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Show ! A WORD TO HUSBANDS. ! It is Time Some one Took you i in Hand. j I THE WAY TO ACT WHEN YOU COME HOME. j ! Of Course This Don'ttMean Tou, but it Fits Your Neighbor. There is ho much excellent ad vice given to w ives, suppose, for a change, we turn around anil read the husbands a nice liltlo manual of correct behavior. It is high time some one took them in hand; but. although I have had my eye upon them for a good while, 1 have been both- J ered to find a riju? opportunity. ! In the first place, to plunge right Into the midst of things without further waiting, wait-ing, how do you go home to your wifeat night? Chapters have been written aslo how she ought to receive you; now let mc Bay a word about the other side of the question. When you find a tired little woman who has been so hard at work all day with live babies and an in-competent in-competent girl, callers, and miscellaneous jobs of mending, p:istry making and pickling, that she h:is found no time to curl her hair and put on her best gown lo meet you. what do you do? Do you, like a dear old sympathizing fellow, take her worn face into a warm embrace and whisper in her ear: "Never mind, dearie; 1 havo got homo, and we'll share the cures for the rest of the day. You go and rest yourself while I put Johnnie und Trot and baby to bed?" Do you see that she sits in the easiest chair while you skip around and minister to her wants? Do you keep silent while she reads the evening paper (to herself), and aro you mindful of draughts and slamming slam-ming doors while she takes her ease in slippered content? Do tho starB dance the Newjort. and does the moon sing 1 psahu tunes? Just about as much as you i do all this. You expect the hushed home, and the siesta with the paper, and tlio i slippers for yourself, to be sure, and if j you don't get them you think you're ter-I ter-I ribly abused, und ten to one flounce off I lo the club to escape tho noise and con-: con-: fusion, but you never take it into your head to consider that the day has been just as long, nnd just as busy, and a thousand times more full of petty cares for her as for you. You ioh into the house, and the first thing you say is: "Why isn't supper ready? I'm as hungry us a hound!" I "Great Scott I Can't you keep that child I quiet?" or. "What's the use of burning i so much coal? Turn off the damper! i You are enough to ruin a Vanderbilt!" J That's the key nolo of the song you sing, I and yet you think it is dreadful if sho ! ever makes a remark harsher than the 1 bleat of a lamb. Suppose you had been ! a hansom cub driver, a board of trade i man. cook in u restaurant, cash boy for I a dry goods house, a kindergarten teacher and a hospital nurse all combined for the whole day long, wouldn't you be more tired, und wouldn't there be more excuse for your irritability than when you have simply attended to a single systematized branch of business. I A woman is required to be everything j from a reception committee to receive I calls in the parlor, to a nurse in the nursery, nur-sery, and a chief executive in tho kitchen, while a business man devotes himself to a single trade or profession. Ami next, bow do you entertain your wife evenings? If you were invited into a neighbor's house to speud a couple of hours with his wife and daughter, how j would you entertain them, I wonder? Why. you would put a posy in your buttonhole, but-tonhole, and slick up your hair, and blow a little perfume out of the atomizer nil over yourself, and throughout tho evening even-ing you would overflow with bright anecdotes and be so racy and charming i lhal utter you had gone away everybody j would say: "What a perfectly delightful man Mr. Perkins isl What good company!" com-pany!" Now let us Bee, sir, how you entertain your wife You stand in front of tho fire and pick your teeth with a wooden toothpick until she starts to put the children chil-dren to bed, and every now and then you make a few cheerful remarks about the scarcity of money aud the general cussedness of children who run through shoes and clothes bo fast. When the time conies that all is still and everything every-thing nicely adapted for a chat or a game, you draw out your miserable newspaper and begin lo read. And you read that paper all to yourself, word for word, and line for line, straight through from editorial edi-torial to market report, as if it contained the secret of youth, wealth and eternal salvation! In tho Bam e way ono might drink soda water by the pailful, or consume con-sume caramels by the ton! Newspapers, read by husbands in selfish solitude, are answerable for many wifely heartaches. How many good stories und racy unecdotcs do ymi tell your wife to make her laugh? I low many roses do you pin on your coat and how cureful are you of your appearance in the long evenings, when there is nobody by but her to be caplivaled by your charms and bewildered by your manly beauty? There is just exactly us much excuse for her (and a little more, it may be.) if her dress is slatternly and her hair unti.y as there is for you, and there is precioiu little for either of you. You excuse your indifference und neglect and the withdrawal of fond und foolish additions, just us dear to her at forly us at twenty, with the thought: ,-0. well, she knows I lovo her; what's the use if 'spinming' ut our age?" By and by there will roineu lime when you ihall see her lying in her coSlin. perhaps, and you would sell your woul that day to lie able to whine uwuy long years of cold neglect with the manifestation of the love that was always in your heart, certainly, cer-tainly, but carefully kept on ice. Call it 'spooning. " if you like, or uny other name of contempt, but 1 tell you there is nothing i;o sad iu all life's history as the vanished opportunity to manifest a love for which some friend went hungry through Blow years of undemuustrativo and stupid reserve. Amber in Chicago Tri buna |