Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-01-26
At the End Of the Rainbow.
A LITTLE SLUMBER.
By WALT MASON.

II have just been enjoying a little
sleep. little slumber, little folding OF
the hands to Sleep said the wild man of
the woods. land 1 am a giant refreshed
AS man wakes into the sere and yellow
leaf he greatly enjoys a trifiing snooze
after the midday meal. don't know why
| it should be so, but half an hour of slum-
| Der at such time does him more good
! than eight hours of it at night. One great
advantage of the forest primeval is that
| the dweller in it's solemn aisles may sleep
| when he lists. with none to interrupt him.
1T is far different in the busy haunts.
The married man who lives in town needs
an afternoon nap far more than does the
gentle hermit of the dell. for the life he
! leads is exhausting. A bachelor may find
| a place where he can sleep, but a mar
ried man has no chance. l tried for years
and years to get handful of sleep after
dinner, but that boon was denied me.
My wife was beautiful and majestic
woman. Endorsed by press and pulpit, and
| / wouldn't permit any man to point the
| finger of ScOrn at her, but she had old
fashioned ideas of industry. She consid-
| cred it little less than a crime to sit and
| read or lie down and sleep during the
daytime. She laughed to scorn all Of my
prOtestations that an afternoon nap was
necessary to my well-being.
There was a couch in the sitting room,
and l made desperate efforts to get the
| sleep l needed after 1 had eaten, but my
wife always washed the dishes at that
hour and she made more noise washing
| a few cups and saucers than I'd make
king the ashes down in furnace. l
know nothing more eXasperating than
the Gathering of crOckery when you are
| trying to get half Nelson on Morpheus.
She always claimed that she never made
noise than huf the
fact remains that all the dishes that were
broken in our house We're broken when
l was trying to get to sleep. Every once
in while she'd drop big glass pitcher
or something that made more racket than
a train of cars, and I'd have to give up
the effort and go to work with a sad
heart and aching head.
II might have stood it if 1 could have
had plenty of sleep at night when the
sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.
but the alarumS and excursions were
more numerous then than at any other
time. My wife. noble woman as she
! was. had a fear of burglars that amount
| ed to a brainstOrm. l have sometimes
| thought that her one purpose in getting
married was to secure a burglar alarm.
My wife was always hearing mysterious
footsteps in the basement. or she was
sure that somebody was prying open the
, front door with a Jimmy. Then there
would be no peace until l had made the
tour of the house. That was bad enough
in the supmer. but in the winter, when
| the borean blast hOwled at the easement
! and whistled in the chimney and the
house was as cold as boarding house cof-
fee, 1t was an experience that sent the
iron into my soul.
II remember one pestilent wintry night
when the mercury in the thermometer
had sunk so low that you couldn't reach
it with a fishpole. My wife reused me
| from a deep dream of peace and told me
! that she had distinctly heard a burglar
open the kitchen window and Chamber in
/ side. l knew it was false alarm but
| there was no use arguing. Not mine to
reason why. nor mine to make reply. l
was going to light lamp to guide my
| feet. but my wife whispered that such a
course was dangerous, as affording a tar
get for the desperate marauder in the
| kitchen. So j went downstairs in my
snowy nightgown. creature OF heroic
blood, of proud though childlike form.
Before retiring that night my wife
nad, unDeknOWn to me, opened the trap
| door in the kitchen and left it open for
| some reason that will never be known
| until the sea gives up its dead. Mar
| ried women are always doing such things.
l walked right into the gloomy chasm
| and went down the cellar stairs with a
| harsh, grating noise that would set one s
| teeth on edge. 1t is uncomfortable
enough to fall downstairs when fully
dressed, but words cannot describe the
anguish one experiences when rolling
down a flight of steps in ones nightsnirt.
| When 1 struck the concrete floor at the
| bottom and banged my head against an
| iron clothes horse l realized that the linn
1t had been reached. 1t was useless to
| try any longer to be head of a house.
Hastily donning such garments as l
could find in the Stygian gloom. 1 called
down murrain on the busy haunts and
| fled to the sylvan esolitudes."