--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Reid, Agnes Just collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 29 number: 3 published: 1926-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Reid, Agnes Just, “The Wrong Girl,” *Improvement Era* 29, no. 3 (January 1926): 266–268." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2903unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2903unse start_page: 266 end_page: 268 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1926-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2903unse publication_year: 1926 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1926, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Wrong Girl THE WRONG GIRL By Agnes Just Reid Rollo and his mother were riding toward the sunset, down the long gradual slope that leads to home. They had been gone all day looking after fences, leases, range and all the things that affect the cattle business. They had eaten their lunch dinner by a spring and enjoyed a perfect day together as two men might have done. The boy had talked in his animated way of almost everything in the universe; talked until he seemed to have run out of subjects. His mother almost suspected that he had led the conversation for fear she might lead it into unplesant channels. Now, as he fell silent, she thought she must sound him a little on the subject that was nearest her heart. "Son, what about this Atkinsen girl who is visiting the Davis family?" "Oh, I don't know much about her." "Surely you know more than I do. Who is she? Where is she from? How long is she going to stay? I suppose I could find out these things from some one else, but since you have been there so much you must know." "Oh yes, I know that she is a third or fourth cousin of Mrs. Davis, and I know that she came from' Chicago. I don't think she knows how long she is going to stay." "Now, there is one more question I want to ask you, Rollo, and I doubt if anyone else in the community can answer it, does she smoke cigarettes?" The color flew to Rollo' s face and for a moment he dropped his eyes to the saddle horn, then he looked into his mother's eyes with that old defiant truthfulness of his childhood days and said: "Yes, she does." Molly Kent knew well enough what the answer would be, or should be, to her question; still, when it came, she was unprepared for it and the one thing she wanted to do was cry. She could not see any glory in the sunset, she could not thrill at being the mother of the handsome boy who rode beside her; she could not do anything but cry. Rollo knew she was crying. He always knew how little it took to make her cry, and finally said impatiently: "Well, Mother, what is there to cry about, because Bessie Atkinsen smokes?" "Oh, Son, you'll never know what it is* to be a Mother and just how far into the future a Mother's eyes can look to find causes for tears." "Well, you always have been perfectly nutty over tobacco. Everybody uses it. I don't see why you should make such a fuss about it." THE WRONG GIRL 267 "Perhaps I should not. Perhaps I am wrong. Mothers can't always be right and, I must admit that since the war, I am with the minority. All my life I have watched the gloriousi forward march of the human race. Each year marks an advancement in every line — we have better homes, better schools, better roads, better hospitals, better everything, but the war set us back about fifty years on the tobacco question. Your great grandmother smoked, and if you marry a girl who smokes', instead of keeping abreast of the times, you are stepping back three generations." "What makes you think I am going to marry a girl who smokes?" "I am not sure that I think you are, Rollo, but I am sure that you are more interested in this girl who does smoke than you have ever been in any girl yet." "What if I am? She is a lively kid. Plays the piano, the uke, and sings like a song bird. I am interested in her because she shows me a good time. I haven't any idea of marrying her." "Did it ever occur to you that she might have an idea of marry- ing you?" "No, it never did. If she wants to marry, there are plenty of the other boys, she can get. The fellows are all crazy about her. I think I am mighty lucky to get a chance to take her out at all, but I am not thinking about marrying anyone." "That is iust it, mv bov. You are not thinking about marrying anyone and with a girl of that type, you won't think about it. Just the first thing vou know vou'll marry her and think about it after- ward. I know that I am old-fashioned in mv ideas, but I have watched a good many of these whirl-wind love affairs, and they usually end in the divorce courts. At your age, you are likely to choose the companionable girl, but I look for a mother for your children. I wish I could get you to say to yourself before you take a girl any- where and spend time and money on her: 'Is she the kind of a girl I would like to have for the mother of my children?' If young people all did that, there'd be mighty few divorces." "You don't know, Mother, Bessie might develop into a first rate mother. She is young, you know." "Yes. she is young, but can you imagine a mother with a cigarette in her lips? Can you imagine Rollo, Junior, three months old and choking with croup as you were so many times, and his mother pausing in the mad rush for remedies to roll a cigarette?" Rollo laughed in spite of himself. "Well, if I marry her, she's pot to quit smoking. I've already tried to tell her it was not the right thing to do in these parts." "Quit smoking? No, she'll never quit smoking. Nobody ever quits smoking. They attempt to quit, then they turn cowards and in- stead of quitting, they just become dishonest about it. They grow into liars and thieves. If you continue in your attentions to her, you vourself will be smoking inside of six months. The woman always 268 IMPROVEMENT ERA leads, and every woman is like the busy elevator in a department store, she is either carrying you up, up, or down, down." They were nearing home, and it was almost dark. As Roljo opened the gate below the house, a car came into sight and he held the gate open. In the one seat of the car were three girls and two boys. The only one that Mollie Kent recognized was Bessie of their recent discussion, and she was sitting on the boy's lap. Mollie was back in the shadows so they did not see her. They stopped the car and Bessie's clear baby voice said: "Hello, Roily, why the weren't you at home, we called to take you to the show with us." "Oh, I am too tired anyway. Thanks1," said Rollo and the car moved on. "Who were those young people?" asked Mollie Kent. "The boys are two of the toughest characters in Kirby. The two girls are strangers to me, and I guess Bessie is a stranger, too. I certainly never thought she'd step out with a bunch like that. I guess you're right, Mother o' mine, she is> the wrong girl." And millions of stars leaped suddenly forth in the heavens. Shelley. R. 2, Idaho. Provo, Utah The Paneled Soul Oh. impaneled vision of the mountain heights, So delicately robed with mysterious lights; You beckon my thoughts linger there awhile To find a wealth of show — and so beguile The hours; look past the darkened wall's soft dun, And cause the soul to soar and greet the sun. What e'er may be my distant lot, This one thing to me you've taught: That beyond this rigid frame of life Gleams crested mountain's peace, nor toil, nor strife. P. Jordan Rust