"But what is one to do? Supposing all these things are true--supposing you suffer from all these wrongs."
"Did you ever right a wrong by setting it before your husband in this way, and at these times?"
"No."
"Did you ever improve your condition?"
"No. But what would you do?"
"Shut up. Dip deep into silence. In the first place, when you find you have poor material, take extra care in the cooking; study the art; use all the skill you can acquire, and finally, if that won't do, if it positively won't--if you can't make a decent dish out of him, open the kitchen door, and heave him into the ash-barrel, and the ash-man will cart him away."
I have traveled a little in my life, and have been entertained in various households. I have seen wives who deserve crowns of laurel, to compensate for the crown of thorns they have worn for years; but I have seen others, who had thorns about them indeed, but they themselves were not on the sharp end. Some of these stupid, ignorant women fancied they were doing everything possible to make home pleasant, and wondered at their failure. There they sat, prodding their husbands with hat-pins, and grieved over the poor wretches' irritability.
I recall a conversation I once overheard. The husband arrived just at dinner time. The wife heard him come in, and called to him in a faint, dying voice, from the top of the stairway-"George, is that you?"
The answer was spiritless.
"Yes."
The wife came downstairs.
"Well, then, we can have dinner. I don't know that it's ready, though; Bridget has had a toothache all day, and she's just good-for-nothing."
All this in the same faded tone of voice.
The husband passed into the parlor, and began to read the paper.
The weary tongue of his feminine partner wagged on, in a dreary sort of way.
"I think these girls are so foolish; they haven't a bit of pluck. I've been trying to persuade her to go to the dentist's and have her teeth out, but she won't. I'm just tired to death to-night, and there's no end to the work; Bridget has been moaning around all day--why her teeth----"
"Oh, bother her teeth!"
"Why, don't you care to hear anything that goes on at home, George?"
"I don't care to hear about teeth that go on at home; Bridget's teeth especially. I don't care a rap for the whole set."