Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1907-11-07
A DOMESTIC SKETCH
By Vienna Caldwell Melville.


Harry and I. but, web perhaps you
know how it is yourself He said
something q was sure he started it,
though he stoutly affirmed that l
did,, and | answered trifie sharply.
He said something else-Harry has
the gift CT sarcasm. I replied hotly;
I'd So it went on until he left the
house the picture of injured innocence,
and wiped my hands, out of the dish
water, on my clean apron and sat
down for good cry-at least for
large cry. After half an hour or more
Of this indulgence, my heart was no
less sore and my head ached wretch
eddy. The worse felt the more firmly
/ became convinced that Harry was
cruel husband; that his love for me
if indeed he had ever had any, which
/ declared to myself l doubted-was
dead; that my marriage was a failure
and my life wreck.
l say we had not actually quarreled
but of late these unpleasant scenes
were becoming alarmingly frequent,
and it was not always that recovered
my good humor sufficiently to be any
more than frigidly polite when he
all signs of ill temper banished by con-
tact with jolly word-came home
to dinner. / remembered, too, with a
pang, that several times he had lapsed
into my mood almost Immediately and
gone off with out a word. | was
vaguely alarmed, but none the less
positive that my husband was more
than two-thirds at fault and that my
naturally sweet temper was ruined by
being incompatibly mated These
were the very words that used to N.Y.
self. | cried again over the dishes,
thinking of how happy had been in
the old times when Harry wooed and
won me; and then l grew homesick
for mother and the girls, and ended by
declaring aloud-there was no one to
hear but Dick, the bird and General,
the cat-that l wished l had had sense
enough to remain single like Nell and
Lue, "The girls" aforesaid, o, mel
well it was a sad improbable morn.
ing. Just before noon little spasm
of something-it was not repentance
for the sinned against can not repent
came over me, and said aloud again:
Il will do my duty, let come what will
1t is woman's lot to suffer alone and
die by inches"
To IN rot, iii
cularly appetizing dinner, feeling quite
virtuous as again | recalled the scene
of the morning in all its details. Their
a new thought struck me as my poor
head throbbed anew 1t vas only fair
that Harry should know what a
martyr 1 was making of myself; so
just before 1 expected him I arranged
my hair as becomingly as possible and
then adjusted a white head band
wrung from cold water. 1t really
cooled my head and did me world Of
good, but not quite in the way had
planned. In imagination / beheld my
husbands face grow tender when he
saw that I was ill, and the look of
genuine remorse when he noticed how
l had had care for him through It
all.
But he did not come. The tempting
dinner cooled untasted. One O'Clock,
two, ard then bare-footed urchin
brought me note from Harry, saying
he had had to lunch at a restaurant in
orded to keep an engagement with a
man.
Down l flung myself. the feeling of
uneasiness that had possessed me
giving place to variety of sensations,
chiefly however hunger and anger
And this was the end of my martyr
dom for this time. OF course he would
never know that l had tried to PLEASE
him; and then il all came to me so
plainly, the difference in our lives,
had spent the fornoon in thinking of
him and him alone My whole world
revolved around him; he made my
sunshine or shadow: he held my very
existence as a mere toy in his hand.
and held it, 0, how lightly.
With him, when he departed in the
morning, he left not thinking of me
at all. He entered another world
where there were pleasures, business,
companionship. a thousand things to
entertain and occupy. While was
planning the things he liked to eat he
was engrossed in other matters, and
when dinner time came he simply ig-
nored me and my efforts and to accom-
modate some "man,"-dined at res
taurant He knew would be uneasey
and probably go without my meal-if
he remembered me at all. If any of
you have had an experience similar to
mine you know that the more indul-
ged in this strain the more my head
ached, and the more my head ached, the
harder / cried There was no wearing
the cold compress just for show or
effect now.
And then, after about on hour Of
this, the door bell rang, not the front
bell either else would have feigned
not to hear II but the side door bell.
l must respond.
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