The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-10-23
TEN BUSHELS,

Mrs. Lyman was IN the Kitchen SUI
perintending dinner. She was but a
young housekeeper, so there was GER
tain amount of anxiety connected with
making even a kettle of soup. She
stirred and tasted and put in another
shake of pepper and another pinch of
salt, and said to her maid OF all work,
who stood by watching the process:
II do wish | had an onion to put in
it; soup is not very good without an
onion favor"
The remark was made more to her
self than to Barbara, whose knowledge
of English was somewhat limited. If
it had not been, and if she had known
the way and it had not been too late,
she might have gone down town and
bought some onions. As those Obsta-
cles were all in the way, the soup must
needs go without.
When the six o'clock dinner was
spread in the very prettiest dining room
that can be imagined, the table glittering
in its new silver, and the soup smoking
in the tureen, the master of the house
"a young man who had only enjoyed
the privilege of sitting at the head of
his own table for couple of months,
took it all in, as his own tastes were Ca
pable of doing. The savory odors. the
cheory room. the careful attention to
every detail of comfort and beauty, and
then the slight figure opposite him, an
embodiment of dignity and grace-he
found nothing lacking in it all.
This soup is not quite perfect" the
young wife said, as she began to serve
il, Il had no onions to put in it, l
wish you would order some when YOU
so down town tomorrow, Phillip; they
are nice Just now for boiling, too"
This young couple had compared
views on Browning and Ruskin, butnot
on onions. They had long ago dis
cussed poetry, PHILOSOPHERS and art, as
well as architecture and house furnish
ingS, and they had found hitherto that
their tastes were in most delightful &C
cord. Mrs. Lyman was not prepared,
therefore, for the frown that contracted
her husbands handsome browS as he
calculated:
''0nions! Don't mention them. Elk
cuse me from that purchase, please.
They are abOminable; not fit for human
beings to eat. They ought to be ban
ished from every respectable table"
Il beg your pardon" Mrs. Lyman
answered, with rising color, ''but all do
not agree in such sweeping Genuncia-
ton. Many of the best physicians con-
slider them most nutritious and health
full"
''Well, at all events, | shall not have
my house polluted with the vile things.
If there IS anything that reminds one of
a third-raUe boarding house, it is to get
Whit of onions the moment you enter
the front door. 1t is vulgar and low.
/ can't see how anyone of refined tastes
can touch them. | hope you are not
an onion eater, Nettie, because if YOU
are, fear You will have to abstain,
can not abide them"
Now Mrs. Annette Hayward Lyman
was exceedingly fond of onions She
was not of the sort to dec1are that she
was ''pasSiOnately fond of them" but
she did think nice dish of boiled
onions, pretty white ones, swimming in
hot milk and butter, was Just the thing
to 60 with-Stewed chicken, say. Then
she enjoyed thin slices of raw onions
cut into vinegar; and crisp, green
topped young ones, dipped in salt and
eaten with bread and butter. were lust
delicious. And YET, if Philip had mildly
limited that he had a special aversion
for that vegetable, she would have de-
clared: 81 will eat no onions while the
world standeth." But to attack them
in this sharp way, to declare them vul-
gar, and, above all, to dictate to her
Whist she should or should not eat, as if
he were her master, and to say ''my
housed" 1t was too much, and she
answered in an icy tone that ''she must
beg leave to differ; to her mind the
onion was most delicious vegetable
and she must reserve for herself the
right of choice in this and in other
matters"
Their first quarrell And I'll about
an Onioni What cares Satan whether
1t be an apple or an onion, so that he
spoil the Edens.
There were many more words quite
as pungent as onions, and then there
fell silence between them that was
not broken after Barbara had lighted
the gas in the parlor, and drawn the
table under the drop-light, and they
were seated with books and newspapers.
There was no reading done. but much
ugly thinking. One line of it ran after
this fashion:
Strange that so delicate, refined a
nature should have a taste for that vile.
dagrant, odious onion. A wretched