Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-12-03

certain patriotism in clinging to ones s
own tongue. One ought never to be
so much of cosmopolite as to forsake
! it,
mo, l should think not. Now, about
| dinner-but no, | wont trouble you.
I've read enough of celebrated mems
wives bOthering them about the steak
and mullins never to disturb you in that
way, dear"
So she iuttered away TO her dinner,
and began to write my prologue and
invocation to the muse, with a certain
feeling that l ought to be hand in glove
with Shakespeare and Milton, when my
wife classed me with celebrities.
The first twenty lines wrote them
selves. SMILES, illusions and classical
quotations flooded my mind as birds fly
in tlOcks The room was peopled with
helmeted Trojans and warlike Greeks,
nymphs and muses., until l began to
feel quite patrOnizing toward dead Ho-
mer. 1t was not so hard to write an
epic after all! Dinner time came, and
with.it Avice with flushed cheeks and
much-ruffied apron.
will say here that we had no serv-
ant save small maid clad in a costume
composed of many cast-Off garments,
who came in to wash dishes and do the
odds and ends of work. Avice and |
had our theories. We talked, in the
days of cou ship, of simplicity of life,
ministering to our own needs, and all
the like nonsense indulged in by do
nestle castle-builders.
How shall L describe that dinner?
Spiced with devotion and favored by
love, but burned to crisp, The pota-
toes were sodden as if they had enjoyed
a forty days deluge, but in a dainty
china dish, decorated with rosebuds of
her own painting.
The steak, leather-like and indigesti-
bic, and recalling unpleasantly tales of
shipwrecked mariners chewing their
boots-but, o fond thought prepared
by those plump fingers, ate it without
a remOnstranCe.
A year, month even, of married
life might have deadened my chivalryto
the point of complaint; but the honev-
moon was yet high in the heavens, and
l fed on nectar and ambrosia and was
content. The days went on in one un-
broken current
l wrote on my epic, had gastronomic
consultations with Avice, and drew my
little capital from Uncle Phil regularly.
He paid without comment, and, ignor-
ing the existence of my wife, refused
to call. And still the epic went on.
l found to my surprise, when l had
finished a glowing description of Helen,
that she was a second Avice-a heroine
with peach-blossom cheeks and re-
trOitSSe nose.
But how, 1 reflected, could 1 help it,
when l saw that charming vision before
me day after day, though oftenest decked
in the rutfled apron, and sometimes with
the accompaniment of a gridiron or
toasting -forkP
"Now read me a canto, Harry" she
said one night, seating herself by the
window, and putting on an air OF APP
preciative interest ''Begin with the
line:
"'The godlike Paris, rising girded on his
mall
How sonorously I read! and how
tried to give the ron and flow of rhythm
ic Greek to my own periods! But eli
max must ever suggest anti-climax, and
some malicious fiend is always at hand
to furnish the latter
l was in the midst of a prayer to the
gods when our small female Boots ap-
peared and rendered me letter, with
her usual air of chucking it at me.
| opened it indifferently-a butchers
bill for fifteen dollars.
Troy and its defenders vanished; the
household gods alone rose before me,
and the very expensive sacrifice we had
made them.
"Avice, this can't be right fifteen
dollars in three weeks! Why, we must
be gormandizers, or-or = caTnivora
q stumbled about helplessly for the
right word) to have eaten meat at such
a rate. 1t is wrong; bring out your ac-
counts and let's compare them"
I'm sorry, Harry" stammered
Avice, "but | haven't kept any ac-
counts. didn't think of it.n
You didn't keep accounts, and
haven't an idea how much you've or
dered of any onel Why, tradesmen
can fleece you at their mercy!'
l said no more. The pretty lips were
quivering and tear fell from the eyes
which, l had declared, rivaled Helen's. !
was silenced, begged pardon like a |
man, paid the bill and made arrange
ments to go out to our meals.
To jump at once at conclusions, the
epic was in due time completed, and |
having dispatched it to publishers,
] rested care-free from my labors, wait
ing with the assurance of fool or a |
genius to make terms with the printers. |
They would be only too glad to have
the work at any cost, and Avice begged |
me again and again to be firm and set
my own price.
How many air castles we built in that |
fond, foolish time, wondering what we
should do with all the money, and map
ping out our future gloriously.
Two weeks-and the manuscript |
came back with merely polite note of
refusal, and, as Avice said, bitterly, ga
nrintnd nnn nt that y NNa 1uarn lilo t1un