University of Virginia Library

SWEARING OFF.

THE day after New-Year's, Mr. Whiting came home to dinner, and electrified his wife with—

"I have sworn off drinking, Matilda."

"You have?" said his wife, hardly believing her senses.

"Yes, sir-ee!" he animatedly replied. "I've sworn off,—sworn off this very day; and that's the last of it, by hokey!"

Mr. Whiting sat down to the table with a self-satisfied air, and rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way, and briskly continued:—

"I've been thinking over this thing all the morning; and I've come to the conclusion that I've made a fool of myself just long enough. Why! the money I spend in liquor would very soon get me a house. I've figured it up. Take fifty or sixty cents a day, an' I tell you it counts up mighty fast. It costs me about a hundred and sixty-five dollars a year; an' in eight years that would get me a comfortable place, to say nothing of the adornments and comforts generally which such a sum would bring."

"Are you sure you can stick to it?" inquired his wife with some anxiety.

"Sure of it! Gracious! I guess I am sure of it. I ain't been figuring this thing for nothing. Oh! I shall do it, I'm like a flint, I am, when I get started. I've got a will like a perary-fire: there's no fighting against it. Yes, sir: I've figured this thing up from bottom to top, and from top to bottom; and I'm bound to do it. I know when I figure; and I've figured this thing right down to a fine pint, you bet!"

Mr. Whiting continued his dinner, his face shining, and his heart warmed with the greatness of his purpose. When he got on his coat, and started for work, he observed to his wife,—

"I'll get you a pair of vases in a few days, Matilda, an' a set of furs; an' I'm going to have a French clock as big as a cook-stove, an' a conservatory

with the biggest smelling flowers in the land. An' I guess I'll get a pianny, and a horse, an' perhaps a couple of dogs, an' I don't know but a cow. I've figured this thing up, an' there's no use talking: money is to be saved. It makes me mad enough to kick my shoulder out of joint when I think what a fool I've been all these years. Why, hang it all! we might 'av' had an ice-house of our own, and been living in a hotel. This is the solemn truth, or I am a tattooed galoot from some archipelago, by hokey!"

And Mr. Whiting glowed all over with the great excitement.

"Dear, dear Tom!" cried his delighted wife as she threw her arms about his neck and sobbed aloud.

"Don't cry, Tildy!" he hastily exclaimed, while he vainly strove to keep back the tears from his own eyes. "It's all right, you know," he went on in an assuring voice, and gently stroking her hair. "I've figured it up, an' I'm going to do it. Don't cry, Tildy: it's all right. I've figured it up, an' you can depend on me." And, disengaging her arms, he departed to his work, his heart lighter and gladder than it had been for some years.

"By George!" he said to himself, suddenly pausing, and slapping his leg. "This is what may be called living." And he went on again, looking happier than before.

He came home to tea. There was not that hopeful, buoyant expression in his face that was there at noon. He looked distrustfully about the room as he pulled off his coat.

"Ain't that supper ready yet?" he gruffly inquired.

"It will be in a minute," replied Mrs. Whiting.

He threw his coat on one chair, and his hat in another, and heavily sank into a third. For a moment he sat there contemplating the fire. Then he arose, and wanted to know what in thunder was the matter with that stove: the house was as cold as a barn. Mrs. Whiting looked at him in astonishment. But, if she was amazed now, she was more than dumfounded before bed-time; He said the biscuits were heavy as lead, that the tea was slop, and that the preserves were worse than chopped-up oil-cloth. The room was either too hot or too cold. Every thing belonging to him had been misplaced. He picked up nothing: he snatched it up. He lay down nothing: he threw it down. He growled when he spoke, and he spoke but little. The poor woman was in an agony of apprehension. In all the years of their wedded life she had never seen him act like this. He grew worse as the hours advanced, and finally wound up by emphatically declaring that he "might as well be in a lunatic-asylum, a-fittin' spectacles to pink-eyed taters for his board, as to live in such a house."

Then he went to bed.

At breakfast next morning, Mrs. Whiting quietly observed,—

"Tom, you figured it all out yesterday, didn't you?"

He made no reply.

"Well, I've been figuring too; and I—I think we can get along without the vases, and the piano, and the French clock, and the other things; and as for living in a hotel, and owning an ice-house, I haven't the faintest desire."

And they are doing without those things for the present.