Home for the Day

I

A TWELVEMONTH having elapsed since I took the vows of financial celibacy, renouncing what was once a workaday world for the solitude of the home, I concluded that it would be the sporting thing to consult my wife upon the felicity of the strange adventure. I recall some reference in the marriage contract concerning her willingness to take me ‘for better or worse,’ but there was nothing in the indenture obligating her to take me from nine to five.

While my intentions have been honorable, a year is a long time for a man to hang around the house as a sort of casual officer detached from duty, and certainly she is entitled to be heard. Friends have intimated that while I may think I am ‘sitting pretty,’ what a story my wife could tell if she would talk for publication! If the Book of Days is to be trusted, we are, I believe, on the eve of our china wedding, and I am anxious that it be celebrated under the most agreeable circumstances.

Indeed, as business keeps giving back more and more husbands to their wives, — with apparently no prospect of needing them downtown soon again, — this matter of being ‘home for the day’ is about to be faced in front of countless firesides throughout our fabled land of opportunity. It has been a restless exile and the homecoming is not altogether voluntary; but it is none the less a wholesome hegira. Home is a new realm for the bewildered man of affairs, where, after trying hours at the office, reading last year’s mail and sharpening next year’s pencils, he can relax at last.

According to popular report, I am supposed to have been a pioneer in the ‘back to the home’ movement, but every hour brings fresh cohorts to the cause. Statistics are not dependable in reckoning the strength of the home forces, for there exists a stubborn reluctance on the part of the men to speak openly of their home ties. For some reason or other, we prefer not to be around when the census taker calls, although for my part I have found the officials who count noses to be estimable gentlemen, and they have never urged upon me the necessity for larger families as one way of ending the depression.

The ladies, I am sure, look upon the perpetual male presence as a most unexpected turn of events, requiring a profound readjustment — like giving up coffee, or living within one’s income. For it is a fearsome thing, and I can quite appreciate their uneasiness. The terrors of a conventional copartnership, with the orthodox division of time and labor as between home and office, are ominous enough. The newer constancy must present all manner of complications. There were times, of course, when we could not bear to be away from each other, when the office was the ruthless interloper. I refer to the days of romance and youth. The programme is now a little different. Whereas we formerly spent only our honeymoon together, to be parted thereafter through the endless hours of the day by the jealous demands of business, now the husbands spend their honeymoon at work — for jobs last just about that long — and the rest of their lives at home!

Courtship, too, presents some quaint alterations. Formerly, when friendships ripened into the great passion, it was considered good form and good judgment for the favored swain to expect his prospective father-in-law to bless the approaching union by an offer of a position with the firm at ten thousand a year. To-day the head of the house can give the suitor his daughter with all the good will in the world — but the chances are ten to one that he cannot give him a job. And even as he gives away his daughter he should not be too sure that he will not get her back; for the happy couple will like to feel that they can always ‘live with the folks’ in case the next corner should turn out to have no turning.

I suspect that for quite a while my wife may have harbored the premonition that some day I should join the rebels, and that she has, accordingly, been steeling herself against the perils of propinquity. In earlier years I had been pretty faithful to my stint; occasionally I might wander home at inconvenient hours, but for the most part I kept devoutly at my desk. The daytime, she could feel, was entirely safe for domesticity. When later life found inertia setting in and left me not so amenable to continuous toil, and the prospect of becoming a pastoralist rather than a pillar of the business structure was undermining my erstwhile hustling nature, she remained neutral throughout my heretical deliberations. And I can well understand her aloofness. For how was she to know whether even a husband could conform to the rules and regulations of a peaceful precinct over which she had presided, without let or hindrance, for lo, these twenty years? When matrons tell me that they are trying desperately to persuade their husbands to give up work and come on home, I must take their protestations with considerable reserve.

It would, I have felt, be enlightening to talk with an old-timer or two by way of learning first-hand how the hardy folk of earlier generations coped with their depressions. It would be an interesting study, for the historical chronicles are full of hard times and bread lines, civil commotion and penury. If we can believe the tales of our ancestors, one never ‘retired’ voluntarily; but idleness must have been thrust, from time to time, upon large numbers of the male population even as it is to-day, and the wives of the period were confronted, I assume, with the same predicament of having their men about the house for long stretches.

It was, no doubt, a stuffy interval. They say that the home cooking was fair enough, but the costumes did not lend themselves to lounging; distractions were innocuous, and amusements were on the sedative side. There was, in the olden days, not only no place like home, there was no place but home. So whether we balance the budget, maintain the gold standard, or reëlect Hoover, I am satisfied that the nineteen-thirties are far more suitable for passing idle hours. We can turn our unoccupied leisure to countless diverting exercises; and though we may have paid an outlandish price for this leisure and the devices upon which to spend it, the exertion should stand us in good stead during these crucial times when family ties are being heroically tested.

II

But I was going to consult my wife. I found her on the last lap of a motif in needle-point. Her industry has always amazed me, but not until I took up a twenty-four-hour residence did I come to appreciate the scope of her infinite busyness. Details which would drive an executive to distraction are dispatched with astonishing facility, while the larger issues are met with unerring decision — and all without the aid of a conference or a consultation with a board of directors. Despite her divers ministrations, she keeps both time and temperament for lively and generous contacts with the world — major diversions, minor frivolities, and friendly affections.

I recommend very earnestly to daily practitioners who think themselves harassed downtown that they absent themselves from the office for a day or two and study home management as administered by their wives. We dictate a letter, sell a bond, see a ball game, and come home done up and dispirited; while they supervise the household, plan the work, look after the children, order the menus, lay out the garden, attend sundry meetings, — all without fuss or friction, — yet dusk finds them as fresh as daisies.

‘How do you think it is going?’ I began.

‘Fine! Fine and dandy! The central figure is finished and I have only the—’

‘No, no,’I interrupted, ‘I don’t mean your needlecraft. This being home all day — what about it? It’s a year now, and I thought you might like to make a statement.’

‘It has been a year, has n’t it,’ my wife observed, very graciously. ‘I remember — last Fourth of July. It was a double-header — you and your country both celebrating their independence.’

‘But I’m serious. Do you think I am getting away with it?’

‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘shall we be introspective?’

‘I don’t much care for it, but the time has come to bare our souls.’

‘When you first signed off,’ she confessed, ‘I was afraid it was going to be rather terrible. I was wondering what the neighbors would say and how I could laugh it off with the children.’

‘But none of the neighbors have moved away,’ I assured her, ‘and I see a lot of the children.’

‘Yes, everyone is very gracious about it. And you have been a splendid influence on the children: Junior can throw a respectable curve; you’re a great help to Buddy with his syntax; and you have about talked Sister out of making a début. But I mean it is difficult for me to explain just what it is you’re doing.’

‘Say that I am an economist,’ I suggested; ‘that I am working on a five-year plan. Can you stand it for four years more?’

‘I hope we can keep you longer than that — with a few simple admonitions, and a slowing down in dividend casualties.’ My wife is a tolerant person — and not unmindful of the prevailing fiscal uncertainties.

‘Yours to command,’ I bravely ventured.

‘Now if you could bestir yourself in somewhat better season. You can see how it holds everything back when you’re not up and about.’

‘I can correct that,’ I assured her. ‘It’s the alarm clock. The darn thing loses time in the night.’

‘During the morning I think you should draw quietly apart, for that’s when the house is put in order and it’s no place for a person of your constitution.’

I could not but fall in with the suggestion, for very early in my experience I began to realize that the legendary peace and quiet of the home should never be associated with the forenoon, when a veritable bedlam regularly breaks loose; vacuum cleaning, floor polishing, woodwork dressing, carpet beating, window washing, furniture moving, and, on Saturdays, French classes and piano practice, all combine to make the hearth a chaotic asylum. A husband is a puny thing against such an avalanche; let him stand in the way of the inflexible battle orders, and like as not he will be swept up in the onrush.

‘You’re entirely right,’ I acquiesced. ‘I have taken a room over the drug store.’

‘The rest of the time you will, I am sure, find the premises tranquil and composed, and you may give your fancy free flight in reading, meditation, relaxation, hobbies, sports of the season.’

‘And you will share these delights with me?’

‘Of course; only remember when you used to come home from your work exhausted and unstrung I would go to some lengths to revive your drooping spirits. Now that the day’s activities cannot but refresh you, I shall expect you to entertain me; to read aloud to me; to post me on world affairs; to tell me what caused the depression; to take me on picnics; to—’

‘Anything,’ I agreed, ‘except twoball foursomes; I must insist upon making my own shots — let the divots fall where they may.’

‘Now about the meals,’ my wife continued. ‘It’s fatal to meddle with the menus. Preferences will be accorded courteous attention, but the culinary art is a very exact science.’

‘Naturally,’ I concurred. ‘All that is out of my jurisdiction and I promise not to interfere.’

For I had tampered occasionally with a carte du jour, and would think nothing of satisfying one of those impetuous cravings by ordering an eleventh-hour switch from beefsteak to lobster, to the utter consternation of all concerned. A household does not easily recover from a shock like that, and if times had been better I dare say a walkout of devastating proportions would have ensued.

‘I know you have always belittled the routine around the house,’ my wife insisted, ‘but nevertheless there is an awful lot to be attended to and things just don’t run themselves. You’ve had a year for observing the operation of the ménage, and you ought to be catching on by now.’

‘Don’t you think you could delegate a little more authority?’ I asked her, with no attempt to be facetious. ‘I mean, let other people attend to things. Besides, we have installed so much labor-saving machinery I was under the impression that the chores around the establishment were discharged automatically.’

“‘What a piece of work is a man!”’ — and there was feeling in the quotation she was borrowing. ‘You men delegated authority — and see what has happened. Why, you could n’t write a letter without calling in your secretary, to say nothing of not being able to mail one. If I thought you were up to it, I would turn over a department to you — fetching the papers; watering the plants; killing the moths.’

I was about to say that I would speak to my secretary, but caught myself in time to accept, with some show of chivalry, those vital portfolios.

‘I think I can detect some improvement in your domestic behavior. I have caught you putting a book back in its place, or closing a window when it was raining, or hanging up your coat and hat; and the other day I noticed cigarette ashes in the receptacle provided for the purpose! All that is heartening, and encourages me to postpone my despair.’

‘I am glad of that, and it shall be my constant endeavor to please.’

‘What I am getting at is a coöperative basis,’ she explained; ‘and, after all, I expect only normal support.’

‘Are we getting along O.K. with the budget?’ This was silly of me, I thought, but quite pertinent.

‘Our budget,’ she answered, ‘is no different from any other. But remember that you are rather a choosy gentleman, and if I do too much cutting down you’ll hit the roof.’

‘Your economy is excellent and I think you manage exceedingly well. I promise to put aside all temptation for tidbits that are out of season, and reduce my requirements for comfort to the minimum!’

‘And as long as this is an appeal to reason,’ she proceeded, ‘you must get over being stubborn about things; people who are headstrong are no good around the home. Everybody has a vote in my precinct.’

‘Just so,’ I agreed. ‘A man may be an Iron Duke around his desk, but sweetness and light should prevail in the drawing-room!’

‘I shall try to brighten your homecoming,’ the Lady of the House added cheerfully, ‘with a variety of charming devices. The books that you were always meaning to read are in their accustomed places, uncut and well dusted. The lawn mower has been put in good repair, and maybe to-morrow you will try it out. Meals are on a sort of selfservice basis, but you never really liked a lot of flunkies around. There is quite a little knock in the motor, but I did not send it to the garage man because you used to want to tinker with it yourself. And it would be great if you could help a bit in the vegetable garden.’

‘Hear, hear!’ I broke in. ‘If there is no further business I move we adjourn; I must get downtown to buy a new alarm clock.’

III

I am hopeful that the crisis will be passed without discord, and that joint occupancy of the house and grounds may not prove our undoing, although I must confess to the receipt of some disquieting observations. Only yesterday the wife of a professor, who has seen men come and go, seemed to be doubtful about a happy ending: ‘If this Back to the Home for Husbands movement gets under way,’ she writes, ‘I can tell you what will happen — a larger movement away from the home by the women. That is, if they can be away from home any more than they are now!’

It may very well be, of course, that I am on the wrong track; that absence not only makes the heart grow fonder, but also makes the home run smoother; that life is far too complicated a matter to tolerate so disordered a thing as a husband doing his daylight saving in his own home. For all I know, the hazards may be insurmountable and the odds favoring success ridiculously adverse. This being a practical era, perhaps it is no setting for any such idyllic arrangement.

But I am reluctant to believe that my wife can merely be humoring me, or that she puts up with my continual nearness only to ease what she hopes will be a temporary tedium, and that when the clouds lift she will expect me to go about my gainful itinerancy. My wife is not given to trickery, and I cannot suspect her of cunning even in a crisis. She may indeed hope in her heart of hearts that the first year will have been the hardest, and that I may yet prove to be a facile — nay, even a versatile — spirit, merging with submission and assistance with her own admirable notion of ‘husbandry.’

Manifestly, I cannot cry ‘Eureka!’ to those who wait at the gates and bid them, as self-styled spokesman for their mistresses, come, without cringing or guile. There are as yet no statistics on the enterprise, diaries are of doubtful veracity, and my chart is too brief and unflurried to serve as a reliable criterion for the fortune that may attend such a surprising sojourn. But we seem to have tried so many things, such novel experiments, during these troubled times that going home for the day does not sound like such an irregular sally, but rather smacks of a tame and dignified departure, with, to be sure, a speculative flavor.

Every man, I think, owes it to himself to attempt it; and every wife, I feel sure, is willing to give it an honest trial. It may break up in hopeless confusion, panic, riot, arson, mayhem, or murder before the sun sets on the incongruous scene. Or it may mean escape, rebirth, the revival of romance, the serenity of the psalm. For my part, I regard this as no time for turning back on the adventure, and, unless my wife intervenes, I mean to pursue it until the last coupon is cut — whether it be mine or hers! So, in my case, not only is harmony at stake . . . and contentment . . . and wedlock . . . but solvency as well

Did I suggest a moment ago that it was risky business? Heavens! I am what you might call ‘shooting the works’!