The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-12-19
For Whom the Boot Fits.

IF you are one of the men who are
always in the habit, about Christmas
times, of making slurring remarks
I7cohcerning women 3" taking their
husbands money to hny their Christ
mas presents" lest you may plead it
doesn't ft you, and so not put it on, 1
will state explicitly, in the beginning,
that it does; twas made for you,
specially. though perhaps not Ito
order" l tell you this expressly, be-
cause wish to ''let no guilty man es-
cape" and more men are guilty than
would care to be found so "by jury
Of their peers''-though it does not
troublethem particle that their wives
know it and suffer for it.
happen to know allabout the money
that buys your Christmas present, sir
(Which, allow me to tell you, you dom t
deserve).
i happen to know all about the little
petty economies your estimable wife
has practiced for the past year, with a
yiew,to purchasing it.
happen to know how she saved a
penny here, and squeezed out two pence
there, where you would never have
dreamed OF doing it.
happen to know the days when she
even did her own washing (more fool
she, say I,) that she might have that
dollar, or half-dollar, toward it.
happen to know how she walked,
many q time, to save toward it the
alf-dime, or dime, you probably
wouldn't have begrudged the railway
company.
l happen to know how she turned,
and twisted, and contrived to make
old do as well as new, that she might
put that with the Increasing amount of
sacrifices. yves -,
:. happen to kn0whowshe laid awake
nights, ,thi1king and planning where
She could save the last needed dollar
for the purchase. @'-
And then, when the sum of all these
self-denials, money that she should
have spent for herself, is lovingly ex-
pended in>a Christmas present for you,
and proudly and trustingly brought
for your acceptance, that you, who
boast yourself man, should ungrate-
fully, meanly, taunt her of buying
your presents with your money.
/. | tell you, sir, that money is no more
yours than if you had never laid eyes
nor fingers on it.
1t is just as much hers as if she had
earned it by hard wOrk--which she did
harder work than you ever think of
doing. ALL -s0.....
I'd like to see you pinch and scrimp
to get your wife Christmas present,
or any other present, the way she does
to get your presents.
I'd like to see you even give up your
cigars, your occasional glass of-what-
ever you are in the habit of calling for
your games of billiards and your
lodges, to get your wife a present.
She has not one of these indulgences,
and denies herself even necessaries for
your sake, and then you sneer and ac-
cuse her of getting your present with
"your money!" and, worst of all, new
er dream but that you are afull-fledged
man.
But, what if your wife did or should
get you present with money that you
give her, out and out? though what
would ever bring you to that astonish-
ing state of generosity l don't believe
she will ever know, from experience.
So long as she gets you something you
need, what if you do give her the mon
ey, say? If you are so magnanimous
would it hurt your mighty lordship, in
your most vital part, your pocket, to
allow her to delude herself and others
with the belief that, it really was her
gift to you? It would be a pleasant lit
tie dezdsion lone that she, at least,
cherish it. You must needs remind
her. smilingly, that .you might just
as well got it yourself; she got it with
yossr nsoney"' =
And, now, want to ask you, sir,
even granting fur z.ao..aent for tho
sake of asking it, that it is ''your mon
ey," want to ask you, sir, "Whose
money should it be?'' DO you want,
or expect your wife to 60 to work and
earn money from outsiders with which
to buy your present. 81
tell you, my dear sir, there are
more wives, to-day, who wish they
could do that than you dream of in your
shameful indifference. There are more
women, to-day, wives of well-to-d do
men, who envy the women who earn
Independently, their livelihood, than
would like to be found out. There are
more women, to-day, who would glad.
ly initiate the lawyers wife-was it
not?-who,; desperate, for money that
should have been freely given, hung.
out the sign, Washing and Ironing
done here" with satisfactory results
from her husband, than would be brave
enough to do it. There are more wives,
to-day, who long, with intensest long,
ing, for a single dollar they can call
their own-a dollar in which their haS-
bands, sir, want not apart nor par
cell" than there would be for the cred
it of husbands? Wives who work for
their husbands and the children they
have borne them, as only devoted wives
can; and, many'of them, women who
knew what it was before marriage. I'd
have money to spend ~ they pleased,
to whom it comes all the harder to be
told, "You bought it with my money!.
The man who win say '.my money!
to his wife and the mother of his chill
dren. who does for him and them, as
most wives and mothers do, is too con-
temptible olive. hut if he must. live,
he'd never get . Christmas present,
nor any other present, if he was my
husband. GALE FOREST.
There! happened to hear that as 1