Happiness and Marriage | Page 9

Oh, the uselessness of life!
I had to give it up. I wasn't enough of a hanger-on to sink into a state of
perpetual whining protest, or to commit suicide. When I was finally
convinced that I couldn't draw him nearer I gave it up and began to take
notice again, of other things. I let him live his life and I took up the
"burden" of my own "lonely" existence.
And the first thing I knew my "burden" had grown interesting, and I
was no longer lonesome. I began to live my life to please myself,
instead of living it for the purpose of making over the life of another.
The next thing I knew my husband didn't have so much business
downtown, and he had more things he wanted to tell me. I found we
were nearer than I ever dreamed we'd be.
You see, I had become more comfortable to live with. I had quit trying
to draw him nearer, and behold, he was already near.
In the old days I lived strenuously. I hustled so to get the house and the
children and myself just so, that I got my aura into a regular snarl. My
husband being a healthy animal, felt the snarl before he saw the
immaculateness; and like any healthy animal he snarled back--and had
business downtown. He responded to my real mental and emotional
state, responded against his will many times; and I did not know it. I
supposed him perverse and impossible of pleasing. I knew I had tried
my best (according to my lights, which it had not occurred to me to

doubt), but it never entered my cranium that he had tried, too. I looked
upon the outward appearance--my immaculate appearance, met by
fault-finding or indifference I Poor me! Perverse he!
Poor Martha, troubled about many things, when only one thing is
needful--a quiet mind and faithful soul. History does not state if Martha
had a husband. If she did, he was perpetually downtown. And Jesus
preferred Mary, the Comfortable One, to Martha. Poor lonesome
Martha! And she tried so hard to please.
I used to know a woman who never did a thing but look sweet. She was
pretty and sympathetic and cheery. Her husband and six children
idolized her, and fairly fell over themselves to please her and keep the
home beautiful for her. There was physical energy galore lavished
gladly by the family, in doing what is commonly considered the
mother's work.
And there was apparently nothing whatever the matter with that woman,
who was always sweet and pretty as a new blown rose, and looked not
a day over twenty. She was simply born tired and wouldn't work. Of
course the neighbors said things about her; but nobody could say things
to such a sweet tempered, cordial and pretty woman. And there'd have
been razors flying through the air if anybody had dared hint to that
husband or one of those children that mother was anything less than
perfection. The family explanation was that "mother is not strong."
But that mother did more for that family than all the others put together.
She made the atmosphere, and she was the life-giving sun around
which husband and children revolved, and from which they received
the real Light of Life--the power which develops the good in us.
The mother's main business in life was that of appreciating. She was
the confidante, the counsellor, the optimistic teacher, and the
appreciative audience for six children and a husband, besides a lot of
neighbors who carried their troubles to her. She performed more mental
work than it takes to manage a billion dollar trust. She kept six children,
not only out of mischief, but happily busy at all sorts of household and
outdoor work which it was well for them to know. They learned to keep

house and farm by keeping them, whilst she sat by and enthused and
directed their efforts. She made them love it all. She helped them over
the hard places in their school work and enthused them to do better
work. They carried off the school prizes under her admiring eyes, and
ran straight to lay them in her lap and receive that proud and happy
smile of hers.
Her husband worked like a slave with the heart of a king. She thought
him the best, bravest, brightest of men, and told him so a dozen times a
day, besides looking it every time he came in range of her big, loving
brown eyes and smooth, rosy cheeks.
I never heard of an unkind word in that family, and those six children
grew up into splendid young manhood and womanhood. Their mother
is still the blessed sun of their existence. She is prettier, healthier and
happier now,