Lawrence democrat. (Lawrenceburg, Tenn.) 1884-1925, 1891-04-03
JACKS MEDITERRANEAN.
The Pathetic Tale Of a Victim Of
an Old Joke.

JACK s mOtner-ln-laW was coming TO
make them q visit Jack had married
Alice down in the country, where he
had gone one summer for the fishing.
He had been so much in love with
Alice that he had not paid much atten-
ton to her mother during their court
ship; and, to tell the truth, he had al
most forgotten about her since. She
seemed to Jack good old soul, but
rather tiresome and poky. Now, there
was nothing poky about Jacks set.
Even the old women whom he knew
were 'up-and-a-coming," as he used to
say, so Alice's mother with her quiet
ways and almost slavish devotion to
her pretty daughter had impressed hin,
more as an adjunct to Alice than any
thing else. And now she was coming
to visit them. He had not thought of
her since five months before, when he
had made some excuse to get out of ac-
companying Alice down to see her.
Alice was one of those selfish little
women who often make the most de-
voted of wives. Just as her mother
had worshiped and waited upon her
she adored and petted Jack, but there
was no room in her heart for any one
else except her baby. They had been
married a year now, and little Jack
had recently come to them-a red-faced,
bald-headed baby-but Alice was very
proud Of him, and she wrote for his
grandmother to come and see him.
jack was the best-hearted fellow in
the world, but he had been brought up
very differently from these simple coun-
try people. Sometimes he was little
bored even by Alice, although he loved
her dearly; but her mother! he was
sure he could not stand that, and SO he
planned to be at home as little as posi-
BILE during her stay.
The gentle old lady felt strange and
out Of place in Alice's home. The busy
city doctor, the pompous nurse, the
servants were all so different from the
people she had known, and Jacl1-she
was terribly in awe of Jack. Alice was
full Of plans and projects for the baby,
and her mother was left great deal to
herself The poor old lady strayed
about lonely and homesick in the great
rooms, feeling that they all, even
Alice, seemed like strangers to her-all
but little Jack. Babies are babies, rich
or poor, city or country-and she had
nursed good many of them in her day
and she did not feel shy with little
Jack. And he was part hers-her little
grandson. She wished that they would
send the nurse away and let her care
for him. She held him in her arms and
rocked him and crooned an old song in
cracked little voice, quite forgetting
that the dignified nurse was In the
room. And the nurses heart softened
toward the dear old lady as she heard
the song-for her own mother had sung
just such songs over her years before.
1t happened to be at this time sort
of between seasons for the funny men
on the newspapers-that is, too late for
the annual ice jokes, and little early
for the ones about the coal-dealer-so
they ran in all the old mother-in-law
stories of the last decade. Alice's
mother read the daily papers from enc
to end. There was much in them that
she neither liked nor understood, but
reading helped to pass the time, anG
she had SO much time. She had Away;
Z subscribed for the little sheet that hat
ZONE ont at Green's Corners" every
Saturday for forty years, but that wa:
purely local. Another man had once
bid for trade there, but old johnson
the Ed" had told him that he hat
furnished the brains for that town ant
had set his own type for forty year
and that neither his brains nor hi
fingers showed any signs of giving GU
for some time yet. So the Bulletin
went on In the old way, giving tn.
deaths and marriages and town topics
and the mother-in-law joke had nevel
penetrated to its columns; and thus i
came that to one reader these para
graphs were a novelty.
She pondered much over them, poo
woman. She knew that there wer,
such women-Andy Clumm's wife dow
at the Corners" was a terror; and tn,
report was that Joe James mother-in
law made 1t so hot for Joe that he haC
to leave. But then Andy was shiftles
and Joe was a drunkard. 1t seemet
cruel to her that the men who wrot
the papers rated all mothers-in-l Law
with such as they, and she grew so sen
sitive about her own relation to hin
that she hardly dared address Jack les
he think her a meddler.
Jack read these funny stories too an
the fellows ioked him, and he began :