Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1880-11-10
another I" SKETCH"

have Just finished reading the house.
keepers department of October I'd. | am
so sorry for M. M. M. can fully sympa-
thize with her. live with a mother In
law who watches my every movement,
and is always scolding about something
have done. have tried and tried TO
please her, but 1t seems OF no avail. am
unlike NJ. NJ M. In one respect-my hus.
band is very kind to me when his mother
isn't around, but it makes her very angry
to see him kind to ME. and she scolds him
so if she sees him treat me with any kind
ness. She seems to hate me; says she
never wanted her son to marry me; gives
no reason, though think it was because
he is the last son and she wanted to keep
him. knew nothing of this before we
were married, as lived quite distance
from here. She don't allow me to read
or write 1.-THE last is n particular sin-she
is gone today if she knows it. can be
idle rather than do either. have no
children to cheer me. So, kind sisters,
what am to dop l had one child who
tarried with us few weeks, and then
went TO the God who gave it. o! how
my heart ached for sympathizing word,
but only received this once. When she
saw tears in my eyes when my babe was
dying, she said, Tut! tut! we want none
of this" Sometimes think my heart will
break. We live on farm (which is my
husbands at his mothers death) and have
hired hands, so have good deal of work
to do, but there are moments that | could
employ in reading, if l only had the
chance. can sing and play on a musical
instrument If had one-had one in my
fathers house. My husband would get
me one, only his mother says such thing
shan't come around the house. He is
amply able to buy otle, as he owns nearly
four hundred acres of land.
We take the above from the Ohio Farm
err as text on which to found few re-
marks" as our minister used to say. In
the first place we have no sort of personal
sympathy with the writer for her griev-
ances flor from the article we assume it to
be bit of personal history and not a fancy
sketch), and still less for the style of writ
ing now becoming 30 common in the
household columns of some of our papers,
of parading to the public gaze the skele-
ton of the family closet, in more or less
exaggerated ghastliness. A woman who
writes such stuff would need mother-in-
law or some one else to teach her sense.
Then the other correspondent, of three
Ms, whose wailings nave opened the
lachrymose fountains of this daughter-in-
law-her husband was unkind, and she
must needs tell ten thousand readers all
about 1t in a newspaper.
There are many poor women-Heaven
help them-who have careless, unthinking,
unkind or brutal husbands, and their lot is
sad enough to need and receive the sympa,
thy of Him whose eye seeth in secret; but
one seems to instinctioely divine that the
one who makes the most ado is not always
the one most needing sympathy. And
when man or woman goes about from
neighbor to neighbor with a sad tale Of
family trouble and personal abuse one
can but feel that they are doing foolish
thing; something which lessons our sym.
pathy and cools our pity, and we feel that
such complaints are in some degree faults
of theirs which may account for some Of
the family unhappiness. How much more
so when one spreads before whole circle
of readers the sickening details, in man.
ner which renders any help to them i'm.
possible.
Now we have had our scold out, and
feel better, and we would like to see any
mother-in-law prevent our reading OF
singing, and if she tried it we should moi
need an oven to do our baking in; and il
had husband who couldn't rule his owr
house with my help would get suit oil
some mans clothes and stuff it witt
straw, just to have it around to look at
and think what real man looked like.