Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1887 — She Ruled the Roost. [ARTICLE]

She Ruled the Roost.

Jim Akers was a small, two-headed, I knock-kneed man, with irregular teeth, w hich made his mouth look like a steel trap twisted out of plumb. His wife was a large, raw-boned woman, fully a head taller and fifty pounds heavier than Jim. She had the temper of a half-famished wildcat, and no darky just “gittin’ religion” was ever half as | I ranch afraid of the devil as Jim was of j her. He had reason to be. When she ! was fairly on the war-path she breathed chain lightning and flung cyclones from the tip of her tongue. Nor did she content herself with words only, however bitter and furious. She very often brushed the poor little wretch with a hickory until he felt as if he had borrowed his back of a saint fresh, from a gridiron. One bright, golden .delicious afternoon in tho latter part of May, Jim left the patch, where lie had been hard at work all day and “snuck een” to his cabin Irfl the back way; He proceeded to doff his every-day clothes and don his Sunday garments, casting furtive glances all the while at the black-browed, terrible dame sitting in the front doorway knitting. .With trembling haste lie completed his preparations, and was shambling out again, when his wife, previously apparently oblivious of liis presence,, shot a fierce glance at him which made him jump almost out of his shoes and brought the perspiration out from every pore. “Wharyou boun’ fur?” she asked. “I Towed Iwuz gwine down to the fish-fry fur a hour or two. Them boys is a lievin’—” “Well, you Towed wrong. You jest histe off them does, and go back into that patch and finish hoin’ them partaters. Don’t you distress yerself ’bout no fish-fries. ” “But I done tole the boys I wus gwine to be tliar. ” . _ “Well, you tole ’em a lie.” “But Ed Sykes and Hank Evans is a waitin’ fur me now at the cross-roads, and I’d rutlier not disappoint ’em.” s “Well, I’d rutlier you would. Shut up now and do ez you’re told.” Jim gasped and quaked with fear; but for the first time in many years, ho thoroughly realized the tyranny under which he was crushed. "His heart was set on going to the fish-frv, and in that feeble, fluttering little., organ a faint shadow, a dim eidolon of spirit became thoroughly aroused. He hesitated a moment, ventured even to return the gaze of those glowing, wrathful eyes, and then started, saying: “Well, I’m a-gwine.” ?’*Great Jeliosaphat! Houp la! She swooped down on him like an owl on a mouse. The air was filled and darkened with dust and sandy hair and agonizing shrieks. Ed Sykes and Hanls; Eyans, at the “cross-roads, ” became convinced that Jim’s cabin had caught fire, and that lie was perishing in the flames. They rushed in all haste to his assistance, but as they neared the spot the clatter cubsided, and they heard a stern, feminine voice, which caused them to halt and keep out of sight, say; “Now I reckon you’ll do ez ver tole. ” Then they recognized Jim’s piping voice, protesting between convulsive sobs: “I’d sorter gin out gwine befo’ you spoke. ” —San Francisco Alta.