Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-10-05
VOLUME XVI.
CHOW MOTHER DID IT."
BY j, r. HADERMANN,

| IHE year lS59-tnaI is, tne year IN
| which l was born-is of no manner of
| The year 1S59-that is, the year in which
| tegan to hoe Charlie and got married
| that year)-is of considerable i'm portance
to myself and to somebody else The two
| decades forming the interim between
| those years constitute my Dark Age, in
which teethed and measled and whoop-
ing-coughed, and went to school, and wore
my hair in two long ig-tails, and loved
molasses candy, and regarded school
| room as purgstory, ballroom as heaven
when | sang and danced and grew as the
birds and grasshoppers and flowers sing
and dance and grow, because they having
| nothing else to do.
Then came my Golden Age. That
| means, then came Charlie into my life,
when | felt for the first time that there
was music in the birds voices and per-
fume in the f1owers-that there was light
in the heavens above and on the earth be-
| meath, for God was in heaven and Charlie
| was on earth-when l, who had all along
| been hardly more than human grasshop-
| per, became the happiest of happy women
so much happier, / thought, than I de-
served. For who was I, and what great
thing had ever done, that I should be
crowned with such a crown of glory as
Charlie? why should I, Insignificant 1, be
so best among women as to be taken to
wife by Charlie2
I was insanely sentimental enough to
rather resent the fact that Charlie was
prosaicslly well off: his circumstances
were distressingly easy. 1t would have
been SO much nicer, so deliciously ro-
| mantle, if there had been an opportunity
Afforded me to show how ready, nay,
esger, I was to sacrifice friends, home
and country for his dear sake But
| Charlie didn't want me to sacrifice my
friends; nor did it require any great
amount of heroism to exchange my
modestly comfortable home for his decid-
edly luxurious one; and as for country,
nothing on earth could have induced
Charlie to leave his own country. much
less his own parish, much less his own
planta ion. So we were married without
any talk of sacrifice on either side, and
moved quietly enough from fathers small
plantation to Charles large one:
! There was but one dra back to the per-
fectness of my happiness; there was so
little hope of my ever having an opportu-
nifty to air those magnanimous traits of
character upon the possession of which /
so plumed myself. l felt sure that could
meet the most adverse circumstances with
the most smiling patience, but circum-
stances obstinately refused to be adverse
was inwardly conscious that the most
trying emergency could not shake my
heroic but purely feminine forti,ude; but,
alas my forsitude was likely to rust while
waiting for the emergency. Injury and
wrong should be met with sublime dig
nifty. out the most wildly speculative i'm
agination could not look upon Charles
| placidly handsome face and convert him
into possible tyrant.
To tell how the longed-for opportunity
to exercise my powers of endurance, and
my dignity, and all the rest of it, did
| finally come about, and to tell how bore
| the test, is the object of this paper
Forsthe hrst six months of our married
| life Charlie and Iwere simply ridicul ously
happy-selhshly happy, too. We re-
sented neighbor's visit as an act of bar
barous invasion, and the necessity of re-
turning such visits was acknowledged
with sublimity of resignation worthy of
| pictorial representation in that exquisite
| parlor manual, Fox's Book of Martyrs. If
Charlie left the house for an hour or two,
I looked upon his enforced absence as a
cruel dispensation of Providence, which l
did not bear with 'fortitude and sublime
dignity" but p0uted over like the ridicu-
lous baby I was. Bare conjugal civility
required that on leaving the house Charlie
should kies me three times, and on re-
turning six times anything short of that
| should have considered a premonitory
| symptom of approaching separation. If
! Charlie had ever been so savage as to call
me plain Lulie," should have felt he
was sick and tired of me, and was repent
ing of having married me in
stead Of that specialized bas-bleu,
Hiss Minerva Henshaw, who read BUCKLE
| HvHtIOnovu T hll T IN,
toxicated with my own happiness, and
was little nonsensical because I was so
happy.
Fortunately for the comfort of both
Charlie and myself, his domestic cabinet
consisted of a marvelously well trained set
of servants, who were simply perfect-as
perfect in their way as Charlie was in his.
They had been trained by Charles
mother, who lad been the head of affairs
ia his house up to the time Of her death
an event which had occurred some dozen
years before my first meeting with
Charlie. Everybody said she had been a
celebrated housekeeper, and Charles de-
votion to her had been the talk of the
country side. There were people malic.
ious enough to say that if Charles mother
had never died he would never have mar
ried; but [ take the liberty of resenting
such an assertion as personal insult; for
although don't doubt the dear old lady
was perfect jewel in her way, yet, look
ing at the portrait of her which hangs
over our parlor mantelpiece, see the face
Of hard, determined-looking woman
with cold gray eyes and rlgidly set mouth
, in a funny-looking black dress, neither
, high-necked nor low-necked, having {
starchy white ruff1e round the edge ir
vivid white contrast to the yellow skin
, with grizzly, iron-gray curls peepinng ou
from under cap that is fearfully and won
fed border radisting in a circum
ference Of several feet, while it,
3 two black-and-white gauze ribbon
f strings lie in rigid exactness owe
her two rigidly exact shoulders
f Looking on this portrait do not thanl
) anybody for saying that it was only be
: cause death chose that shining mark tina
t I had found favor in Cha lies eyes.
e We had been married, 1 suppose, abou
r six months, when, sitting one evenin
t over cozy wood-fire in our cozy littl
# paElor, just under the work of art hav
: described at such length, Charlie commit
: ted his first matrimonial solecism. Fl
: yawned, actually gaped-an open. moutheG
J. undeniable yswn!
Glancirg up at him from nv worl
(which consisted of the inevitable worke
/: slippers without which no woman consit
e ers her wifahood absolutely ass7rted),
; caught him in the act. care you tiret
e Charlie Z" asked in accents of wifel
n anxiety.
'. Tired! Poor fellow! he ought to ha7
l. have been, for he had ridden all over tt
' plantation that day, had written two bus
il ness letters, and smoked there's no tellin
l. how many cigars, and had only taken or
ia little cat nap after dinner
!. He was leaning back in his arm chai
1t with his eyes fixed in mournful meditatio
IS upon his mothers portrait lat least
d thought so), when asked him if he W,
is tired, and I fancied he was thinking ss
II thoughts Of the mother who had n
ia been dead 80 very long as never
e. trouble the thoughts of the living
r. laying down my slippers, crossed Il
N rug and perched myself on Charlie
ed knee.
at "Talk to ma about her, Charlie dear. "