Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-12-25

| rein on me when l get IN my temPers'
She'll make man of me yet
"But she can't work" insisted his
father. "She looks as white and puny as
LIB did the year she died"
"She's overworked in the school-room.
l mean to take her home, and give her
rest. l don't ask any woman to marry me
and be my drudge. l expect my wife will
keep help"
The old man grosned aloud. Ben's ideas
were positively ruinous. If he married this
| girl, it would add to, not decrease, the lam.
| lily expenses But it was useless to oppose.
Ben would do as he pleased the old man
saw that plainly, and he might as well sub
nit
He did submit. and Ben married Edith
on his twenty. first birthday, and brought
her home.
II.
Edith was quiet little creature, with q
seft voice and pale, sweet face and frsil
figure. She came up to Arson English
when she entered the house and put her
hands timidly upon his arms.
II want you to love me, she said 81
have had no father or mother since can
remember. l want to call you father, and
| l want to make you happy if can"
"WeIl, I'll tell you how" the old man
retorted. discharge the hired girl, and
make good bread. That'll make me happy"
and he laughed harshly.
| Edith sh7ank from his rough words, so
void of the sympathy and love she longed
for But she discharged the girl within a
week, and tried to make good bread. 1t
was not a success, however, and the old
man was not slow to express his dissatis-
faction. Edith left the table in tears.
another dribbler-'Liz'beth was always
cryin' just that way over every little
| thing" sighed the old man.
EDITH eventually conquered the diff
culties of bread making, and became IA
nous COOK. But she did not please her
husbands father any the better by this
achievement.
You're always fxin' up some new
sort of trash for the table" he said to her
one day. dessert, is it you call it? 'Nuff
to make mans patience desert him, to see
sugar and -four wasted So Liz beth liked
your fancy cooking, but cured her of it.
Yes, and you killed her, toe" cried
Edith, for the first time since her marriage
losing control of her temper, and answer.
ing back. Everybody says you worried
her into the grave. But you won't sue.
coed so we'll with me. l will live just to
defy you, If no more. And I'll show you
that I'll not bear everything, too"
1t was all over in a moment, and was
not repeated. Indeed, Edith wa1 kinder
and gentler and more submissive in her
manner after that for days, as sweet ma
lures always are when they have once
broken over the rules which govern their
lives.
Yet the old man always spoke of Filth
as virago after that.
"She's worse'n Liz'beth, u he said, land
she had temper of her own at times that
would just SINCE things
Ben passed most of his evenings and
good part of his days at the village
store" He came home the worse for
drink occasionally, and he was absolutely
indifferent to all the work and care of the
farm aud family.
"She's just like LIZ beth, the old man
said to his neighbors " she don't make
home entertainin' for her husband. But
Ben isn't balanced like me, and he goes
wrong He's excitable. l never was.
The right kind OF woman could keep him
at home"
seemed to mend for time. So long as
the infant lay pink and helpless in it's
mothers arms, or in its crib, it was bond
to unite them all.
So soon as it began to be an active child,
with naughty ways which needed correc-
ton, it was another element of discord.
The old man did not think Edith capable
of controlling the child, and Ben was
hasty and harsh, and he did not like to hear
the baby cry. So he stayed more and more at
the store, and was an object of fear to the
child and of reprosch to the mother when
he did return.
They drifted farther apart, and the old
man constantly widened the breach be-
tween them. They had been married six
years, and the baby girl was four years
old, when Ban struck Edith blow, one
day, and told her to take her child and
leave the house.
In less than an hour she had gone, no
one knew whittier.
"She'll come back, mores the pity"
the old man said. :" Liz beth, she started
off to leave me once, but she concluded to
come back and try it over again.
But Edith did not come back. Months
afterwards they heard of her in distant
part of the State teaching school and sup
porting her child.
Ben applied for a divorce on the plea of
desertion, Edith never appeared against
him, and he obtained it,
Ill.
One year from the time Edith left him,
be married Abby Wilson. She had grown
i-t) a voluptuous though coarse maturity,
and was dashing in dress and manner. Her
father had recently died, leaving her fine
property. She had always coveted Ben,
and did not delay the nuptials from any
sense Of delicacy, but rather fastened the
hour which should make him legally her
own.
The old man was highly pleased at the
turn affairs had taken. After all these
years Ben was united t. the woman he had
chosen for him so long ago, and now surely
Ben would settle down, and take the care
off his shouliers-shoulder which were
beginning to feel the weight of years of
labor. In truth, the old man was breaking
down.
He fell i'll of a low fever soon after Bens
second marriage, and when he rose from
his bed he seemed to have grown ten years
older. He was more childish in his fault.
finding and more irritable than ever be.
fore, and this new wife of Bens had
little patience with him. She was not at
all like Edith. She bullied him, and
! frightened him into silence when he
/ began to find fault with her extravaganza.
For she was extravagant-there was no
I denying that She cared only for show
and outward appearance. She neglected
her home duties, and often left the old man
/ t. prepare his own food, while she and Ben
dashed over the country, or through the
neighboring villages, behind the bl)oded
span she had insisted upon his purchasing
/ soon after their marriage.
Poor cid Arson Eng ljsh II was near
ing his sixtieth year now, and he looked
/ and seemed much older. Ben was his only
earthly tie, and the hope and stay of his
old age. And he was but reed-a reed.