Slipshod Ways | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 6, 1879

Slipshod Ways.

MARK and Jane were to be married in a week. Dropping into the Taylor sitting-room one evening, Mark found Aunt Mary assisting Jane about some of her elaborate and mysterious bridal preparations. Aunt Mary was always considerate and sympathetic in her words and ways, and Mark liked her. He sat down by her in unwonted silence and with a cloudy brow.

Jane looked at him furtively from behind the clouds of white lace and muslin in her lap, as he mechanically poked over the multitudinous trifles in her dainty work-basket, making as vague and unsatisfactory answers to her numerous questions as if he were guessing conundrums. After ten minutes had been spent in this rather stupid way, Aunt Mary asked, suddenly—

"Well, Mark, what is it?"

The young man started and looked up at her with a smile, as bright as if a heavy fog had been lifted off his mental horizon, as he said—

"I declare, Aunt Mary, I didn't mean to speak of it, but I am as nervous as a girl over—over—next Thursday; not the ceremony itself, mind you: I shall really enjoy the display in the church—but I refer to all the life that is to follow."

"Marriage is indeed the most important event of a lifetime, and the outlook to every reflective mind must be a serious one," said the sweet-faced old lady; "but may I ask what has brought up the subject so impressively, before you to-night?"

"The fact is, Aunt Mary," replied Mark, hesitatingly, "I have just come from cousin Henry's. As I was passing the gate I heard the wood-shed door open and Susan's voice call out: 'supper's ready.' The pleasing vision of a neat dining-room, a cosy tea-table, and two happy contented young souls enjoying the nicely cooked, tastefully served evening meal rose up before me, and I could not resist the impulse to turn back and take a look at them. I ran in unceremoniously, as is my wont, announcing myself as I opened the sitting-room door, by a hearty 'good evening.' There was no fire in the room, but plenty of dust and disorder.

'Come right in here' shouted out Henry; and I followed his voice through the dining room, unwarmed except by the far-away warmth of the kitchen fire. A large basket of rough, unironed and unfolded clothes, was turned bottom upwards on the extension table, an immense clothes-horse filled half the room, and every chair was loaded with coats, hats, cloaks, and shawls.

'We just use the dining-room as a sort of gangway in winter,' said Henry, 'and den up here, except when we have company. If anybody runs in upon us they must take us as they find us.' This was not an over-cordial welcome, but I went along into the kitchen where Henry was seating himself at the tea table, which, if you will believe, Aunt Mary, was their little hanging cooking-table covered with a strip of oilcloth. A few odd pieces of crockery were scattered upon it without regard to order.

"The little kitchen was untidy, the stove dirty and rusty. There were memories of Saturday's baking in the shape of flour, dough, and grease on the floor, table, and door latches, and a salt cod-fish with a cotton string around its tail was hanging to the knob of the closet door. Susan's hair was rough and frowzy, and her gown was torn and soiled. Dear me! who could have imagined that such a state of things was so soon to follow their great and expensive wedding? What a picture of loveliness the bride was! They might as well hire two or three rooms in a flat to 'den up' in, as to own that large and elegantly furnished house and not use it, or to so misuse it.

"This scene rather discouraged me. Were Jane and I to deteriorate in that way I think I would rather have everything stop just where it is. I believe it would save us a world of trouble, and we would go on looking at married life as we would have made it, through rose-colored glasses;" and Mark moved uneasily, got up nervously, and going around the table seated himself by Jane's side.

"Perhaps Henry is not altogether blameless in the premises," said Aunt Mary, coming back to the table with a red face after an energetic search for the shears; "did he fix himself up for tea?"

"Oh, dear, no," replied Mark, "he sat down and ate his bread and milk in his shirt sleeves, collarless and cravatless, and with unbrushed hair and whiskers. He would not have shown himself to Susan in such a plight before his marriage, I assure you."

Aunt Mary looked at the pretty Swiss clock on the mantel, took her gold pencil, wrote a little note, and then said to the young man: "I wish, Mark, dear, you would carry this billet over to my nephew, Horace Alden's, for me. They live in the east tenement of the Rutherford block, you kuow, and on the strength of your cousinship that is to be, I want you to run in without ceremony."

Mark came back in an hour with a radiant face. Removing his hat, he made Aunt Mary a low bow, saying: "I am very much obliged to you. I wouldn't surrender the opportunity that may be graciously given me of helping make a home with Jane here for any earthly consideration."

"Indeed," cried Aunt Mary, in seeming surprise, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell us what has changed your mind so suddenly."

"Well, you see," said Mark, "I ran up the stairs and opened the door at the top, as you told me, and such a charming picture that I saw. A living room, neither parlor, dining room, nor kitchen, but a happy combination of the three made attractive and homelike by perfect neatness order, and good taste. Such a cordial welcome as I had, to be sure. I was heartily ashamed of myself when it came over me how well I used to know both Horace and his charming wife, and that I had not called on them before.

"I gave Julia your note, and she read it with a little laugh and insisted that I should take off my overcoat and take tea with them. The cosy round table, with its snow-white cloth and pretty tea-service, looking so inviting I could not resist the temptation. 'Horace does not get out of the store till seven; he sees to the closing up; so we have our tea at half-past seven,' Mrs. Alden said. Julia's dress was plain but tasty and neat, set off by a dainty white apron; and her simple toilet was completed by a geranium leaf and a verbena blossom in her shining hair. Horace, in a handsome dressing-gown and embroidered slippers, looking every inch a gentleman, as he is.

"The situation made us confidential, and I asked Mrs. Alden how she had managed to settle down into being such a wonderful little housekeeper, and she said, 'I used to be somewhat inclined to be careless in my habits, and I suppose my friends had some misgivings as to my ability to keep house. Among my wedding presents was one from a great aunt of mine who was wonderfully skillful with a needle. This is this teapot mat'—and she held it up to my inspection. It was a scalloped circle of scarlet broad-cloth, with a slipper run down at the heel embroidered in it in black worsted, with the words, 'Never get slipshod.'"

"'This has been a constant reminder to me,' Julia went on. 'Were I tempted to neglect any trifling duty for the first time, my eye would fall upon or recall the words of Aunt Mattie's motto, and I would not only do what I had thought of neglecting, but would do it a little better, if possible. Horace, too, has kept me from falling into slipshod ways by his own habits of neatness. He always touches up his toilet for my sake before every meal as punctiliously as if we had company. Of course, when he is so thoughtful of me I cannot be less regardful of him. All these little things take a few of the precious moments of our fleeting lives, but we consider their observance our bounden and interchangeable duty. Since housekeeping is the principal business I have in hand, I want to do my best in that vocation; to be as conscientious and painstaking in that as I would in teaching music or any other accomplishment. I enjoy my work, and it comes easy to me.. I take both pleasure and pride in it, and I think the secret of my success in this humble sphere of mine has been my keeping everything up from the very first, and never allowing myself in the smallest particular to fall into slipshod ways.'"

Mark and Jane, now settled in their beautiful well ordered home on the banks of the Connecticut, only the other evening spoke of the two lessons this December evening brought them, and the lasting impressions they wrought.