I thought it would never come dinner-time, and Maria Ann called me a pig because I wanted to open our basket before the rest of the baskets were opened.
At last dinner came—the “nice dinner in the woods,” you know. Over three thousand little red ants had got into our dinner, and they were worse to pick out than fish-bones. The ice-cream had melted, and there was no vinegar for the cold meat, except what was in my boot, and, of course, that was of no immediate use. The music-teacher spilled a cup of hot coffee on Maria Ann’s head, and pulled all the frizzles out trying to wipe off the coffee with his handkerchief. Then I sat on a piece of raspberry-pie, and spoiled my white pants, and concluded I didn’t want anything more. I had to stand up against a tree the rest of the afternoon. The day offered considerable variety, compared to everyday life, but there were so many drawbacks that I did not enjoy it so much as I might have done.
SEWING ON A BUTTON.
BY J. M. BAILEY.
T is bad enough to see a bachelor sew on a button, but he is the embodiment of grace alongside of a married man. Necessity has compelled experience in the case of the former, but the latter has always depended upon some one else for this service, and fortunately, for the sake of society, it is rarely he is obliged to resort to the needle himself. Sometimes the patient wife scalds her right hand or runs a sliver under the nail of the index finger of that hand, and it is then the man clutches the needle around the neck, and forgetting to tie a knot in the thread commences to put on the button. It is always in the morning, and from five to twenty minutes after he is expected to be down street. He lays the button exactly on the site of its predecessor, and pushes the needle through one eye, and carefully draws the thread after, leaving about three inches of it sticking up for a leeway. He says to himself,—“Well, if women don’t have the easiest time I ever see.” Then he comes back the other way, and gets the needle through the cloth well enough, and lays himself out to find the eye, but in spite of a great deal of patient jabbing, the needle point persists in bucking against the solid parts of that button, and, finally, when he loses patience, his fingers catch the thread, and that three inches he had left to hold the button slips through the eye in a twinkling, and the button rolls leisurely across the floor. He picks it up without a single remark, out of respect to his children, and makes another attempt to fasten it. This time when coming back with the needle he keeps both the thread and button from slipping by covering them with his thumb, and it is out of regard for that part of him that he feels around for the eye in a very careful and judicious manner; but eventually losing his philosophy as the search becomes more and more hopeless, he falls to jabbing about in a loose and savage manner, and it is just then the needle finds the opening, and comes up through the button and part way through his thumb with a celerity that no human ingenuity can guard against. Then he lays down the things, with a few familiar quotations, and presses the injured hand between his knees, and then holds it under the other arm, and finally jams it into his mouth, and all the while he prances about the floor, and calls upon heaven and earth to witness that there has never been anything like it since the world was created, and howls, and whistles, and moans, and sobs. After awhile, he calms down, and puts on his pants, and fastens them together with a stick, and goes to his business a changed man.
CASEY AT THE BAT.
(Often recited by DeWolf Hopper, the comic opera singer, between the acts.)