The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-04-20
SPRING CLEANING.
The Pleasures Experienced by
a Man With a Spring
Cleaning Wife.

Human joys are pever unalloyed. Even
our Easter festivities are saddened with
fearful forebodings. Coming events cast
their shadows before the family man. He
beholds the wife of his bosom descend
from her chamber this morning, gorgeous
in her spring array, clothed in garments
that would have turned the heads of
Solomon and all his wives, plus the
queen of Sheba, and make the lily hide
its face in envy-as nearly an angel as a
creature in a fifty-doliar bonnet, and
other things to match, well can be- He
is almost transflxed for a moment with
the radiant spectacle, and he repents that
he did not give her another hundred or
so. Alas that memory should obtrude
her sombre visage at such an interest
ing moment But there is no help
for it, And his heart sinks as he thinks
that this beautiful being of to-day
will be transformed into a stern-faced
despot in week, and, armed with mop
and broom, drive him almost to despera-
ton with her doiDgs. She will turn his
home into a bedlam, and fill it with
house cleaning fiends. Not quiet spot
will be left in it for the sole of his foot
His meals will be uncooked or burned,
and always unpalatable. He will retire
to mediate, but not to sleep, on a row of
chairs or q sofa too short at both ends.
He will step on the business end of a
carpettack in trying to find his stock
ings wash his pallld face in a soup
tureen get lost in The folds of some
strange article of female attire he has
mistaken for shirt I; straighten out his
locks with fork, and as he contemplates
his new silk hat-which some servant
has mistaken for a coalscuttle-filled
with c,nders, he will sit down on the
broken top of Saratoga trunk and wish
he had never been born.
There is nothing that takes down the
pride of man and shows him how little
and contemplate wretch he is as
week of house cleaning. The fate of
family man at this season of the year is
truly pitiful. He would go out of town
or to the hotel, but he has overdrawn his
salary to pay for the gorgeous Easter out
fit of his wife and daughters. He can
not fly to the desert, for he would freeze
there Besides, his wife charges him
with running away from what she so
courageously endures. For every club
there are hundred Mrs. Caudles, and
woe to the poor husband who deserts his
frail and delicate wife when the house
cleaning fit is on her. He has nothing
to do but bear it and grin, if
he can. And in trying to worry through
the work he discovers what an accumula-
ton of miseries modern civilization is.
Every carpet is a torment Every pic
ture is plague. Every modern con-
venience seems to have been invented to
hide the Cleaning Fiend. The more
comforts the greater his trouble All his
pretty luxuries turn their faces and seem
to taunt and jeer. Of Iurse, he turns
to business as a solace. His accounts
need great deal of overhauling just at
this time. He bethinks him of every
conceivable excuse to get away. He even
suggests that his soul needs looking after,
and proposes to take himself to prayer
meeting for spiritual repairs. 1t is of
no use. The practical house cleaner I'M
derstands all their lodges. The thing
may as well be bravelyifaced and silently
endured. 1t is one of the institutions of
every vel ordered household. Indeed,
it is badge of civilization. One might
escape from untold fluctuations by be-
coming a savage. And though it is a
WEAKNESS and vexation which the hotel |
cured and club-preserved bachelor |
avoids, it is small price to pay for the |
luxury of clean, quiet, happy home, in |
which one can always find affection and |
content. House cleaning is not exact y
to be hanKered after; yet there is deal |
of comfort to the hfamily man in the |
thought that it comes but once year.