MRS. DIBBLE.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 752, 12 April 1877, Page 3

MRS. DIBBLE.

A Domestic . Sketch. > (Frem the .'. Danbury News.')

She was five. Dibble 1 was an elder and a saint. He resided iri the State of Matrimony, city of Salt Lake. He married Mrs Dibble solely for the glory of God and with the benevolent view of conducting her to heaven.

Dibble was already a saint. What Dibble was now, the Mrs Dibbles were encouraged to hope they might through obedience and grace become —in the hereafter. When a woman leads a man along the road to glory, it is with a gentle persuasiveness, a hopefulness, and a calm persistency beautiful to contemplate and refreshing to remember ; but when a man attempts taking a woman thither it is with a pull hete and a jerk there, a general admonition, and a special adjuration, and the chances are ten to one they both early fall into the ditch. What must be the discomforts and liabilities when the man undertakes getting five Women skyward, also 36 small children ! It was impossible for Dibble to pack the [party upon any single flowery bed of ease, even though it had been a " double " bed, and sailing through" bloody seas would have been a mere holiday excursion compared to footing it as he found' himself forced to do, over a thorny road in the face of the wind with the five and three dozen clinging to his coat-skirts. Had they, indeed, clung with any degree of persistency, the task had been less onerous, but there were all sorts of Gentile knes and Sinners's crossroads leading off from the Saint's highway, and his little flock were much inclined to turn therein. No wonder Dibble was often observed to lift his hat and reflectively wipe the perspiration from his brow. Dibble was a little man with skyblue eyes, and a ring of yellow hair encircling a shiny bald crown. He was good-natured, tender-hearted, ease-loving. Had his lines fallen in the same direction with some one smart Eastern woman, he would have made a model husband, one who would have thrown out baywindows from the cottage of love upon request, introduced cupboards and clothes presses ad libitum, and beea a comiort and blessing, diflus-

ing a beneficent radiance through an imperfectly illuminated, atmosphere. But the perversities of Fate 11led ,li i m .West and into . "thropy. The East lost, but doubtless gained—gained 36 in the aggregate a,t least. Dibble's residence was a long, low building, with five, front doors, each of which bore a plate simply but significantly, " Dibble." . In the back yard' five revolving clotheslines squeaked and creaked melodiously through all the November nights,* and flapped their wet pennons as signals of domestic thrift through the March mornings. Here, too, were ; five little flower patches which Dibble often observed with a (ouch of emotion, thinking how each patch corresponded to the character of its owner. Mrs Dibble, senior, devoted hers to sage and camomile. Mrs Augusta Dibble went in for double petunias of the variegated variety, while Mrs Soph rbnia Dibble displayed five morning glories twining around one bean pole. Dibble brushed away a tear before this delicate tribute of Sophronia's; it was like Sophronia herself, poetical. The Masters Dibble each owned a dog, making in all eighteen dogs, mostly' black and tab terriers. The Misses Dibble each owned a cat, .making three and three-fifths cats to each door step. Lack of responsibility for the two-fifths cat when associated with pantry windows and meat safes, that'were not safe, occa- : sioned much dMcal'ty* tt wasn't the series of warlike skirmishes growing out of the domestic'complications that were of themselves alarming, but the fact thereby developed that Dibole was no longer master of the situation. It was a spectacle to draw tears from the heart of a boulder—the little man standing perplexed and distressed, in the common sitting--room, room sacred in design to domestic concord, his. breast torn by the conflicting, emotions of five husbands ond fathers united in one, the five factions in independent little groups, surrounding him and presenting their grievances with tears and entreaties. Unable to reconcile opposing testimony, unable to mete out either satisfaction or justice to any one, what did Dibble but turn and flee?

When the ruler proves inadequate j for his position, the populace gene-1 rally " rise." Dibble's populace rose. All the volume of the Mississipi lay behind the first crevasse of insubor. dination, and Dibble's plantation was soon laid waste, the husbandand father stranded on a hillock, pensively surveying the ruins o'er, and dependent for the construction of a raft upon suclr drift wood as might chance to float by. In his extremity he hit upon the expedient of ! dividing his family and building each of the five feminine heads a separate residence. Then behold , Dibble following up five sets of carpentsrs and in turn being followed up by five sets of masons, harrassed by women declaring they're going to have clothes-presses and cupboards at certain definite points, and architects declaring they can't, by plumbers who first come too early and then profanely refuse to come until they get ready, and by painters and paper-hangers who come and go as inclination or interest dictates. When at last the houses were completed and the windows that wouldn't open had been coaxed, and the doors that wouldn't shut had been cajoled, and the three "wives of that apostate Catholic, Patrick Doherty, had cleared out shavings and mortar; then Dibble, in company with Mrs Dibble, five days promenaded carpet stores and upholsterers' shops, selecting furniture that should suit the varied tastes of the various Mrs Dibble.

At the completion of this work, Dibble was laid up for a season. Mrs Dibble, liks a faithful wife, mirsed him herself. Mrs Dibble was a hydropath, a homeopath, an allopath, a steaniopath and a root-and-herbist. Dibble was put through each of these systems, thoroughly, because each Mrs Dibble desired to prove her own course of treatment superior to that of her —her corncompanion in arms. Dibble rose from that couch a weaker if not a wiser man.

He still tried to do his duty—his duty being not so much what we call "hard" as preplezing. Now, first, he obtained a " realizing sense" of the nature and extent or" domestic obligations. Heretofore his family altar, though broad, had been but one; the five lather begat a sense of diffusion and distraction. It was like running from altar to altar with the sacred fire between a wobbling pair of tongs, dropping fire at every step, and receiving a trail of smoke in your eyes.

Often and often as Dibble, on a fine morning, stood drawing on his gloves, deeply inhaling the sweet air, and thinking what a blessed thing is life, then would a messenger appear from the East, announcing that Mrs Dibble's child was in convulsions, and he must come at once, bringing with him a bottle of soothing syrup. Hardly would Dibble have inquired about how old a child it was, when a messenger would appear from the "West, notifying him that something about Mrs Dibble's house needed his immediate attention, and while he hesitated, lo ! a voice wonld arise fri-m the South proclaiming that Mrs Dibble herself was ill, and echo out of the North would announce that Mrs Dibble had commands for him. Desperately, Dibble would plunge away towards some intermedial* point, and gradu-

ally would gather around him two dofcen and two, each with irreverent gesture, crying out, «• Give ns a fip, guv*nor!"' , ; Impracticable as wasrepose in the bosom of .his family, equally impossible was success in devotion to business. In addition to a mind; ill at ease because of th e consciousness of| unfulfilled and irreconcilable duties, and a fearfullookjng forward to the judgment of Mrs Dibble, was that constant intrusion of domestic affairs, by way of notes and messengers, significant of an ill-ordered household.

Dibble was philosophical. We're all inclined to be philosophical according to the degree of discipline we've in life passed through. Dibble was very philosophical. What, he asked himself, could he do to divert Mrs Dibble's attention 1 He ordered from the East five copies of the « Flute of Fashion,' also five of the 'Cosmopolitan.' This more upon the face of it looked specious. It proved an attempt to quench fire by casting on petroleum. Petroleum is a thin, colorless liquid, by the inexperienced easily mistaken for water. (7o be continued in our next.)