and inconsistent as he was--thousands who wish to have their wives and
children appear well in the world, and at the same time deny them the
means of doing so.
Mrs. Montague was in tears. She was both grieved and provoked at the
conduct of her husband. The promptness with which he had paid his Club
House bill, while he denied her the trifling sum she had asked, was a
sad commentary on his devotion. For more than an hour she thought the
matter over, and became fully assured that she was a much injured wife.
Her spirit was roused, and, putting on her bonnet, she left the house
to do her shopping.
The calico dress her husband had professed to think was good enough for
her to wear to church was purchased, and before Sunday was made up.
The second bells were ringing for church. Mr. Montague, elegantly
dressed, was all ready, and stood before the glass, contemplating his
prepossessing appearance.
“Are you ready, Ellen?” said he, calling to his wife, who was up stairs.
“I shall be in a moment. Walk along slowly with Franky, and I will
overtake you,” replied she.
Mr. Montague took his son by the hand, and walked up the street. He
looked like a model head of the family--so benignant and dignified on
that Sabbath morning.
His wife did not overtake him till he had got half way to church.
“Why, my dear, what have you got on?” asked Mr. Montague, when, to his
horror, he saw her clothed in a common calico dress.
“My new calico,” replied she, coolly, as she took his arm.
“Are you mad, Ellen?”
“It was the best I could buy with the money you gave me.”
“But you are not going to church in that shape?”
“Why, Simeon, didn’t you say you were willing to go to church with me
with a calico dress on?”
“Pshaw! Hadn’t you sense enough to see that I was jesting?”
“Jesting! If you were, it was the first time I ever knew you to jest in
your own house.”
“Don’t be foolish, Ellen.”
“Come; we shall be late, and all the folks in the street are staring at
us.”
“Staring at you. What a ridiculous figure you make in that attire! Your
Irish girl is better dressed than you are.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Pray, go home.”
“I am going to church.”
“Not with me, Ellen, in that plight.”
“Then I leave you,” said she, taking Franky by the hand, and continuing
her walk.
Mr. Montague was bewildered. It was a very awkward position; but the
natural duplicity of his character came to his aid, and, placing his
hand upon his forehead, as though suffering a severe headache, he
retraced his steps homeward.
_CHAPTER III._
Mr. Montague was greatly incensed at the conduct of his wife; but an
experience of a dozen years had fully convinced her that her husband
could not be easily reformed. During that long period, while he was
living in plenty, was throwing away hundreds, and she did not know
but thousands, on his club, his champagne suppers, and other selfish
gratifications, she had found it exceedingly difficult to wring from
his hard grasp the money to clothe herself and children. To ask for it
was a loathsome task, and nothing but the most urgent necessity could
induce her to do so.
Much as her husband had resented her conduct on the occasion mentioned,
he did not offer the means of supplying her wants. The lady had become
so disgusted with his niggardly conduct, that she had fully determined
never to ask him for another dollar. Her father was rich, and very
indulgent to her, his only child. To him she disclosed her grievances;
and though it was repugnant to her sense of delicacy to speak ill of
her husband, she gave her father a complete history of her financial
experience. The old gentleman was exceedingly indignant, as a matter
of course, and stormed like a madman at the sordid character of his
son-in-law.
“But don’t you say a word to him, pa, nor to any one else,” pleaded the
daughter.
“I will blow him sky high! He shall never darken my door again!”
“Nay, nay, pa, for my sake, do not mention it.”
The old man stopped to think.
“You are right, Nellie; not a word,” said he, rubbing his bald head.
“It would sound very bad abroad, pa.”
“So it would; but, Nellie, hand me that book, and the pen and ink.”
The daughter obeyed, and the old gentleman wrote a hasty note.
“Now ring the bell, Nellie.”
Mrs. Montague did as she was requested, and a servant appeared.
“Here, John, take that to No. 10 Court Street,” said the old gentleman,
as he opened the book and wrote a check for five hundred dollars. “Now,
Nellie, spend it as fast as you can, and when that is gone, come and
get some more.”
Mrs. Montague kissed her fond father, and left him to ruminate upon the
astonishing fact which had been revealed to him.
“Not give her any money!” muttered he. “The scoundrel!”
His lips were frequently compressed, and occasionally he rose and
strode with hasty step across the room. The arrival of the lawyer for
whom he had sent, seemed to relieve him.
Mrs. Montague appeared the next Sunday in an elegant brocade silk, a
new bonnet, and a most magnificent mantilla. Her husband, who was an
importer and jobber of dry goods, could readily perceive that she wore
at least two hundred dollars upon her person. He was confounded. She
had asked him for no money lately. He was uneasy. What could it mean?
Mrs. Montague refused to answer any questions.
Six months passed by, and the lady still remained independent of her
husband. She always had money in abundance, but she positively refused
to converse upon the subject. Of course he could understand that her
father furnished her with funds. He was perplexed to discover the
circumstances under which he supplied her. Had his wife told him that
she was refused by her husband? Had she been to her father with her
grievances? He would not have had such a thing happen for all the
world; his reputation, which he valued more highly than his integrity,
would be sacrificed. He was sorely troubled.
One day, about this time, when he came home to dinner, he found that
his father-in-law had been prostrated by an apoplectic fit, and that
his wife had gone to attend him. Before he could finish his dinner, a
messenger announced his death.
Mr. Montague was very much grieved, of course. He mourned in bitterness
of spirit for more than a month after the funeral, his father-in-law
was such a kind-hearted, noble old gentleman; he thought there were few
men like him in the world.
Every thing went on as usual in the Montague family. Not a word was
said about the large property of the deceased. Mr. Montague felt
some delicacy in mentioning the subject to his wife, and no one else
appeared to know any thing about the business. He wondered that nothing
had been said to him about being executor or administrator. Of course
he was the only proper person to execute this trust.
He hinted at the matter as broadly as he dared; but his wife refused to
take the hint. One morning, however, as he was looking over the paper,
he noticed an advertisement concerning the probate of the will; he
pointed it out to his wife.
“Then your father made a will?” said he.
“He did.”
“I was not aware of it; but then I haven’t devoted even a thought to
his property.”
Mrs. Montague looked at him.
“Your father was one of the best of men,” continued he, seriously.
“He was.”
“Did you learn who had been named as executor?”
“My uncle John.”
“Ah! a capital selection; your father was an excellent business man.”
“And three of his personal friends were appointed trustees.”
“Trustees!” exclaimed Mr. Montague, with a violent start.
“Yes; but you have not seen the will?”
“No.”
“I have a copy here,” said the wife, taking the document from a drawer.
With a beating heart, Mr. Montague opened the copy, and proceeded to
read it.
His cheek blanched and his lip quivered as he read. The property was
much greater than he had ever suspected, amounting to over a hundred
thousand dollars. It was all secured to his wife, to the entire
exclusion of her husband; and the instrument was so adroitly drawn
up that he could not even touch the income of the estate without her
permission.
He was thunderstruck; his matrimonial hopes were all blasted, and, what
added to his chagrin, his own affairs, in the stringency of the time,
had become hopelessly embarrassed.
“What does this mean, Ellen?” asked he, in a husky voice.
“You just remarked that my father was an excellent business man; don’t
you understand it?”
“If I had been a drunkard or a gambler, it would have been plain to me.
As it is, it looks like an entire want of confidence in me, on the part
of your deceased father; not that I care about the property,” whined
Mr. Montague.
“Of course you don’t care for _that_.”
“I was not aware before that your father was prejudiced against me. Did
he ever mention this matter?”
Mrs. Montague was silent, and the husband pressed her for an answer.
“There was something said.”
“What, my dear?”
“When I went to him for money, of course that led to some explanations.”
“You went to him for money?” gasped Mr. Montague.
“I could not get it from you.”
Mr. Montague used an exceedingly hard word, which I dare not transfer
to my page, and rushed out of the house.
In a month he failed,--made a bad failure,--and it took him a year to
get out of the difficulty. The assignees had every thing; he could not
put his hand upon a single dollar. His domestic affairs somehow got
into the street, and nobody would trust him; every body despised him.
But Mrs. Montague was not so sordid as he had been, and when he had
received a discharge from his debts, she furnished the means for him to
commence business again. The club and champagne suppers are abandoned;
matters are reversed. The lady is always “flush,” the gentleman
generally short; and, poor fellow, he is sometimes so hard pressed as
to ask her for a few hundred dollars “to help him out.”
TAKING THE NEWSPAPERS.
_CHAPTER I._
“Talk to me about your newspapers! I tell you, neighbor Parker, they
are a consarned humbug!” exclaimed Farmer Cheney.
“That’s a great mistake of yours, neighbor. For my part, I would rather
live on two meals a day, than be without a good newspaper.”
[Illustration]
“Git out! I wonder what the world’s a comin’ to. There’s my gals have
teased me to take Harper’s Magazine, till I hadn’t any peace o’ my
life. But I put my foot right down; you can’t humbug me with such
trash;” and Farmer Cheney complacently wiped away the tobacco juice
which was streaming down from the corners of his mouth.
“You are in the wrong, neighbor Cheney.”
“No, I ain’t, nuther. Then Tom wan’t satisfied, and nothin’ would do
but I must take the American Union and the Practical Farmer. But it
wan’t no use; I wouldn’t have the trash in the house, say nothin’ o’
wastin’ money on it.”
“Do you ever read the papers?”
“Me! no, not I; I’ve got a better use for my time.”
“But the long winter evenings?”
“Well, we allers have corn to shell.”
“Not all winter?”
“No; but when I can’t find no work to do, I’d a nuff sight rather set
in the corner, and go to sleep.”
“But your son Reuben takes the papers.”
“Yes; but I never brought him up to do any sich thing. He takes the
Union and the Farmer both, and stews his brains over ’em half the time.
That ain’t the wo’st on’t, nuther.”
“No evil effects have followed from it, I trust?”
“Yes, there has; there’s my youngest boy, Tom, read sunthin’ or nuther
over to Reuben’s t’other day about a ‘chance for young men,’ and
nothin’ll do but he must go right into it; he’s off to Boston next
week. So much for havin’ newspapers round.”
“But perhaps he may improve the opportunity, and make money by it.”
“No sich thing. He’s got two hundred dollars, and when that’s all gone,
he’ll be back again; see if he don’t.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Well, my mind’s made up about it; but between you and I and the side
of that gate post, I wouldn’t mind givin’ Reuben the price of the
papers if he only wouldn’t take ’em.”
“But Reuben has the reputation of being one of the best farmers in
town.”
“That’s all true enough; but he didn’t learn how to farm it from his
newspapers, let me tell you. He was brought up in the good old way,
when there wan’t no books round but the Bible and the almanac.”
“You will grant that he does not follow all the old-fashioned methods?”
“Well, pooty much all; he’s got some notions of his own, though.”
“How was it about planting corn in rows, neighbor Cheney?”
“That’s one of Reuben’s notions, to plant in rows.”
“And he got seventy bushels to the acre, you know.”
“Yes; but the ashes did the business.”
“The ashes, the rows, and the cultivator, between them.”
“Well, there ain’t no doubt but what that’s the best way to raise corn.
At any rate, all the neighbors foller it now.”
“It is not the old-fashioned way.”
“No; it’s Reuben’s way.”
“Where do you suppose Reuben got it?”
“I don’t know; not from your darn newspapers, though.”
“But he did.”
“Git out!”
“It is a fact.”
“Now, neighbor Parker, you don’t mean to say that them fellers in
Boston, that never saw a cornfield in their life, can tell me how to
raise corn,” said Farmer Cheney, a little warmly.
“They have correspondents all over the country, and the subscribers
have the benefit of their united experience.”
“Don’t believe a word on’t.”
But it was no use arguing the matter, and the two farmers separated.
When Farmer Cheney got home, he found a visitor a waiting him.
_CHAPTER II._
“I understood you had a large quantity of corn for sale,” said the
stranger.
“Well, I’ve got consider’ble, but I don’t care no great about sellin’
it.”
“I should like to buy.”
“I can spare a couple o’ hund’ed bushels for a fair price.”
“What do you ask for it?”
“Well, I don’t know; how is corn nowadays?”
“Last sales in Boston were sixty-eight to seventy cents.”
“Rather low; I meant to git seventy-one for mine,” returned Farmer
Cheney, who was disposed to be shrewd.
“What will you take for the lot?”
“Seventy-one.”
“Say seventy, and we won’t stand about trifles.”
“Can’t do it; seventy-one is my lowest price,” replied Farmer Cheney,
finding that he had got an available customer.
“Split the difference, and it’s a trade,” said the stranger, nervously.
“Couldn’t do it.”
“I’ll take it then. Give me a receipt for this cash to bind the
bargain.”
Farmer Cheney, congratulating himself on the good trade he had made,
wrote the receipt after considerable labor, and put the money in his
pocket book.
“Know of any one else who has got any corn to sell?”
“My neighbor Parker, I rather guess, has got some.”
“You won’t say a word that I paid you seventy-one for yours? It might
spoil a trade.”
“Not a word,” replied Farmer Cheney.
* * * * *
Towards night our two farmers happened to meet again.
“Sold your corn to-day, neighbor Parker?” inquired Farmer Cheney.
“Every speck of it,” replied Parker.
“Did you? What did you get?”
“Eighty-one.”
“How much?”
“Eighty-one.”
“You didn’t, though, did ye?” exclaimed the man who would not take the
newspaper.
“That is just what I got, and I think I could have got eighty-two if I
had stuck a little longer.”
“You don’t, though!”
“The same man bought yours, I believe.”
“Yes,” replied Farmer Cheney, edging off.
“What did you get--eighty-two?”
“Well, I guess I didn’t git quite that.”
“O, eighty-one. Well, after all, that is a good price, and ten cents on
a bushel more than I had any idea of getting.”
“I did not get eighty-one,” replied Farmer Cheney, rather crestfallen.
He did not like to deceive his neighbor; he had studied the Bible and
the almanac enough to know better than that; but it came “dreadful
hard” to own up the truth.
“How much did you get?”
“I dar’sent tell.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got took in if the feller gave you eighty-one.”
“What did you get, though, neighbor--seventy-five?”
“Seventy-one.”
“Well, you have been taken in, then; I guess you haven’t heard the
news.”
“No--what?”
“Crops failed in the west.”
“How you talk!”
“And the prospect of a war in Europe; so that our breadstuffs will be
extensively exported, which run up the price of flour and grain.”
“What war?”
“Between Russia and Turkey.”
“Turkey! Well, I hope them cu’sed Turks will get licked!” exclaimed
Farmer Cheney, whose ideas were somewhat antiquated.
“You differ from the world in general. The sympathies of all civilized
nations go with Turkey in this quarrel.”
“You don’t say so! When I was a boy, the schoolmaster used to teach us
to hate the Turks. They are a barbarous race.”
“I think, neighbor Cheney, you will confess now that you had better
take a paper.”
“Confess no sich thing; I wouldn’t have one round the house.”
“If you had taken the papers, you would have known about this rise in
grain.”
“Perhaps I should; but Reuben generally tells me about these things.”
“It was only in the paper that came to-day; I read it since I saw you
this morning. But I should no more think of selling any thing of any
consequence without seeing how the Boston markets were, than I should
think of cutting my own throat.”
“Kind of a dog’s life to be tied to a newspaper,” sneered Farmer Cheney.
“But if you had taken a newspaper, neighbor, and read it, you would
have made twenty dollars by it in this one trade; twenty dollars,
neighbor--enough to pay for the paper ten years.”
“Git out! These things look well enough as you book farmers figger ’em
up; but, you see, when you come to the scratch, they ain’t nowhere.”
“It looks to me like a plain case.”
“Now, ’spose I could make twenty dollars by takin’ the paper; it would
do me a darn sight more mischief than that.”
“How?”
“Why, the newspaper puts the very devil in the gals’ heads. Now, they
never use to have their cu’sed picnics round here, till the gals got
to readin’ on ’em in the papers. And then the buryin’ ground, they
couldn’t even let that alone. Some feller put a piece in the paper
about Mount Auburn, Sorrel Hill, Greenbush, and some sich place, and
the fust thing we know the gravestones are all jumbled up in a heap,
gravel is carted in, and posies set out all over it. Now they call it a
‘symmetry,’ I b’leve.”
“A cemetery, neighbor; but we who read the newspapers like these
things. There is something pleasant in ornamenting with flowers the
resting place of our dead.”
“It looks to me more like ‘sacrelation.’”
“Sacrilege! O, no; far from it.”
“Well, I think so; and then we’ve got to have new school houses, a new
town house, and the roads must all be ‘McDonalized.’”
“McAdamized.”
“Well, no matter what it is; it all comes of these cu’sed newspapers.
My taxes are twenty dollars a year more than they used to be.”
“And you sell the produce of your farm for five hundred dollars more.”
“Well, that’s true; but there’s no kind of need of makin’ the taxes any
more, all for newspapers.”
“But you must think how much better and wiser your family would be with
a newspaper to read.”
“By mighty! I should think they would! Only look at Deacon Craig’s
folks. Them gals cost him a fortin every year in books and new gowns.
The newspapers won’t do; they must have books, and waste half their
time readin’ on em.”
“But it is a very worthy and intelligent family, and the deacon’s
income, owing to his more enlightened method of conducting business, is
at least ten times as great as it used to be, and he can well afford to
spend all he does in educating his children.”
“No use o’ talkin’ about it; give me the good old way; and when I’m
dead, I ain’t at all particular about havin’ buttercups and whiteweed
growin’ on my grave;” and Farmer Cheney went off, “wondering what the
world was coming to.”
_CHAPTER III._
About a year after their conversations, Tom Cheney came home to visit
his father. The ambitious youth, who had acquired half his education
by reading the newspapers, had not written his father concerning his
business prospects.
“Why, Tom, what have you been about all this time?” asked the old
gentleman, as he surveyed Tom’s spruce appearance.
“Making money, father,” replied the hopeful son.
“Have you made any, Tom?”
“A little.”
“A little! Guess you’d better staid at home, and worked on the farm.
You was doin’ well here.”
“Done pretty well as it is.”
“How much you made, Tom?”
“Five thousand.”
“Git out! You are jokin’, Tom.”
“True as preaching.”
“How did you do it?”
“Well, I went into that ‘chance for young men;’ but that wan’t much; so
I looked into the newspapers for something better.”
“Newspapers again,” sneered Farmer Cheney.
“The first thing I saw was, that peaches were selling down south for
ten cents a bushel, while they brought two dollars here. You see, the
risk of transporting them makes the difference. Then I saw in the same
paper that preserved peaches brought two shillings a pound north; so I
put that and that together, and hatched out a speculation. I bought the
sugar, and sent it down to Delaware, where the peaches were cheap, and
went to making preserves there. In this way I made money.”
“You are a shrewd one, Tom.”
“All owing to the newspapers, father.”
“Git out!”
“I see by the papers that the Chinese empire has been divided, and the
rebels are in a fair way of making China a Christian country. I have a
great notion of going out there to establish a line of stages between
Shanghae and Nankin. What do you think about it?”
“Don’t know what to think. I’m done thinkin’; but, Tom, when you go to
Boston again, just drop in and tell ’em to send me the American Union
and the Practical Farmer for one year. Here’s the three dollars.”
“Bravo! you are a brick, after all, pa!”
“CIGARS FOR TWO;”
OR,
CURING A SMOKER.
_CHAPTER I._
“Smokes, does he? The abominable wretch!” exclaimed Mrs. Volant to her
friend, Mrs. Washburn, a young wife who had just gone to housekeeping.
“He smokes, but he is not an abominable wretch--I am sure he is not,”
replied Mrs. Washburn, a little startled by the hard name applied to
her husband, whom she both loved and esteemed.
“Not a wretch?”
“No, I’m sure he is not!”
“Yes, he is; any husband, especially one who has been married only a
year, and won’t leave off smoking when his wife desires it, must be a
wretch.”
“No, you overstate the case. He is every thing a husband ought to
be--so kind, so devoted, so indulgent. But then, I do wish he would not
smoke.”
“You must break him of it--the cruel monster.”
“Nay, do not call him such hard names; I love him with all my heart,
though he does smoke.”
“Well, I suppose you do; young wives are apt to be foolish.”
“Foolish!”
“Yes; he sees, I dare say, that you love him, and so he takes the
advantage of you.”
“Why, Mrs. Volant, don’t you love your husband?”
“Well, suppose I do; there is no need of telling him of it. I make him
think I don’t care any thing about him. Why, I can manage him as easily
as I could a kitten.”
“I don’t like that; I think there ought to be love and confidence
between man and wife.”
“Pooh!”
“You cannot be happy with him.”
“I should not be if I became his slave.”
“Not his slave!”
“Don’t you believe it! When you have been married as long as I have,
you will get rid of some of these sentimental notions, which answer
very well for the first year or so, but become very inconvenient after
that.”
“For my part, I always mean to love my husband as much as I do now,
even if it is sentimental.”
“See if you do! Husbands must be carefully managed, or they become
tyrants. Now, my husband smoked the first year after marriage; but then
he was a little careful about bringing his cigar into the house, for I
told him, up and down, I wouldn’t have it.”
“I should suppose he would have rebelled.”
“He did, but not at first. One night, nearly a year after we were
married, he brought home a whole bundle of cigars, and put them on the
mantel-piece. Taking one, he very coolly lighted it, and proceeded to
read the evening paper.”
“That’s just the way my husband does.”
“I was downright mad at his impudence; but I did not say a word. The
next day I bought a monstrous great snuff box, and filled it full of
rappee. In the evening he lighted his cigar as before; but no sooner
had he done so, than I seated myself opposite to him, and drawing out
my snuff box, I took a generous pinch, snuffing the filthy stuff into
my nostrils, at the risk of sneezing my head off.”
“How funny!”
“My husband did not think so. He looked at me with astonishment. ‘You
take snuff?’ said he. ‘I do; at least, I mean to learn,’ I replied.
‘It is a filthy habit,’ says he. ‘No worse than smoking,’ says I. We
debated the matter for a long time, and at last he gave up the point,
and promised to throw away his cigars if I would throw away my snuff.
My point was gained, and of course I gave up my snuff.”
“And he never smoked any more?” asked Mrs. Washburn, laughing.
“Yes, he began once after; but I took to the snuff again, and he gave
it up.”
“Are you sure he don’t smoke now?”