The Gentle Art of Cooking WivesWorthington, Elizabeth Strong
General
The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives
Worthington, Elizabeth Strong
Marriage
Once in a while it occurs to the rebellious that things might have
been made a trifle easier. For instance, if only one had to walk
miles to meet the tempter, or if only he had the decency and dignity
to demand that we meet him half way, instead of coming all the way
himself and invading the privacy of our very homes. If only he would
wear his horns and tail all the time, that we might know him on sight
and realize what we are about when we go under, instead of slinking in
clothed as an angel of light. Not that the Andersonvilles, as Nannie
called the mother and son Anderson, looked like angels of light. On
the contrary, they were as ugly as the evil one, but they were without
horns or tails, and so not easily recognizable as that particular and
very reprehensible person. And Nannie was lured by them to let loose
her spirit of mischief.
We have mentioned neighbors once or twice before. Now, the biblical
definition of neighbor covers a wide field, and all experience will
bear me out in an assertion, that apart from numbers the word stands
for all sizes, shapes, and varieties of human being. Nowadays most of
us whisper the term crazy, realizing that we ourselves are liable to
be caught up and incarcerated under that head. Nevertheless within
ourselves we know that some of those about us--and we could point them
out if we were asked--are trying to pass off cracked brains for sound
ones.
Before Steve and Nannie had been domiciled more than a fortnight in
their new abode, where they had fancied that their living was to be of
the best, a fly appeared in the ointment, a fly which directly proved
to be out of its mind--in other words, they discovered that they had
crazy neighbors. Let no one understand me to signify by this the kind
of crazy person who seizes you by the hair and brandishes his fist in
your face, declaring that your hour has come. That is one variety, to
be sure, an unpleasant variety, too; but there are others. If it came
to a matter of weeding out all those whose brains were slightly out of
gear, most of us could appear in court with a batch of crazy
neighbors, thereby depriving a city of some of its principal men and
society of some of its chief ornaments.
No one would like to do this, but when the crack in a neighbor's
brains widens so as to seriously upset his notions of other people's
rights, then he is bound to become not dangerous necessarily, but
certainly troublesome, and some step must be taken in self-defense.
As Steve learned too late, he stood upon contested ground. The former
owner being now in the insane asylum, and having, before she became
unbalanced, deeded the property to her husband (who had subsequently
sold it to Steve), she was temporarily out of the way, but it seemed
that by some oversight she had left outside a mother and a brother,
whom she should have taken in with her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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