Year: 1878

ur. RuboIkins Plunges Into the Mysteries


of Housekeeping.


We don't know how it is, but never
theless IL is hallucination in the case
OF every married man in America, that
he can keep house as well as, and in
many respects better than, his wife. He
imagines Jhat he learned to do thiswhen
he was q boy. He firmly believes that
in the days Of his childhood he sewed to
excel any of his sisters, and that half
his time was spent in the kitchen con-
cocting elegant dishes and cooking them
i'm manner that made his mother wild
with envy 1t is true that all the man s
ideas Of sewing were CLEANED from the
one or two isolated instances, when he
had played hockey and torn q button or
two off his garments that he was afraid
to ask his mother to sew ea,. and
which with many tears and numerous
abrasions of his knuckles and prObings
of his thumb, he sewed on with piece
of pack thread and dalning needle
And his cookery that he boasts to his
wife about--the only time he ever
cooked in his life was one day when he
brought home a horrible mess of fresh
water-clams that no one else would
look at. He fried them and ate enough
of them to keep doctors buggy tied
in front Of the house for a week. What
he didn't eat were thrown out into the
alley, and poisoned every pig that pass
cd to the windward of them. And vet,
when that boy grows up to manhood,
and finds girl tender-hearted enough
to marry him out Of pity, he talks about
his cookery. He is q greater nuisance
than the man who tells what a divine
cook his mother was. For his wife,
knowing that his mother died when he
was only IA months old, tolerates her
husbands mendacity with that be-
mgnant calmness which we can always
assume so virtuOusly when we know we
have cornered a man in a lie; but there
isno way of checking man who boasts
of his own excellence and superiority
over his wife in housekeeping matters,
except to give him trial. Every mar
ried man in the country needs Just one
test. Sometimes a day is long enough
sometimes it requires a week, but the
result is always the same. Never q
word or syllable of culinary boastful
ness passes his lips after his days of prg
baton, while memory holds her se9F.n
MS distracted brain.


Mr. Rubelkins, who lives out gear
Market Street, is one of that. kilH of
men. He is converted noF9x5nk is
probably the meekest man ~ udads
the streets of Burlington ~ gas al
ways fond of telling lis FANNY how
splendidly he could cook in the army
and by the way, to listen to the state
mentS of our veterans, one would think
that the United States army during the
war was enlisted entirely and exclusive
ly from French cooks, every one of
whom was obliged to show certificate
from Prof. Blot before the Government
would swear him in Mr.. Rubelkins
could make things out OF hard, old,
wormY crackers that would shame his
wife's best puddings, and his corn
dodgers and pies were such (reputed)
maryels of deicacy that Mrs RubelkinS
wept because she was not man and.
could never 90 to war and live in dog
tent and eaJ such nice things. And
Bubeikius, the audacious old liar, told
these stories so often to bis wife and
daughter that he began to believe them
himself, and ased to neglect bis work,
while he sat and wondered how on
earth he had ever acquired the art Of
cookery in such marvellous perfection.


It so came to pass that Mrs. Rubel-
kins and her daughter determined to 60
to "ma's" for the holidays, and leave
their protector to take care of himself
for few weeks. Mrs. r. thought her
iege ought to sleep in the house to keep