The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-05-30
" Bits of Things"

Zenas Dane, in Good Housekeeping,
writing of Bits of Things" has sew
eral good bits, and we give them be-
low. He seems most impartial critic,
for he has his say on the duties and
shortcomings of husbands, of which
we have lately had good deal in the
Household department. He treats also
of the shortcomings and weaknesses
of wives in very candid, but none
the less forcible, manner. We have
seen houses where the neatness was
painful and achieved at the expense of
health and comfort, and we wondered
when we read of " the wife that would
not work " whether she had any
trouble about money matters and
regular allowance. Thank fortune
these extreme cases which are con-
stantly coming to notice are exceptions
in both husbands and wives, and are
the more noticed from their rarity and
startling hideousness.
AM minded to write few lines on
the little courtesies of life that some of
us who are husbands and wives seem to
have forgotten, or purposely put aside,
since the days of our honeymoon. We
chung to them tenaciously enough be-
fore; yea, we goried in them. know
/ used to tip my hat in the most grace
full and courteous manner to my wife
when | CHANGED to meet her on the
street before we were married. Some
times q confess it with shame) 1 don't
do it now | used, in those "politer y
days, to think that she could not under
any circumstances go upstairs without
good deal of my arm for support, and
now-well, sometimes | bolt on ahead
of her and she says, reprovingly:
"Here, sir, you're gallant husband to
let me 90 upstairs unassisted." Then
/ always go back and do my duty, but
the shame of it is that l should have
forgotten my duty in this respect.
Wives cling longer than husbands to
all the gentle, gracious little courtesies
that were never forgotten in the hal
cyon days of their courtship, but they,
too, forget at times some of the little
things that made them so charming in
the eyes of Tom or John or Will.
Why shouldn't we say 81 beg your
pardon" or " Excuse me =" and "Thank
you to each other as well as to other
men and women? The lack of these
little courtesies and kindnesses has
much to do with the lack of harmony
and happiness in many homes.
ONE of the blessed missions of these
baby visitors to our homes is to keep us
from being too tidy, for there is such a
thing as being too nice by half in the
keeping of ones house. My wife was
slave to the broom and dish-rag for
the four long years preceding the birth
of our first baby. Now we have two
boys, four and two years of age, and
she-well, she lets things go" in a
manner that gives the boys and me
great satisfaction. Things are no longer
just So" The curtains do not hang
exactly So" the rugs are sometimes
curled up or " Topped clean over"
chairs lie supinely on their backs for
an hour at time in the sitting-room;
there are streaks made by moist little
, fingers on panes of glass once spotless
and umblemished as crystal; the books
and ornaments on the table are all
tumbled up" the papers in the rack
are not folded evenly and squarely, but
seem to have been tossed in "most any
way" there are blocks and railroad
engines and stiff-legged horses and
sitter men and women from Noah's
ark scattered around everywhere; the
table cover is awry, the ottoman is bot
tom side up and things in topsy-
turvy condition generally My wife
often says that the room " looks awful"
and she spends good deal of time
" cleaning up" at night, when the two
| little enemies of law and order are in
their little beds. But they "muss it
all up " in fifteen minutes the next day.
Children of their years are natural foes
to tidiness and primness in housekeep-
ing. / have read a great many theories
on the subject of teaching children to
be orderly, =" like little ladies and gentle
men," but l have always found such
children rather stiff and prim, and not
the rollicking, childish, freely happy
youngsters l want my little boys to be
while they are still my little boys.
If was woman and had nothing
better to do than to sit down and cut
scraps of silk and satin and velvet into
little pieces and then spend hours in
sewing them together again into a Z" log
cabin or " crazy" quilt, Td-I'd-
well, I'd make clothes for few of the
ragged, distressed and forlorn little
creatures of earth who swarm in all
cities and are often found in small viii
lagos. A woman could read the entire
works of Dickens, Macaulay and Hume
and keep up with all the leading maya
zines of the day in less time than it
takes to make one crazy" quilt; and
they are night-marish sort of things