Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1870 — Men and Mud. [ARTICLE]

Men and Mud.

I am no advocate of angel ism in its popular sense, unless of the avenging sort. I would rather be scolded out of my wits, or my wits out of me, seven times a week, than always be my dear led from morning until night. But if ever the meekest of the meek has her patience tried beyond calm endurance, it is in the spring of the year, when “ the buds begin to put forth their tiny leaves, and the birds come back,” and—the men folks track in mud enough to stack a mountain. There is, really, nothing more vexing than to clean the porches and floors, and, as soon as dried, have a man, or a small army of men and boys,, come stalking in with muddy boots and upset all the labors for cleanliness. You men need not wonder that women scold, and follow youaround with a housecloth or a mop. If you never expect to do another act in your life, clean your boots well before entering a clean apartment. Don’t expect to be greeted with smiles if you bring in mud. It is expecting altogether too much. It is not a ministration of love that women delight in, to be eternally cleaning after some careless, heedless fellowAnother thing. Hdy housewives rejoice in well-kept stoves—bright, cleanlooking stoves. Ah! but what work a “ beast ” of a. man will make with one in ten minutes ; mounting his boots on tbe hearth, to thaw off the half-frozen mud, he makes it look like a mud-pond. Some men have the habit of pawing the ashes out on the hearth, opening the wrong doors, putting in some huge “ chunk ” that is altogether too large, which simmers and smokes everybody to distraction before it settles down into the stove’s comprehension. And then the men who spit on the stove, at the stove, in it, and convert the wood-box into a spittoon! Indeed, it is sufficient cause for divorce. When I get to be Judge-in-Chief of the Divorce Courts, I shall inquire particularly into the spitting habits of the men, and if they look well to their boots. If their record in these matters is not clear, there will be no hope for them. Only a woman can sympathize with a woman in such matters. If you think it a “ silly thing for a woman to make such a fuss about such small matters,” you may take the unction home to your soul that you don’t know anything about large matters. We can get along with stinginess, crabbedness, crossness, ail your manish egotism, but we can not stand your careless slovenliness! You must either look to your boots, or expict to be annihilated the moment you cross our threshold. It is a great deal easier for you to leave the mud and straw and gravel out of doors, than for us to clean it out afte.r you. It is your duty to provide scrapers, and brooms, and rugs, sticks, stones and planks, if need be, to facilitate boot-clean-ing. There 1 I intended at the outset to talk gently to you about the “muddy season,” and with winning words land ways show you what monsters of heedlessness you have hitherto been. But instead, I have scolded like a fish-woman ; and unless it is a new thing to you, you will go on as heretofore, just the same as if I hadn’t lifted up my voice in behalf of clean stoves and floors. — Rural New Yorker.