The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-16
MANAGING A WIFE.

Ledger, "the worm will turn, l sup
pose, and that is what this worm is do
ing l am tired of reading articles in
the papers on how to manage a hus-
band, signed 'Amiable Wife and Biz
die, just as if a husband were some
sort of wild beast that needed tanning
before you could have him in the
house, and am just mean enough to
answer back. The gentlest, most
clinging little wife in the world needs
managing as we'll as the wickedest
brute of husband, and until you have
learned to manage her you will never
know the meaning of true domestic
peace.
''When Mabel and 1 We're engaged
thought her the most easily influenced
little creature on earth, and 1 pic
tured to myself the joy of molding
such pliable little character. But
after the honeymoon found that the
pliable little character was a small
mountain of determination, and the
molding wasn't any child's play
fancy that few other men have
awakened to the same realization, and
they will agree with me that it is
something of a shock.
The girl you are engaged to never
needs managing. She anticipates your
wants, and the entire engagement is
one long. sweet dream of endeavor to
please. 1t is only after you are mar
ried that you have to take her in hand,
and believe me, brothers, if you don't
begin it right away you will never be
able to do it later.
1.-THE management of a wife begins
almost at the altar.
Perhaps the hardest thing is to
make her understand who is the head
of the family. The most womanly,
angelic creature in the world always
imagines she is, and it requis-~-nne
pretty forceful arguments to set the
matter straight. Mabel was 10 when
we were married, and had never been
out of her mothers sight for a night,
and had never owned a bank book nor
managed anything of her own except a
pet canary in her life, yet when we be-
gan housekeeping the poor angel fully
and firmly believed herself the head
of the family, and assumed patroniz-
ing little airs with me, telling me how
to run a family and things of the sort
until 1 felt something less than a mere
unit in the household.
Poor Mabel! How her blue eyes
opened and her rosebud mouth trem-
bled when the unit began asserting it
self
Il told her that the head of the fam
lily was the one who went out and
earned the daily bread and supplied
the daily wants, and that if she want
ed to be it those were the things she
would have to do. The poor child MUIR
INJURED something about shattered
ideals and the end of romance but
noticed she let me do the earning. 1t
is sad to shatter young wife's dreams
in this rude fashion, but, as 1 said,
the management of a wife is quite as
necessary as the tanning and subduing
of husband.
zone of the most difficult things 1
had to conquer in Mabel was the bur
glar habit. She had away of waking
up in the middle of the night and de-
claring she heard burglars in the cell
lar, and insisted upon my going down
and surprising them in their opera
lions. This was a little loving expe-
dition on my part, and for the first
eight or ten times 1 would get up, arm
myself to the teeth, and start out
cheerfully to seek the burglars who
We're looting our pretty cottage and
make myself a target for their guns.
But after a while, when it became
nightly excursion, l rather wearied of
1t and demurred about getting up. Ma
bel cried and said l didn't love her any
ly cared for his wife would gladly hunt
burglars as often as she thought she
heard them. I steeled myself to the
tears, but firmly stuck to my resolu-
ton of breaking her of the habit.
80 the next time she heard them, I
insisted upon her getting up and COM
ing down with me, as 1 feared to leave
her alone Burglars, / told her, near
ly always had a confederate under the
bed. If you could have seen the way
the poor darling hid her head under
the blankets and shivered! / never
felt such a brute in my life, and when
! led her quaking little form down the
stairs, wrapped up in my bathrobe, l
felt that hanging was too good for me.
But it cured Mabel of the burglar
habit entirely. We never visited the
cellar but once and now Mabel takes
it out in smelling smoke. 1 don't mind
that so much, as ! merely get up per-
functorily and sniff in the hall and
come back and say easily it must be
in the street. 1 can almost perform
the act in my sleep.
mabel developed another bad habit
which 1 felt must be broken before l
could enjoy any peace in my home.
This was leaving every unpleasant
thing there was to be done for me. If
an unruly cook was to be discharged,
or a persistent tradesman came too
OFTEN with a Dill, or IneTe was leak
under the kitchen sink, the dear girl
would wait until 1 came home Then
she would rush to me with the dis
turbance and sit calmly upstairs as if
it didn't concern her, while l grappled
with it. This exasperated me thor
oughly and 1 cast about for the means
of managing her. At last L hit upon
it. I told her she was the mistress Of
the house, and that no one was to take
orders but from her, and that the ser
wants would respect her more if she
attended to engaging and dismisslng
them herself and that mans place
was not in the kitchen. I rubbed ii in
So about her being boss that the poor
child was so set up with her own i'm
portance that she wouldn't so much as
allow me to put my nose in the kitch-
en-, and l actually trembled for her
sometimes when 1 heard her harangu-
ing with an irate and rebellious Bird
get. 1t worked to a charm, however,
and my management caused me great
satisfaction.
Doubtless that which occasions most
trouble between newly married peo-
pie is when the poetry, of the honey
moon gives place to the inevitable
nnunnnn -