Year: 1874

|


guess merchants who catch the coun.
try trade find il familiar scene enough
the farmers wife hesitating and hop
ing and fearing over her poor little pur-
chases of sugar and calico-ten to one
the calico is for the baby-while the
farmer stands by grumbling at her
wants" and doling out the money as
if he were giving it to some slouchy,
troublesome beggar, who hadn't any
claim upon him. Not being country
merchant / can't get used to the pain
fulness of such a scene. 1t makes me
not only melancholy but mad, madder
still when | see how meekly the wife ac-
cepts the reluctant pittsnce, and how un-
questionably she seems to believe that
the family groceries and provisions are
for her own private consumption. / pre-
sumo very many of these farmers wives
must return from such shopping expert
ence, feeling like so many thieves and
assassins for having wasted their hus-
bands substance in riotous parcels Of
brown sugar and unbleached sheeting.
I've no doubt they do penance for it
by working still harder through harvest,
and going without some extravaganza
they have set their hearts on-a pair of
shoes, perhaps, or swell dress for the
baby. The little woman | saw to-day
looked as if she had spent the golden
autumn alternately in the harvest field
and kitchen. A kind, sensible face, se-
rious with maternal care, and Drowned
by sun and wind, with pair OF deep
blue eyes that few years ago must have
been sparkling with the hopes of happy
girlhood looked as if they might
sparkle still if given half chance.


In fact, they did light up a good deal
as she looked in her husbands f,ce to
see how he admired baby in his new cap.
They darkened pitifully enough when he
savagely called it a humbug, and glared
at both wife and baby as if they were a
couple of brutes whom he ought to kill.


You've spent pretty pile of money,
you havel" he added with an audible
growl.


"Why, how much?" in an alarmed
whisper.


Four dollars and halfl-and yet
you amt satisfied" IF mans tongue
had been a razor it couldn't have spoken
more cuttingly. 1t cut the little woman.
Her cheeks Redeemed under their brown,
and | felt rather than saw that tears
had started to her eyes, and were trem-
bling on her crispy, curling Iashes in
spite of her brave efforts to keep them
back.


"I didn't think it was so much she
| faltered.


"Of course not Your arithmetic is
about like the old woman's dictionary.
You'd better tackle the multiplication
table when you get home!"


And here, having raised his voice for
the benefit of the people standing near,
he looked around for applauding smiles.
The wife laughed little, as if to assure
US that this was nothing but the tender
est bit of pleasantly in the world, but I
knew the glory of the new cap had de-
parted, and that all of the purchases
covered by that mighty four dollars and
half would smack of the gall of bit
| terness.


took look at this noblest work of
God. He was quite in keeping with his
conduct-a small, thin, wiry, smoke
dried specimen Of humanity, with an ag-
gressive beak of nose, and narrow
shoulders, as if from creeping through
small places. The sort of man who
wouldn't be seen knocking his wife down
and dancing Highland fling on her
stomach but that almost worse man,
was about to say, who day after day, en-
bitters and makes life hateful to hei
with just such small, unceasing, legal
meannesses as this which he exhibited
to-day. A man careful to his horses
because a new horse costs money; and
careful how he cheats his fellowmen-
for fear of being found out and not at
all careful of being mean wretch in
every other relation of life.


And yet SO well satisfied; so uncon-
scious of being anything but the most
upright and kindly sort of creature
q lord of the soil, +" and all that-Io,0a
paper.


WoMAN's INFLENCE.-Like the olive
tree-said to fertilze the surrounding