The pop corn man held out his hand for the money, when a man two seats back came forward and shook hands with him, saying: “They told me you would not come, but you have come, Daniel, and now we will fight it out. I will take this razor, and you can arm yourself at your leisure.” The man reached into an inside pocket of his coat, evidently for a razor, when the pop corn man started for the door, his eyes sticking out two inches. Every person he passed took a paper of pop corn, one man grabbed his coat and tore one tail off, another took his basket away and as he rushed out on the platform the basket was thrown at his head, and a female voice said, “I will be ready when the carriage calls at 8.”
As the old gentleman struck the platform and began to arrange his toilet he met Fitzgerald, the conductor, who asked him what was the matter. He said Pierce told him that crowd was going to the legislature, “but,” says he, as he picked some pieces of paper collar out of the back of his neck, “if those people are not delegates to a Democratic convention, then I have been peddling pop corn on this road ten years for nothing, and don’t know my business.” Fitz told him they were patients going to the Insane Asylum.
The old man thought it over a moment, and then he picked up a coupling pin and went looking for Pierce. He says he will kill him. Pierce has not been out of the house since. This Pierce is the same man that lent us a runaway horse once.
CATS ON THE FENCE.
Some idiot has invented a “cat teaser” to put on fences to keep cats from sitting there and singing. It consists of a three-cornered piece of tin, nailed on the top of the fence. We hope none of our friends will invest in the patent, for statistics show that while cats very often sit on fences to meditate, yet when they get it all mediated and get ready to sing a duet, they get down off the fence and get under a currant bush. We challenge any cat scientist to disprove the assertion.
HOW SHARPER THAN A HOUND’S TOOTH.
Years ago we swore on a stack of red chips that we would never own another dog. Six promising pups that had been presented to us, blooded setters and pointers, had gone the way of all dog flesh, with the distemper and dog buttons, and by falling in the cistern, and we had been bereaved via dog misfortunes as often as John R. Bennett, of Janesville, has been bereaved on the nomination for attorney general. We could not look a pup in the face but it would get sick, and so we concluded never again to own a dog.
The vow has been religiously kept since. Men have promised us thousands of pups, but we have never taken them. One conductor has promised us at least seventy-five pups, but he has always failed to get us to take one. Dog lovers have set up nights to devise a way to induce us to accept a dog. We held out firmly till last week. One day we met Pierce, the Watertown Junction hotel man, and he told us that he had a greyhound pup that was the finest bread dog—we think he said bread dog, though it might have been sausage dog he said—anyway he told us it was blooded, and that when it grew up to be a man—that is, figuratively speaking—when it grew up to be a dog full size, it would be the handsomest canine in the Northwest.
We kicked on it, entirely, at first, but when he told us hundreds of men who had seen the pup had offered him thousands of dollars for it, but that he had rather give it to a friend than sell it to a stranger, we weakened, and told him to send it in.
Well—(excuse us while we go into a corner and mutter a silent remark)—it came in on the train Monday, and was taken to the barn. It is the confoundedest looking dog that a white man ever set eyes on. It is about the color of putty, and about seven feet long, though it is only six months old. The tail is longer than a whip lash, and when you speak sassy to that dog, the tail will begin to curl around under him, amongst his legs, double around over his neck and back over where the tail originally was hitched to the dog, and then there is tail enough left for four ordinary dogs.
If that tail was cut up into ordinary tails, such as common dogs wear, there would be enough for all the dogs in the Seventh Ward, with enough left for a white wire clothes line. When he lays down his tail curls up like a coil of telephone wire, and if you take hold of it and wring you can hear the dog at the central office. If that dog is as long in proportion, when he gets his growth, and his tail grows as much as his body, the dog will reach from here to the Soldier’s home.
His head is about as big as a graham gem, and runs down to a point no bigger than a cambric needle, while his ears are about as big as a thumb to a glove, and they hang down as though the dog didn’t want to hear anything. How a head of that kind can contain brains enough to cause a dog to know enough to go in when it rains is a mystery. But he seems to be intelligent.
If a man comes along on the sidewalk, the dog will follow him off, follow him until he meets another man, and then he follows him till he meets another, and so on until he has followed the entire population. He is not an aristocratic dog, but will follow one person just as soon as another, and to see him going along the street, with his tail coiled up, apparently oblivious to every human sentiment, it is touching.
His legs are about the size of pipe stems, and his feet are as big as a base ball base. He wanders around, following a boy, then a middle aged man, then a little girl, then an old man, and finally, about meal time, the last person he follows seems to go by the barn and the dog wanders in and looks for a buffalo robe or a harness tug to chew. It does not cost anything to keep him, as he has only eaten one trotting harness and one fox skin robe since Monday, though it may not be right to judge of his appetite, as he may be a little off his feed.
Pierce said he would be a nice dog to run with a horse, or under a carriage. Why, bless you, he won’t go within twenty feet of a horse, and a horse would run away to look at him; besides, he gets right under a carriage wheel, and when the wheel runs over him he complains, and sings Pinafore.
What under the sun that dog is ever going to be good for is more than we know. He is too lean and bony for sausage. A piece of that dog as big as your finger in a sausage would ruin a butcher. It would be a dead give away. He looks as though he might point game, if the game was brought to his attention, but he would be just as liable to point a cow. He might do to stuff and place in a front yard to frighten burglars. If a burglar wouldn’t be frightened at that dog nothing would scare him.
Anyway, now we have got him, we will bring him up, though it seems as though he would resemble a truss bridge or a refrigerator car, as much as a dog, when he gets his growth. For fear he will fall off a wagon track we tie a knot in his tail.
A SAFE INVESTMENT.
Up to the present time the Sun has struggled along from infancy to middle age without a safe in its office. It has never needed one. It does not need one now, but custom has to do with these things. The associations that surround one, go far towards making these changes. When we look at the immense safes in the office of out neighbor, filled with bonds and mortgages, we feel that a safe will look well. So we purchased a sort of an iron range, with a nickle plated knob, and a lock with as many figures on it as a tax list or a lottery advertisement, and placed it where it will strike the visitor on his first entrance. Ah, what an imposing affair it is! As we lean back in a chair and 1ook at it, and close our eyes, we can see millions in it, in our mind. It is a cross between Alex. Mitchell’s safe and a child’s bank. It is not full, but it has evidently been taking something. It is a grand feeling to walk along the streets and feel that your head contains the secret which opens the safe. No one but yourself and your maker, and the maker of the safe knows the three numbers which will cause it to open. The numbers are safe with you, and the All Seeing Eye you have confidence will not give it away, so that the only show a burglar has is to get solid with the maker of the safe.
What a piece of mechanism is the lock of a safe! The man we bought it of gave us the programme that opens it. You go to the dial turn the knob, put your finger by your nose and wink. If you leave out the wink, the safe will not open, but we never leave out the wink. The trouble is, if there is a lady customer in with a bill, and we go
to open the safe, we wink too many times and have to go all over it again. Then we place the numbers in their order, 4-11-44, and when the “four” is exactly opposite the dipthong, we turn the knob back three revolutions, light a cigar, and walk three times around the room. That is to give the mechanism in the Inside time to coalesce. Then we put the “eleven” in its place, turn the knob forward one revolution, and put on our hat and go out and take a drink. That is in the programme, and we sometimes think the inventor of the lock is interested in a brewery. Then we come back, wipe our mustache on the tail of a linen coat, place the figures “44” directly over the pointer, whistle “There’s a land that is fairer than this,” place the right foot forward, then turn the knob, the door swings on its hinges, and the untold wealth of the Indies lies before us, in our alleged mind.
O, safe, are you honest? Are you true to us? You look pure and chaste, and your new overskirt of varnish, and your puffed ruching of gold and blue sets you off to good advantage, but you may not be impregnable. You have always gone in good society, and no scandal has ever been attached to your name. Your purity and innocence has been remarked by all who have met you, and there are none who would dare to intimate but that you would maintain your reputation against any attack, but sometimes we think we should hesitate to leave you all alone, with the light turned down all night and over Sunday, in the company of an eloquent, persuasive, good-looking burglar armed with a jimmy, and we fear that his warm hearted can of powder would strike a responsive chord in your impulsive nature, and that you would yield up the jewels confined to you, and your honor, your reputation, your standing among safes would be forever ruined. And yet we may be wrong.
But what would it profit a burglar to gain the whole contents and wear out his soles. If he got in that safe, he would find a package of bills that we tried for a year to collect, and we would give him the bills if he asked for them, and he could save his powder. He would find one bill of sixteen dollars, with an indorsement that one dollar is paid, after thirteen dollars worth of shoe leather had been worn out. And yet the burglar would have a soft thing on cigars with that bill, for every time he visited the doctor he would tell him when to come again, and give him a cigar. Another thing the burglar would find would be a protested draft from a great Philadelphia patent medicine advertiser. The burglar could take a tie pass that is in the safe, and walk to Philadelphia, and trade out the twenty-five dollar draft by taking buchu on account.
But no burglar that has any respect for himself, we feel sure, will ever do us the injury to scrape the paint off of that safe.
A FASHION ITEM.
A fashion item says, “The drawers this year are made very short, and some have lace ruffles.” Some fashion reporter has evidently been looking over our back fence at the clothes line. But they got awfully fooled. The shortness of those drawers was caused by the flannel shrinking and the “lace ruffles” the reporter noticed is where a calf chewed them when they were hanging out to dry last fall on Black Hawk Island, when a gun kicked us out of a boat. Some of these fashion reporters think they are smart.
A LECTURER SHOULD KNOW WHAT HE TALKS ABOUT.
A man down east is lecturing on “Hell, Ingersoll, and Whisky.” If the lecturer is at all familiar with his subjects, we wouldn’t believe him under oath.
WHAT THE DEMOCRATS WILL DO.
The Wisconsin asks, “What will the Democrats do?” We trust it is not betraying a confidence reposed in us by the manager of a party, but we can not allow our neighbor to remain in such dense ignorance, as long as we are possessed of the desired information. “What will the Democrats do?” The Democrats will prove an alibi!
A SEWING MACHINE GIVEN TO THE BOSS GIRL.
In response to a request from W.T. Vankirk, George W. Peck presented the Rock County Agricultural Society with a sewing machine, to be given to the “boss combination girl” of Rock County. With the machine he sent the following letter, which explains his meaning of a “combination girl,” etc.:
MILWAUKEE, June 7, 1881.
W.T. VANKIRK—
Dear Sir: Your letter, in reference to giving some kind of a premium to somebody, at your County Fair, is received, and I have been thinking it over. I have brought my massive intellect to bear upon the subject, with the follow result:
I ship you to-day, by express, a sewing machine, complete, with cover, drop leaf, hemmer, tucker, feller, drawers, and everything that a girl wants, except corsets and tall stockings. Now, I want you to give that to the best “combination girl” in Rock County, with the compliments of the Sun.
What I mean by a “combination,” is one that in the opinion of your Committee has all the modern improvements, and a few of the old-fashioned faults, such as health, etc. She must be good-looking, that is not too handsome, but just handsome enough. You don’t want to give this machine to any female statue, or parlor ornament, who don’t know how to play a tune on it, or who is as cold as a refrigerator car, and has no heart concealed about her person. Our girl, that is, our “Fair Girl,” that takes this machine, must be “the boss.” She must be jolly and good-natured, such a girl as would make the young man that married her think that Rock County was the next door to heaven, anyway. She must be so healthy that nature’s roses will discount any preparation ever made by man, and so well-formed that nothing artificial is needed to—well, Van, you know what I mean.
You want to pick out a thoroughbred, that is, all wool, a yard wide—that is, understand me, I don’t want the girl to be a yard wide, but just right. Your Committee don’t want to get “mashed” on some ethereal creature whose belt is not big enough for a dog collar. This premium girl wants to be able to do a day’s work, if necessary, and one there is no danger of breaking in two if her intended should hug her.
After your Committee have got their eyes on a few girls that they think will fill the bill, then they want to find out what kind of girls they are around their home. Find if they honor their fathers and their mothers, and are helpful, and care as much for the happiness of those around them as they do for their own. If you find one who is handsome as Venus—I don’t know Venus, but I have heard that she takes the cake—I say, if you find one that is perfect in everything, but shirks her duties at home, and plays, “I Want to Be an Angel,” on the piano, while her mother is mending her stockings, or ironing her picnic skirts, then let her go ahead and be an angel as quick as she wants to, but don’t give her the machine. You catch the idea?
Find a girl who has the elements of a noble woman; one whose heart is so large that she has to wear a little larger corset than some, but one who will make her home happy, and who is a friend to all; one who would walk further to do a good deed, and relieve suffering, than she would to patronize an ice cream saloon; one who would keep her mouth shut a month before she would say an unkind word, or cause a pang to another. Let your Committee settle on such a girl, and she is as welcome to that machine as possible.
Now, Van, you ought to have a Committee appointed at once, and no one should know who the Committee is. They should keep their eyes open from now till the time of the Fair, and they should compare notes once in a while. You have got some splendid judges of girls there in Janesville, but you better appoint married men. They are usually more unbiased. They should not let any girl know that she is suspected of being the premium girl, until the judgment is rendered, so no one will be embarrassed by feeling that she is competing for a prize.
Now, Boss, I leave the constitution and the girls in your hands; and if this premium is the means of creating any additional interest in your Fair, and making people feel good natured and jolly, I shall be amply repaid.
Your friend
GEO. W. PECK.
SHE WAS NO GENTLEMAN.
From an article in the Leader we gather that Frank Drake, editor of the Rushford Star, was horsewhipped by a woman who was dissatisfied with some article of his that appeared against her, in the Star. A woman that cowhides an editor is no gentleman.
JOKE ON THE HA
T.
Somehow, during the election excitement, Frank Hatch happened to bet right just once. He bet a hat, and on Monday he went to Putnam & Philbrick and selected one of the finest silk ones. When he went out in the street every body noticed it, and a reception was held. They all congratulated Frank, except Ike Usher. Ike’s hat was a year old, and the contrast was so remarkable that Ike would not walk on the street with Hatch. Frank said that Ike’s hat used to be a very fine looking hat, but at present it was a disgrace to the force. Mr. Usher was offended, and he swore revenge. He went to a professional drunkard on Division street, and said that if he should happen to get drunk Monday night and Hatch should happen to arrest him, he would give the drunkard five dollars if the drunkard would mash Frank’s new hat. The fellow said he would flatten it flatter than flatness itself. Just after dark Mr. Hatch was walking down Third street, “Whoop, hurrah for Tilden, (hic) ’endrix.” The remark seemed so out of place that Frank went down there. The man was lying on the sidewalk, and telling the barrel to roll over and not take up all the bed. Mr. Hatch accosted the man gently, telling him he would catch cold there, and that he had better go with him to the city hotel. The man said he would—be counted in if he did, and Hatch bent over him to take him by the lily white hand, when a drunken boot came down on the top of that hat, and drove it clean down to Frank’s nose. Of course it could go no further. Then the man pulled Frank down, and the hat struck the end of a salt barrel, knocked it off, and the man raised up and sat down on it, and kicked it into the street. Frank got the man away, and a boy brought his hat to the police station, just as Usher and Littlejohn and Knutson, and all the policeman entered. It is said that all stood on the corner over by Kevin’s watching the arrest. The hat was a sight to behold, as it laid in state on the safe, and all the boys making comments on it. It looked like a six-inch stove pipe elbow that a profane man had been attempting to fit to a five-inch stove pipe. It looked like some old dripping pan that had been thrown out in the street, and had been run over by wagons. It looked like the very dickens. And yet we have no doubt Hatch will say this is a lie, because he now wears a good hat, but we know the hat he now wears he got by trading a flannel shirt to a grasshopper sufferer, and it no more resembles the beautiful new hat he won on election than nothing. After Hatch went out of the office, Usher let the man “escape,” and he is five dollars ahead, and Ike has got even with Hatch.
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