Two Late Breakfasts

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 9, 1866

Two Late Breakfasts.

BREAKFAST was late at Mr. Smiles’s house, one fine autumn morning—an unusual occurrence; but you know that there are some hours, even in the best regulated households, when things seem to go wrong. The principal trouble was that Bridget was sick that morning, and when Mrs. Smiles came down, of course there was no fire in the kitchen, and the table was not set; but Bridget lay tossing and moaning with violent sick headache. “I couldn’t stand to get dressed, ma’am, let alone making the fire; for I’m kilt intirely with the pain in my head.” “I’ll see to the breakfast,” said cheery little Mrs. Smiles, “when I’ve brought you up some medicine.” So she administered the dose, and then set about her task. But the fire would smoke that morning, and the baby awoke and cried. “Nelson,” she called to her husband, “Bridget is sick, and I am busy; can you attend to baby?” “With pleasure,” answered a strong, kind voice from upstairs, and the pitiful cries soon ceased.

Harry was in the wood-shed, splitting wood. Mr. Smiles came in, throwing off his coat. “There, my boy, I’ll finish this job. You run in and see if you can set the table something like the usual pattern.” “Why, father, you said that you had to be early at the store to day, and should not have time to come out here!” “Yes, I know; but Bridget is sick, and mother is hard at work getting breakfast, and it cannot be helped this morning.” “Harry,” he added, calling him back, “don’t say anything about that to mother; it’s no use worrying her with it now.”

Harry smiled, and nodded comprehension, and was soon experimenting upon setting the table. “Pshaw! these are the supper plates! I’m sure I don’t know father’s napkin-ring from mother’s! There! I forgot the butter-knife!” and so on.

Meanwhile, Mr. Smiles split his wood industriously, thinking to himself, “I suppose I might have gone to the store without waiting for breakfast; but then that would have troubled Jenny. And what can one do better with his morning, than to make his wife comfortable, even though he loses a customer by it for once? What’s the good of customers, or the money they bring, but just to buy comfort, which it is poor economy to buy at the price of discomfort.”

The bell rang, and he went in. “What a nice little breakfast you have made us!” he exclaimed; “and boys can set tables, can they not, Harry?” So there was a cheerful, even a merry meal, an hour later than usual, in Mr. Smiles’s house; and then he went away, leaving a gleam of sunshine behind him in the hearts at home, kindled by his loving looks and comfortable words.

Across the street lived Mr. Scowls, who breakfasted that morning at the same hour, having kept his wife and Carrie waiting while he took a morning nap, and then made a hasty toilet. Unshaved and grim, he came into the breakfast-room. “Draw down that curtain,” was the first salutation; “this glare of light is horrid.” Carrie hastened to obey, while Mrs. Scowls poured out the coffee with a sigh. “I can not stand that noise!” he remarked again. “Caroline, take this bird away!” So Carrie took away the canary’s cage, and shut it up in the dark and gloomy parlor, which was seldom used—the only thing which dared to sing cheerfully in that house. Then they sat down to breakfast, with their usual discomfort—Carrie nervously dreading the incessant admonitions not to eat fast, not to take so much molasses, to hold her knife better, or to sit up straight; and her mother, a thin, pale, anxious-looking woman, apologizing timidly for every thing she feared would vex her husband. “This coffee is not quite so good as the last, but it is the best that Brown has.” “Why didn’t you go down to Smith’s for it, then? Half a mile is not so far to go, I’m sure.” Then, after a silence, “This steak is overdone again; not fit to eat.” “Susan thought we were to breakfast at half-past seven, and now it is eight.”

It was a relief when the dreary meal was over, and Mr. Scowls put on his hat and departed. “Get up, you lazy brute!” he growled, kicking the great dog on the door-step, while the cat ran up the wood-shed roof, and peered at him over the ridge-pole till he was out of sight. Then she came down, and brought her kittens, one by one, out of their box in the cellar into the warm sunshine.

Carrie ran to feed her bird before school, and Mrs. Scowls went into her kitchen, to guard, with fruitless toil and watchfulness, against anything which might annoy her husband at dinner-time.

So pass the days at Mr. Scowls’s. Are you not sorry for them? One selfish man makes forlorn and gloomy, a home which might be as bright and happy as the sunny cottage opposite, if only he would learn Christ’s law of love.—Independent.