. . . Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies never seen by waking eyes.
There's so doubt about it. In the beginning, you'll have trouble deciding if your Cancerian girl is a gentle moon maiden or a wild loony-bird. In the end, you still won't know.
During the rainy season, she'll drown you in her sorrows. When the sun peeks through the clouds again, she'll double you up with laughter, and touch you with tenderness. Experiencing her moods is like watching one of those old-time silent movies where hysterical slapstick humor comes on just before the Perils of Pauline thriller, and the entire show is backed by the tinny piano in the pit . Sometimes the tune is lively and gay; then it gets melancholy and blue. The music is variable, to suit the occassion, never stagnant or monotonous. So it is with the Cancer girl. She's just a little mad, slightly sad and superbly imaginative. She also knows how to save the shekels.
Naturally, you can't look under her mattress until after you've married her. Modesty is a thing with her. But you can safely make a bet she probably has an old sock there, stuffed with green bills and silver coins. She may have an extravagant ascendant or Moon sign, but even so, she'll' have a quarter or two stuck under the potted azalea, or salted away in the folds of that lace tablecloth she got for her birthday ten years ago and still hasn't ever used. Open One of her books of poetry and a wrinkled dollar bill may fall out, blinking at the light of day. A Cancer female can go on a sudden spending spree when she's been hurt and needs balm for her injured ego, but most of the time her outgo will lag considerably behind her income. Your savings account may be of unusual interest to her, and money may be one of her favorite topics of conversation. She won't look down on you if you don't have it, so long as you're the kind of man who tries to get it. She'll help you make it and save it, but you're on your own when it comes to wasting it. Don't go too far, or she'll see your mutual security slipping away. When you give this girl a terribly expensive gift, and she says, "You shouldn't have done it," let me tell you, she means it.
To take her mind off insurance, mortgages, rent, bills and her Christmas club balance at the bank, bundle her off to the seashore at midnight for a walk in the moonlight. That's when shell be at her best. The Moon will pull out all her secret dreams, and the nearness of the water may loosen her four hundred and three inhibitions. You're liable to see her whole range of emotions in the space of an hour. Then you can choose the one you like the best and encourage her to cultivate it. A strange transformation will take place when you get the typical Cancerian girl alone on a beach under a full Moon. That cool and reserved lady you see in the daytime, or even the giggly, outrageous flirt you notice on an occasional evening in a restaurant or theater, will suddenly become a creature from another world when the magnetic rays of the Moon shine in her eyes and the compelling sound of the surf fills her ears. She'll turn into a sea nymph, who can soar with you as far as your imagination can reach. It will work nine times out of ten, and the tenth time you probably picked a new Moon. That won't accomplish the same purpose. She'll be shy and sweet when the Moon is waning but what you really want is a Moon that's full enough to arouse all her latent talents. Under its spell, at the right time in her personal ebb and flow of emotions, she can write a poem, compose a song or tear the veil off mysteries the philosophers have pondered for centuries. Naturally, she makes an interesting conversationalist at these times. To say the very least.
You should know that there are two distinctive approaches when a Cancerian female is in love with you. The first is gentle and womanly, shy, modest and pleasantly trembly. The second is rather sticky. This last type will use every trick of Eve to sit as close as possible to you in the booth. It can be very exciting, of course, if you really care for her. But if you're just being friendly, and she deliberately squeezes your hand or busses you on the cheek just as the girl you found at the end of the rainbow walks by, the game may lose some of its flavor. You can go along with the gag, but I know one man who did, and the other girl, who was for real and didn't play games, kept on walking. He was left with a clinging crab with a fit of the giggles. This kind of Cancerian woman can be a real threat to true love and happy homes. Fortunately, she is in the minority. Still, even one can cause a lot of trouble.
As you know from the other Sun signs, few women are perfect. The Aries girl is always running around hailing her own taxis and butting her head against brick walls, the Sagittarius girl is shockingly outspoken, the Scorpio girl can frighten you, Gemini can be fickle, Leo too proud and so on. Cancer women ordinarily have none of these faults.
Nevertheless, there are some "don'ts" to remember with her. She hates to be criticized, she is deeply wounded by ridicule, and she just can't stand being rejected. One, two, three. They're basics. Seldom openly aggressive, the typical Cancerian hesitates. You'll have to make the first move. If she moves anywhere at all, it will be backwards or sideways. With her basically shy nature and fear that she won't be accepted, she echoes .the male of the Sun sign. I know of a Cancer woman and a Cancer man who, for seven hours, sat close to each other one night in her apartment, under the pretense of looking at magazines. While their pulses pounded silently, they went through a stack of back issues, the morning and evening papers, and worked a few crossword puzzles. Neither crab, you see, wanted to make the first move.
Be kind to her mother, or she'll never forgive you. Mother is a lady she won't like to see abused. The Cancer girl's sense of humor doesn't react favorably to mother-in-law jokes. And never read her five-year-diary. It probably has a lock and key, anyway Cancerians like to keep secrets. They're not much for true confessions, unless you're the one doing the confessing.
The fears of your lunar lovely can really hang you up, along with her. She's afraid she isn't pretty enough, she isn't smart enough, she isn't young enough or she isn't old enough. It makes no difference if she has a figure like Venus de Milo, a face like Helen of Troy and a mind like Aristotle: she'll still feel inadequate. Assure her that she's young, she's lovely, she's engaged, and she has you. About twenty times a day should begin to make a dent. Her moods will change on the average of four times a month, with each quarter Moon plus minor fluctuations twice a day- reflecting the tides. She's sort of predictable in an unpredictable kind of way. It may make her fascinating and mysterious, but so doggone aggravating you'll feel like whacking her. During one of her blue spells, she may even be afraid she's not a good cook, which is utterly ridiculous, because the typical Cancerian woman can make a French chef look like the mess sergeant you had at boot camp. This woman isn't an automatic can opener or a frozen food fan. She would rather shell her own peas and bake her own biscuits. Her casseroles are sensational, her potatoes are fluffy, her vegetables are crisp and crunchy, and she tops it all off with heavenly strawberry jam. Cancer women are very friendly with their ovens. The kitchen will be her favorite room by far (next to the nursery). She'll fuss over you like a mother hen, and you'll probably love it. Most men do.
In addition to the obviously unjustified fear about her culinary skill, she may be afraid you don't love her enough. That should be easy for any red-blooded male to remedy. Go ahead and prove it-as often as you like. She'll be beautifully receptive. Once you've turned on the green light, she'll happily recognize the signal, which may remove her feelings of inadequacy, but which creates a new problem. Truthfully, after you've won the Cancerian female, she may be just a little tenacious-like, she'll never let go of you as long as she lives. That's not bad. There are men who starve for such loyalty. You'll never starve for either food or affection when you've been lucky enough to win her kind of love. The loony laugh that accompanies it can be kind of kicks, too. Her rich humor is even warmer and dearer when you think of all the sarcastic sirens with their cynical wit and hypocritical laughter.
It's brutally unfair to toy with the heart of this girl, because shell love, honor, obey and nag you a little with sincere devotion. Why encourage such rare love unless you mean to reciprocate with equal ardor? Remember her tenacity. You may only be flirting lightly, but you'll have a hard time calling the end of the inning. She won't hear the whistle. There's nothing shallow or superficial about the sentiments of a Cancer woman. When she owns a man or a teacup, it's hers forever.
She may not overwhelm your friends with her vivacity and sparkling flattery, but she won't fail to impress you with her charm. July women prefer to save their deepest emotions for people closest to them. After you've dated other girls and compared them to her, you may go running right back to your female crab, and beg her to hang on again tightly.
The trickiest aspect in handling her is to keep her from crawling into the always handy, tough Cancerian shell. Her feelings are so sensitive and tender, the slightest unintentional remark can wound her harshly. It's hard to know when she'll suddenly become vulnerable to hidden meanings. You could waltz in some night and say, "Your hair looks gorgeous," and she'll get a tear in her eye. Why? Because you insinuated her hair looked frightful the last time you saw her. Cancer women can be quite touchy. They cry a lot. Always have a fresh handkerchief ready.
Females born under the sign of the crab aren't necessarily stingy, but they have this little habit of saving things. You could say it's a downright compulsion. She'll seldom throw away pieces of string, buttons, jars, cans, husbands, or old dress patterns. Who are you to say she won't find a purpose for those torn theater stubs, faded love letters and used tea bags? Someday in the unpredictable future, she may need the burned-out fuses she keeps in the drawer with those broken Christmas ornaments. Don't ask her how she's going to find a use for two hundred stockings and gloves, long divorced from their mates. She will, she will! This isn't the girl to take kindly to someone who burns a hole in the heirloom bedspread her great-aunt Matilda quilted. Everything has a sentimental value, including canceled checks from 1952 and her old Girl Scout badges. She treasures the things she owns and guards them jealously. That, of course, includes you. She's not so much jealous as possessive. There's a shade of difference.
Women born under the fire signs may strain and protest against life's delays and disappointments, but the Cancer girl usually feels nothing can be changed or overcome by getting all stirred up. When things don't go her way, she may shed a few quiet tears alone, but her normal reaction will be to fold her hands serenely and wait patiently for things to right themselves. Patience is one of her loveliest virtues. When she's depressed, however, you'll have to find a way to take her out of herself. Try to catch her before she has burrowed too deep. She does have a way of wanting to be babied. The desire to be a little spoiled by loved ones seems to be buried deep in the Cancerian nature. She needs desperately to know you can't live without her. and sometimes shell go to great lengths to arouse your pity and protective instincts, just to be assured she means a lot to you. It's really very little for her to ask, when she gives so much in return. But don't be fooled by her weakness during these episodes. That helpless little baby who seeks your big, strong arms to keep out the cold, cruel world is perfectly able to manage by herself, if she must. In the middle of a quarrel, when your lunar girl looks up at you with her eyes all wet and dewy and frightened, remember that after you leave and are safely around the corner, she's likely to dry her eyes, put a stack of records on the player, and calmly clean out her closets. Of course, you can't rule out the times when her depression is real, instead of a typical Cancerian bid for sympathy. Those nights you'd better stay, listen to the music with her, and hold her hand tenderly.
There's no end to the heroic sacrifice a Cancer woman will be capable of for those she loves. The bravery she can't seem to muster for herself and her own fears is there shining when someone close needs her to be strong. She'll never let you down when things get really dismal, and then she'll remind you more of a gigantic, rugged rock than a fragile, silvery moonbeam. Her children will also find her a tower of strength and refuge. She'll help them find their way with sensitive understanding. They'll cling to her, and the warmth of her love will make their home as rich and comfortable and bright as a palace, even if it's a shack. You might suffer a slight loss of attention when the babies come along. Cancer rules motherhood, you know. There will still be room for you, but you'll have to move over a few inches. (A childless Cancerian woman will love an animal or her friends with her stored up maternal affection, and the pets and pals will be fortunate.) Like baby birds, her youngsters will probably be fed every time she finds their mouths open, and always the food will be hot and nourishing.
Nothing is too good for her family. When a child sneezes, he'll get plopped into bed with medicines, hot tea and chicken broth until he gets old enough to resist. The offspring of a Cancer mother won't get away without wearing his thick sweater on a cold night, his scarf and mittens in the snow or his galoshes in the rain. A child has to have lots of will power to fight the crab's protective solicitude. He has to be pretty tough not to get spoiled, too. It's often quite a jolt when he goes out into the world and finds out he's not the center of everyone's universe. Such complete dedication and devotion can give him a wonderful featherbed of security to fall back on when life gets too real, but it can also make him abnormally dependent on home ties, and unable to see his own faults. It's often impossible to tell whether a Cancer mother ties her children to her apron strings or they choose to tie the knot themselves. She'll save every spelling test paper, proudly hang clumsy crayon drawings on the wall and tenderly wrap baby shoes in tissue paper. Those little wrinkled bits of white kidskin are precious, because the lunar parent with her clear, photographic memory will recall a child's first steps long after he's flown away from the nest. The flight itself may be painful. Cancer women are reluctant to give up their youngsters to the ties of marriage. They tend to hang on too hard and too long, and think no one is good enough for them. Sometimes, the potential bride or groom of a man or woman with a July parent has to pass everything but the ink blot test to get approved.
I once knew a Cancer mother who used to meet her small son every day after school. He would always come bursting through the door like a jet-propelled rocket, and immediately run furiously around the schoolyard a few times before he came near her. Once, when she was accompanied by her sister, the aunt started to go after the little boy, but the Cancer mother stopped her. "No, let him be," she said quietly. "He's just working off steam. He'll be back when he's through running." Finally her son walked over to her, took her hand and said, "Let's go home. Mom. I'm hungry."
That sums up the whole attitude of the lunar female toward all forms of love, and most of all toward her m arriage. It's her strange brand of possessiveness that's unshakable, but never aggressive. She knows, in her secret heart, that no matter how far away you go to follow your dream, youll always come back again and she'll be there patiently waiting. Her eyes will still be beautiful with the Moon magic you remember, the kitchen will smell deli-ciously of warm spices, and she'll ask you how things went, how you feel. If things went badly and you feel miserable, shell tell a joke to get you to laugh. Then she'll fill your stomach, and after you're relaxed, she'll gently smooth away your worries with her sensible advice and her rich humor. Later, in the firelight, you'll look at her serene face and ask yourself all over again, "Is she really a Moon maiden from some misty garden or a lovable loony bird?" But the answer won't seem very important.