She is so tired of the house and its cares, which have cobwebbed her all over till she is half smothered, soul and body, that this question seems the cruelest one that could be put, in her nervous condition. She _ought_ to answer as he does, when she asks him what is in the _morning_ paper, the while she is feeding Tommy--_his_ Tommy as well as hers: "Read it, my dear; it is full of interest!"
Instead, she takes up the evening paper wearily; and though the tell-tale, exhausted tones of her voice as she reads, are sufficiently suggestive of her inability for reading aloud, yet he graciously listens well pleased, and goes to sleep just as she gets down to the advertisements, which is a good place!
Now that woman _ought_ just then, quietly to put on her bonnet and shawl, and run into one of the neighbors', and stay till _she_ has got a little "cheerfulness;" but the "Guide to Wives" insists that, instead, she sit down and look at her John, so that no unlucky noise may disturb his slumber; and half the wives do it too, and that's the way they make, and perpetuate, these very Johns.
The way men nurse up _their_ frail bodies is curious to witness, in contrast with the little care they take of their wives. Now it never occurs to most wives that being "tired," is an excuse for not doing anything that, half dead, they are drummed up to do. Now there's just where I blame them. If they wait for their Johns to _see_ it, or to _say_ it, they may wait till the millennium. There's no need of a fight about it either. _He_ wants to lie there and be read to. Well--let him lie there; but don't you read to him, or talk to him either, when you feel that way. If he is so stupid or indifferent, as not to see that you can't begin another day of worry like that, without a reprieve of some kind, bid him a pleasant good-evening, and go to some pleasant neighbor's, as he would do, if he felt like it, for the same reason--as he _did_ do the evening before, without consulting your preference or tiredness.
Now this may sound vixenish, but it is simply _justice_; and it is time women learned that, as mothers of families, it is just as much their duty to consult their physical needs, as it is for the fathers of families to consult theirs, and more too, since the nervous organization of women is more delicate, and the pettiness of their household cares more exhaustive and wearing, than a man's can possibly be; and this I will insist on, spite of Todd and Bushnell, and every clerical pussy-cat who ever mewed "Let us have peace!" Peace, reverend sirs, is of no sex. _We_ like it too; but too dear a price may be paid even for "peace."