What To Remember When It Comes Time To Apologize
By
Daris Howard
copyright 2006
Harvest is almost over in our little community. By all indications it went quite well because most of the husbands and wives are still speaking to each other. There are a few that are refusing to sit on the same pew at church, but I expect that will smooth over by about December. The worst I heard of was that one husband chewed out his wife for “inattentive driving” and she left and walked back to the house until he came and profusely apologized.
This reminds me of an experience I had in the recent past. I was asked for some help from a neighbor to get his hay crop in. His bale wagon broke and he needed someone to help work on a truck loading it by hand. At one point his wife popped the clutch, tumbling hay off the back of the truck. He came flying down the piler on the side of the truck, his face beat red, and then he remembered I was there. He took a deep breath and said to his wife, “Drive more carefully!” He then climbed back on the truck and she turned to me and said, “I’m glad you’re here.”
His education consists of a barely squeaked out high school diploma. He is a rough looking character, with a big beard and a rough haircut, looking much like a mountain man, and many in the community regarded him as a bit of an ornery fellow. I even do, though he was my friend. However, as we stepped into his small, rough house for lunch, his small children were hiding and, as he came in the door, they tumbled out of their hiding places attacking him with squeals and giggles. He rolled around on the floor, playing with them, as his wife set the table. He complimented his wife on her cooking and her love for him showed through her smile and the sparkle in her eyes.
In contrast, I went to help another man, well educated and highly respected in the community. We worked with the few cattle he had on his hobby farm. He was impatient with his children and short with his wife when she asked him when he would be ready for lunch. After we finished and we stepped into his large, beautiful house, his children hid from him in their rooms and his wife trembled nervously when he was angry because dinner was not ready immediately.
My wife gently reminds me that sometimes when I work outside, my demeanor changes and I am impatient and hard to work with. As I saw the contrast between these two men and thought about my own deficiencies, I remembered a quote from Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook, “The place to take the true measure of a man is not in the darkest place or in the amen corner, not the cornfield, but by his own fireside. There he lays aside his mask and you may learn whether he is an imp or an angel, cur or King, hero or humbug. I care not what the world says of him: whether it crowns him boss or pelts him with bad eggs. I care not a copper what his reputation or his religion may be: if his babies dread his homecoming and his better half swallows her heart every time she has to ask for a five dollar bill, he is a fraud of the first water, even though he prays night and morning until he is black in the face...But if his children rush to the front door to meet him and love's sunshine illuminates the face of his wife every time she hears his footfall, you can take it for granted that he is pure, for his home is a heaven...I can forgive much in that fellow mortal who would rather make men swear than women weep; who would rather have the hate of the whole world than the contempt of his wife; who would rather call anger to the eyes of a king than fear to the face of a child.”
I’m glad My wife still wants to sit on the same pew as me, but if the time comes that she leaves the truck and walks back to the house, I hope I am man enough to go apologize.
