Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-05-11
HUSBANDS, STAND UP!
AMBER THINKS iT IS TIME SOME
ONE TOOK YOU IN HAND.
Two ways of Acting When You Come
Home Things You Should Do and Those
You should Not Door Course This Don't
MeAn You. but It Fits Your N~eighbor.

49, 'AiA thA Vic HuSDdlll5 IL AltS
little manual of correct behavior. 1t is
high time some one took them in hand;
but, although have had my eye upon
them for "a good while, l have been both
cred 70 lind a ripe opportunity.
In the first place, TO plunge right into
the midst of things without further wait
ing, how do you go home to your wheat
night Chapters have been written rs [ o
how h ought to receive you; now let
me say n word about the other side of
the question. When you find a tired
little woman who has been 50 hard at
work all day with five babies and an in
competent girl, callers, and miscellaneous
jobs of mending, pastry making and
picking, that she has found no time to
curl her hair and put on her best gown
to meet you, what do you dor
WHICH Is you WAY?
Do you, like a dear old sympathizing
fellow, take her wor face into a warm
embrace and whisper in her ear: Never
mind, dearie; | have got home, and well
share the cares for the rest Of the day.
You 90 and rest yourself while | put
Johnnie and Trot and baby to bed?' Do
you see that she sits in the easiest chair
while you skip around and minister to
her wants? Do you keep silent while she
reads the evening paper TO herself, and
are you mindful of draughts and slam
ming doors while she takes her ease in
slippered content2 Do the stars dance
the Newport, and does the moon sing
psalm tunes2 just about us much az you
do all this. You expect the hushed home,
and the siesta with the paper, and the
slippers for yourself, to be sure, and if
you don't get them you think you're ter
ribly abused, and ten to one flounce off
to the club TO escape the noise and con
fusion, but you never take it into your
head to consider that the day has been
just as long, and just as busy, and a
thousand times more full Of petty cares
for her rs for you.
You bolt into the house, and the first
thing you say is: why isn't supper
ready? I'm as hungry as a hound!'
Great Scott! Can't you keep that child
quiety' or, Whats the use of burning
so much coal? Turn off the damperl
You are enough to ruin a Vanderbilt"
That's the keynote of the song you sing,
and yet you think it is dreadful if she
ever makes q remark harsher than the
bleat of a lamb. Suppose you had been
a hanson cab driver, a board Of trade
man, cook in n restaurant, cash boy for
a dry goods house, a kindergarten teacher
and a hospital nurse all combined for the
whole day long, wouldn't you be more
tired, and wouldn't there be more excuse
for your i%rritability than when you have
simply attended to a single s~ystematized
branch Of business.
A woman is required to be everything
from a reception committee to receive
calls in the parlor, to a nurse in the nur-
sery, and chief executive in the kitchen,
while u business man devotes himself to
q single trade Oh profession.
DON'T BE AFRAID OF ''SPooNING."
And next, how do you entertain your
wife evenings? If you were invited into
a neighbours house to spend a couple of
hours with his wife and daughter, how
would you entertain them, | wonder?
Why, you would put a posy in your but
tonhole, and slick up your ha4, and blow
a little perfume out of the atomizer all
over yourself, and throughout the even
ing you would overflow with bright
anecdotes and be SO racy and charming
that after you had gone away everybody
would say: What a perfectly delightful
man Mr.. Perkins is! What good com
panyT"
Now let us see, sir, how you entertain
your wife. You stand in front of the
fire and pick your teeth with a wooden
%toothpick until she starts to put the chill
dren to bed, and every now and then
YOU make a few cheerful remarks about
the scarcity of money and the general
cussedness of children who II through
shoes and clothes so fast. When the
time comes that all is still and every
thing nicely adapted for a chat or "A gam :.
you draw out your miserable newspaltr
and begin to read. And you read that
pape all to yourself, word for word \
line for line, straight through frcu .
torial to market report, as If it contaroed
the secret of youth, wealth and eternal
salvation! In the same way one might
drink soda water by the pailful, or con-
sumo caramels by the toni
Newspapers, readb by husbands in selfish
solitude, are answerable for many w;fely
h~eartaches. How many good stories and
racy anecdotes do you tell your wife to
make her laugh? How many roses do
YOU pin on your coat and how careful
are you of your appearance in the long
evenings, when there is nobody by but
her to be c%aptivated by your charms and
bewildered by your manly beauty? There
is Just exactly as much excuse for her
land a little more, it may be, if her dress
is slatternly and her hair untidy as there
is for you, and there is precious little for
either of you.
You excuse your indifference and
neglect and the withdrawal Of fond
and foolish attentions, just as dear to
her ut forty as at twenty, with the
thought: 20, well, she knows l love her;
what's the use Of %'spooning' at our ageT
By and by there will come a time when you
shall sec her lying in her coffin, perhaps,
and you would sell your soul that day to
be able to shine away long years of cold