“There’s the door bell,” he exclaimed, inwardly relieved at the idea of an escape-valve; “now I suppose I shall be talked deaf by that silly Mrs. Jones and her daughter, or bored by that stupid Mr. Forney; it’s very strange that a man can not enjoy his family one evening free from interruption.”
No such thing—Mr. Wade was cheated out of a fresh growl; the new arrival being a carpet-bag, and its accessory, Mr. John Doe, a brother-growler, whom Mr. Wade would rather have seen, if possible, than a new gold dollar. Mr. John Doe, as sallow as a badly-preserved pickle, and about as sweet—a man all nerves and frowns—a walking thunder-cloud, muttering vengeance against any thing animate, or inanimate, which had the temerity to bask in the sunshine. Mr. John Doe, a worse drug than any in his apothecary’s shop, who believed in the eternal destruction of little dead babies; turned the world into one vast charnel-house, and reversed the verdict of Him who pronounced it “very good.”
“Ah—how d’ye do—how dy’e do?” said Mr. Wade, with an impromptu lugubrious whine, as Mr. Doe ran his fingers through his grizzled locks, and deposited his time-worn carpet-bag in the corner; “it is pleasant to see a friend.”
“Thank you, thank you,” replied Mr. Doe, lowering himself as carefully into his chair as if he was afraid his joints would become unriveted; “there’s no knowing how many more times you may have to say that; these sudden changes of weather are dreadful underminers of a man’s constitution. Traveling, too, racks me to pieces; I can’t sleep in a strange bed, nor get any thing I can eat when I wake, my appetite is so delicate;—sometimes I think it don’t make much difference—we are poor creatures—begin to die as soon as we are born—how do you do, Mr. Wade? You look to me like a man who is going to have the jaundice, eye-balls yellow, etc.—any appetite?”
“Not much,” said Mr. Wade, unbuttoning his lower vest button, under which were snugly stowed away a pile of buttered toast, three cups of tea, and preserved peaches enough to make a farmer sick—“not much;—a man who works as hard as I do, gets too exhausted to eat when it comes night, or if he does, his food does not digest; how’s your family?”
“So, so,” muttered Doe, with an expressive shrug; “children are a great care, Mr. Wade, a great care—my John don’t take that interest in the drug business that I wish he did; he always has some book or other on hand, reading; I am afraid he never will be good for any thing; your book-worms always go through the world, knocking their heads against facts. I shouldn’t wonder, after all my care, if he turned out a poor miserable author; sometimes I think what is to be, will be, and there’s no use trying.”
“Is not that fatalism?” quietly interposed Mrs. Wade, blushing the next moment that she had so far departed from “The Married Woman’s Guide,” as to question an opinion which her husband had indorsed by his silence. “Children are a great care, ’tis true, but it always seemed to me that the care brought its own sweet reward.”
Mr. Doe wheeled round to look in the face this meek wife, whose disappointed heart, turning to her children for that comfort which she had in vain looked for from her husband, could ill brook that the value of this coveted treasure should have such depreciating mention.
“Pshaw! what signify words?” said her husband. “I hate argument; besides, women can’t argue—every body knows that; and every body knows that if a man wants his children to do, or be, one thing, they are sure to do, or be, just the opposite. I’ve no doubt it will turn out just so with ours; there is no counting on ’em. In my day, if a man was a farmer, his son was a farmer after him, and never thought of being any thing else. Nowadays, children have to be consulted as to ‘their bent.’ Fudge—fiddlestick; their bent is for mischief and dodging work, and a tight rein and a good smart rod is the best cure for it.”