Evening star., 1901-11-02
READY FOR THE GHOST

"Along toward the +st and 18th of each
month";" said a government clerk who es-
says to be amiably sardonic once In a
WHILE II begin to trace an appreciable ac-
cess Of pleasantness and good will and
helpfulness in my always agreeable home.
Perhaps I lack something in discernment,
but always fancy that 1 am the partlcu-
lar beneficiary of the helpfulness. My wife,
for instance, betrays some solicitude as to
the bagginess Of my trousers knees, ana
she puts an iron or two on the gas stove
and gives my wardrobe of two consecll-
tive pairs Of pantaloons an all-fired good
pressing. About the same lunar periods
she begins to find that my neckwear is
more or less soiled or frayed. and when the
evening lamp is aglow she elaboratsiy goes
at the cravatS and turns 'em and cleans elm
and polices EN- generally into presentapie
shape. She ekes this task out with Il lot
of sock darning. She tells me between
stitches that, while the husbands of ma 1y
of her women, friends are permitted by
their wives to go out into the highways
and byways looking like slouches, she ts
glad to say, thank the Lord. that her hus
bands always looks as shipshape and tidy
as can be-and this, might say In conn-
dence, is a little posy that she watts her
own way, for she Is directly and wholly
responsible for my makeup II it be true
that I don't go about looking seedy.
And, as the semi-monthly periods ap-
proach when am due to prance up to have
my little deals with the disbursing clerk,
observe that my grown daughters begin
to manifest great deal more interest In
me than they evince at other times. My
eldest daughter, for example. suddenly
reaches the conclusion that my tobacco
pipes are in an atrocious condition, and she
gets some pipe cleaners and some alcohol
and stuff and spends about half day CIV
ing them a rafting good cleaning, AMI
spreads 'em out on the rack, all shined up,
so that when / come home and have my
dinner l have some OF the finest smokes
ever heard of out Of those pipes. Then. as
like as not, she becomes conscious all of a
sudden that the typewriter up in my den
upon which I've been writing the great
American novel for the past quarter OF
a century or Solve got fully eighteen
pages of that epoch marking work Of lit
erature completed-is badly In need Of a
general overhauling and cleaning. She
spends several hours oiling and gasolin-
ing and tinkeIing that old printing con-
traption, and when I sit down to write on
1t 1t works so easily that I don't know
what to make of It until she bursts Into
merry laughter and tells me how she hos
labored to get 1t right.
Along about the same time by second
daughter begins to take quite renewed
interest in her dad. She sits on the arm
of my Morris chair and pulls at my ears
and tells me how lovely and gray my hair
is getting and f1atters me by asking for
she listens raptly while 1 launch out into
my long stories about battles and forced
marches and things, and she takes such a
huge interest In what 1 tell her that find
myself reaching the determination that she
is really the cleverest Of my children. Then,
when I've finished my interminable yarns
about the war-it's a subject that I can't
cut short very well when l get started off
on it-she slips over to the piano and plays
all of my favorite pieces without my ever
asking her to. It's the hardest thing in
the world to get her to play at other times,
but when payday stands there rosily a
heaven-kissing hill she goes through her
whole repertoire without ever a sigh, and
hurls all sorts of soft expression and feel
ing into her music.
MY Oldest boy, who Is getting on toward
seventeen, seems to warm into life, too,
along toward payday. He pretends that q
little scratch on my face, got in shaving,
is an indication that my raZors are in
abominable condition. and he gets them
together and homes them and straps them
and fixes them up so that they take the
hirsute off my countenance with astonsh-
ing ease. He doesn't say word about that
secondhand bike for SIS that he's had
his eye upon for some time past, but he
performs many little valuable services for
his immediate paternal ancestor When l
get nome about twenty minutes after four
I find him In his shirt-sleeves, out in the
backyard. cleaning the yard up with a rake
and making it look like a Dutch kit chem and
doorway surveying the effect he sizes me
UP out Of the tail Of his eye, pretending
that he hasn't seen me, and goes ahead
working like Trojan. r.
My younger boy. too, develops his bet
ter traits along toward the same magic
period. He gets home to his dinner on
time. with all traces of the mud that he
has picked up in playing foot ball and
marbles entirely removed from his cloth
ing, and his mother doesn't have to stand
in front of the house and call for him for
about half an hour when she wants him
to come in for bed at half-past .. He gets
in promptly at 8, in fact, and then ostenta-
tiously gets out his school books for half
an hours study. Far be 1t from that boy
ever to hint at the new foot ball he's been
wanting for some time past-but he sure
does get good, all right. along toward the
moneyed period.
"And I'm glad Of 1t all. It's just as 1t
should be. I am glad the pay days come
around SOS I can make good to 'em. I'm
glad I've got 'em with me. It's their priv
ilege to soft-soap the old man, and I en-
JOY being soft-soaped. The pay days would
be mighty miserable and uninteresting
events il 1 didn't have 'em all grouped
about me, and 1 only wish I could always
have 'em just as they are now. II it could
only be, wouldn't mind having them en-
joy my little old pay days right along till
the end of time.
But It's remarkable how things look up
around a. fellows home when pay day is
imminent, isn't it?"