'CAN A WOMAN DRIVE A NAIL ?'

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XX, 15 May 1897, Page 622

'CAN A WOMAN DRIVE A NAIL ?'

The happiness of a New Zealand household has recently been destroyed by a most unfortunate occurrence, and the white winged dove of peace has folded her wings like a cabinet bedstead and vanished. Mr Baldwin Smathers resides in Auckland, and the connubial bliss of the Smathers family has been undisturbed until last Friday afternoon. Mrs Smathers has long been noted among the neighbours for an astonishing talent in making preserves. Indeed, the fame of her pickled peaches, raspberry jam and canned pears reached at least two blocks away. Every season she puts up a generous supply of fruits, and to be presented with a jar of Mrs Smathers’ preserves was a mark of extraordinary esteem. Last week the canning season was formally concluded with quinces, and the family moved to another house. The sixty-nine jars of preserves received especial care in transportation and were carefully stowed away upon the top shelf of the pantry. On returning from business Mr Smathers' found his wife endeavouring to drive a nail in the wall above the plate shelf to hang up some herbs. She had placed a stool on a chair, and perched on this combination was struggling with the hammer and nail. Her husband watched the combat in patronising silence and then said : ‘ I never saw a woman yet who could drive a nail. Get down off the chair, Martha, and let me drive your tacks.’ Mrs Smathers climbed down, and grasping the hammer, her husband was soon in position on the stool. He accomplished, however, considerably more than he intended. Giving the half driven nail a vicious dig to pull it out and begin over again, he loosened a cleat that supported the shelf, and the results were appalling. There was a frightful crash that resounded from cellar to roof, and Mr Smathers, the chair, and the stool disappeared from view. The air was filled with broken glass, flying peaches, pears and plums, and canned cherries, pattered about on the floor like big red hailstones. On Mrs Smathers' upturned countenance the contents of a jar of strawberries settled down gently. Two damsons and a label decorated her back hair, and on every part of her dress that offered any inducement there nestled jellies and jams, quinces and plums and blackberries in artless confusion. Dazed by the sudden crash she stood for a moment or two mechanically endeavouring to remove the strawberryjuice from her countenance with a small pockethandkerchief. Just then there was a struggle amid the

glass and the debris in the corner, and Mr Smathers came slowly to his feet, still grasping the hammer. He was a most astonishing sight. There was enough broken glass on his person to astonish the boldest cat on the Smathers back fence. His moustache was strewn with pineapple marmalade, and a stream of red juice and another of white united on his back and fell in a syrupy cascade from his coat tails. A quince did duty for a scarf pin, and the Smathers’ hair was occupied by two brandied peaches and a pint of juice, which gave him an anti-prohibition odour for three days. ‘ You horrible, horrible brute,’ said Mrs Smathers, choking her anger, as she extracted two more strawberries from her hair. ‘Just see what you have done,’ she added hysterically. Her husband seemed somewhat in doubt just what to do in his tutti frutti condition. ‘ I would rather not discuss this matter just now, Martha,’ he said timidly, as he removed some apple jelly from his left eye with his coat sleeve. * The back of my head is crystalizing, and unless I am wiped off soon I shall be a marroon glace in ten minutes.’