Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1884 — VAN DORN’S LESSON. [ARTICLE]

VAN DORN’S LESSON.

BY M. C. FARLEY.

“There’s no use talking,” said Yan Dorn, carelessly, “no use whatever. If a woman hundred dollarg a day given her for household and other necessary expenses, it wouldn’t be half enough, and in a week’s time she would be begging to have the allowance in■crß&sod n “Try it a little while, -Dick,” retorted Mrs. Van Dorn “I won’t ask for a hundred dollars a day; but give me a reasonable amount and see if you are asked to increase it.” “No use trying,” returned Yan Dorn, .stuffing his hands deep into his breeches pockets, and staring approvingly at the reflection of his handsome self in the mirror opposite, “I tell you what, Maria, no woman on top of the ground is qualified to carry a purse of her own. The mania for spending money seems to be inherent in the female organization, for no sooner does a woman get hold of a dollar than it burns in her hands until it is spent. Giving my Bard-earned ducats into your dear little paws would be exactly like pouring water into a sieve with the expectation of its staging there. No, no, my angel; ask me for anything but money and it shall be yours right from the word * go.’ But my money, like my life, is not to be parted with, unless in case of the most dire emergency.” Mrs. Van Dorn put her hand to her heart to conceal the tears that would ■come in spite of her efforts to keep them back. A line or two of the marriage service, “with all my worldly goods I thee endow, ” persisted in ringing in her ears as her husband thus settled the vexed question of money matters to his satisfaction.

“Besides,” went on Van Dorn, warming to the subject in hand, “I can’t see what in the world a married woman wants with money. You are at no expense whatever. I provide everything for you that you would buy yourself if you had the handling of the pocketbook. You have your board and a good home without having to give a thought toward contributing to the necessary ■outlay to procure either, and yet there is hardly a week passes by but you want money. I’m afraid, Maria, that for a poor man’s wile, you desire to buy too many fol-de-rols and expensive knick-knacks. Come, own up, now, if it isn’t so,” It wasn’t so, but Mrs. Van Dorn said nothing. She wished fervently enough that she could have a dollar for every time during their five years of wedded life Dick had dwelt upon that same subject and used the language he now did she would he a rich woman. It was always the same old cry of home, and clothes, and board, coupled with the implied limit of woman’s uselessness in the general economy of life. Dick did not mean to be unkind, but she was tired of it, the pinching, the saving, the trying to make one dollar do the duty of ten. She gave all her time and strength to the keeping of Dick's home, to the care of himself and his children, and she felt that no wage receiver worked harder for her money than Dick Van Dorn’s wife did for her board and clothes; and when it came to the subject of clothes, Dick had really very little to boast of in the way of purchase. The gossips could have told Dick easily enough just how many times Mrs. Van Dorn’s wedding silk had been made over, and that she had taken two old cashmeres to the dyer’s in order to make one “new” gown from the “best parts” of both of them; that her new hats and equally new bonnets •came from the sacred precincts of her bed chamber, and that her boots were never renewed save when the old ones were far gone in general decay. But there were the three little boys, the two twins, and the three months’ old baby. Two pairs of restless little feet to be shod, two mery, mischievous bodies to be •olad in warm jackets, two hungry mouths to be fed—and everything cost money; and such a lot of money, now that she had to ask Dick for every penny. • Mr. Van Dorn lit a 15-cent cigar, preparatory to going out. He always smoked good cigars, and could not exist, he said, with less than three Eer day at the least calculation; still, e had insisted upon his wife’s giving up her favorite magazine, because to pay $i a year for a magazine was a sheer extravagance and he could not afford it, and would not.

“I hope, Maria, that some day you will view this subject from my point of view,” said he, carefully adjusting his hat before the miiTafnand admiring its natty appearance; Jfeut I?Jl tell you it is, women, if any, realize the full value of money.” “I will nevor ask you again for monov, —never!” said she as he Mai Van Dorn looked at her careless,. good-natured . husband .with an expression that haunted him even among Che ledgers in his countingroom. "Can't think what the little woman means. I’m sure. Not ask me for money—gad! hope she won’t

for a week or so, any way. Though I might have given her a trifle, perhaps —only a man does not like to encourage his wife in a habit of that sort. But never mind—she’ll come round again without dcubt—women always dc.” A few days later, as Mr. Van Dorn went home to a late dinner, he was surprised to see a servant bring in the meal, and ring the bell for them to tale their places at the table. “What is the matter? Is Mrs. Van Dorn ill?” he asked, for a servant was one of the “articles of luxury" his wife had insisted upon getting along without. And, in fact, he had encouraged her to do so on the ground that “his mother never employed one. ” “I am quite well,” answered his wife herself at that moment, taking a seat* “but I am very busy now, and found it necessary to have help about the housework. ” Dick looked at her in surprise. She was quite pale, but there was a sparkle in her eyes that had not been there since their first year of married life. Still, he didn’t quite like the idea of her hiring a servant without as much as asking his consent. “I thought I told you, dear,” said he, presently, “that we would be obliged to economize for a while. JLTiis Wall street trouble has upset business all over the country, and is making us a lot of worry, and I don’t believe we can afford the additional expense of a servant. ”

“Perhaps, Dick, were you to cut down a few, a very few, of your own personal expenditures—such as wine suppers, for instance—you would find .a considerable sum to your credit at the end of the month,” said MrsbVan Dorn, gently. - r Dick blushed guiltily. "He wondered who had told his wife about that wine supper. To be sure, it was a foolish bet made ou the fall elections, and he had lost it; but what could one expect ? A man must be a man, or lose standing with his fellows —one or the other. And really it was, after all, none of Maria’s business. He earned the money, she did not, and he had a right to use it as he pleased. All she had to do was to sit there in the comfortable home he provided for her, and be supported. He was certain now that he didn’t like it about the servant, and he rose from the table feeling that he had a grievance. What on earth did Maria need with a hired girl? She had told him often enough that Benny and Billy were just as good as they could be, and that the baby wasn’t the least bit of trouble in the world. All she had to do was to see to them, and do the little housework necessary for them all. Mr. Van Dorn would have been mightily offended if anybody had intimated to him that his wife was a drudge. Another week went by. Somehow there seemed to have come a great change*in Maria. He was puzzled to account for it, whenever he had time to think about it. The servant was still in the house, and a nurse-girl had been engaged to care for the baby. Maria was certainly developing a peculiar method of retrenchment. At this rate he would be obliged to give up his elegant new fall overcoat, for his salary was not large enough to cover so many expenses. Maria didn’t look well. She was too pale; but then she never had regained her bright color since the twins came. Still, with two girls in the house now, she ought to soon bo as bright as ever. As the weeks dragged on Dick began to experience a feeling of loneliness. If he asked his wife to walk with him, she excused herself on the plea of not having the time to go. If he came home a trifle earlier in the evening, she was invariably poring over a lot of newspapers. She no longer welcomed him at the door. She never now came into the dining-room at meal-time until the bell fang. It was, at the least, a very unpleasant change; and it s’truck him suddenly one day that it had been a long time since Maria had asked him for a “little money. ” It was all of six week* since he had given her a cent. When the first consciousness of this defection came to him, he was busy over his ledger. “It can’t be that she is running up bills! ” he gasped; “she certainly wouldn’t carry it that far!” Filled with" an undefinable terror—for, with all his careless selfishness, Van Dorn was strictly honest, and hated debt as he did the devil—he put on his hat and started for home. He had only turned the corner, when he saw his wife coming down the broad steps of the Bennet Building. Wondering what could have taken her to a newspaper officer, he stopped and waited for her to overtake him. He looked curiously at her as she came nearer. There was a certain smartness in her apparel he had not seen in a long time. It struck him that her gown was of a fabric new to him, and there was a freshness about the delicately gloved hands and the pale-blue bonnet ties that he had not noticed before, A sudden fury took hold of him.

“Maria, he, as she halted for a moment before him. “Maria, where have you been, and what have you been doing? Why is it that you have asked for no money during all those weeks ? Have you been running up bills at the slibps?” “I have not,” said she quietly. “And I deny your right to catechise me in this fashion on the public thoroughfare.” “You resist my authority." “Let us walk on; people will observe us if we remain standing in this con-spicuous-place,” returned his wife in a low tone. In silence they reached their home. “Now, Maria,” cried Van Dorn, angrily, as they entered the little parlor, “I demand an explanation of your conduct. It has been fully six weeks since you liavejiad a cent of housekeepingmoney from me, and yet yor have a new gjjwn on, and have seen fit to employ tvfo new servants. I confess that I don’t understand it.” “The explanation is easy enough,” returned Mrs. Van Dorn, pulling off her gloves. “ I have gone back on the staff of the Daily Advertiser.” If she had struck him in the face Van Dorn could not have felt the blow more keenly. “Without my knowledge or consent!” he ejaculated, trembling with rage. “The time was, Dick,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, gently, “when your wishes

were laws to me. If that time is now gone it is your fault—not mine. Fit© of the best years of my life I have willingly given to your exclusive service—all for the sake of being ‘supported,’ as you say. Six weeks ago I discovered that I would be happier by being selfsupporting. The position of proofreader on the Daily Advertiser has been a standing offe- to me since the day I left the office to become your wife. They pay me now the same salary they paid me five years &rto —that is, "fau a week. If yon remember, I used to be reckoned an expect and commanded the highest wages. I am much happier, dear, since I went to work for a salary than I ever was during these five terrible years I that I gave all my time just for my board and clothes. After all, I doubt ii Athere is in life a sweeter feeling to a woman than that which comes with the knowledge that she cau earn a litt.e money of her own.” Van Dorn had always been desperately jealous of that newspaper office. He knew that the proprietors were unfriendly to him, and always had been. He knew, too, that the elder of the firm had attempted to dissuade Maria from marrying him in the first place, and he had only waited until his wedding ring had been legally placed on his bride’s finger ere he sent in her resignation himself, and gloated over the act.

“Wifehood and motherhood cuts no figure, then in a woman's happiness in comparison with money,” he cried, violently. He had rather have given her every cent of his salary than that she should have gone back to the office. “This cry of wifehood and motherhood is a subject overdone by men,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, calmly. “Speaking from a personal point, I can say that I fail to find an ail-satisfying feeling in the fact that I am a wife and a mother, particularly when I remember that* I am a moneyless wife and a moneyless mother. It is well enough for a woritan to marry, but, speaking from experience again, I think it unjust to herself to assumo such duties before she has becomo financially able to support herself in the position. It would be ridiculous to suppose that, because a man is a husband and a father, every other feeling or desire is swallowed up in that knowledge; and it is equally rfte absurd to suppose, because a woman is a wife and a mother, that she ought not to have an idea beyond either. The result of my observation leads me to the conclusion that the very best wives and mothers have been those who were taken into full partnership with the husband, and had a hand in the spending .of the money as well as the oarniug and the saving of it. ” “I never knew you had such a mercenary spirit, Maria,” said Van Dorn, slowly.

“It isn’t a mercenary spirit, dear,” smiled Maria, brightly. “It is only the spirit of independence. I became tired of working hard day after day, and realizing nothing for my labor. On the contrary, you made me feel that I was a perpetual expense to you, and that, though I labored har.d, my toil was of no earthly consequence to you, and that, do what I would for your comfort, and to make your home cheerful, I was nothing after all but a toy that had to be supported. I am heartily sick of working for my ‘board and clothes’ in my husband’s house. To be sure, I shall only get my board and clothes, now that I receive a salary, but there is this difference: when the Advertiser pays me my thirty dollars a week, the money is an acknowledgment of the worth of my services to the firm—not a gift.” “Your arguments are like the arguments of women the world over—one-sid-ed and narrow. Have you no regard for my feelings, that you become a servant in some other man’s office ?” cried he stormily. “Is it true you have no selfrespect in this matter ? A man doesn’t care to have his wife work for hire.”

“Men must change their practices or pocket their pride. And it was to save my self-respect that I accepted the situation. I toll you, Dick, a man could not be self-respecting if he was forced to beg and plead for that which was rightfully his own. And a woman is as human as a man—and as sensitive. Besides I will not defraud you. I will bring my wages into the family, and offer the weekly stipend a cheerfully given sacrifice upon the household altar.” Dick glared at his wife, speechless with wrath. “Madame, do you suppose I will permit you to spend a penny of your money in the house?" he burst out. “Have you lost all your regard for me — : for your children—your home?” “I have not,” retorted she, airily, “else I would have left you all. For your sake, for my children’s sake, for my home’s sake, lam here. I only refuse to waste my life in baking, and boiling, and stewing, in practicing ignoble economies for one who can not appreciate the Sacrifice I make in so doing. My time is worth as much in a pecuniary way as yours. I command and receive as high a salary as you do, and when I gave up a paying situation to be your wife, your housekeeper, and the mother of your children, I expected we would be equal partners in money matters. It seems that you thought differently, and, therefore, until you change your opinion, I shall keep my situation.” And so the matter rested.

Six months had passed. Strangely enough, under the new regime Mrs. Van Dorn bad recovered her old-time good looks and her old-time high spirits. Dick began once more to entertain for his wife -that feeling of admiration she had inspired him with in the days of their courtship. He admitted to himself that the change had benefited her,* thongh he was far enough from owning the fact to her. Her health was better, but Dick could not but know that all that Maria gained by the change was just that much lost to him and his home. Maria had been an exquisitely nice housekeeper, and it grated on his feelings to come home to a tumbled parlor, where everything was at “sixes and sevens,” and dust lay an inch deep on top of everything. Hired help, Diek confessed, did not take that interest in making a man’s

home oovy and comfortable that a ,j wife did. He wialunl JVlaria wooldnt seem so abominably with hex ] *3O a week. He hated to hear the rattle of that money in her purse. It grated on his feelings to know she was earning in another man’s office the money she ought to have received from ■ him. And besides, as she improved in health and appearance, the old-time spasms of jealousy shook his breast w.th renewed vigor. Dick had been a • very jealous lover, and he was now a | jealous husband. It was certainly very annoying for him j to come up town in a shower and see his wife sailing down street just in ad- ! vance of him with som*e other gentle j man holding an umbrella over her, and, worse than all, to see her look so cheerful and even happy und&r the circumstances. A wife’s place was at her husband’s hearth. He wished Maria would consent to give up that ridiculous situation. It made him feel so unspeakably foolish to have his friends say, “Why, Mrs. Yan Dorn has gone back on the Eaper, hasn’t she?” or, “You must avo strange taste, Van Dorn, to allow your wifo to kill .herself in the Advertiser office. Women ought not be confined so closely indoors as that;” or, “It can’t be, Van Dorn, that you'let your wife work for money,” until he w.shed thev were all in the Red Sea. He went home one evening with an idea. “Maria,” said he, quietly, “I have been promoted in the business—have been taken in as partner, in fact. What do you think of it?" “Heartily glad to hear it, I’m sure,” said she, calmly. “And I have determined to give up this house, and take one of those cottages on the avenue.” “But we are doing well enough here, and rent is much cheaper. It is more convenient for me, because it is nearer the office. ” “P-r-e-c-i-s-e-l-y,” ejaculated Van Dorn, “and for that reason more than any other I am going to move.” “Now. Dick.” “And I propose now to take you in full partnership into the business—-not only in financial matters but into housekeeping as well.” Maria did not seem overjoyed at this prospect. “If you mean, Dick, that I am to go back again and work for my board and clothes, then I must decline,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, firmly. “Maria, if you will never repeat that horrid phrase ‘board and clothes,’ I’ll make you the most elegant present you ever received,” said Dick, hastily. “I worst I don’t care now for elegant presents. lam able to buy for myself all that I require. ” “But, Maria, .we must move, for father has purchased that cottage and given it to me—to us I mean,” hastily correcting himself, “and I will set aside every week whatever sum you Bay is necessary for housekeeping. Since you seem to feel so about it, matters shall be so arrangod that a specified amount shall be paid to you every week, to do with as you please. I only stipulate that you go no more to that abominable office.” Maria said she would think about it. But as, a week later, the Van Dorns did go, bag, baggage, and babies, into the new house, it was agreed by her friends that Maria had closed with her husband’s terms, and that Van Dorn had profited by his lesson.