The day book. [volume], May 09, 1914, LAST EDITION, Image 14

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
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THE CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE
A MAN'S CODE
(Copyright, 1914, by the Newspaper
enterprise Association.;
Chapter CL.
After Moll'ewent to bed on the
sofa in our sitting room, Dick, for the
first time in his life, seemed to under
. stand that both he ana? T owed some
responsibility to her, and he was furi
ous with his another for not paying
more attention to her.
'Tour mother, Dick, takes the
wrong angle always. She finds fault
with Mollie for the simplest little out
bursts of youth and she seems to feel
that the girl should have the mature
judgment of a woman of forty.
"The thing that Mollie did was just
a "girlish escapade; nothing very
wrong about it The whole trouble
was in the fact that she was allowed
to go her own sweet way, with n$ ad
vice on the subject. It is as perfectly
natural for girls to want to see and
do things as it for boys, and I am
sure, Dick, dear, that you did not al
ways tell your mother and father the
whole truth about your piccadiHos.
Now human nature Is quite as ram
pant in the female sex as in the male,
and the only way to teach a girl to
do the right thing Is to treat her like
a human being show her where she
is wrong in her ideas of life.
"You can't command and expect to
be obeyed just because you have said
it. This is something I found out
early in my school-teaching career.
"The sooner you teach a child to
reason the sooner you will be able to
make them see the right thing to do
and the right way to do it"
"Well, my dear," said Diek. "I
guess you and I will have to look aft
er "Mollie more in the future." -
"We won't need to loot after her,
Dick. Mollie will very properly resent
that. A girl of nineteen Is old enough
to look after herself. What we must
do is to be friends with her show
her that we value her opinions and
fcdpeshe values ours. Both you and f
must make a real companion of Mol
lie, and in doing this, dear, the beauty,
and sweetness and punty of girllslr
ideas and dreams must not be tar
nished. To tell you the truth, I would
not care to see Mollie with either Har
ry Symone or Bill Tenney. Neither
would I care t6 have her in the com
pany In which they are welcome."
"I can't understand, Margie, why
you have it in for those two men.
They are not bad fellows."
'Tes, I know that, according to the
man-made code., both Bill Tenney and
Harry Symone have done nothing
very terrible. Tenney has only made
his wife miserable for years and ruin
ed the reputations of a good many
girls by showering attentions on
them, I know Bill Tenney.would not
steal, and both he and Harry Symone
would protect any woman from every
man out nimseiT.
"To tell the truth, Margie, I can't
see where Harry has been so awfuL"
As Dick said this I shuddered, for I
saw the-awful possibilies of his doing
the same thing If the occasion arose.
"You mustf remember that the
young woman who is the mother of
Harry Symone's children could never
have hoped to have lived in comfort
and refinement with which Harry
surrounded her in jtuy other way. In
stead of making her loseier self-respect
and the respect ojf those about
her he raised it. She was known as a
very respectable wife whose husband
was a traveling man, and her life, al
though it ended early, was happier
because Harry Jtad entered into it."
"Quite a George Bernard Shaw bit
of philosophy. One -could make a
story out of it as Interesting as 'Mrs.
Warren's Profession,' If one had the
gift of tongue possessed by the bril
liant Irishman," I Interrupted. "I
know, my dear Dick, that, according
to man's code, only a woman who
breaks the -seventh commandment
and" the man who breaks the sixth are