HOUSEKEEPERS' TRIALS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2478, 14 August 1903, Page 6

HOUSEKEEPERS' TRIALS.

None of them bad been married very long and their interests in the mysteries of housekeeping had not died out. - " What is the most awful thing whieh ever happened to you since yon kept house?" asked the dark-eyed girl. The group sighed as one woman. "We haven't time to tell," they chorused. "I think," spoke up the prettiest one, " that the time I most wanted to crawl under the rug and just die in ionesomeneas was at my first card party. Five tables had been served with ice oream when it gave out. There were eight tables." " Why I never knew that!" cried her husband, who was on the outskirt of the bevy. "Of course not 1" she flushed. " Ton happened to be at the second table, and when 1 saw you placidly patting away the ioe cream while your guests down the room were starving I—l came near disliking you] " " What did you do ?" asked the other women. "Oh," she said, "I just told them brutally that the ice cream bad given out and they couldn't have any. What else could Ido 7 1 felt as though red-hot needles were sticking into me when I did it, too." " Tom brought a man home to dinner one night," remintßcenlly said the bookworm of the crowd. "Of course it was on a day when the cook had left and there wasn't a thing to eat,but I believed in doing my duty as a wife, so I smiled and smiled and got hold of a beefsteak by threatening to massacre the butcher's boy,who wanted to deliver it at the flat above, where it had been ordered, but I was desperate. Well, I put that steak in the broilei and held it over the coals—we didn't have a gas stove. It was slow work, so I picked up the evening paper and began reading it. As I read I turned the broiler over and over constantly, for I remembered mother saying when yon broil meat it must be done on both sides. I was in the middle of the most interesting article when I noticed I was choking to death. My dean, that kitchen was smoking like a steam engine, and the steak—well, the charred bits were just kind of rattling around in the bioiler. I gave Tom aod the man breakfast bacon." " Have yoa ever gone down in a bath robe, with your hair like a wild Indian's, to answer the postman's ung, and discovered it was your wealthy maiden aunt or your dearest enemy come to call on yoa f ' asked the blonde " Or complained to the janitor about the noise yoor neighbor's children were making in the court, only to be told the howling little savages were your own darlings T " supplemented the mother of three. " Or had three people ' just drop in to dinner,' when your meal was prepared for two—with small appetites 7 " " Or," said the prettiest one in a lowered voice and a glance at her husband, "has your mother in-law come to see yon when you.had forgotten to dust the piano, and the pie-crust would have been just the thing to make nice durable rubber boots 7 " There was a sympathetic silence, " Anyhow,' sighed the one who had started the discussion, " it's better than bearding! " And every one looked more cheerful.