The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1860-02-02
The Drunkard's Wife.

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"Henry, if this is the way you con-
tinue to come home night after night,
| cannot bear it much louger-I will
not bear it.''
The man thus addressed lifted his
heavy eyes, as he asked, with curse
and silly smile
"Well, what are you going to do
about it ?'
''I'm going to do something, Henry,
and that before long. I've tried to be
a loving and faithful wife-I have striv-
en- to keep your home in order, and to
welcome you here-but my spirits are
breaking down. shall have to give up
soon."
"Pho !! don't you know you're going
to reform me? Isn't it the duty of
wife to stay by her husband through
good and evil ?"
eyes, where the evil does not come
through yielding to vice, and debauch-
ing soul and body. If God sent you
illness, or if, through your own miscal-
culation or heedlessness, you become
suffering and poor, 1 would 90 with
you, hand in hand, were the path ever
so rugged. But as it is, you are defl-
ing what l loved, and yourself destroy
ing every spark of affection that ever
possessed. l am to proud to perform
menial offices for drunkard l freely
confess. Were you poor wandering
beggar, sick, and staggering weakly to
my door, l could wash your very feet,
and will do what lay in my power to
save you-but cannot and will not
bear you staggering drunken!y to your
bed, sit up till the morning dawns, half
crazed with apprehensions-seeing you
in this or that danger, and do offices
that are too revolving to be thought of
/ was educated to habits of neatness
and cleanliness aud when l married
you, l thought / should 60 with one
who would aid me in being pure-who
would keep me from contact with any
thing gross and demoralizing. Instead
of that, married but boy of mans
statue" she added bitterly" with a
weaker than child's mind-led by the
nod of the drunkard and the dram-sel-
Ter, and respecting his wife so little
that he dares to come reeling into her
presence with words no wife should
ever hear"
"You're sick of me then, eh % MUIR
INJURED the drunken man drowsily.
"I am sick of your ways, Henry, and
have been for years. My better nature
revolts against your blood-shot eyes,
bloated face and fetid breath. Oh I!
Henry''-she cried passionately-" we
have been married ten years, and as /
view that relation, we should be ten
times happier, and love each other ten
times more than when we first promised
that which united our destinies. In
stead of that / find myself wishing that
l bad never, never seen YOU"
You do, eh ?"
eyes do. / never said this before,
but am desperate. / have tried all
the means that my woman's ingenuity
could invent to reform you. For years
| never met you but with smiles-no
matter what your condition. / thought
surely my gentleness will reprove him,
and in time reform him. When l re-
monstrated, it was not with anger
you can testify to that, and, Oh Hen
ry, how often you promised to reform.
even forgave you what woman sell
dom forgives, blow, because you were
not conscious, through drink what you
did. l was patient after some of my
furniture had been DESTROYED by your
hand. | was patient after l had laid
two of my darlings under the sod, be-
cause their blood being poisoned by
your vile habits, they had not the
strength to rally when disease came.
And even, when your occasional sprees,
as you call them, became weekly,
nightly, l was patient-but that was
the patience of dispair. Now l have
decided will no longer sit by drunk
ards hearth-stone-and ] declare to
you it would be happy hour to me to
feel that you had gone over that door
sill for the last time"
The woman's face was pale-pale as
that of corpse. 1t was evident that
a passion-a deep, whitehead passion
had mastered her better mood. Il
glowed and famed in her sunken eyes
lit trembled in her fingers, convulsive
ly working it swelled in her veins thai
stood out on the broad forehead, anG
! in corded masses sprank up from hel
delicate wrists.
The man all this time was looking
down. He was very handsome, but