The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-03-16
i" Domestic Shams."

The subjoined from acontributor dwells
accurately as well as amusingly upon GER
tain Domestic Shams' with which the
reader, no doubt, is acquainted:
Don't lie down on those pillow
shamsr'
Don't put your feet on the counter
paner'
Don't lean your head against that
white knit-tidyr'
That is the way darling wife talks to
her precious husband, when he comes
home at night tired out with the public
shams, and seeking for domestic realities;
while she, poor thing, tired out with the
domestic realities, seeks to beguile her
mind with social and conventional shams.
"Pillow -shams." Do you know what
they are? Did you ever try to lie down
on them? They are hard, starchy things,
with beautiful monograms embroidered
all over them. They won't fold up, but
rustic and slip off of the bed on the floor;
they are always ready for a launch out
into some place where they ought not to
be. Back of them, as they are pinned on
to the pillows, you can see the Sing-Sing
stripe of the vulgar ticking in which the
imaginary goose-feathers are inclosed.
Then, too, there is broad, white, hard
piece of embroidered linen, which goes
across the bed, with stiff, large mono
gram on it. This is also a " sham" and
is always put on when strangers are COM
ing into the room. 1t looks like piece
of fancy pie-crust, and the people who
sleep in these beds are supposed to be
like the four-and-twenty blackbirds of
nursery history, who were baked in pie ;
that is, they were not in the pie because
of any natural fitness, but simply because
of the conventional decree of the king be-
fore whom this pretty dish was placed.
Oh, how a man hates these shams ;
how he filings them away when he is alone
in the house, and tells the chambermaid
never to bring them out while the wife
and family are sway!
How he remembers the days when he
was at college, and piled up the pillows
under him, and put his feet, at all times
| and at all places, on every cubic inch of
bed under the light and read himself to
sleep over "Henry Esmond" and Poor
Pendennis!"
But now the " night-lamp" for the baby,
and the pillows by night for a fertilization
around his precious arms and legs; and
the "pillow -shams" by day for the sake
of admiring feminine critics, take the lux
urious aroma of life away from the once
idealized domcsticities; and the man sub
mits, wondering why on earth the Crea-
tor put such queer ways into woman g
nature, and then made man so miserable
without her that, by contrast with this
negative misery, he puts up silently with
| quantities of misery which is positive.
Domestic shams! That is what these
wretched pillow cases make us men think
about. ..u= =u@ ~-.. re- Pa ~,, e.
Why do women take such comfort in
them? Why is the white counterpart SO
religiously guarded from the tired man
when he wants 10 lie down, but don't
want to fold up this thick article into its
lawful creases, and put it away in the
| closet, and then take off the unmanagea-
| bic "shams' and stow them away, and
then Inhibition his shoes and lie down,
but mot on the baby's side of the bed?"
Then there are the tides They IRE al
ways coming off on your head and shoul-
ders. ''Pick up the tidy, dearp' This
is always the last word from madam as
you leave the room. So.
Don't put your head on the tidy!''
This is the booming minute gun of domes.
tic danger when the cigar is lighted, and
the newspaper is opened, and the home
circle for the evening is begun.
4 Then there are the white dresses for
the children. Of course they will play