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Show THE PROGRESSIVE OPINION Kathleen Norris Says: Marriage Without Tears Bell Syndicate WNU Features. What is important is that when the house quiets down and the children are asleep Jack shall come into the kitchen and pick up a dishtowel and begin to wipe dishes, while he says, "I didn't mean to get started that way tonight, Nan. I guess I was just tired." EVER AFTER "And they lived happily ever after" . . . The fairy tales we read as children always ended that way. But the di-vorce records don't. From an unhappy marriage to an even unhappier, lonely post-Ren- o existence go hundreds of wom-en each year, women who thought that wedded bliss could be bought for the price of a wedding ring. It can't, of course, and neither can a hap-pier state be purchased for a divorce lawyer's fee. If not "ever after," these women could certainly have lived hap-pily most of the time if they had followed the advice given by Kathleen Norris this week. Jack's weary dissatisfaction with complaints of her own. If he thinks it's easy, these days, to go shopping about for butter and coffee, with the baby down with a croupy cough and Johnnie's rubbers two sizes too small for his new shoes, she wishes he'd try it! No place to dry the wash except the basement, such a racket from the school-yar- d next door that the baby gets waked up from her nap every single day, and the car practically laid up for the duration! All this isn't so important. But what IS important is that when the house quiets down and the children are asleep Jack shall come out into the kitchen and pick up a dishtowel and begin to wipe dishes, while he says: "I didn't mean to get started that way tonight, Nan. I guess I was just tired. I know you're having a pretty hard time." And that Nancy, instead of reliev-ing herself with a d angry "Don't you ever think for one in-stant, John Baker, that you can come home and snarl at the children and criticize me and then come out here and have everything all won-derful again!" shall accept his help, and perhaps remind him that these are strained and anxious times. She shall remark that the great cloud hanging over us all is bad for our nerves, that business men are en-during privations and facing difficul-ties never known in our happy nation-al history before and that when she and Jack get through these war years, the sweetness of peace, the pride of watching their boy and girl grow to manhood and womanhood, will be all the greater. Annoyances Will Appear. But make up your mind, Marie-Theres-that with all the wonderful, companionable, miraculous elements that make up marriage, the little annoyances and mistakes and disil-lusions creep in, too, as they do in all human lives. Just as many parties will turn out to be failures. Just as many invest-ments in a new dress, in a club, in an entertainment, won't be worth while. By KATHLEEN NORRIS MOTHERLESS girl of A19 writes me that she is going to wed her soldier in early March, and wants to know what "all the pitfalls of marriage are, and How to avoid them, and how to get along without the coldness, criticism, nagging, boredness that so often impresses out-siders as being characteristic of married life. "It scares me," writes Marie-Theres- e, "to see the disillusionment that so many of my older friends have experi-enced. I don't mean actual ugliness and divorce. But I mean when the man wants to go to parties and the wife hates them, or he is late for meals, or she is a bad cook, or ex-travagant, and they keep alluding to each other's faults. 'You'd never get Nancy to do that! ' the man says, and the wife says, 'You know that when it's a question between me and his mother, I haven't a chance!' "Jack is an instructor at an the letter goes on, "so we may be settled for quite a while. We have already rented a nice little house in a pretty old town; I have two girl friends in the same place. So it ought all to be perfectly ideal, and I want to do my part to keep it so. But having been brought up in the households of married cousins and aunts I know how the glamour can fade, and I dread even momen-tary coldness or misunderstanding." Some Live Happily. Your attitude, Marie-Theres- is a very lovely one, and speaks for a fine and gentle nature, and that nature will tell you more clearly than could any words of mine how you can cherish and cultivate the peace and love that are part of mar-ried life. There are wives and hus-bands who live without undignified squabbling and sulking. And even when they do squabble and sulk oc-casionally, by some miracle that is marriage it is often not as serious as it sounds. It is nerves, fatigue, misunderstanding; it is outbursts of verbal fireworks that mean very little, and that sometimes clear the air. So that when a husband comes home at night to find out that his suit hasn't come back from the' tailor's, that dinner is heated-u- p stew and mashed turnip, that his coffee ration is one half-cu- and that Nancy has promised to spend Sun-day with the Millers, he is quite like-ly to break into grumbles and criti-cisms that he doesn't really mean at all. Once the coffee and stew, the good corn bread and the prune whip are inside him, as he settles down at the radio with his newspaper, he feels quite differently. The food may have been humble, but it was warm-ing and satisfying, too; rain is pre-dicted for tomorrow, so he wouldn't have worn his pressed suit, anyway; and he likes the Millers invitation well enough, especially as his de-partment boss. Cutter, is to be there. And THAT is the time for Nancy to accept peace overtures in friendly simplicity, brushing off apologies with an amiable, "I knew you were tired. It's all right." Tired Mother Flares Cp. Or perhaps it is Nancy who flares up. Any woman who has sole charge of a household and two or three small children, all through a sec-ond, a third, a fourth rainy or snowy day, has a right to run away into the high mountains and never be seen again. She can't do that, but what she CAN do is break loose at the first unpleasant word, and meet He'll bring a friend home unex-pectedly some night, when your din-ner is one chop and one baked potato for him, and milk-toas- t for yourself because you've been feeling grippy all day. He'll forget to tell you that Betty is engaged; he'll drive you mad by telling you the way Joe Dokes' wife manages that big house and those four spotless and impec-cable children. On your side you'll fail him, too. He won't like the way you look the night you dine with the Captain; he'll be shocked by domestic expenses, no matter how well you manage; and when there's a baby to sit in a high-cha-at breakfast he'll ask you in a martyred tone if you know anything else but stories of the baby's smart-ness. And when you are all aglow over the Snodgrass invitation he will look at you in a dismayed blankness, as if to say: "What person, short of an imbecile, would want to go to that wedding!" Oh, yes, and you'll lose your en-gagement ring, and he'll lose his brand-ne- overcoat, and he'll say the wrong thing to Mrs. White and you'll get him all wrong with the Browns and what of it? Plenty of ammunition for trouble all along the line, but plenty of trust and patience and humor and forgiveness, too, il it OUGHT to be. you will but remember them. PATTERNS fl: Pattern No. 8261 is In sizes 12, 14, 16 18, 20; 40 and 42. Size 14 slip and pantif take 4Va yards material. Send your order to: SEWING CIRCLE PATTERN DEPT. 149 New Montgomery Street San Francisco Calif. Enclose 20 cents in coins for each pattern desired. Pattern No Size Name Address yrt. Blouse and Jumper. CJERE'S a juvenile jumper outfit which has extra prettiness in the soft, curving lines of the jump-er and in the round Peter Pan collar and short puffed sleeves of the blouse. Any little girl will look "nice as pie" in it yet it is very practical and can be made at next to nothing cost. Pattern No. 8278 is in sizes 2. 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 years. Size 4 jumper requires 1 yards 36 or 39 inch material, blouse 1YB yards. Slip and Panties. TT IS sound economy to make your own underwear, in these times particularly! This pattern will guide you in making the type slip you have always sought ... a slip which fits without a wrinkle, has a graceful top and offers con-trol for the bust line. Panties to match are included! OLDS' MISERIES For colds' coughs, nasal congestion, muscle aches get Penetro modern medication in a mutton suet base, 25. double supply 35. SNAPPY FACTS S ABOUT fe) RUBBER Between 28 and 33 per cent of the road service call aniwtrtd by AAA club are In response to tire trouble flats. Battery prob-lems cause the second largest number of road calls for help. American synthetic rubber will fill 90 per cent oi the country's rubber needs, within two years of Pearl Harbor, according to a rubber chem-ist. This will be a speedy transition from natural rubber. Germany which started synthetic rubber development prior to 1914 can now only take caie of 75 per cent of its rubber needs with synthetic. Rubber tired trucks have been hauling about IS per cent as many as the railroads ODT officials say. Until gasoline rationing was applied as a brake, the car owners of the country were wearing oif 750,000 pounds of tread rubber from their tires every da7, a government statis-tician asserts. RFGoodrich I ( " A CYCLE OF HUMAN BETTERMENT Advertising gives you new ideas, and also makes them available to you at economical cost. As these new ideas become more accepted, prices go down. As prices go down, more persons enjoy new ideas. It is a cycle of human betterment, and . it starts with the printed words of a newspaper advertisement. JOIN THE CIRCLE Q i&AD THE ADS ; Mf.c gregow JACKSON GREGORY Wt w.mu. release SSL? ' THE f""I IAR: 'dKEa? f"! i han'1' Ga,,Cl,0 0rtesa ,or Ws Dc i " "" two identical wills. On. Cole, Jy, K ,: Joe and the Judge, who arrived without bequeathing his ranch and money to Ann y been shot early one morn, delay at the King Cole Ranch. Early Lee, daughter 01 his old friend Busty " . Zl ZTl , ? I BU1 needea " d0Ctor 10 atten'1 Ws L " " other leaving the same to v h?Hr. and sent V, Mexican":J' HWo0UwDevder, Olmde B,UilldEe 10 make his wiU- - Col Cody, son of another old friend. thought it would be Now continue with the story. "Right now? Why right now?" "Me being sort of laid up like this. You see, I don't get chair-boun- d often." "I had a bit of business over the other side of Bald Eagle. I thought" "Sure Say, Cal! Where's that jug?" "I'll go put up my horse," said Ranee Waldron. Again Early Bill Cole said, "Sure," and lay back in his chair and pulled his hat brim down. He sat there very still, looking into the fire. A queer little smile, a happy sort of smile with some strange sort of tenderness in it and a flick of h-umora flick of devilishness, too, maybe touched his lips . . . When Cal, first to return, came back into the room he thought the old man was asleep. So he was. Old Early Bill Cole, full of years and of wickedness and of a rare sweet-ness, was taking his ease in his last long sleep. It was hard to catch a glimpse of the girl's eyes, so wide and drooping was the brim of her pink straw hat, so long and inclined to lower them-selves bafflingly were her lashes. Her cheeks, too, were pink, and there was a laughing dimple in one of them. She scarcely lifted her fluffy skirts an inch when she stepped up into the stage; there was just the flash of an tiny foot, the merest suspicion of a ankle, and about her a wisp of fragrance as though she had just bathed and sprinkled herself with Florida Water. Little Miss Ann Lee, accompanied by Aunt Jenifer, fragile and tremu-lously smiling under her poke bon-- CHAPTER III M Warm as the early summer eve-nin- g was, a thundering log fire was making the rocks blazing hot in the living room fireplace at the King r$ Cole Ranch. Drawn up before the 'li hearth in his most commodious big ,'5 chair sat old Early Bill with his $ long legs tucked under a heavy red wool blanket, with his overcoat on and buttoned to his chin, with his ? hat on, too. His only attendant, n; the only person he would tolerate N in the house, his foreman Cal Round-el tree, stood as far as he could from the fire, his face glistening with sweat. A Cal mopped his forehead with a J blue bandana already sopping, and had his say, not for the first time, ; either. 33; "Bill," he said explosively, "I tell ii you you're crazy! You'd ought by it; rights to have some kind of a Ks nurse here with you; me, I couldn't icj. nurse a sick colt. A woman any- - i how. Somebody to " ifc; "Dry up, Cal," snapped the old man. "Go get me a drink. Get yourself one, too. And quit beller-- ing like a bull calf." B 5r4 Cal Roundtree, growling like a bear with a sore paw, started kitch-enwar-but stopped abruptly as he 'J? heard the lively racket of a horse's hoofs coming on to the house. The sounds stopped at the front door; ' then there was a lusty knocking. "Come in, you fool!" yelled old Early Bill. Ranee Waldron stepped in, just across the raised threshold, and stopped there looking about him, taking in everything at a sweeping glance. Then his look centered prob-ingl- y upon the man in the chair. i "This the King Cole Ranch?" he said. "You're Mr. William Cole?" "Shut the door, Ranee," said Ear--, ly Bill, and all of a sudden his la voice was quiet and all but toneless. ?e One speaks of a poker face; well, his voice now was a poker voice. ' Ranee Waldron closed the door, pulled his hat off and came closer; standing at the side of the chair he put out his hand. Early Bill took it slowly, let it go with a degree of alacrity. "You never saw me before," said Ranee Waldron, puzzled. "How did 0 you know me?" "Oh, I saw you once, e jjp months ago, Waldron. Four months '! ago, maybe. You mightn't remem-ber. Me, I don't forget. Over at Bantam Springs, it was." Until he finished 'speaking it was hard to make much of his face, what with the effect of the flicker of the fire, an affair of light and shadow commingled, and with his broad hat brim pulled low. Now he lifted his head and shoved his hat back and looked up into his kinsman's eyes, to Even so for another moment li Ranee Waldron remained puzzled, for the Bill Cole of tonight wasn't even the Bill Cole of a couple of days ago, what with the unshaven cheeks and the sunken look to them and the great gauntness about the eyes. But Early Bill could never be anything but Early Bill, when you looked closely, and with a start Ranee recognized him. and stretched and came close to doz-ing off again. Then through the other, coarser sounds of men swear-ing at horses and trace chains jan-gling, he heard another sound, and he thought dreamfully that it fitted far more pleasantly into the early daylight hour. Little Ann Lee, very gay and electric this morning, was laughing. He got up then, dressed and ran his fingers through a wild thatch of dark red hair, cocked his hat on at an angle which bespoke an interest in life and full approval of it, and stepped along outside. And just as he got outside the door Long Peters, the stage driver, was calling down from his high seat. "All aboard, folks. Here we go." It was then that Cole Cody saw Ann Lee stepping up into the stage. He did catch the most fleeting of glances from her eyes under the long, demure lashes, and noted how the pink of her cheeks was as soft as the softest of apple-blosso- col-ors tinting the eastern sky. "Hold on there!" shouted Cole Co-dy, and bore down on the stage at a run. He called back to the hostler who had just lent a hand with hitch-ing up, "Keep my horse until I come back," and jerked the stage door open. "If you're comin along, pardner," said Long Peters, his whip poised ready for the long snaking out of the lash into the pistol-lik- e crack that would start his team off like a shot, "climb up here. No more room in-side." Cole Cody didn't make out clearly who the other inside passengers were; he didn't even see Aunt Jeni-fer. He saw nothing but the girl with the big pink straw hat. It drooped on each side of her lovely face and there were ribbons stream-ing from the brim. He almost made her a bow; not quite, but he did take off his hat She almost smiled, but then she looked away very quickly and began talking hurriedly to her companion. The driver called out a second time impatiently, Cole Cody climbed up on the high seat, the whip snapped at last and they were off. The girl was saying softly into her aunt's ear, "Did you see him, Aunt Jenny? Isn't he I mean" Aunt Jenifer had a queer little trick of smiling, tucking in the cor-ners of her clean, pink-lippe- d mouth and letting her eyes drift sideways. She spoke for her thrilled niece's ears alone: "Yes, I know, Pet. Real-ly quite handsome and dashing and all that. To be sure. And I no-ticed something else!" "What?" "He saw you! !" And Cole Cody, rocking along on the high seat beside Long Peters, filling his lungs with the clean, sweet dawn air, hearing music in the creak and rattle of the stage and in the clang of sixteen shod hoofs on the hard, dry roadbed, engaged the stage driver in conversation. Long Peters was willing enough; as long as he had driven stages he had nev-er got tired of meeting strangers and finding out all about them when possible. It becomes monotonous business sitting up there all alone, with nothing much to do and nothing to think about until you got into the mountain roads where a man had his hands full and needed his wits about him if he was to bring his coach through safely and on time. Cole Cody, generally as forthright as a flying arrow going places, was inclined to a certain circuity this morning. He remarked on the horses first of all, not being in the least in-terested in them, yet singling out the off leader for remark; and in return got a thumb nail sketch of that ani-mal's career, character' and pedi-gree. He spoke of Top Notch; of a high mountain town he knew they would pass through, Tap Rock; then of Bald Eagle. Of what a fine day it was. And finally of the inside pas-sengers. "Folks that live around here? Or strangers?" Long Peters swung his equipage around a bend, down into a shallow, dry creek, cracked his whip again and started them briskly up a sharp slope with the lifting mountains looming steep and black ahead. First disposing of those of his cargo whom he knew, he got around at last to Ann Lee and Aunt Jenifer. "We're carryin' a couple nice la-dies, too," he said. "Don't know much about 'em. They come this far with Hank Roberts day 'fore I only saw the two of 'em breakfas' time. They're a Miss Ed-wards, that's the old lady and she ain't real old at that, and her niece. Miss Ann Lee. They come from somewhere way down yonder; around Bantam Springs some place, Hank says. And they never been up this way before; goin' to 4ee some of their folks. Jus' visitin'." "Going far?" young Cody asked casually. "All the way through to Bald Ea-gle. We get there early tonight." He eased his straining horses down to a walk as the slope steepened and the road narrowed and rough-ened. "How about you, stranger? I ain't ever seen you any place." "Me? I'm headed on to Bald Ea-gle, too. No, I've never been up this way. My stamping ground's down around Dutch Skill's Trading Post." "Glad to know you. My name's Peters; Tom Peters." ' "Glad to know you, Mr. Peters. I'm Cody; Cole Cody." Long Peters proffered his hand, the taut reins still in its grip, and they shook that way. Almost immediately they entered a great, silent and glooming wilder-ness. (TO BE CONTINUED) "But but " Ranee stuttered. "At Bantam Springs, that night! Of course I remember. There was a card game we had a few drinks together But I didn't know who you were! I didn't know your name they just called you Bill Why didn't you tell me?" "Better get a move on and bring ftat jug, Cal," said Early Bill, and left the young man utterly to his own devices. But Cal Roundtree didn't budge; he stood stock still, staring in fasci-nation at the visitor's face. Ranee was the fire glow seemed to make his face ruddier and ruddier until it grew bright red. Or was it just the fireglow, Cal won-dered? Yes. Ranee Waldron was re-membering! That poker game at Bantam Springs! An old man, a stranger, sitting in! What a run of luck the old fool had had! He had been so clumsy; he seemed only halfway to know what he was do-ing; he fumbled with the cards when he shuffled; he made crazy bets and lost and yet, by some miracle, in the end he won everything in sight! And Ranee Waldron lost his shirt that night; lost more than he could afford to lose, expecting with every new hand to clean the old fool down to his bootheels; had lost more than just money, because he had lost his head, too, and had flown into a rage and had said things Just what had he said? And the old fool was Early Bill Cole, keeping his name hidden the way he did an ace in the hole and all the time Early Bill knew who Ranee Waldron was! But this consternation, holding him tongue-tie- d and at utter loss, was only momentary. He was a young man of parts, was Ranee Wal-dron, hard to down and harder to keep down. Of a sudden, startling both Early Bill and Cal Roundtree, he began laughing. "Bill Cole, you old heller!" he shouted when he grew articulate. I might have known at the time that it was you! I've heard about yu all my life, the sorts of things a man might expect from you only he'd never know what to expect!". He sobered. "Me, I didn't show up very well that night, did I? Guess 1 must have been halfway drunk and your style of playing drove me crazy and to top it off, I lost Pretty nearly every cent I had in the world. Just you wait until I can Set into another game with you!" 'I don't mind waiting, being kind ot Patient by nature," the old man "marked mildly. And then, still mild and innocent, he added, "Kind f funny your dropping in on me "Kht now." Old Early Bill Cole was taking his ease in bis last long sleep. net, had taken the first stage from Bantam Springs, arriving at the small crossroads settlement of Top Notch in the early evening. There she and her aunt tarried overnight at the very respectable boarding-hous- e operated by a local celebrity, Big Belle. And there they spent the following day and night waiting for another stage to take them a day's journey through the mountains to the King Cole Ranch, some miles on the nearer side of Bald Eagle. All this, of course, was because of the letter she was carrying with her now, a most mystifying communica-tion from a Mr. William Cole in-triguing, even beyond its mere mys-tification, because of the hundred dollar yellow back that had come with it. A huge sum of money but with certain strings to it. And, upward of a hundred miles from Bantam Springs at the trading post where he went now and then, a young man named William Cole Cody had received a very similar letter. He considered the thing some sort of a hoax but then the hundred dollar "expense" money enclosed was real dough. It was a long trip across the mountains to Bald Ea-gle; he had heard of the place as had most men within a pretty con-siderable radius. Why the devil should he pick up and travel because some no doubt crack-braine- d indi-vidual beckoned? Why? Well then, because a thing like that gets a man's curiosity stimulated until it won't let him rest; because it is a simple thing for youth to scent ad-venture over the next hill. And, when he is handed a key, it's sheer hu-man nature for a man to wonder what lock it fits! So in the end Cole Cody slid into his newest boots and hat, decorated himself with his most flamboyant bandana, looked to his guns and through Black Rock Pass, and came in due course to the stage stop at Top Notch. He stabled bis horse, had supper and went to bed. In the morning he'd saddle and ride on. But a man never knows! He had ridden late last night and would have slept late this morning had he not been awakened by the commotion out in the yard attend-ant upon the stage preparing for de-parture. He hadn't thought any-thing about a stage, having a good saddle horse, and had ridden by Notch simply because it way of Top lay on his line of travel. Now, be-ing awake, he yawned comfortably Clashing Arms The law speaks too softly to be heard amidst the din of arms. Caius Marius. WWi'mm Long and Short of It Employer Can you write short-hand? Prospective Employee Yes, but it takes me longer. Another Question He (reading paper) Scientists say there are over ten million germs on a dollar bill. She Whew, I wonder how many there are on a five. Got It By Mother Did you stamp and mail my letter, son? Johnny Yes, that is, I slipped it into the mail box without a stamp when nobody was looking. Something went wrong in the kitchen and the pie crust was as hard as a brick. The mess wag sent it back with a message: "Give us the tools and we'll finish the job!" To Good Use "Your daughter has a great many admirers," said Mrs. Wilkins. "Oh, yes," replied Mrs. Bilkins, "she puts nearly all her window curtains on the rods with her old engagement rings." Up and Doing It! "That pretty girl seems to be having a good tinier "f'm, yes her fiance, a young medi-cal officer in the army, is coming home to marry her next month" tli ell, she certainly seems to hare solved the problem of what to do till the doctor comes!" His Choice "Remember, my boy," said the wealthy uncle, "that money does not bring happiness." But the young man was ready for that one. "I don't expect it to," he re-plied; "I merely want it so that I shall be able to choose the kind of misery most agreeable to me." ' |