Ingomar seemed to notice that something was the matter, and he kept his face as far from Parthenia as the rules of polite society would admit, and the theory that she had been eating onions, which was advanced by a bald-headed man in the dress circle, found many believers. However, that was not the case, as we found by inquiring of a gentlemanly supe. It is well known that Miss Anderson is addicted to the gum chewing habit, and that when she goes upon the stage she sticks her chew of gum on an old castle painted on the scenery.
There was a wicked young man playing a minor part in the play, who had been treated scornfully by Mary, as he thought, and he had been heard to say he would make her sick. He did. He took her chew of gum and spread it out so it was as thin as paper, then placed a chew of tobacco inside, neatly wrapped it up, and stuck it back on the old castle. Mary came off, when the curtain went down, and going up to the castle she bit like a bass. Putting the gum, which she had no idea was loaded, into her mouth, she mashed it between her ivories and rolled it as a sweet morsel under her tongue. It is said by those who happened to be behind the scenes, that when the tobacco began to get in its work there was the worst transformation scene that ever appeared on the stage. The air, one supe said, seemed to be full of fine cut tobacco and spruce gum, and Mary stood there and leaned against a painted rock, a picture of homesickness.
She was pale about the gills, and trembled like ap aspen leaf shaken by the wind. She was calm as a summer's morning, and while concealment, like a worm in an apple, gnawed at her stomach, and tore her corset strings, she did not upbraid the wretch who had smuggled the vile pill into her countenance. All she said, as she turned her pale face to the painted ivy on the rock, and grasped a painted mantel piece with her left hand, as her right hand rested on her heaving stomach, was, “I die by the hand of an assassin.” And the soft scenic moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked down from the flies, and Mary was saved. Women can't be too careful where they put their gum.
THE WAY TO NAME CHILDREN.
The names of Indians are sometimes so peculiar that people are made to wonder how the red men became possessed of them. That of “Sitting Bull,” “Crazy Horse,” “Man Afraid of his Horses,” “Red Cloud,” etc., cause a good deal of thought to those who do not know how the names are given. The fact of the matter is that after a child of the forest is born the medicine man goes to the door and looks out and the first object that attracts his attention is made use of to name the child. When the mother of that great warrior gave birth to her child the medicine man looked out and saw a bull seated on its haunches; hence the name “Sitting Bull.” It is an evidence of our superior civilization that we name children on a different plan, taking the name of some eminent man or woman, some uncle or aunt to fasten on to the unsuspecting stranger. Suppose that the custom that is in vogue among the Indians should be in use among us, we would have, instead of “George Washington” and “Hanner Jane,” and such beautiful names, some of the worst jaw-breakers that ever was. Suppose the attending physician should go the door after a child was born and name it after the first object he saw. We might have some future statesman named “Red Headed Servant Girl with a Rubber Bag of Hot Water” or “Bald-headed Husband Walking Up and Down the Alley with His Hands in His Pockets swearing this thing shall never Happen Again.” If the doctor happened to go the door when the grocery delivery wagon was there he would name the child “Boy from Dixon's Grocery with a Codfish by the Tail and a Bag of Oatmeal,” or if the ice man was the first object the doctor saw some beautiful girl might go down to history with the name, “Pirate with a Lump of Ice About as Big as a Solitaire Diamond.” Or suppose it was about election time, and the doctor should look out, he might name a child that had a right to grow up a minister, “Candidate for office so Full of Bug Juice that His Back Teeth are Afloat;” or suppose he should look out and see a woman crossing a muddy street, he might name a child “Woman with a Sealskin Cloak and a Hole in Her Stocking going Down Town to Buy a Red Hat.” It wouldn't do at all to name children the way Indians do, because the doctors would have the whole business in their hands, and the directories are big enough now.
ABOUT RAILROAD CONDUCTORS.
About the time the Wisconsin Central conductors were being hauled over the coals, some paper did a very unjust thing by insinuating that there was about to be a general overhauling on the old established roads, and carried the idea that there was crookedness among conductors who have been trusted employees for more years than the reporters of the papers making the insinuations have lived.
This is entirely wrong. It is well enough to joke conductors about “dividing with the company,” and all that, and the conductors take such jokes all right, and laugh about them, but when a serious charge is made by a newspaper it is no joking matter.