River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1907-06-20
The Asthmatic's Story
BY Don Mark Lemon
By Don Mark Lemon
Copyright, by Daily story pub. Coz

Land sakes, but it does tire body
cut to have to climb those front steps
of yours, Mrs Tweed and / think
every time ] come over your landlord
has added few more steps to EN-
they get more and more; but it may
be only because / have touch of
asthma and am all out Of breath from
standing up in that dreadfully crowd
ed street car, with men sitting down
with their legs stuck out as thick as
flies on a piece of fiy-paper, reading
their newspapers and never Lexington
that women folks are dragging their
arms out hanging on to the straps
that burst ones gloves every time the
car gives jolt, which it does every
time it stops or starts up, and that
reminds me, too, that he was sitting
down just across from where ! was
hanging on for dear life, with my
stays sticking into my side dreadful
~, and it made me mad to stand
there and think that instead Of sa-
cred union OF two souls, as the good
Lord intended it to be, marriage is
half the time only poor cotton UNI
Drella for women to get under out Of
rain Of affection, with the man hold
ing it mostly over himself; and once
when the car turned a sharp corner
] let myself fall against him on pur-
pose, and he got red in the face to
know that | knew the shameful reason
why he married that poor little spin
ster Martha Edwards, which is what
r1r fC fa1 oh
you don't mind I'd like to sit in this
chair by the window on account of
my asthma, as ! can get bit Of air;
but let me see now, where was / go
ing to begin?-oh, yes; day before
yesterday-or, no. it must have been
Monday, for I had just got through
directing the girl about some particu-
lar wash WOrk-and / must send her
over to you, as she is jewel to mind
when Mrs. Phillips dropped in all
out of breath and couldn't hardly wait
till she was seated to tell me all
about it, and / think it my duty 90
tell you too, for if we women and
wives and mothers would tell the
whole truth and nothing but the
truth more often about the men folks,
they would be afraid to act as they
do sometimes when they think they
are safe and nobody will find their
double-dealing out, or if they do,
won't say anything about it but let it
go, and they can keep on doing as he
thought he could when he married
poor little Miss Edwards and mag
ined because she was meek, and blind
for love of him, that there weren't
any other women with eyes and
tongues in their heads, who don't
care a continental rap for him, and
only take an interest in him because
Of the woman he married, who, thank
heavens! is getting her eyes open to
his double-dealings, though one can see
that it hurts her dreadfully; and /
guess you know as well as | do, and
every woman knows that has eyes
and gumption, how particular he was
about choosing a wife at all, as
though nine men out of ten are not
getting the goods and their money
back too, when they marry a woman
who is any ways account at all. and,
thank heaven! most women are more
account than a dozen men, who think
themselves the lords of creation and
expect their wives to be like one of
these combination pieces of furniture
that's good for everything from a
French mirror to a place to black
their boots on; but sometimes in
stead of being merely sawdust wife
turns out to be a pincushion that they
prick their fingers with-at least, the
Wife's friends are needle-and-pins in
the sawdust that they never reckoned
for; and when Mrs Phillips heard a
few things from poor little Martha
Edwards, and put few more things
together, she began to open her eyes,
and you may be sure she opened that
poor little creatures eyes too. and
wouldn't blame her at all if she gets
divorce tomorrow, or if she doesn't
she certainly hasn't as much spirit as
/ have, for if the men folks had to
marry their own kind and put up with
half what the luckiest wife gets and
thinks she is happy, one-half of the
men folks would be cracking the
crowns of the other half, and such a
noise would go up that the saints
couldn't hear themselves harping;
but ] know you are anxious to hear
all about it, and I don't blame you
for the natural curiosity of we women
is the only thing that keeps the men
halfway straight, and if we didn't
have it. men would have to be better
men or better liars, and heaven
knows if you tried to take out a
patent on a piece of machinery that
would tell fibs, it would have to be au-
tomato, or the man or boy who was
hired to run it could tell bigger lies
faster than it could; but as l said
before he had been so particular
about getting a wife that you would
have thought. him being a widower
that his dead wife had been some
kind Of an aff1ictiCn instead of hui
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