Читать книгу New England Joke Lore: The Tonic of Yankee Humor - Arthur George Crandall - Страница 17

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In a certain rural district there was a man known familiarly to his acquaintances as “Dave.” He had a wife and several children, also a small farm. To all appearances Dave and his rather unprepossessing appearing wife lived on amicable terms. Both were frugal, industrious, and regarded as well meaning people. Therefore it was with great surprise that the community learned that Dave had disappeared under circumstances that admitted of no doubt that he had acted deliberately.

Although badly upset by Dave’s unwarranted action, his wife was determined to keep her little family together and carry on the farm as a means of support. Admiring her grit the neighbors showed their kindness in many helpful ways and thus encouraged, the deserted family managed to complete the yearly cycle in tolerable comfort.

During all this time Dave’s disappearance was a continual source of conjecture to the neighborhood. Nothing had been heard of him since that early morning when he had been seen walking rapidly down the road a mile or two away from home.

One evening a man who lived on a farm adjoining the one now being conducted by Mrs. Dave, was reading the weekly newspaper. Suddenly there was a faint tapping at a nearby window. Laying down his paper the farmer proceeded to raise the sash. Seeing no one he asked who had rapped. There was a hesitating step forward and a shadowy figure appeared.

“Say,” said the visitor, “can’t you put on your hat and walk over home with me? It’s me, Dave. I’ve just got back and I’d feel a little easier about showing up to the Old Lady if you were along.”

So modest a request could hardly be denied. So the neighbor helped to restore Dave to the tolerance if not the good graces of his wife. On the way to his unsuspecting family, Dave was apologetically garrulous, explaining how he had been working some distance away and could not very well leave his job. As he rambled on making an evident attempt to excuse himself, his companion’s patience became exhausted and he turned to Dave with the logical question to be asked by any honorable citizen.

“Dave,” said he, “that’s all very well that you have been telling me, but what I want to know is, how you could sneak off the way you did and leave your family?”

Dave hesitated and then proceeded to pass out an excuse that probably caused more local feminine indignation than the actual sin of abandonment had ever done in all the surrounding region.

“I guess it was a kind of mean trick,” said Dave. “That morning I went off I had no real notion of going. But you see after I had got up, got dressed, and started the fire, I happened to look in the bedroom where my wife was lying asleep, hair all frowzy, mouth wide open, and snoring so you could hear her out in the road.”

Dave hesitated.

“Do you know,” said he, “she looked so awful homely I just felt as if I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

It is probable that having variously contributed to supplying the needs of the abandoned family for an entire year, the indignant women before mentioned were careful not to express their views in the hearing of Dave’s wife. At any rate the historian mentions no further gaps in the family happiness. So it may be assumed that the couple lived in perfect accord thereafter.

And now, having brought this episode to a delightful ending, it is the more to be regretted that another rupture of conjugal domesticity had a very different conclusion. In this case it was the beloved wife who wandered from home and fireside.