The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1906-08-16

business, either because he is i'll or
because he Is taking holiday, he is
very apt to remark, benignantly, that
his wife has a great deal of time on
her hands. Should the man be a
retired merchant broker or profess
sional person who has decided that
he has had enough of money making
and that he is entitled to enjoy him
self for the rest of his days, his wife
Is very likely to hear good deal
about the ease in which she has spent
the years that have been to him a
ceaseless round of grubbing. In the
latter case, the wife is fortunate If
she does not often have occasion TO
wish that her lord would again be-
take himself to the counting-room or
the office.
A man in the house is very pleas
ant companion in the space legiti-
mately his own. One likes to see him
eat his dinner; unless one is a deter
mined ascetic, one is not averse to
the scent of his pipe or cigar; and
ones evenings at home are much hap
pier when the man of the house is
domestic and does not rush off to see
another man, or to spend the time at
his club
In brief, there are times and sea
sons when men understand women
and women understand men, but an
unOccuped man adrift in the home
all day long is sure to be something
of discipline to his wife and daugh.
tiers. If he do not interfere and in
terrupt and give advice and criticise,
and inspect the marketing and the
accounts, he probably sits about
ostentatiou' ly with a magazine or a
newspaper, yawns fidgets and Won
ders how under the sun women endure
the monotony of their existence.
We will suppose that woman,
neither more nor less busy than wom-
en- in general, goes away for an out
ing and leaves her husband detached
from other business to keep house
and take care of the children in her
absence On her return she will dis
cover that the house has lost a portion
of its Immaculate and shining tidiness,
that the children have degenerated
into chronic ill-behavior, and that the
maids are only withheld from giving
warning by their loyalty to her The
man in his turn, if he be frank, will
admit that his wife's routine Of du-
ties. obligations and economies, varied
by incessant Interruptions from the
door-bell. is enough to fairly swamp
the energies of the average man.
The woman who is not busy is so
rare that she ought to be labeled and
exhibited in a museum as an Obso-
lete specimen Of the daughters of Eve.
The woman who is at once busy and
fussy, who makes a point of exploit.
ing the fact that she can never catch
up with her work, who is hurried,
worried and preoccupied because she
is numbered with care, is to be met
in almost every house on our block.
The exceptional woman who being
busy still keeps her frets and cares
in the background who is serene and
tranquil and aCcomplisbeS things
without haste and without waste is
the finest type of American woman
edge that we are in the presence of
a queen regnant. She manages her af-
fairs; they do not manage her She
may sometimes be tired, but she is
tired to good purpose and has earned
the sleep that refreshes the toiler.
A man may inquire what are WON.
en- busy about?" Some of them it
may be replied are very busy in max
ing men comfortable. We are not
now discussing those Independent
bachelors who have established them
selves in apartments of somewhat for
lorn luxury, aloof from woman's touch
and presence, but Of the great MAORI
ty of men who go to business every
morning and come home every night.
| They are fathers. husbands, sons and
brothers, and their clothing is brushed
and repaired, their rooms are swept
and busted, their beds are made and
their tables are spread for them by
the provident hands of the women
they love.
They go out and come in and the
intervening hours are interesting and
exciting and sometimes are anxious,
but they go with the wave of a wOm-
ans hand to cheer them on, and they
come back to the kiss of sweet wom-
anhood of wife or daughter or moth
er. A man has more variety in his
life and less interruption than falls
to the lot of a woman who is busy
housekeeper. From Monday morning
until Saturday night she is continual
ly engaged in doing a number of
trifiing things that make no show and
seem to her to amount to little in the
end She is making the home a shell
ter and a refuge for the men who
abide within it.
A woman is often busy during the
most beautiful years of her life in the
tasks of maternity. ITO bear, to
nurse, to rear" epitomizes the moth.
ers profession, and when the babies
are coming and the boys and girls
are growing up, growing so fast that
their progress is like a miracle, wear
ing out shoes, wearing out stockings,
wearing out frocks and trousers. -