The Monmouth inquirer., 1926-11-18
Henry Helped

4 proudly ana Dit l0ILlly. just mink!
The other day when the table bell
was out of order he fixed it himself,
and we didn't have to call in an cleo
trician and pay him hundred dollars
an hour!"
"You poor child" cried the matron
| who had been married for some time.
'sWhat a horrible life stretches out be-
fore youi And you are so young,
tool"
"Wen, 1 declared" shifted the bride.
Eyes, and you'll do worse than
that!" placidly pronounced the lady
who had been married long. 'You will
be hurting your hands heayenward
and demanding to be told why such a
fate has been wished upon you! Low
ever, it's a failure not uncommon to
bridegrooms, this desire to be help
full about the home, and perhaps he'll
outgrow it. 1t may be your blessed
good fortune to have him develop in
to one of those men who wouldn't
drive tack to save the house from
instant collapse, and who wouldn't no
tice if you kept the washboiler on top
of the piano and served dinner on oil
cloth!'
Il think you are crazy!" said the
bride.
That's the fate of all truth tellers,"
commented the other why, don't you
know that you actually lose money by
having a man useful about the house?
i suppose that when your Arthur fixed
that table bell you are chortling
about he spent two hours and half
on the job, and you had to roll up the
dining-room rug, move all the furni-
ture, incidentally smashing the rock
crystal bowl on the sideboard which
jiggled off, and you had to walk four
miles and quarter bringing him the
hammer, the sewing machine screw
driver, some nails, file, the picture
wire and coal shovel"
mo, indeed; Arthur didn't ask for a
coal shovel at ALL" interrupted the
bride, with very pink cheeks. 81 don't
see how you knew he wanted the
other things, tho!"
eThey always want all those
things!" said the long married lady.
at does not in the least matter
whether a husband is repairing little
Johnnie's toy engine, putting a new
roller on the icebox or fixing a door
lock-he always has to have those
things and the stepladder besides. He
never by any chance uses the step
ladder, but he likes to have it handy
to look at. 1t seems to lend him moral
support, too. When he gets to the
point in his repair work where he has
got to vent his helpless rage at mani
mate things either by swearing or by
making people step around lively, he
always yells for somebody to bring
him the stepladder!
HE feels buster and more effective,
too, if he can spill pint of lacks and
pound of nails all over the floor,
and box of those horrible two prog
ed brads makes him delirious with
delight. l remember that used to
extract brads from Jimmie in his
creeping days for weeks and weeks
after the father had been help
around the house and repaired
everything. Jimmy got SO he thought
they grew on him naturally, and he
objected in surprise at their removal.
Besides, when man repairs any
thing it upsets the household machin-
cry for so long and makes things so
inconvenient! remember just as well
the time we found the drain from the
laundry tubs frozen and the washer
woman due next day. l was going
downstairs to fix it when Henry leap
ed to his feet and told me to be seat
ed. He said that he'd have that pipe
thawed out in jiffy by using his
gasoline blow torch he loves to play
with
THE cook and ] found the blow
torch hidden beneath all the porch
furniture in the storeroom and then
there was no gasoline, so Jimmie had
to run five blocks and bring some.
When Henry filled the blow torch
some fluid must have run or leaked
cut, because when he brought the
match near the thing burst into
yesuYius of flame and scorched off
all his eyebrows and the cooks back
hair and ruined blanket extinguish-
ing them.
Henry emerged from the conflagra-
ton and he said he was going to make
that blamed torch work or die, SO he
took it out on the back steps and
caught cold that lasted six weeks.
He finally made the instrument be-
have and then he began thawing the
pipe When the time arrived that
called him to his office he had set
fire to the wood casing twice and
melted one pipe completely, and be-
lieve the plumbers bill was sixteen
dollars. and we lost our laundress in
the bargain, because she disliked hav-
ing her days work interfered with in
the least. The laundry was q chaos
Of plumbers tools and pipes and wires
and things for week and completely
unavailable.