Sunday, May 9, 2010

"If your husband looks grave, let him alone; don't disturb or annoy him."

This excerpt from Hearts of Fire by Kemp Battle is by a woman who doesn't agree with the maxim, "If your husband looks grave, let him alone; don't disturb or annoy him."

Oh, pshaw! When I'm married, the soberer my husband looked, the more fun I'd rattle about his ears. "Don't disturb him!" I guess so! I'd salt his coffee - and pepper his tea - and sugar his beefsteak - and tread on his toes - and hide his newspaper - and sew up his pockets - and put pins in his slippers - and dip his cigars in water - and wouldn't stop for the Great Mogul, till I had shortened his face to my liking. Certainly he'd "get vexed," there wouldn't be any fun teasing him if he didn't, and that would give his melancholy blood a good healthful start, and his eyes would snap and sparkle, and he'd say, "Fanny, will you be quiet or not?" and I should laugh and pull his whiskers, and say, decidedly, "Not!" and then I should tell him I hadn't the slightest idea how handsome he looked when he was vexed, and then he would pretend not to hear the compliment - but would pull up his dickey, and take a sly peep in the glass (for all that!) and then he'd begin to grow amiable, and get off his stilts, and be just as agreeable all the rest of the evening as if he wasn't my husband, and all because I didn't follow that stupid piece of advice, "to let him alone." Just as if I didn't know! Just imagine me, Fanny, sitting down on a cricket in the corner, with my forefinger in my mouth, looking out the sides of my eyes, and waiting till that man got ready to speak to me? You can see at once it would be -- be--. Well, the amount of it is, I shouldn't do it.

Fanny Fern

Tomorrow you can read how Chris and I handle this sort of interaction in our marriage!

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