Part 22 (1/2)

LXXV.

”DON'T DISTURB HIM!”

”'If your husband looks grave, let him alone; don't disturb or annoy him.'

”Oh, pshaw! when I'm married, the soberer my husband looked, the more fun I'd rattle about his ears. '_Don't disturb him!_' I guess so! I'd salt his coffee--and pepper his tea--and sugar his beef-steak--and tread on his toes--and hide his newspaper--and sew up his pockets--and put pins in his slippers--and dip his cigars in water--and I wouldn't stop for the Great Mogul, till I had shortened his long face to my liking. Certainly he'd 'get vexed,' there wouldn't be any fun in teasing him if he didn't, and that would give his melancholy blood a good healthful start, and his eyes would snap and sparkle, and he'd say, 'f.a.n.n.y, WILL you be quiet or not?' and I should laugh, and pull his whiskers, and say, decidedly, '_Not!_' and then I should tell him he hadn't the slightest idea how handsome he looked when he was vexed, and then he would pretend not to hear the compliment--but would pull up his d.i.c.key, and take a sly peep in the gla.s.s (for all that!) and then he'd begin to grow amiable, and get off his stilts, and be just as agreeable all the rest of the evening _as if he wasn't my husband_, and all because I didn't follow that stupid bit of advice 'to let him alone.' Just imagine ME, f.a.n.n.y, sitting down on a cricket in the corner, with my forefinger in my mouth, looking out the sides of my eyes, and waiting till that man got ready to speak to me! You can see at once it would be--be----Well, the amount of it is, I _shouldn't do it_!”

LXXVI.

A MODEL HUSBAND.

”'A MODEL HUSBAND.--Mrs. Perry, a young Bloomer, has eloped from Monson, Ma.s.s., with Levins Clough. When her husband found she was determined to go, he gave her $100 to start with.'

”That's what I call doing things _handsomely_! I should have taken that 100 dollar bill and handed it to Mr. Levins Clough, as a healing plaster for his disappointed expectations, and gone home, hugging my old man, and resolving to mend every rip in his coat, gloves, vest, pants, and stockings, 'free gratis,' from that repentant hour, till the millennial day. I'd hand him his cigar-case and slippers, put away his cane, hang up his coat and hat, trim his beard and whiskers, give him the strongest cup of tea, and the brownest slice of toast, and all 'the dark meat' of the turkey. I'd wink at his sherry cobblers, and whiskey punches, and mint juleps. I'd help him get a 'ten strike' at ninepins. I'd give him a 'night-key,' and be perfectly oblivious what time in the small hours he tumbled into the front entry. I'd pet all his stupid relatives, and help his country friends to 'beat down' the city shop-keepers' prices. I'd frown at all offers of 'pin money.' I'd let him sit and 'smoke' in my face till I was as brown as a herring, and my eyes looked as if they were bound with pink tape; and I'd invite that widow Delilah Wilkins to dinner, and run out to do some shopping, and stay away till tea-time. Why! there's nothing I _wouldn't_ do for him--he might have _knocked me down with a feather_, after such a piece of magnanimity. That 'Levins Clough' could stand no more chance than a woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapping at an iceberg.”

LXXVII.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE ANGRY.

”'When you are angry take three breaths before you speak.'

”I couldn't do it, said Mrs. Penlimmon. Long before that time I should be as placid as an oyster. 'Three breaths!' I could double Cape Horn in that time. I'm telegraphic wire; if I had to stop to reflect, I should never be saucy. I can't hold anger any more than an April sky can retain showers; the first thing I know, the sun is s.h.i.+ning. You may laugh, but that's better than one of your foggy dispositions, drizzling drops of discomfort a month on a stretch; no computing whether you'll have anything but gray clouds overhead the rest of your life. No; a good heavy clap of thunder for me--a lightning flash; then a bright blue sky and a clear atmosphere, and I am ready for the first flower that springs up in my path.

”'Three breaths!' how absurd! as if people, when they get excited, ever _have_ any breath, or if they have are conscious of it. I should like to see the Solomon who got off that sage maxim. I should like better still, to give him an opportunity to test his own theory! It's very refres.h.i.+ng to see how good people can be, when they have no temptation to sin; how they can sit down and make a code of laws for the world in general and sinners in particular.

”'Three breaths!' I wouldn't give a three-cent piece for anybody who is that long about anything. The days of stage coaches have gone by.

If you ever noticed it, n.o.body pa.s.ses muster now but comets, locomotives, and telegraph wires. Our forefathers and foremothers would have to hold the hair on their heads if they should wake up in 1855. They'd be as crazy as a cat in a shower bath, at all our whizzing and rus.h.i.+ng. Nice old snails! it's a question with me whether I should have crept on at their pace if I had been a cotemporary.

Christopher Columbus would have discovered the New World much quicker than he did had I been at his elbow.”

LXXVIII.

THE EARLY BLIGHT.--BY f.a.n.n.y FERN.

”'As Love's wild prayer, dissolved in air, Her woman's heart gave way,-- But the sin forgiven, by Christ in Heaven-- By man is curs't alway.'

”'Oh, _do not_ speak so harshly of her, Aunt Nancy! If you could see how sorrowfully she looks upon that beautiful boy--how she starts at the sound of a strange voice--how hopelessly she sits with her large eyes fixed upon the ground, hour after hour,--so young and so beautiful, too!'

”'Yes, yes,' broke in Aunt Nancy; 'I dare say! they're _always_ beautiful. I tell you there's no mercy for her in _this_ world, or _t'other_, as I knows on,' and the indignant spinster drew up her long crane neck. 'Why didn't she behave as she _oughter_? Did you ever hear a word said against _me_? Beauty is nothing; behavior is everything.'

”'But Aunt Nancy----'

”'Don't 'but' _me_; I tell you I won't have anything to do with her--such a thing as _she_ is!'

”What crus.h.i.+ng words to fall upon a broken heart! for Leila's quick ear had caught them. Her features grew rigid and pallid, and little Rudolph, frightened at their expression, climbed timidly to her lap.