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A Wife's Economy

A Wife's Economy image
Parent Issue
Day
28
Month
June
Year
1888
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Mr. and Mrs. Blossom wero new stars of a fine brilliancy but of small magnitude in the society of Warrensburg. Alexander Blossom and Minnie Blossom bad been married for one short year, which time seemed to them just one long summer's day. There are several married people unllke Alexandc " and Mmnie, for these were never happy exeept when they were together, and when they were together never unhappy for a moment. When Alexander came in from business he always instituted a search for the brown halred, brown eyed girl who was waiting for him. and when he began to despair she would start out of a certain passageway with a gay laugh and ask him where his eyes were. Of course, under these cireumstances, it was necessary for her to take a good, square look at his eyes to determine if they were the lame as ever, and then occurred some of those manifestations ■which foolish people cali foolishness, and which only stopped when the genial housemaid came to announce that dinner was served. Of course, the housemaid did not say, "Dinner is served;" her proclamation verbatim was, "Come, now;" but the meaning was the same. I have omitted to say that Minnie was not very tall; that she was remarkably healthy and deliciously plump. Her lips were as near bursting with fullness as cherries af ter a rain ; her f orehead was low, and her eyebrows, heavier than the ordinary, made her just so much the more magnetic. There was nothing wonderful about dei You wül comprehend Alexander at once when I say that he received $100 a mcnth, which he did notearn. However, he firmly believed that in some mysterious way his labor brought large returns to hia employers. With $100 a month the Bloesoms had to live. Fortunately, they had no rent to pay; the market books, under Minnie's care, flgured up reasonably, and the domeutic was kind enough to demand but $15 a, month. One day Alexander carne home from his alleged business looking nie and sweet, and also looking for Minnie. The latter rushed out from toe unexpected place in which she always hid, eaught him around the neck, asked him where lils eyes were, put a rapturous kiss jus below his camel' hair mustache, and cried, "What do you think?" The saj)Bcioua husband implanted a rapturous kiss Jnrt below where Minnie would have had a splendid brown mustache had she been in that line, and replied thet he didn't know. ."'e also demanded adrice as to what it wri tíy propriste to think. Minnie then explatoed that a letter had come addressed to him, that it looked like wedding eards, that she had- had opened it, and that it wasn't weddine cards rfter alL Som men, hearing of amysterious letter opened by a loving wife, would have experienced a feeling of vague unrest. Not so Alexnder. He silently weighed the merits of some hasty f aleehoods and inquired bravely what tbe letter ■was. "An invitation to join the Warrensburg Social club," said Minnie, "and I have been thinking of it all the afternoon." So she had, in her womanly way; she had been thinking what dresses she could wear. "Isn't itniee?" she cried. "Now, say we can go." "Of course we can go." The unguardedness of this answer was essentially masculine. Women, on the contrary, always begin by refusing, and afterward allo w themselves to be argued into anything whatever. "Theu you must get adress suit," said Mrs. Blossom. These were, indeed, strange words. They conveyed the revolting idea that the fashionable Alexander had nothiug in dress more formal than cutaways or Princo Alberts. How, then, had he been marriedi The planation throws hght on a very dark passage ia Mr. Biossom's llfe - hi9 dress suit had been pawned ; and worse, the time of redemptiou had expired. "I can't go," he said, resigning himself to Fate with a large F. "That's it," cried Minnie, delighted; "I've. been figuring it al] up, and you can go." Here she ran into the next room, and in one second returned with a sheet of legal cap bearing very illegal looking figures. "Now, lookatthis!" ' Alexander looked, and I have to record that he was not shocked. The figures and their method were about as nearly like those of an ordained bookkeeper as Mr. Biossom's own. "We've got to be economical for two months, you see," said Minnie. "There it is, all on paper." The indisputable document ran thus: "Grocer, $50; Jane, $15; butcher, $15; coal,, $8; everything else, $10; altogether, $78- $7& out of $100 lea ves $22 - say $20; two months $40." r "One of these suits doesn't cost more than that, does it?" she asked, confldently. i "Costs 75," replied the gloomy Alexander. "Humph!" eried Minina "Can't you manage? tf it were a $75 dress, $40 would be plenty." Alexander shook bis head. "But the club meets early in the evening,". persisted Minnie. "Couldn't you get one that would do - ready made, or something?" Alexander waa pained. He said he trusted she did not speak in earnest "Dear!" cried Minnie in despair, "whatcan. we do? We can't take boarders, and you can't be a book agent. I wish somebody' ■would leave us some mpney." "So do I," murmured! Alee with feeliug. "I know what," cried Minnie, with sudden brightness. "Don'tyouask your father for money,"! said Mr. Blossom, sternly. "I.don't intend to." Alexander seemed to tbink she might haveí been a little more wilHÚf oa this point. Bufr he tried to look much reïïeved, and issuedi another command that she was not to go ini debt. Her assent to this was immediatej Alexander had no more Jo say. The next day Minnie, in pursuance of herí idea, went by stealth to the clothing em-í porium of Warrensbnrg and demanded thd price of dress suits. The answer was %75. Bhe then asked th prioe of the cloth. Tis was a grat surpriíe to tho tailor. Hè affected to solve an iníricate problem, and unally comine out wHa a mathematicaj! flourishof hispencil, saíd: "Twenty dolían." "How much for cutüng out!" "Well," said the tailor, "hem! let me se. Yon wouldn't want it made up here, yooj think Well, coat, vest and- about $13.50." "I should like to get the cloth and the out-! ting both for $30, if you could," said Minnie, falntly. "Well." answeredjhe Uüor, patronizlngly,; rthat's its we eouIchA You can't get Engllsb goods, you know, at American prices. W have cheaper goods, but" "I should want thls," said Minnie. "Well, as the best figure on that 111 say $33. We don't maks anything on it, anyway." Mts. Blossom was not deceived, but she pretended to be, and with another exertion of courage asked for a month's credit. Then she directed the cutting to be done by Alexander's measure, already with the tailor, and the next day carried her bundie in triumph to her dressmaker. That was her idea. Her üressmaker, of course, was one of that infinite number of sewing women, found only by sheer good luck, who are called "jewels" by feminine gossips, and who charge two prices. They are said to be "reasonable" as distinguished from the real modisto. According to inmemorial usage among dressmakers, this particular "jewel" of Minnie's did not set a price, but sho said it was a "splendid plan" that she would try, and that she would make everything "satisf actory. " What can be more satisfactory than satisfactory? Minuie departed in great spirits. Time rattled on and brought the night of the club's flrst meeting. The Blossoms' acceptance had been duly sent, and Alexander had been complacently inf ormed that a dress suit would be provided. He trusted to nis wife implicitly, believing, not that in two months she would créate a wonderful novel, as ladies so easily do- in other novela - but that she would pursue the moreuseful and perhaps more womanly plan of calling on her father. Men are so tardy in conceding to their wives other than domestic virtues. But one man was about to have his masculino prejudices swept away. The important night ha ving rolled into 'Warrensburg, Minnie carne dancing down stairs in "something" the gifted dressmaker "had patched up out of nothing," and consequentially bade her dependent husband to "come up and get ready." He went. The bundie was brought out for him to open. It was a regular tailor's box (such was Minnie's craftiness) and lol on the collar of the coat was the glorif ying name of a New York tailor. Minnie, of course, had obtained the name of her father and sewed it on with her own fair hands. Alee, with a full heart, donned the suit and stood before the mirror. He cast two careful, comprehensivo glances at the trim reflection, clasped Minnie to the new coat and exclaimed in many raptures, "You darllng I It's- it's the regular thing !" "Are you satisfled?" asked the wife, wishing him to commit himself beyond retraction beíore she dirulged the low origin of the suit. "Oí course!" cried Alee warmly, wishing he were a woman, so that he could gush a little. "Satisfled? Why, it's one of Ackerman's best- that's what it is. See the way it fits. I could teil that was Ackerman a mile off." When he bad raved for ten minutes Minnie confessed the history of the suit. "So you see, after all," she said at last, "we women do know something." Mr. Blossom looked at the coat more critically, trying to detect a blemish, but he couldn't. "Are you stül satisfled?" asked Minnie. He had to admit that he was. "Now, how mueh do you suppose it cost?" Mr. Blossom couldn't tell. "Now, a taüor"- he began. "Tailor!" cried Minnie. "You mean ber. l counted on just $40, and out of that L have this suit, which you say you like, and this dress of mine. You would have paid $75 for the suit alone. To-morrow I shall go! and pay up, and I wam you that every cent' I have lef t out of the $40 I shall spend om candy, every single cent." Por Minnie had! the woman's love of extra vagance af ter all. So this was Mrs. Blossom's triumph. Noti a gentleman at the club was better dressed than her husband. They were both in raptures. Alexander especially, when he had convinced himself. that his suit did not proclaim to the world the disgraceful truth that it had been constructed by a dressmaker. The next evening, when Mr. Blossom carne, home and instituted the search for Minnie, she did not leap out at him f rom her old unthought of hiding place. She was in her' room and crying. "What's the matter?" asked Alexander. She did not reply at first, but still kept her head from him, but when she had been! wrought up to the proper state of sympathyj and alarm she cried a little more bitterlri than before, and quite unconsciously relaxed! her grasp on a piece of crumpled paper. Al-1 exander divined that this dingy serap wasi the source of the trouble, and picked it up.' It contained atrocious writing executed ini red ink, and looked like the work of a dyna-' miter. But it was not so brief. It began:j "Mrs. Blossom to Mrs. Darden, mans Dress, Suite," and af ter eighteen or twenty lines of trimmings, linings, buttons, extra clothj making, etc, culminated in "totle $89."', XJnder this "totle" llinnie had written in! trembling figures what she o wed the tailor, $33, and then she had made a "totle" of her! om. The dress suit had cost her $73. "Youhateme," shesobbed; 'you'U think; you've married a simpleton." Alexauder was not distinguished for a keen insight into human nature, but with so beautiful and appealing a creature as llinnie in tears who vvould not know the proper chord? "Simpleton!" he cried: and distrusting the' power of words alone he seized her by the waist, "sae jimp," and gleefully whisked her: about tne room, "so you want a compliment' on your financiering? You shaJl have it! You have got a thing worth ?75 for $72;! made $o by simply turning over your soinewhat dimpled hand. Simpleton, forsooth; you aru a money grubber! Take me to the! theatre, capital! and I will give the supper] afterwards. Eh? What do you think of' thatt Minnie, flying from tears to smiles, fool-i ishly thought Alexander more adorable than' (ever, and that evening at the play, althoughi it was a very fatal tragedy, they suecessfully' piaintained the highest spirits. But better' than all, when the story was related toi Minnia's fathcr, he - knowing how to strike the right cuord- immediately presented her! with a laige check as a guarantee that herj first charmins futüe eflforts at economy were' properly

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Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Register