The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-03-11
NUMBER 10.
GRUM HUSBANDS.

s.Dear Mrs. Editor" writes western
wife, 1--WE women get it on all sides.
Now, if that old saw is trhe-EWhat is
sauce for the goose is sauce for the gan
der'-I think a word or two to husbands
now and then wouldn't come amlss.
Some ofthem seem to forget that though
our checks fall in and there are cracks
in our wedding gowns our hearts do
not grow old nor our ears cease to thirst
for the honeyed words that made court
ing days so gay. Our spirits may be
tagged and our minds narrowed by the
dull round of housework-the same
knives to be rubbed with same old piece
of buckskin, the same spider to be
scraped with the same tough old spoon
but will not John and George and
Harry remember that such monotony
indoors makes us better value straight
talk with them about their own affairs.
Cabined as we are in the narrowing
walls of our nurseries, our life-compan-
ions are all that remain to us of society.
If they grow grum and chilly what re-
source is left us. Some of us have
houseful of children, hourly putting
things where they don't belong, and do
ing things what they ought not. Dim
ncr will sometimes be half an hour late,
the meat little burned, the potatoes
water-logged, and the bread q trifle
turned before it went in. But if hus-
band comes home only to find fault or
| to sit there speechleSs, like a dear old
wooden idol, what can keep us from
getting blue? Who, ifnot he, will reach
out stout finger to help us over the
slush, or brush away the spatters from
the Slough of Despond with 3 jolly sto-
ry or hearty laugh"
The picture is not oyerdrawn, and
there are two sides to il. The man
comes in to his dinner wanting food,
rest, and to get back TO his work again.
All very natural and necessary, the wife
busted with q score of little jobs, fritz
tered out by petty vexations, worn, per-
haps, by night-watchings with a sick
child, herself in feeble health, possibly
has failed to have everything ordered
duly; so ne is silent, she is sad.
What can we do about it2 To say
that dinner should be ready on time is
easy enough, but to compass the under
taking is not always easy. The farmers
crops should be in, cultivated, harvested
by such and such time. Are they al
| ways? The fences and outhouses
should be in repair, the tools in order,
the farm ia condition do we never find
| it otherwise? Neither is the house al
ways in order, the children quiet and
clean, the meals Oh time, the wife tidy
and cheerful.
| the seasons; woman's every day with
the sun. The rot gets into his potatoes,
his wheat is smutty. The club root at
tacks his cabbages, the skies pour down
in haying time, and he becomes. dis
heartened. The children fall sick, the
sewing gets behindhand, the housework,
| with only two feeble hands to roll the
same old log up the hills, falls back, and
she loses heart.
What cure for these ills that flesh is
heir to? Love and patience, sympathy
and forbearance will do more than any
thing else. Look on the bright side ;
| if there is one feature, one trait, one ac-
ton of your wife, o husband, of your
husband, o wife, that you approve and
admire, praise it, and be blind to all the
rest.
We do not compliment each other
enough; we do not seek out the noble,
the lovely, the admirable traits in each
others character, and dwell on them as
we should. Recall the days when the
hours were as moments, and the mo-
ments in her absence as days; think of
the future that may be forever saddened
by her removal, in the light of her MEM
DRY, in the shadow of presentiment, love
and forbearance can but flourish and
bloom in kindly deeds and affectionate
words.-N. Y. Tribune.