Mr. Smith's Wife.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1695, 24 July 1875, Page 6 (Supplement)

Mr. Smith's Wife.

BY AMY BA-NDOLr-H.

Mbs. Smith, I am astonished at you.' Now this was not by any means a general assertion. In fact, according to his own statement, John Smith was ' astonished ' at his wife, at least once a day, on an average. Mrs. Smith was used to it.

She was a tall, slight woman, scarcely more than a girl in years, with shining brown hair, large dark eyes, and cheeks that had been as pink as sea-shells in the days of her happy maiden-]ife. They were white and wasted now—a circumstance that might be easily accounted for by the little babe on her lap, and the two-year-old elf, who was tottering about the room in aimless pursuit of kittens, sunbeams and other baby delights.

'Things are all sixes and sevens,' went on Mr. Smith, tying his cravat before the mirror, and viciously twitching it into a knot. ' Coal wasted, butter thrown into the soap-grease jar, dish-towels taken for stove-cloths, and my third-best pants sold to a dealer in tinware for a funnel, and two pie platters. A funnel, Mrs Smith, and two pie-platters! I never heard anything so outrageous in all my life.' ' But, my dear,' meekly interposed the much enduring wife ' we needed the tinware, and you had not worn the garments for a year. They were full of moths.' 'There it is again,' said Mr. Smith. * The moth would never have got into 'em if you had taken proper precautions. I never heard of a moth in my mother's time. And now you are actually asking permission to visit your brother up the Hudson.'

• I have not been away from home before since we were married, John,' piteously pleaded Mrs. Smith. 'I feel almost worn out, I think the change would do me good.'

• And what is to become of me ?' sonorously demanded the husband. MrSt John Smith thought of the day's masonic excursion last week, the troutfishing expedition into the Catskills a fortnight since, the races at Jerome Park, and the drives to High Bridge with Parker, Betts and Frisbee, in an open barouche, all within the month. But she said nothing, except: •It don't cost much" to go, John. I'll only stay a week. Do let me go ! The doctor says the fresh air might help baby along witn his teeth, and little Johnnie is drooping this hot weather. 'Well,' said Mr. Smith, as ungraciously as possible, ' I suppose you'll have to go. Five dollars at least it will cost me, and altogether our expenses are ruinous this year. See how Georgiana Trotter manages for her husband. I don't suppose it costs them half to live that it does us. I might have married Georgiana Trotter once. I almost wish I had.'

It was on Mrs Smith's lips to utter * So do I!' But she looked at the children, and was silent

• Yes,' went on Mr Smith, ' I suppose you must go. Only, for pity's sake, don't get into the habit of run —running all the time. I needn't send up anything from the butcher's I suppose. I shall dine down town, and there'll be enough left on the cold knuckle of yerterday's ham for you.' Mrs. Smith abstained from reminding her husband that he had himself breakfasted on the remains of the ham. She only sighed, and was silent. ' It's bis way,' she thought. 'He means well enough. And I suppose all men are so. Only I wish he had kissed me good-bye.' Woman nature all over ! She could do without her dinner contentedly, eating a crust of bread in the stead, but her heart yearned hungrily for the omitted caress, the ignored words of tenderness. Poor Mrs. John Smith! How the strongminded of her sex would have pitied and despised her. Np light, no fire! It was dreary enough, on that chill August evening, as Mr. Smith screwed his night-key into tbe latch ,and groped his way into the hall. He sat down in the bay window, and stared about the vacant room. There was his wife's work-basket on the table, her little rocking chair standing vacant beside it, while Johnny's forgotten rattle lay on the floor close by. • It's very lonely,' muttered Mr. Smith, with something of a shiver. 'I hope Jenny won't stay Ijng.' And as he lighted his cigar and whiffed away, a guilty sense of his own shortcomings came upon him. ' It must have been rather a stupid life for her here, poor little thing!' thought he. ' I might have come home early to keep her company a great many times, which I didn't. She bad to sew a great deal for the children, I wish I had bought her a sewing-machine when she asked for one. Allison used to bring up fruit and flowers for his wife every evening. I wonder I never thought of it for Jenny. And now I come to reflect on the matter, Jenny has grown thin and pale of late.' He moved bis chair uneasily, and emitted a thread of blue, spicy smoke from his pipe, very much as if he were not enjoying it particularly. ' I suppose they are at Bilberry farm by this time,' said he to himself. ' I suppose the younkers are in bed and Jenny is sitting out on the piazza, listening to the whippo-wils. I've almost a mind to go out there myself to-morrow evening, and take some peaches and bananas and things. It would be a pleasant surprise for Jenny, and—hallo ! what's that! A ring at the bellP'

Flinging his cigar into the unused grate, John Smith shuffled along to the door in his slippers. • O—a telegram ! Now I wonder who should telegruph to me 1' ' Well,' said, the shivering and raindrenched messenger,' p'raps you'd better open it and see. Anyway, I've no call to hang round here no longer.'

And off he went, while Mr. Smith carried his buff envelope back to the parlour light, and somewhat nervously tore it open.

CoWDBEY, August—,—. To John Smith: Railroad accident. Your wife is killed, and your child dangerously hurt. Come by the next train. Jared Meredith, M.D.

Again and again Mr. Smith's bewildered eyes roved over the contents of this appalling missive before he could fully comprehend its deadly meaning. * Dead 'Killed:!* he muttered to him- .... ■■ \- -m . , : ,i ••■ *

self. 'My Jenny killed by a railroad accident?'

And then, catching a railway guide from the book-shelf, he whirled over its ieaves with a trembling hand. The next train did not leave the t jrminus under an hour and a half. An hour and a half < To him the time seemed almost like eternity. How could he endure this awful agony of soul for an hour and a half?

' Perhaps they are incorrect,' he muttered to himself, wiping the beads of cold sweat from his brow. ' People can't always judge exactly in such a moment of dismay. Perhaps she is only badly hurt, and I can nurse her through it after all. My Jenny! my loving, patient, sweet-eyed wife !' A strong sob rose up into his throat, as if it would strangle him. ■ No, no, she is killed !' he gasped as his eye fell once more on the telegram. ' Dead ! And I can never speak to her again, or tell her what a cruel, exacting brute I have been ! God knows I didn't mean it, and now it is too late to make amends. Why didn't the children go too? How can I bring them up without Jenny?' His head drooped low in his quivering hands ; a low spasmodic groan burst from his pale lips. An hour and a half before he could go to Jenny; half an hour, then, before he could look upon her dead face ! For Cowdrey was an insignificant way-side station, some eight or ten miles up the road.

'If I could only live my life over again !' he cried aloud to the bare walls, while tight in his arms he clasped Jenny's little work-basket, with its strip of unfinished hemming —all that was left to him of the fair, departed presence 'If I could only speak to her just once, and ask her forgiveness for a thousand things. But now it is too late —too late, and—'

He stopped abruptly. The sound of a hack driving hastily up to the door, the reiterated jerk of the bell-wire roused him once more into reluctant action.

' John ! dear John !' ' Jenny ! my wife !'

He stood, pale and stupefied, staring at her as if she were actually a ghost returned from the regions of space and unreality. ' There has been a terrible railroad accident!' said Jenny, her voice faltering, as she laid the baby down on a sofa, and took little Johnnie lovingly on her lap—' a few miles beyond Cowdrey. Three or four people were killed, but, thank God, we escaped unhurt ? Of course, I took the first train back that I could, for I knew you would hear of it and be uneasy. And only think, dear, there was a poor mother killed, with her little babe in her arms, and her name was the same as mine—' Mrs. John Smith.' He pointed one trembling finger to the telegram, which lay open on the table. < Mrs. Smith read it which dilated eyes and pale face. ' Oh ? my love, what a fright you have had !' she exclaimed. ' And only to reflcet, it might have been me.' * But it is not. Oh! thank Heaven, my own darling wife, it is not!' gasped the husband, holding his recovered treasure close to his heart. ' And I have yet time to live my life over again !' And from that hour, John Smith was a changed man. To Jenny it seemed almost like a millenium ; but Mrs. Georgiana Trotter turned up her nose and said : ' John Smith must be in his dotage, spending all his time and money in carriages to the park, extra help, and fine clothes for that pale-faced wife of his. John Smith always was a fool.'—' New York Ledger.'