The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1870-05-10
How She Earned the Money.
BY MRS. JULIE A. CARNEY.

Its no use talking any more about it
Sally. You know very well | cannot
afford it. Almost ten dollars for clothes
wringer Why,its enough to be pestered
all the time for money to buy new clothes
to wiring Your mother and grandmother
managed to wiring the clothes with their
own industrious hands. They wasn't so
afraid of using their hands in those days"
"But husband" here interposed the
wife, taking advantage of a lull in the
storm of indignation, ait is not a question
Of hands mainly, although mine are sadly
blistered by wringing hard and heavy
clothes. A wringer costs but nine dollars,
the very best of them, while some are
much cheaper, and they will save the
clothing that much in short time"
"Hump, who says so ?" grunted the
farmer, from his cloud of tobacco smoke.
Livery one who uses them," replied
Mrs. Brown. "They do not wear the
clothes as the twisting of hand-wringing
always does, and the wringer leaves them
so much drier, that they do not freeze so
hard on the line, consequently they are
not broken in slight wind. Besides
they dry so much quicker, which often
saves being beaten about by storms"
"Some agent has been telling you a
fine story with which to bamboozle me
out of nine dollars. You seem to have
learned it all by heart, too"
81 have seen no agent" replied the
wife, with scarcely repressed indignation.
Mrs. Jones has used wringer for years,
and she says it saves her half the labor
of washing, besides the wear of the
Clothes
"Well, | wish Mrs Jones had held her
tongue. You women are always setting
each other to teasing us poor men out of
every moments peace, and every cent of
money. If you had the money to earn,
it would be quite different story
Il think, Mr.. Brown, that when | did
have "the money to earn" never had
so much difficulty in getting enough of it
to keep myself decently clothed, and |
had the tools to do it with, provided by
my employers without so much grumb-
ling
"Well, well, | don't want hear another
word about it - and with this,-a mans
last resort when the argument is all against
him-he pulled away at his old pipe,
more vigorously than ever
Mrs. Browns mind was in high state
of Indignation. More than this. She
was decidedly wrathy. She sat with her
patching growing every moment more
disgusted with her own folly, with marry
ing a widdower, who only wanted smart
woman to keep the house in order, cook
for the hired man, and mend the boys
clothes.
Cheaper was it not, than to hire a
woman to do it? and it is lamentable
state of things, that in this country, at
least, it is great deal easier. Thors-
ands of girls that would have been offend
ed at the very thought of doing house.
work for living, with good wages and
plenty of leisure, would have married the
well-to-do Mr.. Brown with his fam, and
his horses and his large house even with
his rough, noisy boys, and his awkward,
unframed girls, as an offset.
Mrs. Brown sat SILENT thinking Mr..
Brown was thinking also. "l'm glad she
takes it so easy 'twon't do to let wo-
man have her own way about spending
money. Never should have anything left
in the bank. Always thought before,
Sally was little set in her way. She gin
up that notion, mighty quick, this time,
though"
Perhaps, Mr. Brown, you had better
stop smoking just long enough to look at
your little wife. You cannot read her
thoughts, you are not sufficiently versed
in woman nature, but methinks even you
might mark the compressed lip, and sec
the occasional flash in the blue eye.
Mrs. Brown was not one Of the many
women, who "speak everything right
straight out, just as they happen to feel.
Rejoice, Oh ye husbands who have
wives who scold when things 60 wrong
1t is the pent up feelings like the groani
and cries of one in pain, and the bes
surgeons say they are n necessary relic
to the nervous system. A woman wht
. receives your unkind refusal in silence
: and with calmness, does not do it becaus,
she has given up the point, but because
she is determined to have her own way
in spite of your refusal.
, Listen 10 Mrs. Browns thoughts -
5 This grandmother's industrious hands
forsooth. Wonder if she scrubbed, an,
washed, and ironed, and mended for
crowd of wild creatures like his children
who, having succeeded in wearing ou
their own mother, seem trying to consigl
me to place by her side.
"If we had the money to earn
should like to know if don't help to earl
: the money Just as much when | am toll
ing over that heated cook-stove, prepar
ing the food for the men and boys, as if
were out in the pleasant fields, drivin
the horses. or gathering and binding tn
T. grain.
{" No money to spend Money enoug
: for farm implements, from the compliant
er, and the cultivator, to the mower, tn
!. reaper, and threshing machine, of a
j sizes and of every price until the yard
literary filed with them. And thos
{ were all necessary. She really could no
= see why His grandfather dug holes 70
, the corn with his "own industrious hands,
and made the boys follow after to dro
l. the corn and fill up the hills. In thos
i. good old days they bent their backs owe
!, the scythe at the earliest peep of day, in
g stead of riding lazily along on mowin
e machine.
"Tll have that wringer if go ou
: washing to pay for it," was her menta
' dismissal of the subject, as she put up he
sewing that evening.
II seems as il Providence had intende