The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 8, 1903, Page 9

Something in the Nature of Fiend, Says the “Colonel,” She Fir ptures Her Lis- teners s hen Bores Them w ce Assortment of Pain: and Aches That Would Stock a Hospital and an ming Collection of 'y Grievances and Utterances — Her Many Ways of Boring De- - - s me r The £ Kles w who . s w flerings. She ances mre that the - will not « frer, but actua mpanying her victim, the obje f her the & € e » t detect the odor of the atmosphere ns and aches ught to make her where she should berth long . e witha gries ne e ppre . ed females her the woma & elling you how shockingly poo bores poor Jones yds when desca nder the poor fliction that is y or may not be as of as he might have been had he been to order and educated on the same heal T HE WO M AN HO RETAILLD principle. He may go to his club with y and stay a little later than a model husband should He may est in a large and cnwholesome “jag,” verge of sceing snakes and other reepy things at long range. But I am persuaded that poor Jones finds the “jag” mor plate protecting him from his spouse—that is, of course, alw sup- posing that e borgs him as e does ber women friends. The “jag” and the club are safety valves and, heaven knows, he women who have listened to the har- wing tales of poor Jonés' delinquencies sympat with rather than blame him, more regula Fall into line is the woman whose children treat her so unfeelingly. Sbe cannot mention them without enu- merating all their petty faults and fail- ings. Her children torment her and her prompt Mrs. A. E. Brown, the “burnt note ex- sert” of the redemption division of the United Stat is a sweet looking 0dd, whose pla eatures bear no evidence of the hard times in her life, now happily past. Twenty-five vears ago she went to Washington with her husband, both of them in middle life. one citated for work through failing 2 and the other entircly inexpe- rienced. Mr. Brown was a minister of New York State, but had had to give up work on account of sickness. As soon as they arrived In Washington Mrs. Brown put her shoulder to the wheel. With much difficuity she secured a post the treasury, where she was put to counting “shinplasters” (as the fractional currency then in such wide use was known), which at that time were received | by wagon loads in all stages of dilapida- ton. For a year or more Mrs.” Brown s tre inc HE = EST\C INFEL ICITT I IEgSY wear her into shreds. She fan- cies herself the most abused specimen in creation. She buttonholes her friends on the street corners, in the shops, anywhere, everywhere. But the greatest infliction is when she calls in the morning almost before you are up and stays until long after your retiring hour, playing on your nerves with a currycomb, which she dampens at intervals with a few exasper- ating tears. Then it is that you feel more like shaking her than saying the sweetly mpathetic things expected of you.' Her sband, children and servants seem es- hu pecially created to give the poor soul an excuse to bore you until you feel like.an overworked collander. But of all the women bores the woman with a mission should lead.the proces- sion and be voted the drum major of the corps. BURNT NOTE EXPERT A CLEVER WOMAN., counted ten-cent notes, and was delighted ted to count twenty- when she was prom five cent ones. Promoted again and again as tlie years went by, she at last attained her present cnviable place and reputation as burnt- note expert. Perhaps it should be muti- lated bapk-note exp intimate is her knowledze of the currency of the United States and of the natior.al banks that from a few scraps of charred paper which no one else could tel ! were ever bank-notes, she can pick out | enough to permit much If not all of the money destroyed to be redeemed—for, be | 1t understood, Uncle Sam always redeems his paper at its face value where tragments of it can be shown to e; and where the claimant can account for its destruction, We can excuse a pretty woman fn dis- tress, even if she does bore us a little, but when it comes to a downright ugly woman, we can hardly wonder that oth- ers treat her so badly and fill her full of grievances when we ourselves almost feel homicidal when forced 'to listen to ex- travagant vaporings about a mission that is the dream of insufferable egotism rath- er than the assertiveness of genius. If there is any, woman who makes me feel faiht and feeble and fatigued it is she who fancies that she was intended to figure in some .colossal work of philan- thropy and missed the bullseye by falling in love and marrying some poor, unlucky fellow. Some time ago a woman with a mission mania buttonholed a gathering of friends in a fashionable hotel lobby and exploited a bunch of fads and fancies that nearly drove the:whole party to drink. Her idéa was to impréss her hearers with the fact that she had missed her calling. She was prominent in several women's clubs and imagined, because she had been made sec- retary of each,” that she possessed won- derful executive abflity. The truth of the matter is that the habitues of women's clube are always very glad to shift the duties of secretary to the shoulders of any one willing to carry theé burden, It really is not a compliment, if the woman chosen has. sense enough to know if. This particular woman boasted of being a' born - erganizer, while I, who heard, thought long when T recalied her brood of small children who often appeared to | need vigorous applications of soap and water. She also boasted that she never had darned x stocking in her life, which | statement no one could doubt who had ever seen the liitle pin#¥legs of the afore- sald brood shining through big holes that awiebt have been mended to the comfort CETHE YOUNG WOMAMS WOMEN AND" CHILDREN'S SECTION MARCH 8 100> the children an But she was infected with the idea that she had missed her mission by being at the head of a small family Instead of figuring as the “Great I Am” of some philanthropic affair The pretty girl who longs for sympathy ut does not dare to go to her mother for it may be very much of a bore to som women, and yet older women; realizing the situation, should listen patiently to these tales of woe and endeavor to pro tect such a girl from herself. When we have lived rough our love affairs and the memory of the rhapsodies and agonies have been mellowed by time we are apt to forget the keenness of the suffering lived through long years ago We forget that the untried soul of a zirl, whose inexperience and innocence make her an easy p when her heart is touched or her sympathies aroused, should be an object of solicitude, and that mothers are often woefully § a daughter’s heartaches, so that naturally seeks the woman of experier who, at least, will comfort her for the time being, thongh she may ignors the advice given her When we have outlived our own fool days with their silly nothings, which may be our sweetest memories or the lo chords of regrets, our sympathies become proof against the silly nothings of others that really ma be hailf so of as the silly things we have done and, mer cifully for have forgotten. The girl n a quandary through her love affairs, whose mo old and unsympath or u and fault finding, should not be classed with th res who make miserable. For she does not seek others with the one Iding er agreeable or . while shé ve the spleen that is frequently the resul of badly controlled nerves or a disorgan- ized liver. And that’s just what the wom- an who bores women usually does. A young girl's love affairs should be to the older woman like the odor of dead rose leaves, stifling. suggestive of loveliness of the days gone by. Tireso: though she be, she is sincers and is not a victim of diseased imagination or mor- bid fancies. m, wi The love affairs of the love-lorn girl may incline me to a suspicion of mental seasickness, which I can worry through: but the older woman, with h and incisive voice, who meta yanks me by the collar and f to listen to her long string of grieva makes me feel as if I wan out on a philanthropic mi wherein T could with a sort ock them up toget one another and fight the whole business to a finish among themselves. CTHE WOMAN WHO DETALS RAER PENS HER HEART TO YOou ABouT HER 1LOVE-AFFAIRS® et