young people feel, ;M and what young people want to do?" , Am ( jfoud anxiously asked me tho other jAJB, day SW' "You would think that Mother had ijfp never been a girl herself," she contin-481' contin-481' : upd "'f you could seo tne horrified i k ray she acUs over every little thing Vf i i do. Sho doesn't see why I care for ', the boys, or would rather go with a i beau some place than with her and t Father. And she thinks It is perfectly h , silly r us to laugh and giggle over' 1 nothing. And she can't understand 1 -f why I don't want the family tagging ' me every minute of the day and night. ' And Father acts just the same way ' about Tom. Tom says ho bets that 31 i ' Father was born fifty years old and ' i had all of his wisdom teeth as well V as tho dyspepsia." rl ; "If Mother and Father tell the truth ''H about how they acted when they were $ : young, and how they felt when they ' were In their teens, the young folks ) - certainly were different from the pres-$t' pres-$t' ' cnt generation, believe me!" "Mother says that when she was a ,j grl her mind wasn't set on fashion , and frivolity as mine is. She., says & that of course she always wanted to It look nice and neat, but that sho ac- j? r tually PREr kkujj good suostantiai , clothing that had plenty of wear in & r them to thin, perishable materials. $ ' Just think of a real girl who would $ rather have Jaeger underwear than h pink and blue ribboned lingerie, and 3 who would pass up chiffon for a wool a frock.'" g "And Mother says she always want-?! want-?! 1 ed her gowns made very high in tho Ineck and very long in the skirt, bc-f bc-f cause sho was so terribly modest, and ; that she always let her Mother pick : nut her clothes for her, and was pcr-; pcr-; fectly satisfied with what her mother bought her. even if it was about two i years behind the style. ' ' "Also that when she was a girl sho i found happiness in her own home,, and S i ! , didn't care to be running around to j , :' , places of amusement. That is why i 1 she Is so opposed to my going to the L movies, and belonging to little clubs. i Her Idea of the end of a perfect day ' when she was a girl, was to sit around 1 ;, : the tablo reading improving books, in 1 . tie brothers and sisters, and she does-I does-I ' n't understand why I find that slow. i ) f She thought it wildly exciting." Z j "Mother insists that in her young ' days, all tho young people talked in I( the most intelligent and dignified manner, and they used the most cle- u gant language. Nobody condescended to employ anything so vulgar as slang, ? and they didn't gabble about tennis ' 1 and golf links, and balling averages, t J and now eabnret stunts, but they dis-r dis-r ;l coursed about literature, art and the ? higher life, and they never, never gig-?W gig-?W gled and squealed as we do." Kl "She almost weeps at the deteriora-I deteriora-I I lion in the manners and conversation I : of the young since she was a girl. J ; "And Mother says that while, of J ' course, she was not averse to (he so- : 1 clety of young gentlemen, she really : ; I cared nothing for boys, and was just ; ; as happy going anywhere with her j grandmother as she was when she ; ! had a perfectly stunning beau. In j ' fact, she says, she preferred to go about with members of her family, be-i be-i cause she felt so safe, and she can't ; ! understand why I would rather sit by the wall than dance with nnother girl, ; 1 nor why 1 gro wdumb when I try to j talk to a boy when sue anq Father are sitting around behind thear news- papers censoring the conversation." ' "Such a thing as calling up a young ; ; man on tho telephone if there had 1 been phones in her day would never . have been dreamed of, and sho never, jf wrote one a note, except in tho moslj I formal manner, and always handed 1 over all of her letters for her mother v i to read to see if they were proper for her to receive. Sho says sho was in-i ' capable of doing such an unmaidenly' 1 thing as to think of love, until a man j mentioned it first, and that she was : just surprised to death when papa up ; and popped the question lo her. But when sho lolls mo she had no Idea that ho entertained such sentiments towards to-wards her, how she ever discovered . that she was enough in love with him to marry him, beats me." i "I suppose that in those days as , soon as a man proposed to a girl, sho j ! began exploring her system for symp- toms of love, and when she found j them, she said 'yes,' and if she didn't she" said 'no.' I told Mother that we j girls now a days believe in preparedness, prepared-ness, and we know just what we are ; ' going to say to a follow before ho knows ho is going to propose himself, j and Mother says she doesn't know ,' what tho world, is coming to. "And Mother says that when sho was a girl, and a young man came to see her, she always sat on one 6ide of tho room, and he on the other, and I suppose they megaphoned views on tho weather across tho space between them. And that she always tooC hold of a man's arm with the tips of her fingers, as if she was taking it with the tongs, and she never indulged in any of the disgusting familiarities that she observes In the social intercourse of young people now a days. Sho says that she would have died before she would have let a man kiss her, and I thought she would swoon when I asked her how it was She ever got married. "That's what Mother says," went on Maud, "but, honestly, now, don't you I think Mother is camouflaging a little, and that she used to like to have a good lime and was just as anxious for good clothes, and liked the hoys just ' as well as I do? 1 "And don't you think It is a pity that Mother has forgotten' what sort of a girl she really was, or- else would make things gayer and happier for me. and when I wanted to have a good time, I wouldn't have to go behind her back to do it?" ' "Say, I wish you'd tip Mother off to think back a few years and try to recall re-call her own youth." oo |