Wanted--A Wife for Gurney Patterson, March 8, 1923

Wanted—A Wife

The Courier is said to have assisted in some matrimonial ventures and this week one of the young men of Asheboro has said he was contemplating advertising with us for a wife. Mr. Gurney Patterson, the blind mattress man of Asheboro, has kindly clipped the following.

Articles which were found in an old scrap book, having been published years ago, but perhaps will be as interesting now as they were then.

WANTED

Wanted—A wife who can handle a broom.

To brush down the cobwebs and sweep up the room;

To make decent bread that a fellow eat—

Not the horrible compound you everywhere meet;

Who knows how to broil, to fry, and to roast;

Make up a cup of good tea and a platter of toast;

A woman who washes, cooks, irons, and stitches,

And sews up the rips in a fellow’s old breeches.

And makes her own garments—an item which is

So horrid expensive as everyone knows;

A common-sense creature, and still with a mind

To teach and to guide—exactly, refined;

A sort of an angel and house main combined.

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An Answer to “Wanted”

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing

Ever made by hand above,

A woman’s heart and a woman’s life,

And a woman’s wonderful love?

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing

As a child might ask for a toy?

Demanding what others have died to win,

With the reckless dash of a boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,

Man-like you have questioned me;

Now stand at the bar of my woman’s soul

Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,

Your socks and your shirts shall be whole;

I require your heart to be true as God’s stars,

And pure as heaven, your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef,

I require a far better thing;

A seamstress you’re wanting for stockings and shirts;

I look for a Man and a King.

A King for a beautiful realm called home,

And a Man that the Maker, God,

Shall look upon as he did on the first,

And say, “It is very good.”

“I am fair and young, but the rose will fade

From my soft young cheeks someday;

Will you love me the, mid the falling leaves,

As you did mid the bloom of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep,

I may launch my all on its tide?

A loving woman finds heaven or hell

On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,

All things that a man should be.

If you give this all, I would stake my life

To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot this, a laundress and cook

You can hire with a little pay;

But a woman’s heart and a woman’s life

Are not to be won that way.

From page 3 of The Courier, Asheboro, N.C., published Thursday, March 8, 1923.