“How would you like it if I dropped bits of tobacco, or ashes, and maybe burnt matches for you to pick up?” he asked his wife.
“You couldn’t come inside my house if you used tobacco,” she always replied. And she would get quite excited at the mere thought of such an untidy habit.
And then Rusty would smile—but he always took good care not to let his wife see him.
“Don’t worry!” he would say, if she became too stirred up. “I’ve never smoked yet—and I never expect to.”
One can see that Rusty Wren was somewhat of a tease. And as it usually happens with people who amuse themselves at the expense of others, there came a time when Rusty’s teasing landed him in trouble.
One day after he had come home from an excursion to the pasture (he seldom strayed so far from home as that!), Mrs. Rusty began sniffing the air. Her nose would have wrinkled—only it couldn’t, because it was so hard. She looked at her husband suspiciously. And it seemed to her that he had a guilty manner.
“I declare,” she said, “I believe you’ve been smoking.” And she started to scold so angrily that Rusty Wren knew she must be in a temper.
Seeing signs of trouble, Rusty began to fidget. And he moved about so uneasily that his wife was all the surer of his guilt. She stopped right in the middle of her scolding to say, “I smell smoke!”
“Perhaps you do,” Rusty admitted. “But it’s certainly not tobacco smoke.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed. “Then you’ve been smoking corn-silk, or hayseed—and that’s almost as bad.”