Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1881-01-05
From Harper's Monthly for December
MRS. FLINTS MARRIED EX-
PERIENCE.

weary and dreary than the preceding.
he plum col ored paduasoy still did
uty as the Sunday gown, for none of
4sr own money ever passed into Mrs.
y'lint's hands BY this time she un-
stood fully what this ante-nuptial
ntract meant. She had her living.
ad no more. People could live with
ut inery, even without warmth a
uffgown OF coarse linsey-woolsey for
,inter wear replaced the soft marinoes
ne had always bought for that pur-
rose, and homespun linen check was
ervicable in summer, though it kept
.er busy at fax-wheel and loom many
III hour. She had outlived the early
nrebearances of her married life, and
earned to ask, to beg, to persist in en-
eating in what she absolutely V needed,
.or only in this way could she get her
living Her only vivid pleasure was
occasional visits from EIDE and Syl-
via-lovely little creatures in whom
lheir mothers beautiful character and
heir fathers CHEEKY, genial nature
seemed to combine, and with so much
# Mindwell's delicate lovelines-, her
sweet dark eyes contrasted with the
fair hair of their fathers family that
10 grandmotherly eyes they seemed
eriectly beautiful. For them the
poor woman schemed, and toiled and
grew secretive. She hid comb of
aoney sometimes, when the deacon's
back was turned, and kept it for Syl-
via, who loved honey like real bee
bird she stored up red pearmains in
the parlor closet for EIDE; and when
Sam Pratt went into Hartford with a
lad of wool, and brought the children
- far as Bassett to stay at Deacon
f'iint's over night, the poor woman
would make for them gingerbread such
,s they remembered and savory cook
cs that they loved, though she en-
.ountered hard looks and hard words
or wasting her husbands substance
"a another mans children.
Eide, who had ready memory and
. fluent tongue, was the first to report
10 Mindwell these comments of grand
-ir Flint, as they were taught to call
i'm
oh, mother she exclaimed, i do
think grandsir is real mean y
,Edy, Edy, you mustn't talk so
about your elders and betters
Il can't help it, chattered on the ir-
represSible child What did he want
10 come into the kitchen for when
granny was giving Us supper and
scold because she made cookies for Us?
GIanny most cried, and he kept telling
how he'd said before she shouldn't do
1t, and he wouldn't have it,
Don't talk about It, Edy,' said her
mother, full f grief and indignation.
Mother, it's true. heard him
too interposed Sylvia, y ho thought
Ede's word was doubted, for the volu-
bic and outspoken chiid was little
apt to embelIsh her reports.
We'll, Sylvia dear, it isn't best to
talk about a good many things that
are true
But for all that, Mindwell d'd dis
cuss the matter with Sam before she
slept, in that grand committee of two
which is the strength and comfort of
happy marriage.
What ever can we do about it,
Sam p she said, with tears in her
voice. Mother sets by 'em like her
life-but if they're going to make
trouble between her and Deacon Flint
don't you think l had ought to prevent
their going there p
We'll, it does seem hard on mother
every way, but | can fix it. You
know we had heap of wheat off that
east lot last year. and I've sent it to
mill to be ground up for US. | guess
I'll take and send barrel ont over to
mother for present. The deacon
won't mistrust nothing, nor he can't
say nothing about her usin' ont for the
children
That's the very thing said Mind
we'll And so it was, for that small
trouble; yet that was only drop in
the bucket After few years of real
privation. and a worse hunger of spirit,
Mrs Flint's health began to fail. She
grew nervous and irritable, and the
deacon browbeat her more than ever
Her temper had long since failed un-
der the hourly evaporation of her hus-
bands companionship, and she ad be-
come as peevish, and as exasperable
herself as feeble nature can become
under such pressure.
Il never see nobody so changed as
Miss Flint is,' said Aunt Polly to old
Israel. 1've always heerd tell that
'fictions was sent for folks's good, but
her'n don't seemto work that way a
mite
We'll, Polly, l expect there's reel
vital difier'nce in 'fictions, jest as there
is in folks. She picked her'n up as
you may say when she married him ;
'twasn't RELY the Lords sendin'; she
no need to ha' married him if she'd
hadn't been min to-
4 sorter thought the Lord sent ev-
erything't happened to folks
We'll, in a manner mabbe He does,
but don't ye rek'lect what David said,
how't he'd rather fall inter the hands
of the Lord than inter mems? | eX-
pect we're to blame for wilful sins
ain we? And ] guess we fetch 'fic
tions on ourselves sometimes
Il don't see how you make them ides
jibe with lection and fore re-ordination,'
rejoined Aunt Polly, who was a zeal
Gus theologian, and believed the Say
brook Platform and the Assembly's
Catechism to be merely skillful
abridgment and condensation Of Scrip
ture.
Il don't know as Pm called to, Polly.
l don't believe the Lords ways is jest
like primer, for everybody to larn
right off | shouldn't have no great
respect for Ruler an Governor, as the
Confession sez that want no bigger'n
| was. Land r eff | was to set sail on