The son of Mr. Jeremy Lord, aged fourteen, was spending the afternoon
with one of his young friends, and his stay was prolonged into the
evening, during which some male friends of the family dropped in. The
boys withdrew into the recess of the bay window, at the end of the
room, and the men went on chatting about the most important matters of
the day, politics, etc. Still apparently entertaining each other, the
two boys yet kept their ears open, as boys will, and, taking their cue
from the sentiments expressed by their elders, indorsed one or the
other as they happened to agree with them.
"Gentlemen, will you smoke?" asked Mr. Benedict, the host. A
simultaneous "Thank you," went round, and a smile of satisfaction
lighted all faces but one. Not that he was gloomy, or a drawback on
the rest, but his smile was not one of assent. A box of cigars was
soon forthcoming, costly and fragrant, as the word goes.
"Fine cigar," said one, as he held it to his nose, before lighting.
"What, Linton, you don't smoke?" "I'm happy to say I do not," was the
firm rejoinder.
"Well, now, you look like a smoking man, jolly, care free, and all
that. I'm quite surprised," said another.
"We are hardly doing right, are we," asked a rubicund-visaged man, who
puffed away heartily "to smoke in the parlor? I condone that much to
my wife's dislike of the weed. She makes a great ado about the
curtains, you know."
"For my part, that's a matter I don't trouble myself about," said the
host, broadly. "There's no room in this house too good for me and my
friends to smoke in. My wife has always understood that, and she
yields, of course."
"But you don't know how it chokes her," said young Hal Benedict. "Yes,
indeed, it gets all through the house, you know, and she almost always
goes into Aunt Nellie's when there are two or three smoking. There she
goes now," he added, as the front door closed.
"Why, it's absolutely driving her out of the house, isn't it?" asked
Johnny. "Too bad!"
"Why don't you smoke, Dalton?" queried one of the party. "'Fraid of
it? Given it up lately? It don't agree with some constitutions."
"Well, if you want to know why I don't smoke, friend Jay," was the
answer, "I will tell you, I respect my wife too much."
"Why, you don't mean--" stammered his questioner.
"I mean simply what I said. When I was married I was addicted to the
use of cigars. I saw that the smoke annoyed her, though she behaved
with the utmost good taste and forbearance, and cut down my cigars so
as to smoke only when going and returning from business. I then
considered what my presence must be to a delicate and sensitive woman,
with breath and clothes saturated with the odor, and I began to be
disgusted with myself, so that I finally dropped the habit, and I
can't say I'm sorry."
"I shouldn't be, I know," said another, admiringly. "I'm candid enough
to own it, and I think your wife ought to be very much obliged to
you."
"On the contrary, it is I who ought to be obliged to my wife," said
Mr. Dalton, while the host smoked on in silence, very red in the face,
and evidently wincing under the reproof that was not meant.
"I say that Dalton is a brick," whispered young Benedict.
"He's splendid!" supplemented Johnny, who was thinking his own
thoughts while the smoke was really getting too much for him, and
presently he took his leave.
The next day Johnny was thoughtful, so quiet, indeed, that everybody
noticed it, and in the evening, when his father lighted his pipe with
its strong tobacco, Johnny seemed on thorns.
"I can't think that you don't respect mother," he blurted out, and
then his face grew scarlet.
"What do you mean?" asked his father, in a severe voice. "I say, what
do you mean, sir?"
"Because mother hates the smoke so; because it gets into the curtains
and carpet--and--and because I heard Mr. Dalton last night give as a
reason that he did not smoke that he respected his wife too much."
"Pshaw! Your mother don't mind my smoking--do you, mother?" he asked,
jocularly, as his wife entered just then.
"Well--I--I used to rather more than I do now. One can get
accustomed to anything, I suppose, so I go on the principle that what
can't be cured must be endured."
"Nonsense! you know I could stop to-morrow if I wanted to," he
laughed.
"But you won't want to," she said, softly.
I don't know whether Johnny's father gave up the weed. Most likely
not; but if you want to see what really came of it, I will give you a
peep at the following paper, written some years ago, and which happens
to be in my possession.
"I, John Lord, of sound mind, do make, this first day of January,
1861, the following resolutions, which I pray God I may keep:--
"_First._ I will not get married till I own a house, for I expect my
uncle will give me one, one of these days; mother says he will.
"_Second._ I will never swear, because it is silly, as well as wicked.
"_Third._ I will never smoke and so make myself disagreeable to
everybody who comes near me, and I will always keep these words as my
motto after I am married:
"'I don't smoke, because I respect my wife.' Mr. Dalton said that, and
I will never forget it.
"(Signed) John Lord."
And Johnny kept his word like a hero.
The world will never adjust itself
To suit your whims to the letter.
Some things must go wrong your whole life long,
And the sooner you know it the better.
--_Ella Wheeler Wilcox_