The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-12-27
CAUGHT HER AT LAST.
A Woman Who Did Not Appear to be
 Very Tender in Her Treatment.

A distressing story of a wife's insubor- dination has just reached us from Mis- sissippi. Abraham Mutsford, . we'll known and sometimes respected planter by those who don't owe him snything- is though, to be the most neid disci- piinarian in wifely matters ot any man in the entire couatry. There is a great dif' ference in men concerning household tactics. Colonel Mutsford, having been denied nothing in youth, grew up to manhood and married with the idea that the most pronounced duty of a wife is to dance 8 trembling attendance on her husbands furious wants h short-hoping that this paper will not reach him--Ab- raham Mu.sford Is a beast. His fryt wife died shortly after marriage. The neishborhood said that he abused her shametuily. He managed to shed few tears at the funeral, which, in considera- ton cf the fact that drouth was prevail ing in the country and that the cotton needed rain, was very Ii ,eral allowance on the part ot the husband. 4 few months later Abraham again led a shrinking bride to the oakboard altar of the Pine Log church. She seemed to have married him through fear for she vas startled every time she heard his voice. She gradually faded away like the twilight that "deepens with tipge of eve" and was laid to rest in an old orchard under an apple tree where she had often Saelt and prayed that she might be removed from an earth which had proved to be hell. As she lay dying, Abraham sish hypoc riticAl show of repentance approached Gnd sitting on the edge Of the bed SSked
 Won't you kiss me r
 She turned her face away, and with just strength enough to raise her hand, motioned him from her. Waiting a few moments he said
 "Come, Margaret, this is no time to harbor resentment. Margaret2"
 She was dead-her face still turned from him.
 At the funeral he made pre,ensc of grief, but when he wanted to lean on a levee contractor and weep, the man showed him away, saying:
 Don't s'ile my wardrobe with your blamed ors5-apple tears"
 Even again did this soulless wretch ind woman so exPeri imental-such a gambler in the stocks of fate-that she married him. The honeymoon began with a frown and ended with a blow. Ooe night, while freezing wind swept across the broad river, the poor woman, almost naked, ran through the forest, shrieking like soul eternally lost. Ab- raham, according to a calculation made by the book-keeper oi a steamboat wood yard, shed fifteen tears and suspended lAchrymose operations just as anoth CT half formed beade of brine gathered in his terrapin eye.
 So accustomed to the enjoyments of home, Abraham could not lohg remain wifeless. One day while in a dis,an, neighborhood. he stopped at the house of wood-chopper. He was immediately struck with the choppers daughter, 3 rather oldish girl with broad mouth, square chin and reddish hair ,ha, looked as though it had been powdered with brick dust. Her voice was soft and in- sinuating, and her smile was like the sudden drawing aside of calico curtain. Abraham, in speaking to the girls father, said:
 "Cood lookin' girl you have"
 "Yas sorter."
 "Whai's her name i"
 "We calls her Moll."
 Putty name"
 "Yzs, sorter."
 "I'm lookin' round for a wife an I'd like 10 speak to her. Wonder if she wants to manyr"
 "Yas, sorter."
 Moli was not startled when he spoke to her.
 "Wall," she said, "I ain't let sp on turnip greens an sich thinkin' bout marvin, still. as you air a stranger am entitled to all the respect a person can show yoa, reckon we can arrange mataezAn