CHAPTER X.
SHIRT BUTTONS.
IN a previous chapter, I gave the reader one of the Experiences of my sister's husband, Mr. John Jones. I now give another.
There was a time in my married life, (thus Mr. Jones writes, in one of his "Confessions,") when I was less annoyed if my bosom or wristband happened to be minus a button, than I am at present. But continual dropping will wear away a stone, and the ever recurring buttonless collar or wristband will wear out a man's patience, be he naturally as enduring as the Man Of Uz.
I don't mean by this, that Mrs. Jones is a neglectful woman. Oh, no! don't let that be imagined for a moment. Mrs. Jones is a woman who has an eye for shirt buttons, and when that is said, a volume is told in a few words.
But I don't care how careful a wife is, nor how good an eye she may have for shirt buttons, there will come a time, when, from some cause or other, she will momentarily abate her vigilance, and that will be the very time when Betty's washing-board, or Nancy's sad-iron, has been at work upon the buttons.
For a year or two after our marriage, I used to express impatience, whenever, in putting on a clean shirt, I found a button gone. Mrs. Jones, bore this for a while without exhibiting much feeling. But it fretted her more than she permitted any one to see. At length, the constant recurrence of the evil—I didn't know as much then as I do now—annoyed me so that I passed from ejaculatory expressions of impatience into more decided and emphatic disapprobation, and to "Psha!" and "there it is again!" and the like were added:
"I declare, Mrs. Jones, this is too bad!" or
"I've given up hoping for a shirt with a full complement of buttons—" or