Year: 1878




Mrs. job Spinning was round, rosy
compact, hard-working little woman.
Job Spinning was meagre, pale-faeed,
Woodworking little man. Mrs, job
was fretty, but quite good enough for
this world Job was too good for it.
BY heroic labor, that laid out elsewhere
would have mate him general. he
earned a salary so small that L won't
disgrace these columns by telling it;
and Mrs Job who was a financial genius,
stretched il, and met the ends over the
wear: and there were three little Spin
nings of that abhorred class of infants
who are perpetually taking every posi-
bic disease, or being brought home with
the breath and teeth knocked out OF
them, or failing in these, fall back on
hives and sore ears: and Mrs. job
doctored and precepted these three
little Spinnings, made their clothes,
made her own clothes, made Jobs, made
everything in fact, but -four, meat, coal
and groceries, for which she hadn't the
receipt, all in the shortest conceivable
time, running the household machine
with prodigious dash, energy and fric-
ton.


One morning Job said, as he put on
his hat, my dear, see that you are
running down again, L shall be home
Of


This was formula, and signified a
Spinning spree; a familiar institution
hugely rel,>hed in the Spinning family
consisting of trip across the ferry-a
finer thing, properly done, than you
may imagine-and a lunch of buttered
crackers; therefore Mrs. Spinning hur-
ried what she called her ''busy cares
out of the way, scrubbed each little
Spinning within an inch of its life, and
tied her bonnet strings in a flutter, with
the hand of the clock at three, for that
was Jobs hour on early afternoons,
and Job had never disappointed Mrs.
Job since their wedding day.


There is first time appointed, how
ever, for all that can be said and done.
and on this occasion Job did disappoint
his wife. He came home late and look
ing glooming, and found Mrs. Job
pathetic.


Il should not have cared for my own
disappointment" she said. L am used
to that: but the children, poor"


disappointment" repeated Job,
absently. "Oh yes,'' and subsidized
again into his gloomy thinking, and
that was all the explanation that Mr..
Spinning ever offered for keeping his
wife waiting in bonnet and shawl for
two hours by the clock. He was in a
frightful humor, and answered Mrs.
Job, who had been teasing him lately
to insure his life, so like an Ogre-or,
not to be pOetical, like other women's
husbands when out OF temper, that she
dropped the subject aghast, and never
dared to renew il. This was not all
On the next night he came home late
again-a thing unprecedented in their
married annals. On the next night he
was later yeti After that he was regu-
lar only in being late.


Mrs. Job was a woman of energy,
also a woman of some sentiment. When
husbands change morally. for the worse
she knew that good wives make them
selves physicians In the case, and, in
home reading at least, always effect a


Toh ra-alx-a1 that sh.a
would try TO touchMr. Spinning's better
nature: and this is how she did it.


Job coming home, late as usual,
found the cloth laid, the steak on the
gridlron, the little Spinnings trying to
keep their eyes open, and worrying
about the room, and Mrs. job resigned
ly sewing. On jobs entrance she laid
aside her work with gulp, indicative
of swallowing much undigested sorrow,
looked at her husband with red eyes and
nose and "A watery smile, and set about
the supper as one doubly enfeebled by
the pangs of sorrow and hunger, but
resolved TO bear all meekly without
complaint


In fact, rousing from his haggard
stupor, Job did ask, with something OF
the old interest, "Was anything the
matter?" Mrs. JOB set her lips. 1t
would take week to tell in order all
that she thought was the matter; and
then with second edition Of the watery
smile. .sNo, nothing" says the little
woman, signing, and with the look Of
one who is telling noble fib. Job rose
abruptly and went into the adjoining
room.


ssThe brute,'' she said to herself !:
but III show him whether l am to be
trampled on or not,' No talk now OF
appealing to his better feeling. The
natural woman was in such a rage that
she could not listen to Mrs. DIR. Job.
unless that eminent practitioner should
suggest some of the sterner modes of
treatment. Keep his supper for him,
indeedl Coming home on the following
evening, Job found Mrs. Job grimly
sewing, and the room wearing that