The record-union., 1897-05-09
BESELENA'S PRATTLE.
Especial Correspondence of Record Union)
PORTI AND (Or Nav

| Especial Correspondence of Record -Union)
PORTLAND orr, May Given a
good thing can be Overdone. There are
| many good things being overdone con-
stantly; spring house cleaning is one of
them. Spring housekeeping is a sort of
epidemic; it's like measles, and mumps
and other contagious disorders, which
are popularity supposed to make their
| appearance with the gentle spring.
When a woman sees her next door
neighbor throwing wide open her front
blinds and opening her parlor windows,
when she hears the sound of ripping car
pets and of moving furniture she is
straightaway seized with desire to go
and do likewise, and so the contageon
spreads until the whole neighborhood
has it.
Man is anturally comfort-loving
biped. He has an instructive dislike of
worry and disorder. He would willingly
close his eyes tn dusty carpets and cob
! webs and fly specks Not SO a woman.
Its the small things that make the aver
age womans life miserable she doesn't
know anything about the cares of busi-
ness life; she is content with her children
and her housekeeping and man is con-
tent to have her so. Being, as / have
said before, a comfort-lovng biped, a
man naturally objects to leaving a COM
Portable, Well-regulated home in the
morning and coming home at night to
find the whole place in disorder. He OBJ
jects to be compelled to partake of a
cold meal, half cooked, eaten from the
back parlor mantel shelf, while his wife
{ 9hOIlt in a fada6 lipO
check kitchen apron, slippers down at
heel, like the never to- be forgotten
Marchioness while her head is swathed
in a towel.
At night he sleeps in some convenient
corner because the beds have all been
taken down If he is a patient, much
enduring sort of a man, and there are
such, 1 have been told he will endure it
all without a murmur but if he is just
plain sort of everyday chap, with only
a modicum of the virtue patience, he
will remove himself far away from the
scene of disorder and betake himself to
the club, where, if he is not already a
member, he will get some friend who is
to vouch for him, and having done SO,
will renew in a measure his bachelor ex-
istence. There are some men who are
really help about house at such times,
but the average man is about as useful
as a bull in a china shop. The comic
weeklies have had quite a good deal to
say on this subject; it has been almost
as fruitful a theme to the funny para
graphists as the antique mother -in-law
joke, but the funny paragraphists have
not been far wrong.
A woman'S house is her kingdom; it
is her province to see that it is kept in
order: therefore men should have in
finite patience with woman even
when he thinks in his lordly, superior
way that she is making an unnecessary
fuss. House cleaning is a great deal
harder for the woman than it is for the
man. A woman cannot fly to the peace
full shelter of some club there to refresh
her wearied self with the latest maga-
zines and choicest morsels of scandal
instead she must be in the midst of it
all experimenting and directing the pro-
gress of the work.
woman of experience can really get
through spring house cleaning in quite