and to Mrs. Buttercup’s inexpressible satisfaction, her husband engaged
a room in a fashionable establishment “up town.” It was only one
room, and Mr. B. had contracted to pay twenty dollars a week for it,
washing and “sundries” extra. The ambitious lady went a shopping a
few days after, and contrived to get rid of a hundred dollars, which
the complacent shopkeeper in an impulsive moment had placed in her
hands. Milliners and dressmakers were in demand for a time, and Mrs.
Buttercup’s present ambition was fully satisfied. It is true, she could
see in the distance an establishment of her own, with imported carpets
and mirrors, with a train of liveried servants, a carriage with the
Buttercup arms blazoned on its panels; and a faint whisper from the
admiring crowd, “There goes the elegant Mrs. Buttercup!” reached her
ears. The future was full of glorious visions, full of royal splendors,
full of every thing that the heart of vanity could conceive. But for
the present, she was satisfied.
Things went on swimmingly at the new store, and when Mrs. Buttercup
proposed a tour to the east, her husband readily assented. Our lady
of magnificent aspirations had considerable difficulty in deciding
whether she should propose Saratoga or home for the summer excursion.
On the one hand, Saratoga was fashionable, and she would have abundant
opportunity to make the acquaintance of the exclusives. But on the
other hand, if she went home, she could create a tremendous sensation
among her own and her husband’s friends and relatives. She could carry
the New York fashions among them; could astonish them with a display of
her elegant silk, made by Madam Hippolyta Hyfalutin, from Paris, and
her splendid new bonnet from the celebrated rooms of Madam Hesperiana
Blomereaux, also from Paris. These things would scarcely be noticed by
the fashionable of Saratoga--the absence of them alone would make a
noise there.
And then her husband’s glorious prospects in the dry goods line, as
well as the immense business he at present transacted--it would be so
delightful to hear Tim tell them all about it! How his old father’s
eyes would stick out when he heard his son talk about a hundred
thousand dollars so beautifully and so indifferently; how he would
open his mouth with wonder, when Tim should tell him that the firm of
Funk, Hunk, and Co.--the most extensive dry goods establishment in New
York--had offered him three thousand dollars salary to superintend
their retail department, and how indignantly he had rejected the offer.
Tim had such a graceful way of telling these things; indeed, she knew
that he could make the most out of a very small matter.
They could create a sensation at home, and the prospect of being the
“bright particular star” of a circle of admiring and wondering friends,
enabled her to decide between Saratoga and the east. The preparations
were completed, and in due time they reached the “village of Boston,”
as Tim facetiously termed it.
Father and mother were duly astonished when the magnificent Mr.
Buttercup spread himself. The old gentleman’s eyes stuck out, and his
mouth was all agape with wonder. He “couldn’t exactly see how Broadway,
if ’twan’t more’n a hund’ed foot wide, could hold all the carriages Tim
telled on stoppin’ afore his door.”
In the course of events, Tim and his accomplished lady called on his
sister, Mrs. Sparrow, whose husband was the secretary of an insurance
company. Mr. Sparrow lived in his own house--a small, but neat and
convenient structure. It was plainly furnished; but reasonable people
said they were prettily situated, while those who knew them best were
sure they were contented and happy.
Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup looked over the house, and turned up her nose
at it. Tim’s mother was with them, and the simple-minded old lady was
so indiscrete as to ask her magnificent daughter-in-law how she would
like just such an establishment. She should not like it; it would not
suit her. When she went to housekeeping, not less than six thousand
dollars would furnish her house. At present, she preferred boarding.
“Then you don’t like my house, Belladonna?” asked Mrs. Swallow, with
the slightest appearance of disappointment on her smiling face.
“Well, I can’t say that I do, Maria,” replied Mrs. Buttercup, languidly.
“It is as good as any body need have,” added Mrs. Buttercup, Senior.
“If I ever see Tim as comfortably settled as Charles is, I shall be
perfectly satisfied.”
“Dear me! Tim wouldn’t look at such an establishment.”
“He may be glad to yet.”
“I am sure I always liked my house very much indeed,” said Mrs. Swallow.
“You have everything comfortable, Maria; every thing _comfortable_.”
“It is as good as my husband can afford; and housekeeping is so much
preferable to boarding.”
“Do you think so? I would not go to housekeeping for all the world.”
Mrs. Swallow shook her head.
“But then it depends, of course, upon whether you get a good boarding
house,” continued Mrs. Buttercup. “We are delightfully situated. Some
of the first families in the city board there. Besides, there is so
much society in New York, I really don’t think I could find time to
keep house. Why, there is the Hon. Mr. Flunkey--he is a member of
Congress, you know--invited us to go out to his country seat on the
Hudson and spend the summer. Mrs. Flunkey pressed and insisted, and
would not take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“Did you go?” asked Mrs. Buttercup, Senior.
“Why, no; we couldn’t go. Tim’s business drove him so, that the poor
fellow couldn’t sleep nights. And there are the Smallheads--they live
next door to N. P. Willis, out to Lazywild----”
“Idlewild,” suggested Mrs. Swallow.
“So it was; well, they would have us come and spend a month with them.
They are very fine folks. General Smallhead was an aide-de-camp with
General Washington at Braddock’s defeat, you remember.”
“Indeed! then he must be a very old man,” added Mrs. Swallow.
“About fifty.”
“Why, Braddock’s defeat occurred a hundred years ago!”
“O, no; you are mistaken,” replied Mrs. Buttercup, blushing a little.
“But no matter; he insisted on a visit. What could I do with a house?”
“Very true,” answered Mrs. Swallow, politely.
“And then Tim has a season ticket at the opera. He paid two hundred
dollars for a choice of seats last season.”
“Did he?” said the mother-in-law, with a frown.
“And it is so pleasant when you are away so much, to be rid of the
responsibility of keeping house.”
Mrs. Swallow did not think so. But Mrs. Buttercup had others in view
whom it was her purpose to astonish, and she took her leave soon after.
_CHAPTER II._
For the first time in her housekeeping experience, Mrs. Sparrow felt
a little discontented, after her sister-in-law had gone. Her pleasant
little house looked smaller than ever before; its plain, substantial
furniture looked coarse and common. Why couldn’t her husband have some
of the fine things that other people had? Why couldn’t she have a
carved rosewood table, antique chairs, a tapestry carpet, and velvet
draperies at the windows? Her husband owned the house in which they
lived, and had over a thousand dollars in the bank. Mrs. Walbend, in
the next house, had all these fine things, and her husband got but a
thousand dollars a year, while Mr. Swallow got fifteen hundred.
“Charles,” said she, when her husband came home to tea that evening, “I
have been thinking of something.”
“Have you, indeed! That is rather remarkable,” replied Mr. Swallow,
with a smile.
“You don’t want to know what, I suppose.”
“I do! I am ‘dying with curiosity,’ as the ladies say.”
“Well, then, I will tell you; but don’t be cross about it.”
Mr. Swallow promised not to be cross about it.
“I have been thinking about having some new furniture.”
The husband stuffed a tea roll into his mouth. Evidently the subject
was not a very inviting one to him.
“I want you to entirely refurnish the house.”
Mr. Swallow upset his tea.
“You can afford it, can’t you?”
“I think not, my dear.”
“Yes, you can, Charles.”
“What has got into you, Maria?” asked her husband, very seriously.
“You promised not to be cross.”
“I won’t be; but I am very much surprised. I thought you were perfectly
satisfied with your house and furniture.”
“We have everything comfortable, but----” Mrs. Swallow paused.
“What more do you want?”
“Our furniture is not in fashion.”
“The d--euce it isn’t!”
“No; and I want some antique chairs, a carved centre table, a tapestry
carpet, and velvet draperies, for the windows----”
“What else?”
“And a mirror seven feet high to go between the windows.”
“Call it twelve, my dear.”
“If you could only hear Belladonna tell of the houses in New York. Why,
she says the Hon. Mrs. Chopstick has a mirror in her parlor which is
twenty feet high by fifteen wide.”
“Did she tell you how big the doors of that house were?”
“And the carpet which General Smallhead bought last winter cost
nineteen dollars and a half a yard.”
“And a half?”
“Yes; they asked twenty, but the General bought so much that they took
off half a dollar.”
“Our rooms are so small that we should have to pay twenty, then,” added
Mr. Swallow, with a laugh.
“Other folks live so fine, why can’t we?”
“Other folks have money.”
“So have you.”
“A little; but I mean to keep it in preference to buying this trumpery
with it.”
“Since Belladonna has been here, I feel quite discontented.”
“Belladonna is a silly creature, and I thank my stars that my wife is
not like her,” replied Mr. Swallow, chucking the pretty little pouting
wife under the chin.
“But she knows what the fashions are.”
“And that is all she does know.”
“She says we have ‘everything comfortable.’”
“Which is very true.”
“But we are not in style.”
“Pshaw!”
“Won’t you buy some more stylish furniture, Charles?”
“No, my dear; I cannot afford it.”
“If you could only hear Belladonna talk!”
“Probably she makes things appear full as bright as they are.”
“Tim is doing a great business; making thousands and thousands of
dollars.”
“I _hope_ he is.”
“Why, Charles! he has taken a great store in Broadway, and keeps, I
don’t know how many clerks he said--fifty or a hundred.”
Mr. Swallow’s cough troubled him.
“Maria, you used to be very contented and happy. Don’t let this silly
idea get possession of you. Our house is furnished very well. If I had
twenty thousand dollars, I would not furnish it any better--that is,
not to please myself. If Tim can afford to live in better shape than I
do, let him; it will not disturb me. Don’t think any thing more about
it.”
“I won’t, Charles; but I felt so cheap when Belladonna talked so
familiarly of all those fine things, and of her acquaintances among the
_élite_; I felt as though I was nobody.”
“Wait, my dear, wait a while. Time will show what all these great
pretensions amount to. I hope Tim will do well; but with such loose
ideas of economy as he appears to have, and, more than all with such a
silly, extravagant wife, there is much to fear.”
Mrs. Swallow was satisfied. The words of her more experienced
husband banished the feelings of chagrin and discontentment she had
permitted herself to harbor. A careful reconsideration of Belladonna’s
extravagant stories convinced her that some of them, if not made out of
“whole cloth,” were greatly exaggerated, and she came to the conclusion
that her sister-in-law was no more of a lady in reality than she was
herself.
_CHAPTER III._
About six months after the events we have detailed, as Mr. and Mrs.
Swallow were sitting down to breakfast, they were surprised by the
abrupt appearance of Tim and his wife.
“This is unexpected,” said Mr. Swallow.
“Rather sudden,” replied Tim, more seriously than he was wont to speak.
“I am glad to see you. Breakfast is all ready.”
“We have left New York for good,” interposed Belladonna, after she
had kissed and hugged her sister-in-law twenty times--an exhibition of
affection which she had not before manifested since she became Mrs.
Buttercup.
“Indeed!” exclaimed Charles and Maria together.
“Fact!” said Tim, with a melancholy laugh.
“And I am so glad to get away from there! I always hated New York!”
added Belladonna.
“Why, I thought you liked New York. Pray how are your friends the
Smallheads, the Flunkeys, and the Chopsticks?”
“I hate them all!”
“Going into business in Boston, Tim?” asked Mr. Swallow.
“Is it possible you have not heard of it?” said Tim, looking his
brother-in-law hard in the face.
“Heard of what?”
“My misfortunes.”
“What?”
“Bu’st up.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“Sad, but true;” and Tim essayed a stroke of humor. “Yes, _sir!_ bu’st
up; not a sixpence left--poor as a church mouse--borrowed the money to
come on with.”
“Tim makes the best of it, you see,” added Belladonna, with a laugh.
“For my part, I was almost glad he failed, I was so rejoiced to get
away from New York. But, Maria, how have you been since I saw you?”
“Very well indeed.”
“And how is little Charley? the dear little fellow!” continued Mr.
Buttercup, tenderly kissing the little boy, who sat in the high chair
at the table, and who had contrived to daub his mouth pretty thoroughly
with the molasses on his buckwheat cakes.
“How long since this affair happened?” asked Mr. Swallow, when the
party had seated themselves at the table.
“Three weeks,” replied Tim. “Took every thing I had--tried to get a
situation--couldn’t find one.”
“But where were Funks, Hunks, and Co.? Didn’t they want you?” asked
Maria.
Tim looked at her--looked queer.
“No; they have a man now,” replied he.
“What are you going to do?” inquired Mr. Swallow.
“I happened to meet White in New York, and told him how I
was situated--offered me five hundred a year to come on as
salesman--accepted his offer.”
Maria looked at Belladonna, and thought of furnishing a house at an
expense of six thousand dollars.
After breakfast, when Tim and Charles had gone out, Mrs. Buttercup
introduced another topic.
“How pleasant it would be if we could board with you!” said she
abruptly.
Mrs. Swallow did not think it would be so pleasant; but of course she
could not say so, and, being too honest to belie her own heart, she
remarked that they did not live in very good style.
“Good enough for any body, Maria.”
“But if your friends, the Smallheads or the Flunkeys, should happen to
visit you----”
“O, there is no fear of that; if they did, I should not care.”
“But we live so plainly compared with your fashionable boarding houses.”
“You live well enough; and your house is so nice and convenient.--O, I
should be so happy!”
“We have every thing comfortable,” added Maria, slyly.
Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup stopped to think. That remark sounded
familiar to her ears.
“Very comfortable, and nice, and pretty! I wish Tim had just such a
house!”
“You have altered your mind.”
“And just such furniture--I should be so happy!”
At dinner time the matter was still further discussed. Though Mr.
Swallow liked Tim very well, he did not like his wife; but in
consideration of their unfortunate condition, he consented to receive
them as boarders.
Mrs. Buttercup never says a word now about an establishment, and Tim
has a more serious and respectful way of speaking of a hundred thousand
dollars. The Smallheads are never mentioned, and Tim thinks he missed
it when he moved into a larger store. Belladonna declares she never
heard of such a thing as a mirror twenty feet long by fifteen high, and
is quite sure the Smallhead carpet did not cost above three dollars a
yard.
Mrs. Swallow is satisfied that fine furniture does not make a happy
wife. She regards the New York experience of her brother and his wife
as an excellent commentary on the vanity of magnificent pretensions.
And though her husband has been elected cashier of the Bay State Bank,
with a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars per annum, she is still
content with having “EVERY THING COMFORTABLE.”
FAMILY JARS.
A LESSON FOR WIVES.
_CHAPTER I._
“He’s real ugly, there! He treats his wife shamefully!” exclaimed Mrs.
Benson, a pretty little woman, who had been a wife just eleven months
and twelve days.
“Perhaps not, my dear,” replied the young husband, quietly crossing his
legs over the top of the fire frame, and puffing out a long wreath of
smoke from his mouth as he removed the fragrant regalia.
“Perhaps not! Why, haven’t I seen it myself?”
“You are not acquainted with all the circumstances.”
“Pshaw! A man that can treat his wife so rudely is a perfect brute; I
don’t care what the circumstances are.”
“Brown always was a good-hearted fellow, and if he is changed at all,
matrimony has done it.”
“Thank you, Charles; you are very complimentary. I wonder if matrimony
has changed you.”
“Why, Julia, we have not been married quite a year yet,” replied the
husband, smiling.
“Indeed!”
“Brown has been married five years,” replied Mr. Benson, with admirable
self-possession.
“Then you think _I_ have not shown out what I am yet?”
“Bah! My dear, you are making quite a personal matter of it. We were
speaking of Brown.”
“Brown is a brute--a hog!” said the lady, in a pet.
“What has Brown done?”
“Done? Why, good gracious! He is enough to wear out a woman’s patience.”
“I dare say, my dear; but what has he done?”
“Every thing. He is wearing his poor, patient wife out; she will
die--poor, weak, sensitive thing--under such treatment.”
“No doubt of it; but you do not tell me what he has done.”
“I don’t mean to say that he beats her.”
“No.”
“Nor starves her.”
“Does he scold at her?”
“No; if he would only scold, it would be a relief to her.”
“Poor Mrs. Brown!”
“He is so cold and distant; I am sure he married her for her money.”
“Quite likely; but how is it with Mrs. Brown? Is _she_ an angel?”
“I don’t know as she is an angel; but she bears her sorrows _like_ an
angel. The poor thing had been crying, I know, when I called there this
afternoon.”
“Did she tell you what the matter was?”
“Yes; you know we were children together, and never had any secrets,”
replied the young wife, with a troubled expression; for she had some
doubts as to the propriety of what she had done.
“Don’t meddle with a quarrel between man and wife, Julia,” said Mr.
Benson, shaking his head.
“I could not bear to see her suffering; so I asked her what the matter
was.”
“I am sorry you did.”
“I could not help it, Charles; I pitied her so, and I was pretty well
satisfied as to the cause of her grief.”
“And her husband illtreats her?”
“He does not love her. She says he has been two or three days without
speaking to her.”
“That is bad; but who is to blame?”
“Who is to blame? Why, _he_, of course;” and the pretty little
Mrs. Benson looked up in astonishment from the little cap she was
embroidering.
“Why ‘_of course_’?”
“He don’t consult her tastes in regard to his dress. If she asks him to
bring her home any thing from down town, ten chances to one he forgets
it. He don’t seem to care for her feelings. The poor thing says she has
cried for an hour in his presence, and he has sat like a log, perfectly
unmoved--so different from _you_, Charles.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Brown is not in every respect like _you_, my dear.”
The young wife looked up with a smile of gratified pride. She was yet
young and beautiful, and, what was far better than youth and beauty,
she was good tempered, kind, and reasonable. Mrs. Brown’s case excited
all her sympathies, and she proceeded to detail to her husband a list
of the poor lady’s trials. But, as the reader will be better able to
appreciate them by being present during the scene described, we will
introduce the injured lady and her unfeeling husband.
_CHAPTER II._
Mrs. Brown sat by the fire in the parlor, turning over the pages of the
last new novel. Occasionally she sighed, as though the world had used
her badly, and she had not the means of paying off the world for its
ill treatment.
Mr. Brown kept a dry goods store, and, being a prudent, industrious
man, he substituted his own services for those of an extra clerk, which
kept him busily occupied from an early hour in the morning till late in
the evening.
He had been married five years, and, for some reason unknown beyond
the pale of his own home, his matrimonial experience, without being
decidedly stormy, was very far from being pleasant and profitable to
either party. Brown was a good-hearted fellow, and always looked on the
bright side of things. If the world would only move along smoothly, he
was perfectly satisfied, and never felt disposed to quarrel with any
body.
Mrs. Brown’s disposition was not particularly objectionable; she was
kind-hearted, clever, and amiable, as the world goes; but somehow
nothing ever went right with her. It seemed as though every body took a
malicious pride in tormenting her--Brown in particular. If Brown bought
sausages for dinner, she was sure to want mutton, and if mutton, she
was sure to want sausages.
Brown could not understand it. Whatever he did was sure to be exactly
wrong. But Brown was a philosopher; and, though he sometimes got so
disgusted that he held his tongue for several days, he maintained a
very tolerable degree of good nature.
Brown treated himself to a new overcoat. Being reasonably independent
in such matters, he had assumed the responsibility of purchasing the
garment without consulting his wife.
Imprudent Brown, thus to expend the sum of eighteen dollars without
consulting Mrs. B! Reckless Brown, thus to buy that brown coat, when
all the experience of the past pointed to the appalling consequences!
Did you not remember the last time you purchased a pair of pants, that
neither the hue nor the texture suited your amiable partner? Did you
not call to mind the last curtain lecture on this very topic, when you
audaciously ordered the tailor to make you a coat off that piece? Knew
you not that Mrs. B. likes not black, drab, green, brown, olive, blue,
nor any thing of the fancy order?
But Brown recklessly ordered the coat, and when it was done, he
recklessly put it on. What made the offence a hundred fold more
horrible, he coolly marched, with the coat on, into the parlor where
Mrs. B. sat by the fire, turning over the pages of the last new novel.
The lady was thunderstruck; but she was not one of your spitfires, who
make a tremendous tempest in your presence when anything does not suit
them. She was meek, patient, suffering, under any indignity, even one
so pointed and wicked as in the present case.
The lady looked up from her book, and bestowed a languid smile upon the
partner of her joys, and, alas! of her sorrows too.
Brown smiled in return; he could not do less than smile. He even looked
innocent, as though he had done nothing wrong--as though he had not
aimed a blow at the peace of his amiable lady.
“What have you got on, Jonas?” asked she, mildly.
“An overcoat,” replied Brown, sententiously.
“A new one?” sighed the lady.
“Just from the tailor’s shop,” answered Brown, screwing up his courage
to meet the onslaught.
“You know I don’t like brown, Jonas.”
“_I_ do,” replied Brown, valorously.
“You know I _never_ like brown.”
Brown had half a mind to construe the remark into a pun; but he was
forbearing, thought no evil, and so kept silence.
“It’s a sack too; you know I _never_ liked a sack.”
“I always did.”
“A surtout would become you much better.”
“I like a sack.”
“It is a horrid-looking coat,” sighed Mrs. Brown.
“Muddle says it is the best looking coat I ever had on.”
“Muddle! Of course _he_ would say so.”
“Temple said so too.”
“Temple has no taste.”
“I agree with Temple.”
“You never _will_ wear a coat that suits me.”
Brown thought this was strictly true, but, being a prudent man, he held
his peace.
“You still persist in letting Muddle make your clothes, though he
charges you more than any one else would.”
“His prices are reasonable.”
“I wish you would let some other tailor make your coat; Muddle’s
clothes _never_ set well.”
“Fit me to a T.”
“If it had only been black!”
“But, my dear, you forget that my last coat was black, and you did not
like that.”
“It suits your figure better than brown.”
Just at that moment the door bell rang, and the servant brought in a
pair of pants.
“What is that?” asked the lady.
“Pants.”
Mrs. B eagerly opened the bundle. The garment was black.
“Black pants!” exclaimed the lady, holding them up before her; “you
_know_ I don’t like black pants.”
“Indeed, my dear, you just now said you did like black.”
“Not black _pants_; you know I never _did_ like them; besides, they
won’t wear well.”
“But, Mrs. B., I do not wish _you_ to wear them.”
The lady thought this was exceedingly cruel of Mr. Brown; for she, poor
woman, had no more idea of “wearing the breeches” than she had of going
to Congress.
“They suit me, my dear. _I_ never interfere with your taste in regard
to bonnets and dresses.”
“I wish you would tell me what you like best; I am sure I desire to
conform to your taste.”
“Don’t wish to. I cannot tell what is good taste in furbelows and
flounces, any more than a woman can in coats and pants.”
“But you might be a little more attentive to my wishes. You used to
_once_.”
This was a hard hit, and Mr. Brown was silent.
“You don’t seem to care whether I am suited or not, now.”