Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1885 — An Old Skinflint. [ARTICLE]

An Old Skinflint.

“How’s this, Tibbons? they tell me your wife has left yon. Is it true?” “True as a tramp, Lias; it is, for a fact" “What was the trouble? You didn’t have a quarrel, did you ?” “No, Lias; ’twant that Banner had her queer Btreaks, but Bhe was middlin’ ?Baceable. The way it come was this; on see, she wanted to be spendin’ money all the time, faster’n she could talk, an’ jest because I wouldn’t low it she gits her dander up, an’ goes off, an’ leaves me. She was the beatinest woman to spend money, Lias, you ever see, an’ it jest seemed to me as though silver melted in her fingers like wax in bilin’ water.”

“I never supposed she was an extravagant woman.” “Of course you didn’t, Lias, an’ nuther did I ontil it was too late to help me any, but that hain’t no name for it. Extravagant, Lias, is puttin’ it mild. You might send her to town with a dollar, an’ before she’d been there two hours she wouldn’t have a cent of it. That’s the kind of woman she was. Lias# “You don’t tell me?” “Yes, I do, Lias; that was her to a gnat’s heel; it was so. That -#bman wouldn’t be satisfied nowhere’s, Lias, onless she could have the run of a gold mine, an’ you know that wouldn’t do for me.” “No, I suppose not.” “I can stand abuse, Lias, eq’al to the next one; but I jest can’t stand foolin’ away money, an’ I told her so. At that she flared up, an’ left me right at the beginnin’ of a hard winter, with all the chores to do. But I don’t want her back, Lias; she can go to the old scratch for all me. She wasn’t never satisfied nohow, but then there’s some folks, you know, that’s always pinin’ if they can’t have all creation, an’ she was one of ’em. I took her to all the free shows an’ lectors that come along, an’ about every three or four year I’d give her a couple of dollars an’ let her go over into Popcorn County to see her mother. But ’tWant no use, Lias; ’twas only wastin’ money on her, for now she’s up an’ left me, an’ what have I got to show for it ? I tell you, Lias, if I ever marry agin—an’ I reckon I will, mebbe, if her people stands the expense of gittin’ a divorce for her—l’ll git a woman who can understand how allfired big a dollar gits to be in a shortcrop year.- —Chicago hedger.