When T. H. Benton was in the House he was of the opinion that the third day of March, and consequently the congressional term, ended at midnight of that day, instead of at noon on the fourth, as unbroken usage had fixt it. So on the last morning he sat with his hat on, talked loudly, loafed about the floor, and finally refused to vote or answer to his name when the roll was called. At last the speaker, the Hon. James L. Orr, of South Carolina, picked him up and put an end to these legislative larks.
“No, sir; no, sir; NO, sir!” shouted the venerable Missourian; “I will not vote. I have no right to vote. This is no House, and I am not a member of it.”
“Then, sir,” said Speaker Orr like a flash, with his sweetest manner, “if the gentleman is not a member of this House, the sergeant-at-arms will please put him out.”
And so this vast constitutional question settled itself.
(2518)
PRIVILEGES SLIGHTED
Mrs. Mary A. Wright, a veteran Sunday-school teacher of New Jersey, relates an odd story of human interest taken from personal observation.
I went to see a beautiful new farmhouse near Fort Wayne, Iowa. A friend who accompanied me explained that the owner, a prosperous ranchman, had been forty years building it. He had started life in a small home of logs—but in his early days had dreamed of a larger and better home for himself and family. Every tree he saw that struck his fancy he cut down and hewed into lumber so that when he was finally ready to erect his mansion he had all the seasoned material at hand. The new home was at last completed and beautifully finished upon the interior in polished natural woods. There were soft carpets for the floors, and rich furnishings; a bath-room, steam heat, and other modern conveniences.
That was several years before my visit, but I learned that, altho surrounded by all of this luxury, the farmer and his family lived in the basement. He had spent the best years of his life striving to build such a beautiful home, but, after getting it, he thought it too good to use and the family kept it to look at. The farmer and his family washed at the old pump in the yard while the costly tiled bath-room, with hot and cold water equipment, stood idle. They drank out of tin cups and ate off of cracked earthenware in their humble abode in the basement, while fine cut-glass and delicate china pieces reposed undisturbed in china-closets in the elegantly furnished dining-room up-stairs.
All the members of the family entered into the spirit of “keeping the house looking nice,” and they kept it so nice that the wife and mother who had worn out her life in helping to secure the luxuries that she afterward thought too good to enjoy, begged to be allowed to die on a straw mattress in the cellar rather than muss the clean linen in the bed-chambers above.