Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1874-07-08
Whole No. l52.

door, humdrum round, day after
day, week after week, month after
month. A man, whatever his oc-
cupation. finds more or less excite
ment daily. At the most, even if
he is book-keeper, which is one
of the most combining of all pUr-
suits, he has his brist walk to the
counting house, or lank, in the
fresh air. He meets people he
knows. on the street, and has a
chat ami hears the news, even If
it's only for minute that he stops
But woman gets no recreation,
after she's married, unless she goes
out, now and then, to tea fight
as you call it, or q party. Why,
my dear, if ! was TO let you stay
a. home forever, a. some men do
their wives, or make them, you'd
soon lose those pr'tty cheeks Of
yours, and by-and-by even your
spirits! and at last you'd become n
dowdy, if not confirmed invalid.
Put q plant in the cellar if you
want to kill it give it fresh air
and sunshine if you would have it
bloom. Now, there's that fellow.
Travor. / felt to-day as if would
like to thrash him."
"Surely Mr.. Travor has nothing
to do with my going out :" exclaim-
cd Mrs. Chanter. in surprise.
"But he has his wife's. The
T ayor's are also asked to the Sill
mans. But this lazy fellow of
husband says he don't intend to let
Mrs. T a7or go! Its time to put q
stop to the thing he told me-"
"Why, he doesn't work half as
hard as you do I've always heard
his business was Il very easy one"
$50 it is. He's richer, too than |
am. and can afford to take life
differently. But he was always
selfish and tyrannical, rs poor Hell
en- will find out to her cost. Pity
she hadn't found it out long ago."
Alas. she had already begun to
find it out. and as the years went
by she found it ont more and more.
She soon sank into nero house.
ho'd drudge. Her husband did
not desert her of evenings, rs many
husbands DO desert there wives: hc
neither went 10 two IN, nor to club
we vii saw that in his favor: but he
betook himself to his newsl aper
and segar, varied with an OCCASION
al doze. AS he hardly exchanged
word with poor Helen, she might
as well have been a thousand miles
away. She sat in the same room
with him, stitching. stitching, till
her eyes ach;d with the monotony
and WEAKNESS of it all.
Tn the first year or two Of their
married life, he had continued the
subscriptions TO the two or three
magazines AMI newspapers. which
had been her favorites before she
left her fathers house. But after
a while he had them stopped.
"NVhat does n married woman
want with love stories Z" he said.
imperiously, forgetting that the
magazine was as much to his wife
as his new spaper was t. him. Of
ten and often poor Helen thought
that if she could only have a few
books, good novel, new poem,
or n periodical of some kind, she
could have borne things better.
Her life was so dry and hard
that even the least glimpse of the
world Of Imagination would have
been to her what the cool spring
in the desert is TO the weary. thirsty
traveller. But her husband said
in his dogmatir way, when, once or
twice, she vcntured to borrow q
book, and he found her reading
"Pshaw! A novel again how car
You waste your time with sucl
nonsense pretty example you
are setting to your daughter"
Mrs. Travor had been pretty, as
we have said, when she married
But in less than ten years, she was
a faded, sshrunken woman, whose
nerves were all awry, and who was
fast sinking into conlirmcdinvalid
Before she had been married
twenty years, before her eldest
daughter was a grown girl, she
quietly slipped away into her coffin
and had done with this life forever
Her husband put on black, anf
wore the deepest Grape on his hat
and went about telling people o'
his inconsolable loss, and then, after
a Y car married again.
Meantime, what of tho othei
pair9 To-day, at forty. Mrs
Chanter is as handsome as ever
people say, and, when she goes on
with her daughter, passes, wit
strangers, for an elderly sister
Her mind has not been starved
nor her soul dwarfed. "A littl
iudicious amusement is as necessar,
to II woman" her husband Away
said, "as food, or air, or affection.
On this principle he acted. Th'
! result was that his wife always
kept her spirits, her health, hel
good lpoks, and from being
thoroughly happy herself, was abl'
to make him all the happier. "Yor
mlv starvc human soul" he oftc,
, sqid, "just as easily as the body
Aud some do it,"
Perhaps he was thinking Of Ira
| -. "a. l.. ..,.ul- NNhnilnr L.. 10