MOLLYCODDLING.

Western Star, Issue 932, 21 March 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

MOLLYCODDLING.

Dare anybody say another single word against “ mollycoddling ” in my presence, after the following experience which I passed through at a time when my dear wife and children and all had left me for a couple of days or so to go from home ? I know there are some men who can cook a rasher of bacon, pin up the baby, and tell a fry-ing-pan from a saucc-pan right off without a moment’s consideration or confusion j but we are not all blest in the same measure, and it comes rather rough upon a poor fellow when he has so many enemies to contend with. But to my experience. How little thought I what was before me I I had assured my wife that I could do for mysc If and look after my comforts ]ust for those two or three days. Bat alas! how sadly I spoke without my book 1 may my wife and all good friends for* give me I On the memorable morning of the 18th August, 1884,1 was startled out of a severe and placid sleep by a loud ringing of the front door bell, “ Who was it p” thought IP “ The Mayor of Bristol, the High Sheriff, or half-a-dozen gentlemen who wanted to see me on important business?*’ In a state of the greatest flurry and confusion I rose, slipped on my things, and came down in the greatest haste, put a collar on, brushed my hair, and then went to the third ringing of the bell, with the coolness and impudence of a man who had washed his face in an honest, straightforward manner, and had been up an hour. “Want any salt to-day, sir—*any salt, ai ? Aw I have a ha’puff, sir, please.’’ It was a boy at the door selling salt! That boy and I are no longer friends, and the cry of salt has made the toe of my right boot tingle ever since. Salt boys are good for the cure of the gout. Here was a pretty beginning to a day’s transactions. However, I began to light the fire, but oh 1 what a dust! and oh! how I did sneeze! Heaven be praised for the great gift of woman } I’ll never commit myself again, The very fire knew I was a humbug at it, and I noticed that the cat seemed to be turning some over in her mind to her advantage. However, man conquers all things, and so at last I conquered the fire, and after washing off a few finger-marks and smuts from the point of my nose and other por* tions of my face which I had inadvertently put there, I began to cook a piece of bacon. Now, man is but man, and there’s an end even to a philosopher’s patience, and when I turned for a single moment and then turned back again and found I had nothing on my fork, I began naturally to inquire, “ What had become of the bacon?” One look downwards, and there I saw my rasher among the ashes under the grate —yes, actually among Leonard and Boult’s coal ashes under the grate. 1 don't know why I should have given the cat a kick just then which sent her up in the air, but really a fellow must do something under circumstances of such extraor* dinary provocation. However, even storms end, and so I concluded that to be cool was the better policy for me. I then took the bacon and washed it under the tap both sides, and came back and placed it on the plate.again, and felt a great sigh of relief as 1 west haekjaad washed my

hands once more. But my troubles had only just commenced; 1 came back into the kitchen, when —Hullo! where’s the bacon ? Dash that cat! Blame that ‘ Cheshire! Where’s she gone ? I thought she was up to something.” I went up the stairs with a top-boot in my hand, two at a time, and the cat in front —four at a time (as it seemed to me). “ I’ll have the sausages out of yer!” I cried; but wherever that Turk of a cat got to remains to this day an undiscoverable mystery. Suffice it to say that iu less than ten minutes the young blizzard came down to the kitchen again as cool as a cucumber, and smiling all over, as much as to say—“ Let’s make it up; don’t let’s have any unpleasantness over a wretched piece of bacon; let's forget and forgive.” 0 dear ! how I did rave that morning at that cat’s coolness and impudence. How I finished that day I do not know, I felt I was in the hands of Providence. I and the cat were watching and tricking each other the whole of the day, the kettle fell over into the fire twice, and I went on my posteriors once through forgetting that I bad moved away the chair, and the only person who called all the day was a woman who wanted me to sign a paper for women’s suffrage. 0 dear! what a political oration I could have given that wicked old soul just at that moment. But to relate all my unhappy experiences and the number of contretemps of that one solitary, single day would absorb a whole number of this paper. The cat took “ agin ” me, the fire took “ agin ” me, and the very doors seemed to be after my fingers to jamb them when I went out. My wife returned about 8 p.m. I fell into her arms. Sal volatile and lavender were applied, the house kept quiet for a few days, and gradually I became restored to my original peace of mind and normal condition of body.