The Austin American (Austin, Tex.), Vol. 10, No. 156, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 18, 1923 Page: 33 of 42
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Austin American-Statesman Newspaper Collection and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Libraries.
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Brothers-in-Law segy JackLait
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with her husband, so took it out on her sister.
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been a nagger, and
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But a brother-in-law i no use at all.
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er-in-law was east by nature for the
Thue the two men soon grew to
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who couldn’t come back with any social superiority
on Honey, but who dealt th ex post facto allega-
tions—that Honey had always been a nagger, and
throw back that loafing was fur bums. Honey,
peeved at Carl because he didn’t kick in with
any of the dirty work, nevertheless had to aide
He to
coroner’s jury. Well, come clean with a verdict.
What’a to be done with the body?"
Carl took the cigrette from his mouth and
answered with acidulous irony the impassioned
oratory. •
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“On such an occasion, when poor Phil had swallowed all his gizzard could handl
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and whenever his cheat got overloaded he let some
exhaust out through his windpipe. Carl might be
a body in his two-by-four shop, yes; but in this
four-by-fout flat he wasn’t any better than anyone
else, and should hold up his end of the losd.
dher with s bitternem that far transcended any
ealm dislike the women might have for their
erase in-laws Here it was double-action, backfire
stuff—they were prothers-in-law unto each other,
and that sompoun@ed the confounded discord.
When Phil lost his job, and. Living saved noth
ing. seen was enable to pay his 50 or any sub-
stantial portion thereof, the panic was on.
It was then that Carl sat back and squawked,
and Phil, helpleely burning under hrs indigent
status, found appropriate retort r failing him. He
was in as bad as Dearie, who tealizea she had
handcuffed herself to an induatrial flop, a man
who had to Wash dinner plates n his own home
and couldn’t even talk back to his brother-in-law,
who tilted back on his eminene • and slapped him
with the wet towel
On such an odasion, when por Phil had swal-
lowed all that his gizzard cou’d handle, aa lie
stood with dish cloth in hand and kitchen apron
tied at his waist, as he contemplated the surly
it "etem •e Ime Gret anon nuu ammo
sand in his tracks. He didn’t go headlong like
Carl; he skidded, however, and sideswiped into
the roped-ofr sone of sacred matrimony, and
there was stalled.
though his experiences hadn’t borne out that faith, face of his purse-proud piker brother-in-law, the
i — »_ * -h-m * * * disgusted countenance of his wife pointed to a
window that looked out on unrelieved darkness,
the averted features bf his aisrer-in-law as she
cogitated upon the injustice of keeping an idler
sister and an idle brother-in-law on the stipend of
a husband who bluffed mightily but didn’t reajly
earn enough for two—
which they begin to register when a daughter
approaches adolescence. Parenta-in-law seldom
have any gratitude and never any respeL They
know their daughters, and they know if a man
had any sense he wquldn’he their
t TOT so much in literature aa in life, itself,
.N has the domestic goat, the social patsy, the
" aap of the family tree, been that synthetic,
crafted-on, grafting-on—the brother-in-law. The
rery hyphens in the compounded-noun that de-
scribe his estate shriek his condition.
He is in the eharmed circle, yet not of it. He
is the daughter’s mesalliance, tha living skeleton
in the family closet with the door ajar. He to
an outaider on the inside, a foreign splinter un-
der the tender akin of the hoasehold, a. thorn
in the flesh of the flock.
A daughter-in-law is sometimes beloved, more
* often enthusiastically resented. She is usually a
vamping, minx who
by her wiles and mmmA.cu
worse hasunder • a
mined the reason of adddda13
the upright son. She A B E 52
lives off him. and. by ■ 2 2282388
direct ratio, thb re- 48222158 . E80
fore, off all who love 82623
him. If she have no 2826952635
children, sheira MEE231232 E
cheat and a flop- if K22EGSNN2K8
she have, it is s delib- 285KXGNE*deKk
erate conspiracy to NN 8 .5 09 1
own, a business men. Since when were the Ber-
wins marrying underlings, industrial serfs, inspired
errand .boys? The Berwins had always been
proud. The father of Honey and Dearie was a
It was then that Phil slammed down the plate
he had helped pay for on the table that was
still being paid for, and fired six earfuls:
“Hey, you,” he started, "listen to me—all of you.
“Just because Iwss simple enough to go and
get married when I didn’t make enough to afford
a decent living to a pool-playing bachelor is no
reason for all of you to give me this flock of iee.
"It’s true I’m oktofa job. Yes. YES. It’s true
N
"Why, you tinhorn helly-acler," he sneered.
"After I stood for you all these weeks, your blub-
bering and your caterwauling bocause I wouldn’t
bathe soup plates after I did a hard day of work-
ing and—what you never did in win penny-ante
life—thinking—and after I cafe through with
your bit of the dough for the,rent and the eats;
after that you've got the gall to stand up there
and insult me and my wife and my sister-in-law—
no relief to his wife’s staler, who wouldn’t heve
married that particular ehump if he were the last
troumered bipod extant He arznrates to himself
"a say" In affaita that are stntetly peron! to
the family, he talks right up on what he likes
end what he doean't efave so much, he forgets
entirty who and what he is air I on what terms
he wes septenced, he puts his feet on the piano-
bench an though he were a blood ecusin: He can't
be let in, and he can't be thrown out ,
Honey and Dearie were nistora They hod been
called by those names respect iyely since their
respeetive infaneies. That they had turned sour
as to dispomition before they made high school
never altered the appellationa. Momey and Dearie
they had started, and Honey end Deane they re
Mousy, the younger, married Cari. a job printer.
She was the prettier. and Carl rut couldn’t wait
after he had first flashed a hungry ore on her
rate profile. Duarte was furious when Honey set
a date. It was showing her up as a left over, a
waliflower. She fixed a hostility toward Carl
from th* start Rhe was wild a: Honor, toe, but
Honey was her own outer They had fought like
This always led to acrimonious passaes, in
which personalities flew and no prisoners were
. _ ---- takere Carl would tell Phil that dishwashing was
Honey had her own opinion—and it wasn’t ’for natural dishwashers, whereupon Phil would
her own, exclusively—about that marriage. Phil "----- *...... *
was an inspector for the telephone company—
h'mph—a hired man, whereas Carl was on his
bobcats ever since they could scratch, but they
would always be sisters, for that is natural law
and not brother-in-law.
Dearie’s chance came very soon afterward.
Phil came along, and no friendly hand threw
mgikman—yes, but he owned his own
wagon end the good will of hie route. . •
Their mother had been a Harman, of
the brickyards Harman*, and her father e----
had owned a buffet; not a saloon, as
envious rivals had insinuated; a buffet
—with business men’s lunch, not free
hunch.
So the quarfette started off. aa in ---
usual with miste r-in-craw and Vrothers-
In-law, all set for the battle royal aad
shopn your owa corner. Each sister was prepared
to defend her sister against her stater's husband and
her son haeband, herself against her sister or her
stater’s huaband er her owa haeband. her own hus-
band againat her stater or her sister ‘a busbend And
to.coqporriyet.thi harmonious quadrangle, they
went lvjng together, _
For Carl, though he called no one master (ex-
rept Honey), made a bare living. A tfour-room
apartment was engaged. .And they went to it.
Upkeep was to be split 30-50. Carl's income was
subject to nensons, whims and br aks. but ran in
all conmiderably ahead ef Phil’s, which was regular
but stationary. Phil, however, was a wihine.
cheerfu! sort, whereas Cart, the printer, taking
on profound affectations and rumbling of "bust-
new worries," wap * lagy- glooiny member.
Honey, tied though she was to the elacker, Cari,
who wan too tired, preoeupied and important to
do hin portion of the household chores, was a
willing and fndustrious little thing, whereas
Dearie, aeidulated by the anti-elimax of port hon-
eymoon aiance with s telephone inspector, shirked
and sulked.
The duties of washing the dishes, clearing the
table, setting out the slope and the milk bottles,
bringing to the morning paper, putting the butter
beak in the icebox, brushing up end tidying, fell
upon Honey and Phil. Their mates droned and
eritieized.
Phil wasn't pugnneious, and he surely was not a
glutton for his “rights" But he wss a plain
American who had been roared to a sturdy con-
vietion that he was u good as the next, even
bind Mm with another insidlqrs bond end emneN
his estate after she, with her criminal rooting
and negleet, shall have hastened his end.
But the brother-in-lawi
* He isn" hated. bo to just disliked. He doesn’t
infuriate anyone, he only irritetes everyone. He
is the spare Ure on the domedtie ivver, aa un-
sightly thing that must be added to the original
overhead aad covered againat larceny and bad
weather, bet rarely to of any UK end only
fope about and geta dingier and limper looking.
The brother Inlaw la alee, wsually, a son-in-
law in the latter capacity he is almost •• con-
temptible as in the former. though he rarely,
if ever, quite attains the same depth of degre-
dation. A son-in-law at least las taken some
of the load of her parents, no ne of the worry
in my house? After that and a whole lot more,
you’ve got the crust to call me rotten names to
my face and lay me out when you're full of my
food and breathing the air I pay for? Say, with' I
your brass, you ought to be either a millionaire or
in jalb"
“That still doesn't clean up the question—what
are you going to do about itl"
“I ain’t going to do anything about it,” snapped
Carl. “Just that—nothing. I ain't going to pay
your rent or buy your chuck or lend yeu your car-
fare and cigarette money. I ain’t going to do a
thing. But YOU are—you're going to get out.
Honey is my wife. Dearie—well, she’s your wife,
bu she’s my wife’s sister. But YOU—what call
have you got on me? What are you to me, any-
won?"
“Oh, only your brother-in-law.’’
“You ain’t even that. You’re only my wife’s
brother-in-law,” f
“Well, then, what’s your wife going to do
about itr"
“The same as I am.”
“But I AM a relation to HER as much as my
wife is to you.”
Honey, the. soft-hearted, turned—hesitatingly.
“He—he’s right in that,” said she. “You eas give
him the gate, but I’ve GOT to do something for
him. A brother-in-law ain’t mueh, bat he's alway»
s relation—or is it a relative ?—I don't know
which. But he's more than a boarder, I know that.
If he goes "
“Oh, I ain't going," said.Pol. “I’ll be hero
when I haye to do the marketine in the morning
end the dishwashing to morrow night, don't worry.
It's one thing for that fast-ehonting husband of
yours to say 'Get out'—but I’d like to ana the
whole Chinese army PUT me our ”
After some more wrangling. Dearie turned to
get a word in edgewine. And when she did cwt
in, she came with a been one. e
“Why not," she began, easy-like, and then with
sudd de" climax let go through to the bone, “have
Carl take Phil into HIS shop?"
Cari almost let the front legs of his chair down
to the floor in his shacked purprine. Honey
dropped the sock she wad mending and stuck her
finger with the needle.
utafter azument lomg into the night, it *”
It weak! help settle the financial difficulty, any-
way, if it yielded any results st all.
"It’ll be a grand little ombination," said Carl.
"It ain’t enough we fight every memning and even
evening at home: now we can fight in businesa all
day. Won't that be the alligator’, pinfeathen f"
"Wait," said Phil. "You ain't seen nothin' yet.
We’re not only brother-in-laws, and we won’t only
work together but it everythiur comes out the
way I hope it wll, some day well be PART
NEES. ■ • • Then we can sit ap and fight
all MIGHT!" " 5
should Hint up because she wan, younger.
Phil had to choke down the unjut assaults
againat his co:worker. Honey, because he knew
better than take arms against his bride, Dearie.
So he would take it out again on Cari, who would
toes it ia hta teeth that HIS wife was doig the
drudgery, not Phil's; and that eet Dearie banging
away with the come-back that HER husband was
the booh who let his high-toned loafer brotherin-
law make a kitehen mechanic out of him; and to
this Cari weald fillip in the opinion that his broth-
l ,
Sh
that I haven't got a bean. I true that I owe
somewheres around sixty two bucka now against
my half of the running expenses.
"It‘s also true that you know, Dearie, when
you married me. that I was a hired man with a
number, and that number was likely to be changed
to 23 any time, like every other unskilled young
worker. Oh, don't give me that dying duck once-
over. You knew how I wee likely to be fixed for
nome time, and when I asked you to set the .late
you had it all marked on your calendar with a
red ring around it on your bureau. •
"I"‘s true, also, that since we started this four-
sided aquarium here I've been the combination
Topay, pstey. elephant, underdog, house est. door-
mot, poor relation, stepchild and put pest around
this little nest of sunshine and vidgar.
'Tvs got no allbi, no surprise kick to hand
out. I was a rummy and I ha I It all earning
brought it all on myelf. ‘You’re all right and I'm
all wrong Until I blew my lob Duarte used to talk
up now and then for me. Now even she can't wee
where a husband without a Jit has any aympathy
or support duo him. And I accept it I accept an
of it and any more you've go', saved up for a
good and rainy day.
"But-- hers I am. I'm married to Dearie. Honey
ia her aister. Carl la her huaband. I ain't laid
myoelf epen to grounds for divotce—yet.
"You'se got me where you'e tried to above
me. in the far corner, for montiin Now that you
got me where you want me, what do you want of
me? What I mean to—what era you going to do
about it T 'bet's have a showdown. You look like a
t
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The Austin American (Austin, Tex.), Vol. 10, No. 156, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 18, 1923, newspaper, November 18, 1923; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1526283/m1/33/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .