Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1889 — The Wife’s Flower Garden. [ARTICLE]

The Wife’s Flower Garden.

Is there any more pitiful sight in the world than a man of sedentary habits trying to fix up his wife’s little garden in the springtime? She commonly sits at an upper window and gives him directions in shrill tones that attract the attention of all the neighbors. First, the beds must be marked out, and the poor man, before he has satisfied his wife, has been called "stupid” and “dolt” until he really thinks he is half-witted until he reflects that he made a pot of money on July wheat in the morning. Then comes the spading. The unhappy man, whose greatest exertion has been boarding a horse-car, begins the fearful task of loosening the earth. The sweat breaks on his forehead, his hands puff up and blister. His joints crack like pistol shots. His baelt aches frightfully. Then come the hoeing and the raking, which he does with groaning protest, not daring to rebel under the watchful eye of his wife. “Hanner,” he pleads, as the stars come out and the dew begins to fall en his hot head, “ain’t this most enough ?” Hanner looks contemptuously at him.

“Why, my brother Jacob would be glad to do this work. Catch him groaning over it! He’d do it a great deal better than you’ve done it, too. No; you’ve not done half enough. There’s plenty -of time before dark to plant those seeds I brought home. You get the watering-pot and I’ll get the seeds. If brother Jacob was only here he would -do lit himself, but I suppose I must come-down and break my back if I’m to have any flowers this year. Brother Jacob would show some taste about arranging the beds, but •*’ “Why’n thunder didn’t yon send for • your brother Jacob, then?” snaps the -irritated spouse. “Nobody’d be glad--der’n I’d be to see your brother Jacob puttering over ithis darned garden ?” And by the time the garden is finished one might imagine from the conversation between the worthy couple that Cadmus had passed by and sown -dragons’ teeth in the beds. —Buffalo Courier.