The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-05-27
NAGGING.

She had, if remember rightly, three
small children whom she drove before
her down the aisle of the railroad car
to two empty seats near me. Her hus-
band came after her and had with him
many heavy evidences OF a days
shopping in the city. Bundles, wraps
and coats were laid aside, and all went
well. Presently the brakeman an
nounced a station, and the wife, who
had asked the same question at every
other announcement, again inquired OF
her husband, as this our station?"
The poor fellow had the look of one
who was haunted or hunted, or both,
and with fatal precipitation he said
"Non He was wrong; it was their
station, and when the station was
shouted second time through the car
the wife cast look at her husband
which might have broken the window
pane if it had missed him. Il asked
YOU she began, land you told me it
wasn't" She repeated the same words
again and again, now in his direction,
now at the children, whom she was
hurriedly pushing into their coats,
then back at him; then at the bundles,
which she caught up in awkward haste.
The last | saw of them he was trying
to placate her and she was making
one answer of every argument and
every motion: but l asked you,
didn't l? And you told me it wasn't"
All this happened several years ago,
but | have a presentiment that the
tune, at whose birth | was sponsor,
is still being sung. To tell the truth,
she had my fullest sympathy, but now
that the poor husband has heard that
same tune to the same words and with
the same information persistently chant
ed at him from that time to this, |
feel for him. He deserved to be cleo
trocuted, but he did not deserve to be
tortured for life. She was nagger.
A nagger is a person who has learn
ed one tune and then lost all ear for
music. A nagger is a self-winding
single-record Victrola. Naggers are
more like machines than like any
thing else; but if parallel is desired
in living things, any summer night by
the sea, with the breeze off shore
and no mosquito bars, will let loose
upon a sleeper a hundred insects of
one tune and reiterant persistency.
People who nag have narrow hori-
IONS. If they lived on mountains their
mole-hills would shrink to their prop
er dimensions. But they live in the
same round of the same duties, and
their minds, memories, hopes, are al
ways thrown in upon themselves. Like
whirlpools, with every revolution they
travel a narrower circle until the de-
structive currents sweep their victims
to despair, drowning and death. The
woman in the home, the teacher in
the classroom, the small boy in small
Office, the martinez in new position,
the baby with toy drum, these fur
nish the worlds supply of nagging. 1t
may be asserted without fear of denial
that this sad life could subsist on less
of the supply We wish nagging were
as rare as radium; it is almost as
deadly in it's unceasing emanations.
An exception, perhaps, to the usual
prerequisite of narrow horizon may
be found in newspaper nagging. As a
rule, the standard of humor is so high
in journalists that they do not fall into
this dolorous, complaining rut. Yet
newspapers may have fixed ideas as
well as individuals, and sometimes get
and deserye-the reputation of a
common scold by persistently hound.
ing one man. Education, travel, read