Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1874-05-08

| OAAO~>
If they can't come and eat out OF sucl
dishes as we've got, they are welcome tt
stay away - and he took down his hat te
go back to his moving.
There were tears in Mrs. Thompson
ewes, but she crowded them bravely back
and tried hard tosteady the tremor in hel
voice. as she said, pleadingly, ''Please to
give me the money to get them, Robert
Grover has got some real pretty ones-and
cheap. too can get all shall need fol
four dollars.
"Well, I guess Grover'll keep 'em for al
me. I've got no four dollars to spare, >
turning to go out. sBy-the-way,0 looking
back from the door, Zones and Lee and
| Hubbard will be here to dinner, and per-
haps to supper. We want to get all the
south meadows down to-day, if we can
Grass is stout this year, there's q third
more than there was last. And Hubbard
wants six pounds of butter tonight don't
forget to have it ready and with these
| words he went out, leaving his wife to her
long, weary day S work, darkened and made
distasteful by her disappointment. She was
both grieved and angry. 1t was a little
thing, perhaps, but it is the little things
| that delight and annoy.
Life looked very bare and homely to
Jane Thompson that summer day. With
all her love Of ease and beauty and symme :
try. how rude and coarse and hard looked
all her surroundings. 1t was only one
long. monotonous round of homely toll,
unrelieved by any Of the little sweetness
and graces that might make every toll
pleasant. She did not often think of it,
but she remembered that day, with the
faintest little stir of regret, that she might
have been far differently situated and as
she looked up to the pretty French cottage
of poisoning vines, and caught the cool
CLEAN of urn and fountain, something like
a sigh trembled on her lips.-"Squire Burn
hams wife. don't have to beg for paltry
four dollars that she might be able to set a
table decently,'' she thought bitterly.
And then, as one does when they feel
grieyed. she remembered score of other
things, equally needful, and equally within
her means-Which had been us churllshly
refused. There was the parlor carpet, 1t
was half cotton, and faded and threadbare
at that; and the paper had been ON ever
since she was child, and was stained
where it had leaked down last winter, and
yet Robert said, 1T is we'll enough for the
little we use ii, and absolutely refused to
get either And so of a score of other
things she remembered as she toiled
through all that long, sultry forenoon, with
an aching head and discouraged heart.
What did it matter to her that grass was
.1eavy and butter up to forty cents
pound? 1t only brought her more and
harder work, and no recompense save her
bare board and clothing, She could earn
more than that in any mans house.
ssWen, she had no business to marry
Robert Thompson" she said moodily to
herself, her slender wrists aching from
beating over the butter for Hubbard
Everybody always said lie was close and
shrewd, and prophesied that he would be
rich some day-what did she care for riches
if they didn't do her any good-didn't
make her life any falrer OF softer She
was not fitted to be a farmers Wlfe-and
vet she had loved Robert Thompson!"- p
She said this half sayagely, as if she was
disguised and angry with herself for it.
And yet Robert Thompson was not an
unkind man--only thoughtless. He was
type of very large class Of lnen-more es-
pecially falmers-Who do not feel in them
selves the need of that which woman S
more aesthetic nature demands. Absorbed
in his stock, his crops and his politics, he
did not realize that his wife needed, and
had right to few of the things that, to
her peculiar organism, were as much needs
of her being as the food she ate.
And soon when the years ran on they
grew further and further apart; he getting
more and more absorbed in gain, and
growing more careless in looks and culture
and more careless and less tender IN regard
to his wife's tastes OF tolls, while she grew
bitter and respondent and irritable.
Robert Thompson was, besides, lit
inclined to fault-fnding, and not being at
all of a sensitive temperament himself, he
did not realize how keenly he wounded his
wife: and when, sometimes, she gave pack
bitter retort, he wondered what it was
that had soured her disposition so, for he
remembered she used to be called unusual
" sweet-tempered. ao aE =. ~ .reuA
All through the long forenoon Mrs.
Thompson had nursed her wrath. Robert
was selfish and unreasonable, and she did
| not care who knew it. @She would not
have the circle meet there, and set the ta-
| BILE with that old-fashioned china, and that
! stained and cracked mulberry no, not for
! twenty Robert Thompsons. The rooms
were shabby and out of date enough, mercy
knew y and her thoughts reverted to the
pretty, tasteful homes of her friends, where
she had met ON circle day.
Fifteen minutes before. noon, and full
that time before dinner would be ready
for they were usually little behind, and
Mr.. Thompson always wanted his dinner
boiling hot Mrs Thompson saw four,
tired, heated. hungry-looking men coming
up through the orchard. The table was
not set, and she hurried quickly about it
Just then Frank and Charlie, her two
boys, came rushing in from the school, eacl
shouting, 'sMother, Mother" and each
wanting something right off. She felt til
ed and hurried and out of temper, which
was not helped by her husband impatient
"Why isn't dinner ready? / told 20,
we were in hurry to-day. II l hadn'
anything to do all the forenoon but ge
dinner, I'd try and do it before night"
A bitter retort sprang to her lips, bu
lust then Charlie cried out:
.sOh, mother, mother, just look at m.
r -, II e,e:,,c. Ia ,,rr;to i. h ab,c on,