Cleveland County Enterprise (Norman, Okla.), Vol. 25, No. 52, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 28, 1917 Page: 3 of 8
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Oklahoma Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Gateway to Oklahoma History by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
THK NORMAN ENTERPRISE
THE REAL ADVENTURE
By HENRY K1TCHELL WEBSTER
Copyright 1916, Bobba-MerrM Co.
OVER ROSE STANTON THERE COMES A CHANGE WHICH
PUZZLES HER HUSBAND—AT FIRST HE THINKS
SHE'S PEEVISH, BUT SHE IS NOT.
SYNOPSIS—Rose Stanton marries Rodney Aldrlch, a rich young
lawyer, after a brief courtship, and instantly is taken up by Chicago's
exclusive social set and made a part of the gay whirl of the rich folks.
It is all new to the girl, and for the first few months she is charmed
with the life. And then she comes to feel that she is living a useless
existence, that she is a social butterfly, a mere ornament in her hus-
band's home. Rose longs to do something useful and to have the op-
portunity to employ her mind and utilize her talent and education.
Rodney feels much the same way about himself. He thinks he ought
to potter around in society just to please his wife, when in reality he d
rather be giving his nights to study or social service of some sort.
They try to reach an understanding, following the visit of two New
York friends, who have worked out satisfactorily this same problem.
I was always having dinner the vast majority of womenI can bear
- children, the only women who could
get well paid for it, would be those
exceptionally qualified, or exception- j comforted like
This is economics,
now, we're talking.
Other considera-
No, I tell you.
CHAPTER X.
A Birthday.
Rodney heard young Craig,
who
wouldn't answer. He didn't want to
talk to anybody. But no one can re-
sist the inechunical bell ringers they
use in exchanges nowadays—the even-
deviled up law for him, saying good ] spaced ring and wait, ring and wait,
if -.1.. 1.1 *li coiinrd iru,
•night to the stenographer. He waited
till he heard them go, then went out
nnd disconnected his own desk tele-
phone, which the office boy, on going
home, always left plugged through;
wont back to his inner office again, and | lowed
shut the door after him.
There was more than enough press-
ing work on his desk to fill the clear
hour that remained to him before he
had to start for home. But he didn't
mean to do it. He didn't mean to do
anything except to drink down thirstily
the sixty minutes of pure solitude that
were before him. That hour had be-
come a habit with him lately, like—
lie smiled at the comparison—like tak-
ing a drug. He was furtive about it,
too. He never corrected Rose's as-
sumption that the thing which kept
him late at the office so much of the
time nowadays was a press of work.
It was not that she had faded for
him—become less the poignant, vivid,
irresistible thing he had first fallen in
love with. Rather the contrary. She
hadn't seemed quite well, lately, nor
altogether happy, and he had not
been able to find out why. He had
attributed it at first to the shock oc-
casioned by her mother's illness and
her departure with Portia to Califor-
nia ; but this explanation seemed not
to cover the ground. She was all right,
she always said. He couldn't force
confidence from her, of course. But her
pale face and eyes wide with a trou-
ble in them he could not fathom,
stirred something deeper in him than
the former glow and glory had ever
reached.
And there was a new thing that
so manifestly incapable of discourage-
ment. At the end of forty-five sec-
onds, he snatched open his door,
punched the jack into Its
caught up the head piece,
Hello!" into the dangling
them. .
with them—either out in Rogers Park,
where they lived, or at queer, terrible
little restaurants downtown. They
were always game to try anything, once, i ally proficient.
He's the longest, leanest, angularest, now, we re talk
absent-mlndedest chap in the world. | tions n^ 'eft out
And lust about the best. And his wife j economic independence, if she really
fits all hH angled She writes, too. got it-the kind of woman Ire been
Oh you're sure to like them! They're j talking about-would make her very
C8Xfw. "5SS
tsxis1 « «•
ters. It's great! I haven't had a real j she'd.be glad.
! talk with anybody since he went away, |
! over a year ago."
j Then, at the sound of the bell, he
cried out: "There they are!" and
dashed down into the hall ahead of
the parlor maid, as eagerly as a
schoolboy anticipating a birthday pres-
ent.
Rose followed more slowly, and by
the time she had reached the landing,
she found him slapping Barry on the
back and shaking both hands with
Jane, and trying to help both of them
out of their wraps at once.
When the greetings were over and
they were on the way upstairs again,
I he said: "I told Rosewe were £t «£ , wMh h(m ,m(J tHell t0 pleMt
Roddy—not tonight! I can't stand i
to have you touch me tonight!"
He stared at her, gave a shrug o
exasperation, and then turned away
"You are angry about somethlni
then," he said. "I thought so when
first came in. But, honestly, I don'
know what It's about."
S SSf Weighs One Hundred Pounds at
go on like this. They were gettlm
started all wrong somehow. "Yol
didn't want me to touch you the nigh
when I came to your office, when yot I
were working on that case. But I _ _ ,_n
wasn't because you were angry witl MAIJI S BIG BROTHER
me. Well, I'm like that tonight l,lftuw
There's something that's got to b j
thought out. Only I'm not llkn you
I can't do it alone. I've got to hav'
I don't wajit to be soothed, am
child, and I don' I
want to be made love to. I Just wan j
to be treated like a human being." j
"I see," he said. Very deliberately
he lighted a cigarette, found himsel
an ash tray, and settled down astrid'
n spindling little chair. "All right, b
help.
SCIENCE BAFFLED
BY HUSKY BABY
Less Than Three Years
of Age.
Moves Buffet or Piano, Rides In Car-
riage WiAh Auto Springs and
Eats as Much as Two Grown
Persons.
Rodney laughed. "The sort of wom-
an I've been talking about," he said,
"would feel, when all is said, that
sne'd got a gold brick."
Rose poured his coffee with a
steady hand. They were in the library
now.
"If that's so," she said, "then the
kind of woman you've been talking
about lias already got a profession.
As Doctor Randolph says, she's cashed
in on her ankles. But maybe you're
mistaken in thinking she wouldn't
choose something else If she had a
! chance. Maybe she wouldn't have
done it, except because her husband
i wanted lier to and sli
socket,
and bel- '"6 t0 dress' but . . _
didn't put on this coronation robe for
, you, but for a treat for me before I
'r:And'five1"minutes later he was call- telephoned, and hadn't time to change
ing Rose on the wire. "Rose, listen , back.
to this! Barry Lake aud his wife are , And when Jane cried ot . ■
here. He just called up. They got in I entered the drawing room.
from New York at five o'clock, and
You
I've asked them out to dinner—Barry
Lake and Jane! What's the matter?
Can't you hear me? . . . Why,
they're about the best friends I've
got. The magazine writer, you know,
and his wife. And they're coming out
to dinner—coming right out. I told
them not to dress. I'll come straight
home myself—get there before they ! for a
do, I guess. ... All right! Good-
by!"
But he sat there frowning in a puz-
zled sort of way for half a minute.
Rose's voice had certainly sounded
queer. He was sure she hadn't
planned anything else for tonight. He
distinctly remembered her saying just
heavens, Rodney, what a'house!" he
answered: "It isn't ours. We rented
it for a year in some sort of honey-
moon delirium, I guess. We don't live
up to it, of course. Nobody could but
the woman who built it."
The gaiety in his voice clouded a
little as he said it, and his grin, for
a moment, had a rueful twist. But
moment only. Then his untem-
pered delight in the possession of his
old friends took him again.
They talked—heavens, how they
talked! It was like the breaking up
of a log jam. The two men would
rush along, side by 4Side, in perfect
agreement for a while, catching each
other's half-expressed ideas, and hurl-
before he left for the office, that they'd ing them forward, and then suddenly
have the evening to themselves. And they'd meet, head on. in collision over
it was incredible that she minded his
bringing home two old friends like
the Lakes on the spur of the moment,
to take pot-luck. Oh, well, you
couldn't tell about people's voices over
the phone. There must have been
something funny about the connection.
An opportune taxi just passing the
entrance to his offce building as he
came out, enabled Rodney to better
the fifteen minutes he'd allowed for
gripped "him in a positively terrifying getting home. But in spite of that
.... • fact, he found Rose rather splendidly
way—a realization of his importance
to her. He had discovered one day—a
fortnight or so ago, In the course of
a rummage after some article he had
mislaid, a heap of law books that
weren't his. He had guessed the ex-
planation of them, but had said noth-
ing to Rose about it—had found it
•curiously Impossible to say anything.
If only she had taken up something
of her own! It seemed as essentially
a law of her being to attempt to ab-
sorb herself In him, as It was a law
of his to resist that absorption of him-
self In her.
But resistance was difficult. The
tendency was, after his perfectly
solid, recognizable duties had been
given their place in the cubic content
of his day, that Rose should fill up the
rest. Arid yet there was a man In
him who was neither the hard-work-
ing, successful advocate, nor Rose's
husband—a man whose existence Rose
<i:dn't seem to suspect. (Was there,
then, in her no woman that corre-
sponded'to him?) That man had to
fight now for a chance to breathe.
He got a pipe out of a drawer in
his desk, loaded and lighted it,
stretched his arms, and sat down in
his desk chair. The thing exactly in
front of his eyes was his desk calendar.
There was something familiar about
the date—some subconscious associa-
tion that couldn't quite rise to the sur-
face. Was there something he had to
do today, that he'd forgotten? . . •
Then, with a grunt of relief and amuse-
ment, he got It. It was his birthday!
Another milestone.
A year ago! That was the day it
had all begun. How did he compare
the man who sat there now—with the
man who had unhesitatingly jumped
off the car to follow a new adventure—
the man who had turned up wuter-
logged at Frederlca's dinner aud made
hay of her plan to marry him off to
Hermlone Woodruff!
He was increasing his practice now,
making money, getting cautious pru-
dent ; he didn't bolt the track any
more. And the quality of his work
was good; he couldn't quarrel with
that. Only, the old, big free dreams
that had glorified it were gone,
was In harness, drawing a cart; fol-
lowing a bundle of hay.
The building was pretty well de-
.serted by now, and against the silence
he heard the buzzer in his telephone
itchhonrd proclaiming Insistently
ti ii .me was trying to get him
He thought at first he
gowned for her expected guests.
"Good gracious!" he cried excitedly.
"What did you do that for? I thought
some fundamental difference of opin-
ion, amid a prismatic spray of epi-
gram. Jane kept up a sort of obliga-
to to the show, Inserting provocative
witticisms here and there, sometimes
as Rodney's ally, sometimes as her
husband's, and luring them, when she
could, Into the quiet backwater of
metaphysics, where she was more
than a match for the two of them.
Hut the main topic of the evening
got launched when Rodney seized the
advantage of a pause to say:
"A series of articles on women, eh
What are you going to do to them?"
With that the topic of feminism j
was on the carpet and It was nevet |
thereafter abandoned. After half an
hour of it Jane turned to Rodney.
"But what do you think about it?"
she demanded. "You've been grinning
away there all this time without say-
ing a word. Are you for it?"
"For what?" Rodney wanted to
know.
"For what women want," said Jane.
"Economic independence — equality,
easy divorce—all the new stuff."
"I'm not against it," Rodney said,
"any more than I'm against tomorrow
being Tuesday. It's going to be Tues-
day whether I like it or not. But
that conviction keeps me from crusad- ;
ing for it very hard. What I'm curi-
ous about is how it's going to work.
When they get what they want, do
you suppose they're going to want
what they get?"
"I knew there was something dead-
ly hbout your grin," said Jane. "What
are you so cantankerous about?"
"Why, the thing," said Rodney,
"that sours my naturally sweet dis-
position is this economic independ-
ence. I've been hearing it at dinner
tables all winter, When I hear ti
woman with five hundred dollars'
worth of clothes on—well, uo, not on
her back—and anything you like in
jewelry, talking about economic inde-
pendence as if it were something nice
—jam on the pantry shelf that we men
were too greedy to let them have a
Trying to Help Both of Them Out of siinre 0f—i have to put oil the brakes
Their Wraps at Once. | in orjer to stay on the rails.
I told you over the phone the Lakes
weren't going to dress."
..j Was—dressed like this when you
telephoned," Rose said. "And I was
can't always tell."
It was almost her first contribution
to the talk that evening. She had
asked a few questions aud said the
things a hostess has to say. The
other three were manifestly taken by
surprise.
But surprise was not the only ef-
fect she produced. Her husband had
never seen her look just like that be-
fore. The flash In her eyes, the splash
of bright color In her cheeks, the ex-
citing timbre of her voice, was new
[ to him and very alluring.
| Barry saved him the necessity of
I trying to answer, by taking up the
cudgels himself. Rodney didn't feel
; like answering, nor, for the moment,
like listening to Barry. His interest
! in the discussion was eclipsed, for the
moment, by the. thrill aud wonder of
his wife's beauty. For the next half
hour she matched wits with Barry
Lake very prettily.
When Jane declared that they must ;
: go, her husband protested.
"I haven't managed yet to get a \
word out of Rodney about any of his
things. I want to know how far you've j
come along with your book on 'Actual
Government.' I want the whole thing.
Now."
"I've had my fling," said Rodney, \
with a sort of embarrassed good hu- j
nior. "There are no more intellectual I
wild oats for me. Have you forgotten
you're talking to a married man?"
On learning their determination to l
walk down-town, lie said he'd go with
them part of the way. Would Rose
go, too? But she thought not.
"I'm Not Angry," She Said.
Philadelphia. — "Billy" McCarthy,
1 Philadelphia's prize baby, Is two years
and nine months old and weighs 100
pounds. He moves the furniture
i around In the home of his parents, Mr.
I and Mrs. W. E. McCarthy, eats as
I much as two grown persons and has
j perfect health. Medical science ad-
I inlts that It is baffled by the baby's
i growth.
| Science has put the "O. K." mark
' on "Billy." It says that he Is all
j right and advises the parents to let
I him eat and grow. His growth Is not
\ due to un accumulation of fat, for he
lias bones as large as those of a per-
son five feet seven inches tall, and
; weighing 154 pounds. Medical men say
bis growth Is all right, but they have
failed to explain It.
Mauls Big Brother Around.
"Billy" plays with his five-year-old
brother Frank and mauls him around
at will. He holds Frank on Ills lap
and pushes him around the yard on an
"Irish mall." And Frank wears "elght-
£ear size" suits. If a ball rolls behind
a piano or other piece of furniture
"Billy" moves the furniture, and it
keeps his parents busy getting it back
In place, lie eats meat, principally
thicken, steaks and chops. Ills moth-
er orders chicken for him three times a
week. Every morning the milkman
leaves four quarts of milk at the Mc-
Carthy home.
When the youngster goes out for a
ride he sits in a carriage that has reg-
ular automobile springs. The carriage
was built specially and cost $42. He Is
now outgrowing it, but, luckily, he
started to walk a couple of months
ago. "Billy's" shoes also are made to
CHAPTER XI.
A Defeat.
The gown which Rodney had spoken
of apologetically as a coronation robe,
was put away; the maid sent to bed.
Rose, huddled into a big, quilted bath-
robe, aud in spite of the comfortable
warmth of the room, feeling cold clear
into the bones—cold aud tremulous,
and sure that when she tried to talk
her teeth would chatter—sat waiting
for Rodney to come back from seeing
the Lakes part way home.
She gave a last panicky shiver
when she heard his latchkey, then j
pulled herself together.
"Come in here, Roddy," she called
as he reached the head of the stairs.
"I want to talk about something.
He had hoped, evidently, to find her
abed and fast asleep. His cautious
footfalls on the stairs made clear his
intention not to waken her. "Oh, I m
sorry," he said, pausing at the door to
her dressing-room, but not coming in.
I didn't know you meant to sit up
1 for me. If I'd known you were wait-
ing, I'd have come back sooner.
"I haven't minded," she told him.
"I've been glad of a chance to think.
But now . . . —Oh, please come
in and shut the door!"
He did come in, but with manifest
reluctance, and he stayed near tlie
door in an attitude of arrested de-
parture. 'It's pretty late," he pro-
tested with a nonchalance that rang
a little flat. "You must be awfully
tired. Hadn't we better put off our
said. "Now, come on with your trou-
bles." He didn't say "little troubles,"
but his voice did and Ills smile.
Rose steadied herself as well as she
could. "We've made a horrible mis-
take," she began. "I don't suppose it's
either of our faults exactly. It's been
mine In a way, of course, because it
wouldn't have happened if I liadn t
been—thrughtless and ignorant.
might have seen it if I'd thought to
look. But I didn't—not really, until to-
night."
He wanted to know what the mis-
take was. He was still smiling in
good-humored amusement over her
seriousness.
"It's pretty near everything," she
| said. "You've hated the way we've
I lived—the way this house has made us
1 live. I haven't liked it, really. But I j
never stopped to think what it meant."
"What it does mean," he said, with I
a good deal of attention to his clga- |
rette, "Is that things are desirable to |
me now, because I am in love with you,
that weren't desirable before. I don t
see anything terrible about that."
"There isn't," she said, "when—
when you're in love with me. Hut you
aren't In love with me all the time.
And when you aren't, you must hate
me for what I've done to you.'
His face flushed deep. He sprang
"Billy" Moves the Furniture.
, . order and cost $12 a pair. In fact, all
to his feet and threw his cigarette into clothe8 h(lve to be made specially.
His last shirts cost $4 each. Then af-
file fire. "That's perfectly outrageou
nonsense," he said. "I won t listen
to it."
"If it weren't true," she persisted,
"you wouldn't be excited like that. If
1 hadn't known it before, I'd have
known it when I saw you with the
Lakes. You can give them something
you can't give me, not with all the
love in the world. I never heard about
them till tonight—not in a way I'd re-
member. And there are other people
you spoke of some of them at din-
ner—who are living here, that you've
never mentioned to me before. You've
tried to sweep them all out of your
life; to go to dances and the opera
ter running up this big bill for cloty-
Ing, "Billy" outgrows the entire «wt-
fit In three mouilis.
His Mind AJsc Above Normal.
The mammoth baby'? mind has^iot
been stunted by his great growth, in
fact, his mentality is greatly above nor-
mal. He learned to walk quickly when
he started, and in a couple of months
has become uble to wnlk as good as a
child two or three years older.
When he was born In a New York
city hospital, August 23, 1914, "Billy"
weighed less than ten pounds. When
he left the hospital with Ills mother,
three weeks later, he weighed 30
md things with me. You did it be- j "o"un(,s At nlne raonths he tipped the
wasQ t fair 1
"we weren't going
"We men have to fight for economic pow-wow?
independence from the time we're twen- | She unde
ty, more or less, till the time we die. look in h
It's a sentence to hard labor for life; inflection in her voice she bad meant
afraid there wouldn't be time to | that's what economic Independence Is. to keep so even, had given her away,
chance into anything else." ! How does that woman think she d set He suspected she wus going
"We weren't going anywhere, were about it, to make her professional -tragic." If he didn't look out, there d
There's nothing I've j services worth a hundred dollars a , be a "scene.'
(jUy—,)r flfty, or ten? What's she got "We can't put it off. she said.
that has a market value? What Is j let you have your talk out with the
there that she can capitalize? She's Lakes1, but you'll have to talk with me
got her physical charm, of course,
and there are various professions
where she can make it pay. Well, and
what else?"
"She can bear children," said Jane.
"She ought to be paid well for that."
"You're only paid well," Rodney re-
Whv for years, until they moved | plied, "for something you can do ex-
to New York. They used to live here, ceptionally well, or for something that [ But she cj-ied
I know I must have told you about few people can do at all " f"""
cause you loved me, but It
to either of us, Roddy. Because you
can't love me all the time. I don t
believe a man—a real man—can love
a woman all tin1 time. And if she
makes him hate her when he doesn't
love her, he'll get so he hates loving
her."
"You're talking nonsense!" he said
again roughly. He was pacing the
I- by now. "Stark, staring non-
sense! I've never stopped loving you
since the first day we walked together.
scales ut 89, and now touches the hun-
dred mark. He stands three feet, six
inches tall.
MUST CUT OUT WAR TALK
Dispatch Over Alleged Suicide of Kai-
ser Causes Trouble In a Chi-
cago Home.
Chicago.—"My husband said the kai-
ser would commit suicide within nine
! An(i I should think I'd done enough to m0uths and I said he would nut, and
derstood well enough. The J jt „ the argUment grew so hot. I took our
her face, some uncontrolled j ; ,, "You've done six-year-old son and left him," Mrs.
. t ..l... noiiint ! *. !«« i • *v " r I T.,.l.r.
we?" he asked.
forgotten?"
"No," she said,
anywhere."
"And you dressed like that just for
He | a—treat for me!"
She nodded. "Just for you," she
said. "Roddy, who are the Lakes?—
Oh, I know his articles, I think. But
where were they friends of yours, and
when?'
too much. And you're so sorry for
me when you don't love me, that It
makes you do all the more."
She had found another joint in his
armor. She was absolutely clairvoy-
ant tonight, and this time he fairly
i cried out: "Stop it!"
now.
"We spent most of the time talking
about you anyway," he said pleasant- .
ly. "They're both mad about you. |
You were a perfect miracle tonight, !
darling, when they were here. But j
now, like this . . ." He came over j
to her with his arms out.
out "Don't 1" and i
As lung as , sprang away from him. "Please don t, j
Do you believe that marriage
should be a business partner-
ship as well as one of sentiment
—that if the wife is capable of
doing so, she should earn a part
of the living outside the home?
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
Harvey J. Burnett informed Judgo
Stelk In the court of domestic rela-
tlons.
"The kaiser can take care of him-
self," the judge replied. "You go back
to your husband and if I hear of elthei
one of you discussing the war again
I'll send you both to jail."
They're talking about the weather lo
the Barnett home now.
Bonnet String Hung Baby.
Temple. Kan.—A bonnet strtng hung
Rowena Jazek, nineteen months old,
when she tried to climb a fence near
her home here. The baby fell, and the
-tritig caught on u wire, strangling bur.
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Fox, J. O. Cleveland County Enterprise (Norman, Okla.), Vol. 25, No. 52, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 28, 1917, newspaper, June 28, 1917; Norman, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc108637/m1/3/: accessed April 19, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.