The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-05-21
THE DOCTORS WIFE.

AAAA OO0&oAA - W - -
DR.. Moves married, I think, some
where about 1853 or 1869. There is
very little to be said about his wife.
Mrs. Sarah Tanning, indeed, gave a de-
cisive verdict upon her at first sight.
" She is one of the rank and file of hui
mainly" said she 90 one of the weight
less molecules that go to make up mass. f"
Mrs. Tanning was that brilliant little
woman from Andover, Massachusetts,,
who essayed to take the well known
Mrs. Rush's place in Philadelphia that
winter. She used to give weekly re-
unions-without supper she cannot
understand, even now, why she could
not " form a literary nucleus there.
Nobody contradicted her verdict; she
always claimed humanity as her own
pre-empted property; and besides,
there really was so little to say about
the doctors wife Mrs. Tanning re-
marked that San American woman, if
no other, ought to have some salient
points, good or bad, to justify her right
to live, and this woman was an Ameri-
can of the Americans, descended on one
side from a colonial Maryland family,
and on the other of Pennsylvania Qua
ker stock, race of ,reformers who lived
only for great ideas. But there was alb
solutely nothing in the creature-noth-
ing 1t was inexplicable by all the
rules of race p The little lady's
speciality, by the bye, was trace" and
g strains of blood" She could lay her
finger on the very great-grandfather
from whom you inherited your long up
per-lip or gluttonous propensities, and
reason for you, out of these inheritances,
such sequences of fatalism that your
christianity tottered quite to its foun-
dations.
Now, there had been no salient points
about the doctors wife when she was a
fat baby, or a girl at school. Dodc
Near was daily set down as Ounce in
every class, from spelling up to inter
national law, and daily took up her
book with cheerful {" It really is too
bad in me-" and went out with fresh
zeal to skate and run races with the
boys. If she had been one of the deli
cate "Iilvs" and "Violets " whom
the other girls set apart to adore, her
lack of brains could have been over
looked but she was a short, thickset
little body, with a shock of red hair
tied back FROM a freckled face which
was lighted by laughing blue eyes
eyes in which there was an undeniable
cast. She never, however, gave a hint
of her opinion of herself, and always
seemed to be in high good humor with
her lot in life, stupidity and squint in
cluded. A certain indefnable some.
thing about the girl would prevent any
one from limiting a disagreeabIe truth
to her. The same impalpable reserve
or old-fashioned courtesy in her, too,
made the boys who skated and raced
with her treat her with a respect which
they did not show to the Lilys and Vio-
lets. Her condition on graduation-day
would have been pitiable if her placid
| good-humor had not made it exaspera-
| ting. One of the class was going to
sail as missionary to Africa; we all
made a heroic martyr of her; we all
looked forward with hystelic enthusi.
asm to speedily becoming famous au-
| thors, leaders in society, or at least
wives and mothers. Trustees and fac
nifty spoke and prayed at us, the very
air kindled with hope and fervor and
there sat that plump little Ounce at the
! foot of the bench, smelling bunch of
the red Burgundy roses, of which she
was so fond, quite contented to be a
cipher now and in the future
Here she was again, DIR. Moves wife.
shapsless and freckled and bright-eyed
as ever but the ugly hair was always
| delicately coiffured, and her simple
! dress a marvel of exquisite art. Sine
| did not care in the least that everybody
believed that she had sold herself for
an establishment. Why else should a
girl of her age marry a cynical, sour
wi0ower of fifty, with half dozen hob
ble-de-hoys of sons ? "Dr. Moves. -
Mrs. Tanning said, " was an ambitious
man, thwarted in his aims by the
drudgery of supporting a family. He
should have chosen an intellectual
woman as his second wife, who could
have helped him to regain his lost
ground
The doctors mistake was soon appar-
emit in his wife's course. The faded
carpets and hair-cloth sofas were swept
out of the dreary old house. The
money spent In making it bright and
pretty, as Mrs. Tanning said, would
have kept open a SOUP ho;lse ali winter.
Noyes' old friends, instead of smoking
their rasarsehannas ia his dusty office,
came IN now to coy dinners, where
each man found his favorite dish his
wife had fine taste in cookery, it ap-
pears in that, as in everything else.
she took life with zest and joyously.
The Noyes boys, who had began to
hang around variety theaters, gave a
series of dancing parties and private
theatricals at home, to which girls of
their own class came. Now all these
things bring in bills; the doctors long
boarded money was spent like water.
1t was an inscrutable mystery to our
society leaders why he and his bows.
and in fact, all other men, clustered
around Mr.. Dode, as they called her.
affectionately, like bees about honey.
She never said anything worth remem-
bering for five minutes she made NJ
professions Of love or friendship. Some
of us, who remembered how the whole
school used to pause to hear her read
her Bible verse, thought the charm lay
IN her pleasant voice, or could there be
any magic in the clean, spicy scent of
Burgundy roses with which the house
was always filed? The men, when ques-
toned, really seemed to have no def
mite idea of the woman one "liked
her because she was quiet" another
because "her hand-shake was as firm
and genuine as mans, another for her
merry laugh.
In the meantime they all carried their
secrets to her the very classmates of |
the Noyes boys wrote to her about |
their college scrapes that she might |
" see father and mother about it, and |
beg them of" She had queer s'fol- |
lowing" of women, too; shabby widows /
and fashionable bellies and poor seam /
were Just as likely to find |
one at her table as the other. She had /
not the least perception of cls IS dis |
tinctlons, owing perhaps to those Quaker /
who measured the world /
and all IN 1t by ideas. She had, too. /
different rates of value from ours with |
regard to other things. Mrs. Tanning /