"This is pleasant!" exclaimed a young husband, taking his seat in the rocking-chair as the supper things were removed. The fire glowing in the grate, revealed a pretty and neatly furnished sitting-room, with all the appliances of comfort. The fatiguing business of the day was over, and he sat enjoying what he had all day been antic.i.p.ating, the delights of his own fireside. His pretty wife, Esther, took her work and sat down by the table.
"It is pleasant to have a home of one"s own," he again said, taking a satisfactory survey of his little quarters. The cold rain beat against the windows, and he thought he felt really grateful for all his present comforts.
"Now if we only had a piano!" exclaimed the wife.
"Give me the music of your own sweet voice before all the pianos in creation," he observed, complimentarily; but he felt a certain secret disappointment that his wife"s thankfulness did not happily chime with his own.
"Well, we want one for our friends," said Esther.
"Let our friends come to see _us_, and not to hear a piano," exclaimed the husband.
"But, George, everybody has a piano now-a-days--we don"t go anywhere without seeing a piano," persisted the wife.
"And yet I don"t know what we want one for--you will have no time to play on one, and I don"t want to hear it."
"Why, they are so fashionable--I think our room looks nearly naked without one."
"I think it looks just right."
"I think it looks very naked--we want a piano shockingly," protested Esther emphatically.
The husband rocked violently.
"Your lamp smokes, my dear," said he, after a long pause.
"When are you going to get a camphene lamp? I have told you a dozen times how much we need one," said Esther pettishly.
"These are very pretty lamps--I never can see by a camphene lamp,"
said her husband. "These lamps are the prettiest of the kind I ever saw."
"But, George, I do not think our room is complete without a camphene lamp," said Esther sharply. "They are so fashionable! Why, the Morgans, and Millers, and many others I might mention, all have them; I am sure we ought to."
"We ought not to take pattern by other people"s expenses, and I don"t see any reason in that."
The husband moved uneasily in his chair.
"We want to live as well as others," said Esther.
"We want to live within our means, Esther," exclaimed George.
"I am sure we can afford it as well as the Morgans, and Millers, and Thorns; we do not wish to appear mean."
George"s cheek crimsoned.
"Mean! I am not mean!" he cried angrily.
"Then we do not wish to appear so," said the wife. "To complete this room, and make it look like other people"s we want a piano and camphene lamps."
"We want--we want!" muttered the husband, "there"s no satisfying woman"s wants, do what you may," and he abruptly left the room.
How many husbands are in a similar dilemma? How many houses and husbands are rendered uncomfortable by the constant dissatisfaction of a wife with present comforts and present provisions! How many bright prospects for business have ended in bankruptcy and ruin in order to satisfy this secret hankering after fashionable superfluities! Could the real cause of many failures be known, it would be found to result from useless expenditures at home--expenses to answer the demands of fashion and "what will people think?"
"My wife has made my fortune," said a gentleman of great possessions, "by her thrift, and prudence, and cheerfulness, when I was just beginning."
"And mine has lost my fortune," answered his companion, "by useless extravagance and repining when I was doing well."
What a world does this open to the influence which a wife possesses over the future prosperity of her family! Let the wife know her influence, and try to use it wisely and well.
Be satisfied to commence on a small scale. It is too common for young housekeepers to begin where their mothers ended. Buy all that is necessary to work skilfully with; adorn your house with all that will render it comfortable. Do not look at richer homes, and covet their costly furniture. If secret dissatisfaction is ready to spring up, go a step further and visit the homes of the suffering poor; behold dark, cheerless apartments, insufficient clothing, and absence of all the comforts and refinements of social life, and then turn to your own with a joyful spirit. You will then be prepared to meet your husband with a grateful heart, and be ready to appreciate the toil of self-denial which he has endured in the business world to surround you with the delights of home; and you will be ready to co-operate cheerfully with him in so arranging your expenses, that his mind will not be constantly hara.s.sed with fears lest his family expenses may encroach upon public payments. Be independent; a young housekeeper never needed greater moral courage than she does now to resist the arrogance of fashion. Do not let the A."s and B."s decide what you must have, neither let them hold the strings of your purse. You know best what you can and ought to afford. It matters but little what people think, provided you are true to yourself and family.
THE DARK FIRST.
Not first the glad and then the sorrowful-- But first the sorrowful, and then the glad; Tears for a day--for earth of tears is full: Then we forget that we were ever sad.
Not first the bright, and after that the dark-- But first the dark, and after that the bright; First the thick cloud, and then the rainbow"s arc: First the dark grave, and then resurrection light.
--_Horatius Bonar_.
OUT OF THE WRONG POCKET
Mr. Taggard frowned as he observed the pile of bills by his plate, placed there by his prudent, economical wife, not without an anxious flutter at the heart, in antic.i.p.ation of the scene that invariably followed. He actually groaned as he read the sum total.
"There must be some mistake, Mary" he said, pushing back his plate, with a desperate air: "it is _absolutely impossible_ for us to have used all these things in one month!"
"The bills are correct, John," was the meek response; "I looked them over myself."
"Then one thing is certain, provisions are either wasted, thrown out the window, as it were, or stolen. Jane has relatives in the place, and I haven"t the least doubt but that she supports them out of what she steals."
Mrs. Taggard"s temper was evidently rising; there were two round crimson spots upon her cheeks, and she tapped her foot nervously upon the floor.
"I am neither wasteful, nor extravagant, John. And as for Jane, I know her to be perfectly honest and trustworthy."
"It is evident that there is a leak somewhere, Mary; and it is your duty as a wife, to find out where it is, and stop it. Our bills are perfectly enormous; and if this sort of thing goes on much longer, I shall be a bankrupt."
Mrs. Taggard remained silent, trying to choke down the indignant feelings that struggled for utterance.
"You will have to order some coal," she said, at last; "we have hardly sufficient for the day."
"Is there anything more, Mrs. Taggard?" inquired her husband; ironically.
"Yes; neither I nor the children are decently or comfortably clothed; all need an entire new outfit."