Evening Star Newspaper, July 14, 1935, Page 88

IO Magazine Section Two groups in one cottage need congenial habits THIS WEEK Hllustration by o885 tEESliy Y ISR ' HBELteY {a g Good Taste Today Here are a code and good advice for the young men and women who wish to spend their vacations together by EMILY PoOST Author of “Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage,” ““The Personality of a House,” Etc. Y FIRST idea — at sunrise this mom- ing — for this article on the vacation of a typical young busi- ness woman and her fiance, was to reply to those of you who were fascinated (as - who was not?) with that enchanting picture, ‘It Happened One Night,” and who in real life want very much te-‘play the parts of Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. Unhappily the only answer to these would- be motorists and bicyclists and hikers who would gayly travel along. the highroads and the byroads from tourist camps, is NO! In the picture, we were given a clear view of their entirely proper behavior in their cabin, di- - vided by its blanket stretched on a rope. But it is hardly necessary to point out what in real life the proprietors would do, and what their fellow travelers would say to John and Mary who are not Mr. and Mrs. So it must be No, you really can't do any of this — unless you get the license and the certificate before setting out. You can of course go four together: You and John with Tom and Jane — you and Jane taking one cabin, or tent, and John and Tom taking another. Whether you and John can spend your vacation at the same summer hotel depends on several things. If you go to a simple place and stay in a small hotel, where you are under the eyes of all the other guests, and your behavior never offends against propriety or taste, the answer is of course you can. But if you go to an ultra-fashionable resort and to a big hotel patronized by the life-long followers of Mrs. Grundy who fail to under- stand the changes that professional careers for women have brought about, you may very well find yourselves in an atmosphere so ° critical as to make you self-consciously question the propriety of even daring to breathe. In short. you know the answers to all such young-man and young-woman prob- lems every bit as well as I do. Questions about definite resorts, steamship cruises, train excursions or motor tours are quite outside of my province, but will be answered and all arrangements made for whatever you may want (and at no charge to you) by any efficient travel bureau. And this takes me through my whole stack of vacation mail, as it were, and brings me to a letter that I put away last autumn, intend- ing to print it at this time sQ that those of you who are tempted to make similar plans may be warned how NOT to spoil anything so precious as your vacation. The genuineness and fairness of the letter speaks for itself: **Dear Mrs. Post: The summer is over and I've come back to my desk feeling far more as though I had been through a long illness than as though I had been given a double-time vacation at the most beautiful seaside resort, imaginable. And so, I am writing to you, because I'd like to know where I was at fault, as I suppose I must have been, and because if you would tell this story it might keep others from letting a glorious opportunity go completely to waste. “It is a long story and I'll try to cut it as much as I can. I had a whole month's vacation this year because my employer went to Europe. Naturally I wanted to go wherever my fiance could go too. This problem seemed ideally solved by a man and his wife whom we knew and who wanted some one to share a cottage for the month of August in the very place Jim and.I longed to go. We did not know the Browns well but they were both unusually attractive. “It was late in the season and we were offered a lovely cottage for the normal price of a shack. The plan was that Amy and the children and I would go for the month, Ed Brown would go with us and take his two weeks. Then my Jim would come for his two weeks. “At the beginning we were all too happy for words. The cottage, camp-like and with gay flowered chintz. couldn’t have been pret- tier or easier to care for. And the whole month was ahead with nothing for us to do but the few household chores divided bet ween us each morning and meal time, and with all the rest of the time to be spent in swimming and sailing and relaxing on the beach — it was a dream come true. “The first floor of the cottage was all one room with just the kitchen and stair taken off on one side. On the second floor there was a big room with twin beds for the Browns, two small rooms — one for ‘me and the other by and by for Jim. The baby's crib was put up in their room. “The plan wasthat Babs, thethree-year-old, would sleep in ‘Jim's room’ during Ed's vaca- tion and by the time Jim came Ed would be gone and Babs would sleep in the bed vacated by Ed. It all seemed perfect. I didn't even mind that, through the wooden partitions, we could hear each other breathe, and that the baby woke at six and Babs woke somewhere between six and five and never went to sleep again. I went to sleep early and didn't mind reading from five or six on. George James Tetzel July 14, 1935 ‘But then gradually other annoy- ances — to the Browns no doubt as much as to me — developed through our opposed tastes in almost every- thing. I am incurably prompt and systematic; they did not seem to know what a clock was for. Nor did they care about anything so tire- some as slavery to a budget. “I saw myself dipping into my savings account to pay my share of the deficit for wasteful extras that none of us needed. I began to worry about Jim, by profession a lawyer, who is very methodical — almost finical in certain ways. | realized that he might be as irritating to Amy as her casual indifference to system would be to him. But since both were kindly-intentioned people, I hoped for the best. “1 thought, too, that with Ed gone, housekeeping would doubtless adjust itself to Jim. Ed liked to lead what he called a carefree life, in a bathing suit in the house as well as on the beach, and to eat when and where he felt like it, and to let Babs do the same, and to bring in a dozen people for cocktails just at the hour supposed to be set for meals. The visitors stayed on for almost any length of time. And frankly, I did resent spending our joint market budget on cocktails and olives and appetizers instead of ordinary meat and vege- tables. And then Ed went, and Jim was to come that same day. *“‘I cleared the room Jim was to have of an accumulation of over-flow that had been thrown intoit, made up Babs' bed in Amy's room, and had just started to make up a fresh bed for Jim when Amy interrupted: ‘What are you doing to this room?’ “*I'm fixing it for Jim!' I said. ‘I've made up Ed's bed for Babs." Amy sat down on the freshly laid sheet. *'‘Oh dear,’ she looked distressed, ‘I'll never get any rest with her in my room. She's awake so early and if she sees me there'll be no keeping her quiet.’ “I asked her where she expected Jim to sleep, and she suggested that we carry Ed's bed down to the living room. “*No," I said firmly, ‘we are not going to put a bedstead downstairs. Please get up and let me finish.’ She did so sulkily. I finished the room, went downstairs and gave a last look around to be sure that everything was in order so that Jim would get a good impres- sion. And then I hurried to meet Jim's train. “He was looking pale and worn from the city’'s heat, and it was with real enthusiasm that I pointed out our sweet cottage right on the beach. “And then I ushered him into —a living room which was a complete mess. Babs and the baby had both been left to their own pur- suits. One or both of them had pulled the cloth off the table and everything with it. A vase of flowers was overturned, its water spilled, its contents scattered. “Jim helped me pick up the wreckage; we sopped up the water and scraped butter out of the rug. In the kitchen that I had left in perfect order two hours before, something had boiled over on the stove and the sink was half full of pots and dishes. I led Jim to his room. The bed had been remade with Babs' bedclothes. Jim's clean bedclothes were thrown over a chair. “To Jim 1 said, '‘Something has gone wrong, but I'll fix it." And then I went to show him the bathroom, so he could wash for supper. It was worse than downstairs. “In the end it was at best a compromise. The baby’s things were kept out of the bath- room and Ed's spring and mattress were carried down every night and put on the porch for Jim. “And now we are back at our desks. There is another side to this I know, but I can only give my own. But, dear Mrs. Post, won't you write something on this subject, please!" In answer to this, there is little to say that you have not said clearly. And 1 am more than glad to print your letter because I do think it may induce those who are making similar plans to stop and cool-headedly con- sider how much they know about the taste and temperaments, the habits and point of view of those with whom they are going to share so closely every moment of every day and every item of expenditure. Copyright, 1935, by Emily Post.