Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1877 — The Head of the Family. [ARTICLE]

The Head of the Family.

The Toledo Blade tells this story: “If ever the sympathy of a crowd of guests at a hotel was excited in behalf of a poor, oppressed man, it was a night or two ago at the Burnett House. A gentleman and lady from Adrian entered the office. The man was small, light, smooth-tongued and harmless. The woman was large, stern and quickspoken, while her voice fell upon the ear like the rasping notes of a hoarse bucksaw. The man opened his mouth and said: “ ‘We would li— ’ when his spouse pushed him one side sharply and said to the clerk: “ ‘Have you any rooms sir? If so, give us the best you have. ’ “The clerk immersed the pen in ink, handed it to the husband and said, ‘Will you please register?’ The husband seemed grateful to be allowed to exercise his rights as a free-born American citizen, and stepped gladly forward, wrote the word Mr., and had entered on the somewhat laborious contract of forming the letter ‘J’ as the forerunner of the cognomen ‘James,’ when the wife again stepped forward, took the pen which her little husband was wrestling with out of his hand, remarking as she did so, ‘Here, I’ll do that!’ and adding an ‘s’ to her husband’s ‘Mr.’ wrote in a bold hit-or-miss hand, ‘Mrs. Malvina H ,* and underneath it in small-caps the words, ‘ and husband. ’ The clerk then assigned them their quarters, and, as the bell-boy led the way up stairs, the betterhalf jerked the family carpet-sack off the counter and snapped out at her husband in a tone that made him jump so as to dislocate his collar button: ‘Come along here !’ He followed meekly in the rear, and as the bell-boy came down stairs he c mid hear her giving out orders in reference to unpacking the baggage in a tone of voice that made the hoarse notes of a ship Captain seem in comparison like the gentle cooing of a dove. The I next morning the patient little man fol-

lowed his wife down to breakfast, ate tlie meal which she ordered for him, and afterward, when they came to depart, he stood in the doorway and held the valise while his wife went up and paid the bilk”