Weekly Calaveras chronicle., 1867-03-23

pointed Mrs. JOB since their wedding
day. -
There is first time appointed, how
ever, for all that can be said and done,
and on this occasion Job did disappoint
his wife. The hours dragged along
there are one hundred and twenty min
utes to the hour when you are watching
the clock The little Spinnings subsid-
ed from uproarious ferment to fiat
sulkiness, quarreled viciously, did things
worthy of spanking, got it, and were
ranged shifting on chairs; finally, Mrs
Job took off her bonnet, and with the
fine unreasonableness of her sex, con-
cluded herself an ill-used woman. Job
came home late and looking gloomy, and
found Mrs. JOB pathetic. i11 b. =
! should not have cared for my own
disappointment she said. s. I am used
to that but the children, poor Cd
Disappointment repeated Job, alb
sently. sOh yes! and subsided again
into bis gloomy thinking; and that was
all the explanation that Mr. Spinning
ever offered for keeping his wife waiting
in bonnet and shawl two hours by the
clock He was in frightful humor,
and answered Mrs. Job, who had been
teasing him lately, to insure his life, SO
like an ogre-or, not to be poetical, like
,other women's husbands when out of
temper, that she dropped the subject
iaghast, and never dared to renew it.
This was not ALL On the next night
he came home late again-thing unpre-
icedented in their married annals. On
the next night he was later yet! After
that he was regular only in being always
late. More than this. If some med
dlesome genius had popped Job bodily
into moral press, squeezed out Of him
all the cheeriness and frankness, and
made him over, secret, silent, moody
man, why then we might account for
Job, as he was from that fatal day or
if Jobs soul had stepped out in his
sleep, as some good folks declare is done
in dreams, and the wrong soul had
popped in between his lips in the hurry
of waking, why then Mrs. Job could
have eomprehended her husband as he
was from that fatal day !; but to go out
the kind, patient, tender Job that she
had always known him, and to come
back the incomprehensible Job !raro
Mrs. Job was a woman of energy, al
SO woman of some sentiment. When
husbands change, morally, for the worse
she knew that good wives make them
selves physicians, to the case, and, in
home reading at least, always effect a
cure. Mrs. DR.. Job resolved that she
would try to touch Mr.. Spinning's bet
ter nature; and this is how she did it..
Job coming home, late as. usual,
found the cloth laid, the steak on the
gridiron, the little Spinnings trying to
keep their eyes open, and worrying
about the room, and Mrs. Job resigned-
ly sewing. On Jobs entrance she laid
aside her work with gulp indicative of
swallowing much undigested sorrow,
looked at her husband with red eyes and
nose and watery smile, and set about
the supper as one doubly enfeebled by
the pangs of sorrow and hunger, but
resolved to bear all meekly without COM
plant. There was, it must be confess
ed, a strong rising of the natural woman
in Mrs. DR.. Jobs heart. She longed
to look significantly at the clock At
each burst from the children she ached
to say, No wonder! She fairly bubbled
with sarcastic queries concerning the
recent stretch iu business. hours but
when she waxed spiteful she took ref
'|uge in peppering the steak, and when
she got herself in hand she looked mild
ly at Job. He sat, his hands lax on
his knees, his head dropped on his
breast, his eyes on the carpet. If he
was not dead tired-and why should he
be dead tired ?-he was viciously sullen !;
and in either case Mrs. Job felt wrath
full doubt whether this play of principle
Us. feeling was not being thrown away:
THE elder little Spinnings squabblipg in
a corner teased the baby into a. howl.
Mrs. Job looked at Job job looked at
the baby but in a purposeless, fiacid
way, and did not stir. Mrs, Job s
heart swelled; but, taking the baby on
her arms, she dished the steak and
brewed the tea. When Job cut up
the steak, Thank you, no. she said,
with heart broken expression, l
was hungry, but it has gone over;' and
wiped her eyes, laboriously shifting the
baby from one arm to the other. l
don't say that the baby would not have
done very well on the floor, his usual
perch. am only telling youbhow Mrs.
Job set about appealing to her hus=
bands better nature. In fact, rousing
from his haggard stupor, Job did ask,
with something of the old interest,
'Was anything the matter?' Mrs. Job
set her lips 1t would take, week to
tell in order all that she thought was
the matter; and then with second
edition of the watery smile, mo, moth
ing says the little woman, signing, and
with the look of one who is telling a
noble fb, Job rose abruptly and went
into the adjoining bedroom.
He is touched thought Mrs. Job; !;
and, much affected by her own sweet
ness and meekness, began to cry softly
over the baby. Job had not closed the
door, and she could hear him stirring
about the room, and wondered, through
her tears, when he was coming out, and
what he was doing there. She called
up, also, her suferings, past present,
and to come, and from crying easily fell
Ito sobbing The little Spinnngs, much