The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-08-07
Select Stories.
HIS SUNDAY NAP.

1t was Sunday. MIR. Skinner was tlreo
and thought he would lie down on sofa
in the back parlor and rest. People nevel
learn by experience, and he was no excep
ton to the common rule.
He Law down and crossed his feet with
a parade hardly justifable under the cir
cumstances. His wife came in and saw
him.
"Why. Lot Skinner she exclaimed.
"If | ever heard of the like! Lying
down on that new sofa with your boots on,
and oh, my goodness your head on that
lace tidy l had done up only last week
You are the most inconsiderate man l ever
saw in my life r
Mr.. Skinner got up and his wife smooth
ed out the tidy and rearranged it.
"The idea of anybody putting head on
that tidy" said Mrs. Skinner, who had no
intention of using slang. II did suppose
you had more sense"
II used to have,'' said Mr.. Skinner,
good "Ya-a-h. l could take a
nap if 1 could find place to drop down.
Ya-a-h."
sYou had better read your Bible, said
Mrs. Skinner. She was good, uncom-
Portable woman; SO clean and neat and Or
derly that she made her family wretched
with domestic drill.
Something called Mrs. Skinner off then,
and when she came back Mr.. Skinner was
gone. She sat down and took a book,
when a thought struck her, and she bound
ed from her chair as if it had been a can
non ball.
Yes, it was just as she feared; her hus-
band had gone up stairs, and she found
him stretched out on the bed, on top Of a
white counterpane, his grizzly-gray head
sunk deep into white, starched pillow
sham, with these words embroidered in the
center:
''Sleep sweet, beloved! !'
"He was not only asleep, but snoring,
with look of sweet content on his wide
open mouth.
"L-o-t Skinner
He got up in manner that would have
done credit to gymnast, and stood staring
at the fearful hollow in the bed and the
wrinkled dent in the pillow-sham.
"I declare I forgot" he said, looking
very foolish. "Alice, haven't I got place
where can lay my head?"
'Don't talk nonsense" said his wife,
sharply. "The idea of sober man going
to bed with his boots on.
"Would you rather I'd get"
'I'd rather you'd get some common
sense" she said. "If you must sleep in
the daytime, why there's an old lounge
down in the kitchen; no one will disturb
you there Or, I suppose"-ungraciously
II can take off the quilt, and the shams,
and let you have nap here, though it's
wicked, that's what it is, to sleep Sunday.
It's bad example to set to the children,
and you know it.
"But am so sleepy" answered her hus-
band; "my head is as heavy as lead, and I
cannot keep my eyes open"
"Laziness sheer lazinessP said the
wife, sharply.
Mr.. Skinner went down stairs and dis
appeared. The last words his wife heard
him say were that there was no rest for
the weary, but she was picking up the en-
broidery 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 in getting dinner, which on
Sunday took the place of supper, and
thought no more about him.
She was distinguished woman; distin-
guished 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 her house were
to the effect that cleanliness is akin to god
illness. She busted every article of furni-
ture 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 scrubbed through her kitch-
en- floor into the cellar, and was nearly lost
to the community. 1t was a perpetual
warfare between her and dirt The front
parlor was never opened to the family, and
although Mr.. Skinner had furnishedit it he
had never sat down in it moment since.
Its air was that of the tomb. After it had
been opened to company for an afternoon,
the children went round with fannels about
their throats and drank ginger tea. Itwas
the handsomest parlor in the community,
too, and the family pictures and their mar
riage certificate were framed and hung up
there.
When dinner was ready-and it was a
good dinner, too, for Mrs Skinner was q
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.
s'Didn't he say where he was going ?'
she asked, wonderingly, for Mr.. Skinner
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.
1t was in consonance with her habits Of
living that she got up in the middle Of
these speculations to catch wandering and
belated fly and induce him to be annihi
lated.
"Strangel" she said, as it grew dark
"I'll take the children and 60 down to
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 mother
said Lot had looked badly the last time