The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1891-02-12
ARP'S LETTER.
The Philosophers Advice to Those Con-
templating Marriage--The Young
Wife's Standard of Living
Should be Taken into
Consideration.

! It seems 10 be a long-telt want. A
SQUAD fell down from the coping Of the
chimney yesterday, and Mrs. Arp had
it cooked for the little orphan and l
heard her telling the children how her
pa had great, big pigeon house and
hundreds Of pigeon, and they had great
dishes of squads to eat all the year
round, and how nice old Aunt Peggy
could cook them, and they were better
than chickens or partridges, oranything
else. Every once in while she dis
courses these children on thejoy and
luxuries of her childhood. She tells
them about the fish-pond and the deer
park, and the bucks and does and
fawns, and how she petted one and 1t
would come at her call and eat from
her hand, and how they had venison
whenever they wanted it, and old
Aunt Peggy could beat anybody cook
ing venison. And how they milked
eight COWS, and Aunt Sally made great
churn's full of butter and how they
killed about hundred fat hogs every
winter and what big time ssit was
drying up the lard and making saus-
ages and smoking hams and shoulders,
and middlings in the high topped
smokehouse. And about the big potato
patch where they 1nade enough pota-
toes for the white folks and hundred
negroes besides, and her pa kept them
sound and eet in the banks until
potatoes cams again. And she tells
about the big plantation on the Chatta-
hoochee and the ferryboat, and the
fish traps and the bluffs all covered
with laurel, and the big gin house, and
how she used to ride around on the
long beams and pop he whip at the
horses us they went round and round
under the cogwheels, and how little
Ben fed the gin and big Ben packed
the cotton, and old Uncle Jack wore
number fourteen shoes and bis feet
spraddled out nearly straight and made
a path a yard wide when he walked
through the field, and so he wasn't
allowed to hoe corn but was kept at the
ferry or in the blacksmith shop on the
river bank. And how she learned to
spin and to weave and wore homemade
linsey woolsey dresses, and could plait
shirt bosom or tuck dress before she
was twelve years old, and, last of all,
how she would have been somebody
if had given her time, but I married
her when she was nothing but child
and she hasen't had any times since to
learn anything or do anything but
nurse children and work for them.
Good gracious-when she dilates and
narr;ttes and expectorates upon the
haicyon days of her girlhood, have
to take back seat while the children
draw near and listen and wonder and
admire, and I feel like I am nobody
much and maybe did wrong in invad-
ing her household and carrying off its
queen. But I have done my best--yes,
have done my best, have fought
good fight and kept the faith and tried
to keep her up to her raising and she
might have waited longer and done
worse. But am going to build her a
pigeon house and let her feast her me-
mories in watching the beautiful birds
as they gracefully sail around in flocks
and she shall feed her children on
squads to her hearts content. | bought
her fawn once but he grew up to
buckhood and had horns and liked to
have killed one of the children, and so
l killed him and that let me out of the
deer business. I had some big-foot
negroes too, and several COWS and used
to have right smart hog killings, and I
made her fish pond and raised tur-
keys and pea fowls, and kept her fresh
and green in the memories of her
youth, but l never did have great
big pigeon house. I'll show her child
ren that I'm somebody too, even if I
diden't have much to start on except
form and feature and wore good clothes
and ten dollar boots, and carried of the
prize at the school examinations. One
of her boys was fixing for party the
other night and it took him half an
hour and two looking glasses to array
himself in his swallow-tail coat and
double-breasted cravat and rainbow
surcingle and patent leather shoes and
derby hat and chemisette for shirt
bosom, and when he presented himself
his mother exclaimed: "Well, well!
you are just your pa over and over
again. He was the dressiest and the
handsomest young man you ever saw
aud you get it all from him."
When a young man begins to look
round and hanker after wife he had
better consider whether he can keep
her up to her raising or not. If he
thinks he can then he is safe to invite
her to put her clothes III his chest but
if she is rich and he is "only tolerable,
J thank you," he had better be careful
and go slow, for riches take wings and
fly away, and if he can't keep up the
old standard its a reflection on his
capacity. A good, sensible wife won't
say anything on that line, but most
every woman has an idea that if she
was man she would make life sue
cess and so, if her husband proves
failure she don't strain her eyes in
looking up to him. It's all right at our
house except the pigeon house and the
squads, and I'll catch up with that.
In fact, I'm ahead of the music in
good many things considering the war