The Broken Limb The gnarled limb is broken down; The young tree cries big drops of sap Which runs in rivers down her gown, And falls in earth's gray placid lap. The face that once was heaven bent Is now bowed low as if in prayer. Could not some helpful one be sent By Him who reigns in glory there? If one could feel the agony Expressed by nature in her scene He'd pause to mend the bleeding tree And make its life once more serene. -Berniece McEntire page eight Open Season on Males by Clyde miller TURN about is fair play. The turn about this time is in favor of the ladies, and if they have any proposing to do, they had better get it done and stop hollering that this is a man's world. Some say allowing a woman this prerogative is like handing a gun to a savage. She won't know how to use it and is liable to get hurt. But there are those who say that if one of these modern gals levels her sights on you, you're a dead goose. So take up arms, ladies, and let's see how many birds you can bag. It's the hunting season, and the campaign is already under way. Miss Dorothy Dix states in her column that this campaign, because of the instinct of the female to make the right choice, will be productive of one hundred per cent marital compatibility for all contracts entered into during the fiscal year ending December 31, 1940. Four years from now, several thousand happy children who would otherwise be daddyless because of matrimonial rifts, can look back and say, "I was born in 1940. That was the year Mommy proposed to Daddy." What Miss Dix and her backers would have us believe is that men are incapable of performing the job of proposing to the right person and at the right time. On this point Mr. Joe Bachelor produced this announcement in an interview: "I disagree with Miss Dix. Women don't know anything about proposing, and, anyway, they don't know how to act after being turned down. Can you imagine how a dame would look kneeling down and crying at the same time?" Nevertheless, this campaign promises to be one of conniving, with no holds barred. A group of behavior-ists ventured the opinion that the men would either relish the prospect of being pursued as legal game, or beat a hasty retreat. The first was postulated on the grounds that some men possess to an excess the feminine foible of preferring the position of being the hunted rather than the hunter. Immediately the dissenters conjure a picture of a male populace transmuted into a flock of strutting peacocks. The zest of the chase would be gone; courtship would become a wooden thing, since no man can hope to achieve the now-you've-got-me-now-you-haven't formula, the trade-mark of feminine behavior. This premarriage heaven-in-hell, they say, is requisite to consummate happiness after marriage because the uncertainty of the chase adds to marriage the flavor of a victory hard won. And the men haven't the heart to carry it as far as the ladies do. Suppose, for instance, that Mary has led John a merry chase for two or three years. She knows that he is the one and only (she hasn't told him, though), but John can truthfully say that he doesn't know where the hell he stands with her. (These are his words, not ours.) Finally, he gets tired of proposing to her and is beginning to lose interest, much to Mary's chagrin. Ah, but it's leap year, and Mary, desperately seeking a stimulant for a dying romance, proposes to him. His answer is that classic, though stereotyped, one which the ladies have found handy for generations. "I can't marry anyone. Besides, I don't know if I love you." Again we repeat, men are incapable of such naivete as this. On the other hand, there are those who see it as a utilitarian arrangement, handy for jarring loose the gentlemen of the laissez-faire school. Long term agreements could be brought to an understanding or disposed of abruptly as dead-ends. The more realistic thinking of the girl might in most cases prove to be an effective agent for the male propensity for doggedly ploughing an endless rut. It was told of a young lady that after going steady with a fellow for ten years, she had to literally hit him over the head with a baby carriage to get him to propose to her. The adherents of the second assumption, namely, man's retreat in the face of pursuit, have dared to intimate that an act of woman whereby she seeks to bring about an affinity with man can be termed only aggression. Aggression, yes, but with the femine touch. None of this Amazon stuff, understand. Treading on ground otherwise sacred to male feet will require a certain deftness, or we don't know our men. Lizzie, for instance, is an Amazon with the deft touch. Let's take the case of Tom and Lizzie. At the age when most boys discover that it is more fun to kiss a girl than to dig frogs out of the mud, Tom had decided to be a bachelor. As he put it, he was going to paddle his canoe alone. But after several years of sailing in circles, even he had to admit that he was getting a bit dizzy. At this point Lizzie appears, oar in hand, and says, "Here, let me help you paddle that canoe." When questioned about how it was, being married, Tom reluctantly admitted that Lizzie had a pretty good oar at that. Men, if a girl can land you with a paddle, there is no telling what will happen when she starts to stalk you with side-arms. But to any right thinking gentleman, Lizzie's proposal has sincerity of purpose. It has none of the earmarks of the blunt proposals characteristic of women who are on a rebound from abundant but well-fenced hunting grounds. If during the course of the year we hear cries of "uncle" from gentlemen here and there, we may assume that there is indelicacy in the modes of pursuit; or, shall we say, there is a flagrant flouting of the game laws. If and when the question is popped, there must be back of it the groundwork and superstructure of a cunningly planned courtship designed to convince the guy that what he is getting is the angel from heaven and not just a female who meets him at the front door demanding to know where the bacon is. A leap-year husband, victim of such a calamity, says, "I was going with a girl back in '38 a lovely creature. She persistently backed me up in my opinion that I was the incarnation of Adonis, Einstein and Romeo. I found out later that she was an intelligent and clever girl, too, although, in deference to my ego, she refrained from tainting her remarks with it. During the course of our courtship, it did not occur to me that while she had my heart firmly gripped in one hand, she had the other on my pocketbook. So firm was her grip on my heart that there was no other answer but 'yes.' This was very unfortunate for me, because after our marriage, the grip that was on my pocketbook proved to be the stronger; and what was originally intended to be a romantic tie-up had proved to be, instead, an economic one." If it hadn't been for the fact that they were married on a leap year, it would be only fair to assume that this poor fellow was bagged out of season and with a high-powered rifle at that. As they scan the woods the ladies should not be so preoccupied with the hunt that they become blind to the snares that are there. Danger lurks for the unwary huntress. The gentlemen who have had the experience in other years of being threshed about like tabs on a whip in the hands of an enchantress are not going to (Continued on Page 18) page nine