MR. BUSBY’S HOUSEKEEPING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 233, 26 February 1876, Page 22

MR. BUSBY’S HOUSEKEEPING.

(From the Danbury Neivs.) Mr. Busby has been married five years, and all that time he and his wife have boarded. It was on the Ist of October that he firmly made up his mind to keep house. A neat cottage was secured, the furniture bought, and they settled down like a pair of sixteen dollar doves. Last Thursday afternoon the farmer of whom Busby had engaged his potatoes for the winter brought him two barrels of those excellent vegetables and also a barrel of apples. He knew that Busby was new at the business, and that be was a good-natured man, so he told Mrs. Busby that he had a sore finger, and was in a hurry and would not be able to take the barrels down cellar. And he left them by the hatchway. Here Busby found them when he came home in the evening. Arming his wife with the lamp, he proceeded in no pleasant frame of mind to bring the stuff in. She held the light in the cellanvay while he tusselled with the barrels, and as the wind came through the door, she was obliged to screen the light by shading it from that side. Whenever he got a barrel in a particularly critical position, an extra gust of wind would come down the stairway, and up would go her hand to the flame, throwing both him. and the barrel into the shade. Then he would look over his shoulder at her and say : “ Wliat in mercy’s name are you about, Mary Jane ?” It was a tough job for Mr. Busby. His hands were tender from indoor employment, and in their contact with the barrel were sadly worsted. The lower chimes of the barrel would catch on the step as he was sliding it down, and when he let go to see what was the trouble, it would suddenly come along of its own accord and butt him in the stomach with such force as to nearly deprive him of his breath, or it would slip on his foot and cause him to howl dreadfully with pain. Then he took hold of the apples. They came dreadfully hard. He pushed and pulled, and turned them to the left and then to the right, and puffed and perspired, and swore and screamed, but he couldn’t get the apples down from the top step. He was struggling with all his might with that barrel. His hat had fallen off, his eyes were almost bursting from their sockets, his breath came fast and heavy. He had both arms around it, and was straining with all his might to move it. He only spoke once. Then he said : “Why don’t you come up here with that lamp so I can see something, and not be standing down there grinning like an idiot ?” lit is but justice to explain that Mrs. Busby was not grinning at all ; on the contrary, it would- be difficult to have crowded as much gravity into the same space as was expressed in her countenance. She stepped up the stair promptly. Then Mr. Busby gave a desperate, maddening pull, and the barrel came. The transformation from a dogged, obstinate barrel to a headstrong, impetuous barrel, was remarkable. Mr. Busby tried to save himself by yelling “ Woosh !” but he was too late ; and the next instant, himself, his wife, the lamp, the barrel and the apples, in. a confused mass, went revolving down the stairway and sprawling across the cellar. Fortunately the light was extinguished at the first move, but the lamp was broken and its contents pretty evenly distributed over the other objects. Mr. Busby was driven under a wheelbarrow, and Mrs. Busby, after being bucked twice in the head by the barrel, brought up with vehemence against an old stove, knocking it completely off its legs and smashing in the oven door. Mrs, Busby scrambled to her feet at once. “John!” she exclaimed, “where are you ? are you hurt ?” “ None of your business,” came in a halfsuppressed voice out of the darkness. “ Why, John, what is the matter with you ?” “What did you come up them steps for ?” he demanded, in intense passion. “ Why, you told me to.” “ What if I did ?” cried the unhappy man, “ Didn’t you know any better than to stand there ?” Confounded by this direct question, she could make no answer, and with a certain feeling of triumph he stalked up stairs and thence to bed. There is a nice little cottage on Schuylerstreet to rent. Mr. and Mrs. Busby are boarding again.