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Feilding Star, 13 March 1888, Page 3

Ar.e you aware there are no buttons _ upon my shirt, Mrs Grumble ? Geebupiter! why you've ironed it the wrong ''side out, but that is too insignificant a matter for you to be bothered with. No, you have a higher mission than that of attending to your husband's comforts ; you are to attend a washing and, ironing bee (where doubtless you will be the presiding genius) in aid of the Luxurious Mendicant and Helpless Sprendthrift Relief Fund; Don't I think women have a mission to perform ? Yes, I do, and it is about as high class as a man's was *vhom I once dropped across. I wasn't married then, Ma-am, but was sitting in .my whare upon the station where I was at that time employed. I had bored a hole in the floor of the whare to facilitate the escape of the water when I scrubbed it, and to save mopping it up, when a new hand came to share my abode. A light hearted careless looking young man he was when he. entered until his eye caught the sight of that hole, then he gave a start, became serious, and his visage lengthened \o as gloomily responsible a. look as a statesman whose financial budget shows a large deficit. When I asked him the cause of his sudden change of demeanour, "I have found my mission," he placidly observed. I speculated long and fruitlessly as to what Mb mission was. Day after day he became moodier and moodier, silent and more silent. Every night, when his work was done, he used to draw up a three-legged stool near to that hole, sit down on it the stool), and expectorate. I began to be thankful for that hole for it acted as a drain. :Wh> did'nt I exposulate with him about making such a mess ? I respected his feelings, Ma- am, feelings he could'nt subdue, but which acquired such mastership over him that at last he could not come within a chain of the whare, but he had to run inj and spit on the floor. He took to chewing bacca to keep up the supply in the forces he was draining, and which he distributed upon the floor so copiously that the atmosphere within became quite humid, the books and clothes grew mouldy, and it took half an hour to light a candle, owing to the dampness of the wick, while he himself had the appearance of a salted hide on a rainy day. At length ene night he came home, with a double supply of expectorations, he having taken a cargo of fluid oh board previously, and; seating himself upon the stool, he spat away furiously. I had fallen asleep an hour or so, when I was awakened by a blood curdling whoop. I saw this missionary in a frenzied dance, and to my enquiry, I could get from him only. the incoherent expression, " I have achieved it ! I have achieved it !" Ultimately he turned towards me, and, with an air of triumph, said, v I haise accomplished my mission. I have spat in -tKB v hole." Then he rushed wildly from the whare, and the next day was found drowned in a gravel pit. What do you say, Mrs G. ? A case of misdirected energy ? Yes, it was, and yours is the same. Not that you are alone in such an effort; there are numbers like you who believe they were ordained to effect some striking regeneration in mankind, so neglect the ordinary duties for which they are fitted, to flash in some fashionable philantrophy, and think they are effacing some deep rift in society's bosom, when they are but spitting in a hole; but go, Madam, upon your lofty mission, while the neighbors point significantly at your husband, and whisper to each other, I am sure poor Old Grumble is a button short. Old Grumble.