p. 553 | SHARP WORDS by Christian Union

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 9, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 35.

SHARP WORDS.

By Christian Union

"NONSENSE!" said Mr. Wheaton shortly. Mrs. Wheaton's face flushed scarlet; she looked up at him; and, if I mistake not, a sharp reply got up as far as her throat, but she choked it down; it did not part her lips. She looked furtively at me, but I looked steadily at the fire. Mr. Wheaton all the time was quite unconscious of the stir his word had made in one tender and sensitive heart. Then Mrs. Wheaton murmured something about her scissors and slipped out of the room.

Mrs. Wheaton had ventured to make some remark on some business question; I think it concerned the morality of some Wall Street operations. The subject was one with which she had no great acquaintance, and perhaps her woman wit was at fault. Indeed, I remember thinking at the time that it was, at least in part; but what she said was not nonsense.

After Mrs. Wheaton had gone out there was a moment or two silence; then I broke it. Mr. Wheaton and I are old friends, and I presumed a little on that fact.

"Tom," said I, "how long have you been married?"

"Twenty-four years next May," said he. "A year from next May, if we both live so long, will be our silver wedding. And yet it seems but yesterday that Lucy and I were sleighing in the moonlight that Christmas that I ran away from home for my holidays, much to the chagrin and vexation of my sisters, because I found greater attractions at Lucy Vine's."

"I wonder," said I, speaking slowly and musingly, and as it were to myself,—"I wonder if that Christmas holiday you would have spoken to Lucy Vine as you spoke to your wife just now."

"How?" said Mr. Wheaton; and he turned sharply upon me.

"Nonsense!" I repeated; and I threw into my own voice all the vigor and the sharpness there had been in his. It was a hazardous experiment, but Tom and I were old friends, and, at all events, there was no drawing back now.

He looked at me sharply for a moment, and I looked at him; then his eyes went back to the fire. "Shoh!" said he, speaking to himself, "I wonder—" and then quickly turning back to me, "Do you suppose she minded it?"

"What did she get up and go out for without a word in reply?" I asked.

"To get her scissors, I believe," said he. I laughed at him. "It is taking a long time to find them," I replied. "Yes, she did mind it. If you had seen the quick flush on her face, and the quick look, first at you and then at me, and the choking at the throat, and the nervous movement of the hands, you would not have doubted that she minded it. Suppose that she had said to you, 'Nonsense!'" and I fired it at him as explosively as I could; "how would you have liked it?"

He shook his head slowly; he was still studying the fire.

"Suppose I had said to her 'Nonsense!' how would you have liked it?"

"I would have said you were no gentleman," said Mr. Wheaton; "but—but—"

"But what?" said I.

"Pshaw, John, a fellow can't be studying all the time how he'll talk to his own wife, you know! If he can't be free at home, he can't be free anywhere. She ought not to be so sensitive. She knows I didn't mean anything."

"Tom," said I, "if anyone else accused you of saying something when you didn't mean anything, you'd get redder in the face over it than she was just now. You did mean something. You meant exactly what you said. You thought what your wife said was not right, and you blurted it right out."

"Well, it was nonsense," said Mr. Wheaton.

"I am not so sure of that," said I, "but if it were, that was no reason why you should tell her so."

"Do you always weigh your words when talking with your wife, as if you were in a witness box before a Philadelphia lawyer?"

"No matter what I do," said I. "Perhaps I have learned a lesson here to-night that will make me more careful hereafter. Of one thing I am sure, Tom, if we were as careful of our wives after twenty-five years of married life as we are of our girls in courtship—"

But I did not finish my sentence, for just at that moment the door opened, and Mrs. Wheaton came in. I had barely time to notice that she had forgotten what she went for, for she had no scissors in her hand, when Mr. Wheaton, in his warm, impulsive way, reached out his hand, caught hers, drew her to him, and said: "Lucy, my dear, Mr. Laicus here has been giving me a regular going over for speaking to you as I did just now. It was nonsense, you know, but I had no business to tell you so, at least, not in that brutal style."

She flushed redder than before, then stooped down, brushed the rich black hair off from his forehead, put a kiss upon it, thanked me with her eyes, and then said, "I declare, I forgot my scissors after all," and slipped out of the room again.

"John," said Mr. Wheaton, grasping me by the hand, "I am much obliged to you. I remember Lucy always had a sensitive soul; I wonder if I have been pricking it with sharp words without knowing it all these years. I think I have learned a lesson to-night which I shall not soon forget."

"I think I have learned one too," I replied.