The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1884-07-03

husband; amy head Is as heavy a. lead,
and I cannot keep my eyes open,
Laziness! sheer lazinessr said hi
wife sharply: - Z: :;%
Mr.: Skinner went down stairs and
disappeared: The last words his wife
heard him say were that theirs was rest
for the weary; but she was picking uI
the embroidery on the mis- used sham
with pin, and did not heed him.
When she went down stairs he was not
in sight and she busted herself with get.
ting dinner, which on Sunday took the
place of supper, and thought no more
| about him.
She was distinguished woman; dis
tinguished in the town where she lived
as being the cleanest housekeeper in it.
No girl could be: found neat enough
to live with her; all the notices in he,
house were to the effect that clesni-
ness is akin to goodness. She busted
every article of furniture in the house
several times every day; she
scrubbed so often that the
children had chronic diphtheria; she
scrubbed so clean that at last she scrub,
bed through her kitchen floor into the
cellar, and was nearly lost to the com.
munity. It was perptual warfare be.
tween her and dirt. The front parlo,
was never opened to the family, and al
though Mr.. Skinner had furnished it he
had never sat down in it q moment
since. Its air was that of tomb After
it had been opened to company for an
afternoon, the children went around
with fannels about their throats and
drank ginger tea. 1t was the handsom.
est parlor in the community, too, and
had the family pictures and their mar
there.
When dinner was ready-andit was a
good dinner, too, for Mrs. Skinner was
a notable cook-she asked the children
where their father was.
They did not know.
This seemed strange; she questioned
them closely, but they had not seen
which way he went when he passed
through the room.
"Didn't he say where he was going?"
she asked, wonderingly, for Mr.. Skin
ner never went out on Sunday without
his family.
HE said he was going where he'd
have more peace" said little Harry
Skinner.
"Well, we won't wait dinner for him, ~
said his wife, and they sat down to eat.
But spell seemed to have fallen
upon them, and when the dinner was
over and cleared away, and they were
in the sitting-room with their books,
there was sense of dreary loss, and
Mrs. Skinner sat with: the Bible open
on her lap, and wondered why he had
gone out and remembered that he had
looked queer.
It was in consonance with her habits
of living that she got up in the middle
of these speculations to catch wander
ing and belated fly and induce him to
be annihilated.
"Strange!" she said, as it grew dark.
"Ill take the children and go down to
his mothers and see if he is there, and
if he is, I'll just give him piece of my
mind"
But he was not there, and his moth
er said Lot had looked badly the last
time she saw HIM, and she thought he
seemed worried; hoped it wasn't bust
ness troubles.
No, it wasn't business troubles; Mrs.
Skinner knew that, and began to Won
der if she had cleaned her husband out
of his mind. It came over her with
sudden force that she had been in the
habit of driving him from pillar to post
at railroad speed and at the end of
broom or dust brush. He actually
found no rest for the sole of his foot in
his own house. It might have worked
upon his nervous system until he had
become suddenly insane. Horrible
thought! He might have committed
suicide.
She hurried home with the children.
All was gloom. She went to his bureau
to look for his razor. It was the only
Then Mrs. Skinner broke down and
cried, and it was indeed scene of des-
olation, when suddenly the door of that
horrible parlor opened, and an appar-
ition-no, it was Mr.. Skinner himself
stood before them looking very sheep
ish.
"Ioverslept myself, =" he said in meek,
apologize tone, looking at the clock.
II should say you did," answered his
wife, and the dinner is all eaten up,
but I'll fix you up something nice," and
she went out taking the children with
her.
How much of it Mr.. Skinner ever
knew it is impossible to say;but there
was an immediate and satisfactory
change that at first amazed and then
delighted him. He could lay down
anywhere when he was tired and his
wife would throw a shawl over him,
and leave him in peace. He has even
been seen to lie down on the sofa in the
parlor where he took his Rip Van Win
kle sleep and nobody disturbed him.
Mrs. Skinner was at heart a woman of
sense, and when she relied that one
hair of that grizzly-gray head was
worth more than all the pillow shams
in the world to her, she put the last
one away in the company of a demented
assortment of superhuous tides. And
they are really and truly, and not in
any geological sense, a ''happy family"
now.
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