Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1883 — Questions to a Fretful Wife. [ARTICLE]

Questions to a Fretful Wife.

“Hester!” exclaimed Aunt Susan, ceasing her rocking and knitting, and sitting upright, “Do you know what your husband will do when you are dead?” “What do you mean?” was the startled reply. “He will marry the sweetest-tempered girl he can find.” “Oh Auntie!” Hester began, “Don’t interrupt me until I have finished,” said Aunt Susan, leaning back and taking up her knitting. “She may not be as good a housekeeper as you are, in fact I think not; but she will be good natured.” “Why, Auntie—” “That isn’t all,” composedly continued Aunt Susan. “To-day your husband was half-way across the kitchen floor bringing you the first ripA peaches; and all you did was to look and say: ‘There, Will, just see your tracks on my dean floor! I won’t have my floors all tracked up. Some men would have thrown the peaches out of the window. To day you screwed up your face when he kissed you because his moustache was damp, and said: ‘I never want you to kiss me again.’ When he empties anything, you tell him not to spill it When he lifts anything you tell him not to break it. From morning until night your sharp voice is heard complaining and fault-finding. And last winter when you were sick, you scolded him about allowing the pump to freeze, and took no notice when he said: T was so anxious about you that I did not think of the pump.’ ” “But Auntie—” “Hearken, child. The strongest and most intelligent of them all care more for a woman’s tenderness than for anything dse in the world; and without this the cleverest and most perfect housekeeper is sure to lose her husband’s affections in time. There may be a few more men like Will—as gentle, as loving, as forgetful of self, and so satisfied with loving that their affections will die a long,struggling death; but in most cases it takes but a few years of fretfulness and fault-finding to turn a husband’s love into irritated indifference.” “But, Auntie—” “Yes, well you are not dead yet, and that sweet-tempered woman has not been found; so you have time to become so serene and sweet that your husband can never imagine that there is a better-tem-pered woman in existence.”