The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1870-07-21
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MRS. THOMPSON'S WARE

Mrs. Thompson stood by the kitchen
table pairing potatoes for dinner. Some.
thing was evidently wrong with the lit.
tie lady, for there was an unmistakable
air Of spite in the way she tossed the
potatoes in the cool spring water, wait
ing there to receive them. 1t was sui.
try weather; and through the open win.
dow came the sound Of mowers whet.
ting their knives, blended with the call
Of the robin, and the faint notes of the
cuckoo in the shaded wood. But it
only irritated Mrs. Thompson--indced
everything irritatcd her that day
Looking out from the back. door, might
be seen a lovely landscape, with broad
reaches of meadow land, fringed with
graceful belts of birch and softly roun.
ded mountains lifting their velvety fore.
heads to the white, Aeeey clouds, that
went slowly sailing across the exquisite
ether, like huge drifts Of thistle down.
But this also irritated her. everything
could be beautiful save her life, and that
was cold, and rude, and barren. At
least Mrs. Thompson, in the plontitude
OF her present unsatisfactory mood, was
telling herself that it was.
To begin at the beginning, Jane Law
renee had been an unusually romantic
girl, and had gone for two years to a
boarding school. She had always fam
cied she would marry some famous ar
tist or scholar who would take her to
Rome and Venice, where she might live
in perpetual dream of the beautiful
She SO loved beautiful things Perhaps
all women do; and that may be the
reason why SO many are found ready to
barter love for gold.
But contrary to all her pre-. conceived
notion, she married Robert Thompson
plain, practical farmer, and instead of
touring it in Italy, she went to live at
the old homestead, which had been the
abode of tho Thompsons for generations.
Dreams and reality are SO different, you
see.
Robert Thompson was working
farmer as well as a practical man, and
all his people worked His mother had
worked in her day, his sisters had
worked, he expected his wife to work.
She took to it glcefully; she had not
been brought up with high notions by
any means, and at first the work did
not seem so much. But every expert.
enced lady knows how the labor seems
to accumulate in plain farmers house.
hold as the years after marriage 20 on.
There were plenty of men and boys
about, but only one woman servant was
kept; and Mrs. Robert Thompson grew
to find that she helped at nearly every
thing, save perhaps the very toughest
of the labor. In place of lounging in
elegant foreign studios, or gliding down
famous canals and streams in pictures.
que gondolas, she had butter aud cheese
to make, and poultry to rear, and din.
ncrs to cook in the long, low ceiled
kitchen, and the thousand and one cares
upon her shoulders that made up basy
household. Quite contrast, as must
be admitted.
With things little different she
would not have minded the work so
much; could she have had nice carpets
and tasteful furniture, aud books, and a
picture or two and flowers, The home
was so very hard and practical. At
FIRST she had not noticed this, OR cared
for it; but every year, as the years
rolled on, made matters look dinsier
Old Mrs. Thompson had not cared to
besmart and nice; Robert ncverthouubt
about it. And what though he had -
u is only natural for mep to assume