Go to Sleep, My Darling By WINSTON K. MARKS _If you're totally convinced it's a man's world, don't read this. But if in doubt...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity November 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] At 46, Bertrand Baxter was a man's man, still struggling to adapt himself to a smotheringly woman's world. His work, selling sporting goods for Abernathy and Crisp Co., was his element. Not only was he an ex-All American tackle, but his abiding love for sports had led him into a business where he dealt almost exclusively with men. Old Crisp had once told him, "Bert, if we had two more salesmen like you we could fire the other twenty. You have a sixth sense dealing with these coaches and school superintendents. They love you." Yes, Bert Baxter could anticipate his male customer's requirements, objections, moods and buying habits with an almost clairvoyant insight. But give him a woman! He was licked before she opened his catalog. Women found him attractive enough. His six-foot-four, square-jawed athletic prowess had given him the pick of the class of '29, including the statuesque Rolanda. But to marry a woman and to understand her were different matters: the former ridiculously easy, the latter bewilderingly impossible. The easy familiarity he enjoyed with men of the slightest acquaintance was something he could never establish in his own home with his own wife and his own daughters. Fate, as if to further confound him, had presented Bertrand with four daughters. Of all these females, Rolanda, Aileen, Grace, Norma and Annie, only two month-old Annie was currently making sense to Bert Baxter. That was because she was a baby, and not yet a female in the baffling sense of the word. His other three daughters had had their turns, but as they emerged from infanthood into childhood they became unmistakable girl-children almost with their first mama-papa lisps, and thereby removed themselves from Baxter's realm of fathomable human beings. He lay sleepless one November night beside the gently snoring Rolanda, debating the wisdom of having induced her to try once more to provide him with a son. Although Rolanda was forty at the time, Annie had arrived without undue trouble, fitted immediately into the Baxter feminine regime and established herself in Bert's heart quite solidly, if only temporarily. The misgivings that beset him were vague ones. Annie was the apple of his eye, but in a few short months she would add to the flooding tide of womanhood that swirled through his house, squealing, giggling, moping, hair-curling, nylon-rinsing, plucking, powdering, painting, primping, ironing, sweater-trading, lipstick-snitching and man-baiting.