PECK’S BAD BOY AND HIS PA.
[HIS PA JOINS A TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.]
“Don’t you think my Pa is showing his age a good deal more than usual?” asked the bad boy of the grocery man, as he took a smoked herring out of a box, and peeled off the skin with a broken bladed jack-knife, and split it open and ripped off the bone, threw the head at a cat, took some crackers and began to eat.
“Well, I don’t know but he does look as though he was getting old,” said the grocery man, as he took a piece of yellow wrapping paper and charged the boy’s poor old father with a dozen herrings and a pound of crackers; “But there is no wonder he is getting old. I wouldn’t go through what your father has, the last year, for a million dollars. I tell you, boy, when your father is dead, and you get a step-father, and he makes you walk the chalk mark, you will realize what a bonanza you have fooled yourself out of by killing off your father. The way I figure it, your father will last about six months, and you ought to treat him right, the little time he has to live.”
“Well, I am going to,” said the boy, as he picked the herring bones out of his teeth with a piece of a match that he sharpened with his knife. “But I don’t believe in borrowing trouble about a step-father so long before hand. I don’t think Ma could get a man to step into Pa’s shoes, as long as I lived, not if she was inlaid with diamonds, and owned a brewery. There are brave men, I know, that are on the marry, but none of them would want to be brevet father to a cherubim like me, except he got pretty good wages. And then, since Pa was dissected he is going to lead a different life, and I guess I will make a man of him, if he holds out. We got him to join the Good Templars last night.”
“No, you don’t tell me,” said the grocery man, as he thought that his trade in cider for mince pies would be cut off. “So you got him into the Good Templars, eh?”
“Well, he thinks he has joined the Good Templars, so it is all the same. You see my chum and me have been going to a private gymnasium, on the west side, kept by a Dutchman, and in the back room he has all the tools for getting up muscle. There, look at my arm,” said the boy, as he rolled up his sleeve and showed a muscle about as big as an oyster. “That is the result of training at the gymnasium. Before I took lessons I hadn’t any more muscle than you have got. Well, the Dutchman was going to a dance on the south side the other night, and he asked my chum to tend the gymnasium, and I told Pa if he would join the Good Templars that night there wouldn’t be many at the lodge, and he wouldn’t be so embarrassed, and as I was one of the officers of the lodge I would put it to him light, and he said he would go, so my chum got five other boys to help us put him through. So we steered him down to the gymnasium and made him rap on the storm door outside, and I said ‘who comes there?’ and he said it was a pilgrim who wanted to jine our sublime order. I asked him if he had made up his mind to turn from the ways of a hyena, and adopt the customs of the truly good, and he said if he knew his own heart he had, and then I told him to come in out of the snow and take off his pants. He kicked a little at taking off his pants, because it was cold out there in the storm door dog house, but I told him they all had to do it. The princes, potentates and paupers all had to come to it. He asked me how it was when we initiated women, and I told him women never took that degree. He pulled off his pants and wanted a check for them, but I told him the Grand Mogul would hold his clothes, and then I blind-folded him, and with a base ball club I pounded on the floor as I walked around the gymnasium, while the lodge, headed by my chum, sung, ‘We won’t go home till morning’ I stopped in front of the ice water tank, and said, ‘Grand Worthy Duke, I bring before you a pilgrim who has drank of the dregs until his stomach won’t hold water, and who desires to swear off.’ The Grand Mogul asked me if he was worthy and well qualified, and I told him that he had been drunk more or less since the reunion last summer, which ought to qualify him. Then the Grand Mogul made Pa repeat the most blood-curdling oath, in which Pa agreed, if he ever drank another drop, to allow anybody to pull his toe-nails out with tweezers, to have his liver dug out and fed to dogs, his head chopped off, and his eyes removed. Then the Mogul said he would brand the candidate on the bare back with the initial letters of our order, ‘G.T.,’ that all might read how a brand had been snatched from the burning. You’d a dide to see Pa flinch when I pulled up his shirt, and got ready to brand him.
“My chum got a piece of ice out of the water cooler, and just as he clapped it on Pa’s back I burned a piece of horses hoof in the candle, and held it to Pa’s nose, and I guess Pa actually thought it was his burning skin that he smelled. He jumped about six feet and said, ‘Great heavens, what you dewin,’ and then he began to roll over a barrel which I had arranged for him. Pa thought he was going down cellar, and he hung to the barrel, but he was on top half the time. When Pa and the barrel got through fighting I was beside him, and I said, ‘Calm yourself, and be prepared for the ordeal that is to follow.’ Pa asked how much of this dum fooling there was, and said he was sorry he joined. He said he could let licker alone without having the skin all burned off his back. I told Pa to be brave and not weaken, and all would-be well. He wiped the prespiration off his face on the end of his shirt, and we put a belt around his body and hitched it to a tackle, and pulled him up so his feet just off the floor, and then we talked as though we were away off, and I told my chum to look out that Pa did not hit the gas fixtures, and Pa actually thought he was being hauled clear up to the roof. I could see he was scared by the complexion of his hands and feet, as they clawed the air. He actually sweat so the drops fell on the floor. Bime-by we let him down, and he was awfully relieved though his feet were not more than two inches from the floor any of the time. We were just going to slip Pa down a board with slivers in to give him a realizing sense of the rough road a reformed man has to travel, and got him straddle of the board, when the Dutchman came home from the dance fullern a goose, and he drove us boys out, and we left Pa, and the Dutchman said, ‘Vot you vas doing here mit dose boys, you old duffer, and vere vas your pants?’ and Pa pulled off the handkerchief from his eyes, and the Dutchman said if he didn’t get out in a holy minute he would kick the stuffing out of him, and Pa got out. He took his pants and put them, on in the alley, and then we came up to Pa and told him that was the third time the drunken Dutchman had broke up our lodge, but we should keep on doing good until we had reformed every drunkard in Milwaukee, and Pa said that was right, and he would see us through, if it cost every dollar he had. Then we took him home, and when Ma asked if she couldn’t join the lodge, too, Pa said, ‘Now you take my advice, and don’t you ever join no Good Templars. Your system could not stand the racket. Say, I want you to put some cold cream on my back.’ I think Pa will be a different man now, don’t you?”
The grocery man said if he was that boy’s pa for fifteen minutes he would be a different boy or there would be a funeral, and the boy took a handful of soft-shelled almonds and a few layer raisins and skipped out.
[THE WAY WOMEN BOSS A PILLOW.]
Among the recent inventions is a pillow holder. It is explained that the pillow holder is for the purpose of holding a pillow while the case is being put on. We trust this new invention will not come into general use, as there is no sight more beautiful to the eyes of man than to see a woman hold a pillow in her teeth while she gently manipulates the pillow case over it.
BOSSING THE PILLOW.
We do not say that a woman is beautiful with her mouth full of pillows. No one can ever accuse us of saying that, but there is something home-like and old-fashioned about it that cannot be replaced by any invention.
We know that certain over fastidious women have long clamored for some new method of putting on a pillow case, but these people have either lost their teeth, or the new ones do not grasp the situation. They have tried several new methods, such as blowing the pillow case up, and trying to get it in before the wind got out, and they have tried to get the pillow in by rolling up the pillow case until the bottom is reached, and then placing the pillow on end and gently unrolling the pillow case, but all these schemes have their drawbacks.
The old style of chewing one end of the pillow, and holding it the way a retriever dog holds a duck, till the pillow case is on, and then spanking the pillow a couple of times on each side, is the best, and it gives the woman’s jaws about the only rest they get during the day.
If any invention drives this old custom away from us, and we no more see the matrons of our land with their hair full of feathers and their mouths full of striped bed-ticking, we shall feel that one of the dearest of our institutions has been ruthlessly torn from us, and the fabric of our national supremacy has received a sad blow, and that our liberties are in danger.
[HUNTING DOGS.]
They are making everything out of rubber now. A man has invented a hunting dog that can be carried in the pocket. When you get in the field, all you have to do is to blow the dog up, and start it to going. This will be a great saving, as hunters will not have to pay baggage men a dollar for tying their dogs to a trunk, when they go off hunting.
[ENTERPRISING CHICAGO!]
Chicago is to have a hotel built exclusively for men. Under no circumstances will a woman be admitted into it. There are so many men who go to Chicago, who are liable to wink at women at the table of the hotel, before they know their own heart, to lead a different life, that this new hotel, without temptation, has been decided upon. There will only be a few old bald headed roosters and persons with red noses and sore eyes stopping at the new hotel. A hotel without women would be almost as cheerful as a reform school.
[A MAD MINISTER.]
There is probably the maddest minister living at Black River Falls, that can be found in America to-day. He is a real nice man, and his name is Burt Wheeler. He preaches good sound sense, and everybody likes him. He has got friends at Neillsville, and all around there. At Black River Falls there is no license, and liquor is unknown, while at Neillsville there is license, and one can have benzine at every meal. The other day the express took a jug from Neillsville to the Falls, directed to the reverend gentleman, and on the card attached to the jug handle was the following notice:
“Old Bourbon—We have license here, and knowing you have none in your town we thought it but kindness to remember your wants.”
When a jug, or a keg arrives at the Falls by express, every citizen notices it, and they investigate, and when the jug came into the express office the expressman winked, and in a few minutes half the population of the darling little village was there. They read the note on the card and winked at each other. One man as he took a piece of cut sugar out of a barrel, said he had long suspected that Burt liked his toddy. Another fellow, picking a mouthful off a codfish, remarked that you couldn’t always tell about these confounded ministers. Frank Cooper, the editor of the Banner, though he looked pained when he saw the name “Old Bourbon” on the jug, and noticed the immense size of the jug remarked that it was the best way not to condemn a man till the returns were all in. The reverened gentleman was interrupted in his preparation of his sermon by a neighboring lady who just dropped in to tell the news, and when she sighed and told him that his jug of whisky which he had ordered from Neillsville, was in the express office, he could hardly believe his ears. He had always, to the best of his knowledge and belief, tried to lead a different life, and this was too much—too much bourbon. Scratching out the last line that he had written, which was something about something biting like an anaconda, and stinging like a ready reckoner, he put on his coat and started down town, resolved to face the multitude, conscious of his innocence. He approached the express office a little nervous. The crowd filled the street, and as he passed a raftsman with red breeches on, said he wouldn’t have such a nose as that on him for a hundred dollars. “He is full now,” said another, as the Reverend gentleman put his hand on an awning post to steady himself in the trying emergency. A man who was sitting on a salt barrel, whittling a shingle, and who had one trousers leg tucked in his boot, and a red sash around him, said if it could be proved that Wheeler was a drinking man it would be a hard blow at religion, but he didn’t know as he cared a blank anyway. The elder went in the express office and the crowd fell back to give the chief mourner a chance to look at the late lamented. There was a different expression on every face. Some looked as though they were glad he had been caught in the act, while others wore a mournful expression, as though they had been suddenly bereaved. He was pale, yet determined, and as he read the inscription he said, so help him John Rogers, he had never ordered any whisky, and never drank any, and didn’t know anything about this jug. Turning to those present he said: “This is some horrid nightmare.” The expressman said it was no nightmare, it was whisky. Wheeler said if the charges were paid he would take it, and taking the jug out doors he raised it high in the air and dashed it upon the pavement, amid the applause of his friends. At this point Hon. Wm. T. Price come along, and was told what had happened. He looked at the amber liquid oozing down between the stones on the pavement, put his finger in some of it, smelled of it, touched it to his tongue, and turning to the yet pale and excited Reverend, he said:
“Wheeler, you have maintained a noble principle, but you have destroyed four gallons of the d—dest finest maple syrup that was ever brewed in Clark county.”
It was true, Doc. French and Tom Reed, of Neillsville, two good friends of the Rev. Wheeler, had sent him the syrup, knowing that he could use it in his family, and being jokers they had put the Bourbon card on the jug, just for fun, with the alleged result above stated. Temperance men should always smell of the cork, at least, before smashing the jug. We have practiced that a good many years, and never lost a gallon of maple syrup.
[ANNA DICKINSON AS MAZEPPA!]
Anna Dickinson is to go upon the stage, and it is said that she will open in San Francisco, in the play of “Mazeppa.” If there is any society for the prevention of cruelty to animals on the Pacific coast, we trust before Anna is tied on the wild horse of Tartary, that some one will see to it that a cushion is put on the back of the horse.
[GOOD TEMPLARS ON ICE.]
We like to see young Good Templars have a hankering after cold water, bright water; but when a Juvenile Lodge about to start on a picnic, deliberately loads a hunk of ice belonging to The Sun into an omnibus, we feel like reaching for the basement of their roundabouts with a piece of clapboard.
[BOUNCED FROM CHURCH FOR DANCING.]
The Presbyterian synod at Erie, Pa., has turned a lawyer named Donaldson out of the church. The charge against him was not that he was a lawyer, as might be supposed, but that he had danced a quadrille. It does not seem to us as though there could be anything more harmless than dancing a cold blooded quadrille. It is a simple walk around, and is not even exercise. Of course a man can, if he chooses, get in extra steps enough to keep his feet warm, but we contend that no quadrille, where they only touch hands, go down in the middle, and alamand left, can work upon a man’s religion enough to cause him to backslide.
If it was this new “waltz quadrille” that Donaldson indulged in, where there is intermittant hugging, and where the head gets to whirling, and a man has to hang on to his partner quite considerable, to keep from falling all over himself, and where she looks up fondly into his eyes and as though telling him to squeeze just as hard as it seemed necessary for his convenience, we should not wonder so much at the synod hauling him over the coals for cruelty to himself, but a cold quadrille has no deviltry in it.
We presume the wicked and perverse Dr. Donaldson will join another church that allows dancing judiciously administered, and may yet get to heaven ahead of the Presbyterian synod, and he may be elected to some high position there, as Arthur was here, after the synod of Hayes and Sherman had bounced him from the Custom House for dancing the great spoils walk around.
It is often the case here, and we do not know why it may not be in heaven, that the ones that are turned over and shook up, and the dust knocked out of them, and their metaphorical coat tail filled with boots, find that the whirligig of time has placed them above the parties who smote them, and we can readily believe that if Donaldson gets a first-class position of power, above the skies, he will make it decidedly warm for his persecutors when they come up to the desk with their gripsacks and register and ask for a room and a bath, and a fire escape. He will be apt to look up to the key rack and tell them everything is full, but they can find pretty fair accommodations at the other house, down at the Hot Springs, on the European plan, by Mr. Devil, formerly of Chicago.
[FROZEN EARS.]
“A young fellow and his girl went out sleighing yesterday, and the lad returned with a frozen ear. There is nothing very startling in the simple fact of a frozen ear, but the idea is that it was the ear next to the girl that he was foolish enough to let freeze.” A girl that will go out sleigh-riding with a young man and allow his ears to freeze is no gentleman, and ought to be arrested. Why, here in Milwaukee, on the coldest days, we have seen a young man out riding with a girl, and his ears were so hot they would fairly “sis,” and there was not a man driving on the avenue but would have changed places with the young man, and allowed his ears to cool. Girls cannot sit too close during this weather. The climate is rigorous.
[HARD ON FOND DU LAC.]
Forest street, Fond du Lac, is going to be a great place for sparking, one of these days. For three years all the children born on that street have been girls. Some lay it to the artesian well water.
[THOSE BOLD BAD DRUMMERS.]
About seventy-five traveling men were snowed in at Green Bay during a late blockade, and they were pretty lively around the hotels, having quiet fun Friday and Saturday, and passing away the time the best they could, some playing seven up, others playing billiards, and others looking on. Some of the truly good people in town thought the boys were pretty tough, and they wore long faces and prayed for the blockade to raise so the spruce-looking chaps could go away.
The boys noticed that occasionally a lantern-jawed fellow would look pious at them, as though afraid he would be contaminated. So Sunday morning they decided to go to church in a body. Seventy-five of them slicked up and marched to the Rev. Dr. Morgan’s church, where the reverend gentleman was going to deliver a sermon on Temperance. No minister ever had a more attentive audience, or a more intelligent one, and when the collection plate was passed every last one of the travelers chipped in a silver dollar.
THE SEXTON IN ALL HIS GLORY.
When the sexton had received the first ten dollars the perspiration stood out on his forehead as though he had been caught in something. It was getting heavy, something that never occurred before in the history of church collections at the Bay. As he passed by the boys, and dollar after dollar was added to his burden, he felt like he was at a picnic, and when twenty-five dollars had accumulated on the plate he had to hold it with both hands, and finally the plate was full, and he had to go and empty it on the table in front of the pulpit, though he was careful to remember where he left off, so he wouldn’t go twice to the same drummer.
As he poured the shekels out on the table, as still as he could, every person in the audience almost raised up to look at the pile, and there was a smile on every face, and every eye turned to the part of the church where sat the seventy-five solemn looking traveling men, who never wore a smile. The sexton looked up to the minister, who was picking up a hymn, as much as to say, “Boss, we have struck it rich, and I am going back to work the lead some more.” The minister looked at the boys, and then at the sexton as though saying, “Verily, I would rather preach to seventy-five Milwaukee and Chicago drummers than to own a brewery. Go, thou, and reap some more trade dollars in my vineyard.”
The sexton went back and commenced where he left off. He had his misgivings, thinking maybe some of the boys would glide out in his absence, or think better of the affair and only put in nickels on the second heat, but the first man the sexton held out the platter to planked down his dollar, and all the boys followed suit, not a man “passed” or “renigged,” and when the last drummer had been interviewed the sexton carried the biggest load of silver back to the table that he ever saw.
Some of the silver dollars rolled off on the floor, and he had to put some in his coat pockets, but he got them all, and looked around at the congregation with a smile and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief and winked, as much as to say, “The first man that speaks disrespectfully of a traveling man in my presence will get thumped, and don’t you forget it.”
The minister rose up in the pulpit, looked at the wealth on the table, and read the hymn, “A charge to keep I have,” and the congregation joined, the travelers swelling the glad anthem as though they belonged to a Pinafore chorus. They all bowed their heads while the minister, with one eye on the dollars, pronounced the benediction, and the services were over.
The traveling men filed out through the smiles of the ladies and went to the hotel, while half the congregation went forward to the anxious seat, to “view the remains.” It is safe to say that it will be unsafe, in the future, to speak disparagingly of traveling men in Green Bay, as long as the memory of that blockade Sunday remains green with the good people there.
[ANNA DICKINSON.]
Anna Dickinson is going upon the stage again and is to play male characters, such as “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” and “Claude Melnotte.” We have insisted for years that Anna Dickinson was a man, and we dare anybody to prove to the contrary. There is one way to settle this matter, and that is when she plays Hamlet. Let the stage manager put a large spider in the skull of Yorick, and when Hamlet takes up the skull and says, “Alas, poor Yorick, I was pretty solid with him,” let the spider crawl out of one of the eye holes onto Hamlet’s hand, and proceed to walk up Miss Dickinson’s sleeve. If Hamlet simply shakes the spider off, and goes on with the funeral unconcerned, then Miss Dickinson is a man. But if Hamlet screams bloody murder, throws the skull at the grave digger, falls over into the grave, tears his shirt, jumps out of the grave and shakes his imaginary skirts, gathers them up in his hands and begins to climb up the scenes like a Samantha cat chased by a dog, and gets on top of the first fly and raises Hamlet’s back and spits, then Miss Dickinson is a woman. The country will watch eagerly for the result of this test, which we trust will be made at the Boston Theatre next week.
[EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF A DOUGHNUT.]
“’Twas midnight’s holy hour, and silence was brooding like a gentle spirit o’er the still and pulseless world.” Not a sound was heard, except Robert’s dog baying at a sorrel haired young man and a muchmussed girl, who were returning home from a suburban picnic. As they passed out of hearing, and the dog was peacefully cannibalizing on a link of sausage that had been condemned by the board of health, owing to a piece of brass padlock that showed through the silky nickel plating made of fiddling string material, a soft cry of a child was heard in an upper room of a mansion owned by a prosperous business man. The head of the house heard it and sat up in bed to still the small voice, but couldn’t, when the mother of the child said that she had forgotten to bring up anything for the child to eat in the night, and she must go down cellar and get a doughnut. The man said he could never stay there and enjoy himself in bed and think of his wife, groping around in the dark below stairs after it. After telling him that he would probably come up with a pickle, ehe let him go. Carefully he got out of bed, in an angelic frame of mind and a night shirt, and barefooted he prepared to make the descent. As he stopped to hold one foot in his hand, the instep of which had struck the rocker of the baby crib, she told him the doughnuts were in the third crock in the pantry on the floor. He said it was one evidence of a clear headed man, that he could walk all over his own house in the dark. At the head of the first pair of stairs he tripped on a baby cart and the tongue flew up and struck him on the knee, but by hanging to the bannisters he saved himself. At the foot of the stairs he tumbled over a block house and broke off a toe nail. He said it was a mean man that wouldn’t sacrifice a few toe nails for his little baby, and he laughed. He fell over a dining room chair, and sat down in another, and when he got up he felt that though he was not proud, he was stuck up, for on his night shirt was a sticky fly paper that had been placed in readiness to catch the unwary early fly. After peeling off the sticky paper, and subterraneously swearing a neat, delicate little female swear, he groped to the cellar door, and began to go down.
THE STARTLED CAT.
Now, if there is anything a boy ought to be punished for, it is for surreptitiously eating a large slice of musk melon and leaving the rind on the top stair. It tends to make a boy disliked. The head of the family stepped with his bare feet on the piece of melon, and sat down so quick that it made his head swim. It made him swim all over, and under, and everywhere. But if he sat down soon, he got up sooner. If there is one thing that a house cat should be taught, it is to sleep elsewhere than on the top stair. When he fell and struck the sleeping cat there was a crisis. He took in the situation at once. An occasional disengaged feline toe nail, and a squall, told him in burning words that, while his title to the seat was contested, it would be impolitic to wait for a commission of unbiased judges to decide which was entitled to it. His opponent was armed, and had possession, and he felt that it would tend to prevent riot and bloodshed if he quietly gave up. But he felt that while in his present position the cat was comparatively harmless, if he attempted to rise she would bring the whole army and navy into action, and perhaps cripple his resources. So he decided to jump up in a hurry before the cat had time to think of her toe nails much. His position was not pleasant, to say the least, but he jumped up in a hurry, hoping the cat would remain and continue her nap. She was not a remaining cat and as soon as his weight was removed from her person, she gave a yell as though frightened, and began to walk up and down his legs, inside of his night shirt. The question as to how many toe nails a cat has got, has never been decided, but he says they have a million, and he can show the documents to prove it. She went up him as though he was a fence post, and a dog after her, and he flew around as though his linen was on fire, and yelled until his wife came down to see what was the matter. By unbuttoning the top button the cat was coaxed out, under protest however, and after a light was lit there was seen about the maddest man in the world. He took a candle and went down after the doughnuts, and after running his hand into a jar of preserved peaches, and another of pickled pig’s feet, he struck the right one, and after hot grease from the candle had run down his fingers he came up with a doughnut, and then the baby wouldn’t eat it, then he sat down side-ways in a cushioned chair, applied arnica and swore till daylight. A single shot was heard in the cellar that morning, and the young life of that cat went out. As he rode down on the street car the next morning, people marvelled that he should stand up on the back platform, when there were so many vacant seats, and when a neighbor asked him to be seated he said, with a yawn, “No thank you, I have been sitting down a good deal during the night,” and he looked mad. It is such things that drive men to commit crimes.
[TAKE YOUR LATIN STRAIGHT.]
The school board, at its last session adopted the following rule: “The continental system of pronounciation shall be taught in the high schools of La Crosse, and no other allowed except by direction of board of education.” We are glad the rule has been adopted, as there is no doubt that the continental system is the best. We have been pained beyond measure, as no doubt all of the school board have, at hearing the scholars pronounce Latin by ’tother system. No longer ago than last Saturday, when we were in Mons. Anderson’s, a girl came in and asked for a pair of Latin corsets, by the Onalaska system of pronounciation. The clerk, not understanding, went and got a pair of those undershirts and drawers, complete in one number, with no tale to be continued. The girl blushed, the clerk did not understand, and we had to explain by the continental system, and the girl got her corsets, but suppose there had not been a Latin scholar standing around there waiting for his wife to buy a package of safty pins, what a predicament the girl would have been in. On behalf of the people, THE SUN thanks the board of education for adopting the continental system of pronounciation, only they ought to go further, and make it a crime punishable with suicide for anybody to pronounce it in any other way. There has been suffering enough by pronouncing it the old way.