Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1895 — More Nice than Wise. [ARTICLE]

More Nice than Wise.

“It’s no more use to argue with what’s bred In the bone than it is to try to turn the-gulf stream the other way by sticking an oar down," said Captain Hayford In a ruminating tone to the grandchildren who sat with him upon the wharf. “Now, your grandma is a terrible particular woman. She was born with the habit of cleanliness, and custom has developed it—abnormally, 'so to say." The boys had noticed the old man’s dejected attitude, and wondered if some new. system of housekeeping was being carried out “Now, lam a patient man. I’m willing to be told to wash my hands before I touch the coal hod, and again afterward. I’m willing everything on the stove should have a bath before a meal, and afterward. I never have complained about sitting in the L part of the house and shutting up all the rest for company, or wiping my feet on four sets of mats on the way to the table; but there are some things that do rile me a good deal.” The children were somewhat used to these outbreaks, and had learned the value of silent sympathy.' “Now, what do you suppose I’m waiting down here for?" As no one could imagine, he explained: “1 sent for a man to come tills morning and take away those shed room stairs and put up now ones, and I do declare your grandma set out he shouldn’t move them till she had scrubbed them down! There’s the carpenter— I’m paying him by the hour—sitting out there on the woodpile, waiting for those stairs to be washed. I dare say if you looked around you couldn’t find so much as an eye winker dropped onthem, anyway." “Can’t the man do somethlg else while he’s waiting?" asked the practical listeners. The old man smiled. “I dare say he could, sonny. Run up and tell him to be scouring his nails and putting chloride of lime on his hammers and saws, for no doubt he’ll be called on to do it” And the old man crossed his limbs dejectedly, like one who had lost all spirit and courage.