Peck's Sunshine Part 15

We are sorry to see so many of the humorous papers find any fun in the incident of the girl at Keokuk who was hugged to death by her lover. He had proposed to her, in her father's parlor, and she had accepted him, and in a moment of ecstacy he hugged her to his breast, and she died at once. The young man was horror stricken, and called her parents. It is supposed that she died of heart disease. The case was very sad, indeed, and papers should not make fun of an occurrence that brings so much sadness.

However, while this case is fresh in the minds of old and young, we will embrace the opportunity, and embrace it gently, for fear we will kill it, to again impress upon young people what we have so often advised, and that is to be unusually careful about how they hug girls. Many a young man hugs a girl almost to death, and he never knows how near he comes to being a murderer.

Girls now-a-days are not what they used to be when you and I were young, Maggie. They cannot stand as much grief now as girls did twenty years ago. Somehow, they don't seem to be put up for hugging. If a man puts his arm around a seven-teen-year-old girl of the present day, and sort of closes in on the belt, he expects to hear something break. Many a humane man lets go before he has got a girl half hugged because the girl looks so frail that he is afraid he will break her in two.

Of course there are exceptions to the frail girls, but the majority are too much like a bundle of asparagus. Some of the girls of the present day are robust, and seem to be offended if a person lets up on the hugging on their account, and it is said they hug back with a vigor which reminds a man of the days of long ago, but they are few and far between.

Too much care cannot be exercised in putting arms around the young girls of to-day, and we would wish to impress this fact upon the minds of the young men who are just coming upon the stage of action. Of course, men along in years do not need advice. The boys are apt to put more force into the right arm than they are aware of, a hundred per cent, more than they would be apt to do in sawing wood, or in carrying up a scuttle of coal.

They should bear in mind that girls are too valuable to be used in developing the muscles, as you would a gymnasium. You don't have to squeeze a girl till her liver is forced from its normal position, and she chokes and catches her breath, to show her that you love her. A gentle squeeze of the hand, the stealing of the arm around her waist when she is not looking, and the least pressure upon her belt is all that the law requires.

She can tell by your face whether you love her, as you sit there in the twilight looking into the guiding star eyes, as well as though you grabbed her as you would a sack of wheat, and hung on like a dog to a root.

Anna d.i.c.kinson 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 d.i.c.kinson 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 d.i.c.kinson's sleeve.

If Hamlet simply shakes the spider off, and goes on with the funeral, unconcerned, then Miss d.i.c.kinson is a man. But if Hamlet screams b.l.o.o.d.y 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 all 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 d.i.c.kinson is a woman. The country will watch eagerly for the result of the test, which we trust will be made at the Boston Theatre next week.

OUR CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS HAVE GONE.

It pains us to announce that the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, which has had rooms on two sides of our office for more than a year, has moved away. We do not know why they moved, as we have tried to do everything that it was possible to do for their comfort, and to cheer them in their lonely life. That their proximity to the _Sun_ office has been beneficial to them we are a.s.sured, and the closeness has not done us any hurt as we know of. Many times when something has happened that, had it happened in La Crosse, might have caused us to be semi-profane, instead of giving way to the fiery spirit within us, and whooping it up, we have thought of our neighbors who were truly good, and have turned the matter over to our business manager, who would do the subject justice or burst a flue.

When the young Christians have given a sociable, we have always put on a resigned and pious expression and gone amongst them about the time the good bald-headed brother brought up the pail full of coffee, and the cheerful sister cut the cake.

No one has been more punctual at these free feeds than we have, though we have often noticed that we never got a fair divide of the cake that was left, when they were dividing it up to carry home for the poor. We have been as little annoyed by our neighbors as we could have been by anybody that might have occupied the rooms.

It is true that at times the singing of a church tune in there when we were writing a worldly editorial has caused us to get tangled, but the piety that we have smuggled into our readers through the church music will more than atone for the wrath we have felt at the discordant music, and we have hopes the good brothers will not be averse to saying a good word for us when they feel like it.

When we lent the young Christians our sanctum as a reception room for the ladies when they gave the winter picnic to the dry goods clerks, we _did_ feel a little hurt at finding so many different kinds of hair pins on the carpet the next morning, and the different colors of long hair on our plush chairs and raw silk ottoman would have been a dead give away on any other occasion, but for this, even, we have forgiven the young Christians, though if we ever do so again they have got to agree to comb the lounge and the chairs before we shall ever occupy the rooms again.

There is nothing that is so hard to explain as a long hair of another color, or hair pins and blue bows, and pieces of switch. They are gone, and we miss them. No more shall we hear the young Christian slip up on the golden stairs and roll down with his boot heel pointing heavenward, while the wail of a soul in anguish comes over the banisters, and the brother puts his hand on his pistol pocket and goes out the front door muttering a silent prayer, with blood in his eyes.

No more will the young Christian faint by the wayside as he brings back our borrowed chairs and finds a bottle and six gla.s.ses on our center table, when he has been importuning us to deliver a temperance speech in his lecture room. Never again shall we witness the look of agony on the face of the good brother when we refuse to give five dollars towards helping discharged criminals to get a soft thing, while poor people who never committed a crime and have never been supported by the State are amongst us feeling the pangs of hunger. No more shall we be compelled to watch the hard looking citizens who frequent the reading room of the a.s.sociation for fear they will enter our office in the still watches of the night and sleep on the carpet with their boots on.

They are all gone. They have gone across the beautiful river, and have camped near the _Christian Statesman_ office, where all is pure and good except the houses over on Second street, beyond the livery stable, where they never will be molested if they do not go there.

Will they be treated any better in their new home than they have been with us? Will they have that confidence in their new neighbors that they have always seemed to have in us? Well, we hope they may be always happy, and continue to do good, and when they come to die and go to St.

Peter's gate, if there is any back talk, and they have any trouble about getting in, the good old doorkeeper is hereby a.s.sured that we will vouch for the true goodness and self-sacrificing devotion of the Milwaukee Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, and he is asked to pa.s.s them in and charge it up to the _Sun_.

THE SUDDEN FIRE-WORKS AT RACINE.

One of those Fourth of July accidents that are always looked for but seldom occur, happened at Racine, Monday night, which struck terror to the hearts and other portions of the bodies of many eminent citizens, and that none were killed we can all thank Providence, who tempers the fire-works to the sweaty citizen in his shirt sleeves. The enterprising citizens had contributed a large sum of money, which had been judiciously expended in all kinds of fire-works, and one side of the public square was given up to the display.

Thousands of citizens had gathered there, from city and country, and bright Roman candles shone o'er fair men and brave women, and sixteen thousand nine hundred and twelve hearts beat happy, while music arose with its voluptuous swell, and soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, or words to that effect. At least that was what a young fellow from Racine told us, who was there to see a specialist to have a splinter from a rocket stick removed from his ear.

A few pieces had been shot off, a few bunches of crackers had had their tails tied together and been hung over a wire clothes line, like cats, to fight it out, and the crowd was holding its breath for the next boom, when there was an explosion; the earth seemed to tremble, and the air was full of all kinds of fire-works. The whole supply of fire-works had become ignited, and were blowing off where they listeth, without regard to anybody's feelings.

The crowd became panic stricken, and there never was another such a scene, and never will be until the last great day, when a few thousand people suddenly find that they have got into h.e.l.l, by mistake, when they thought they were ticketed through to the other place. It was perfectly awful. Prominent citizens who usually display great pluck, became fearfully rattled.

A man named Martindale, a railroad man who weighs over two hundred pounds, was standing near a telegraph pole, and as the firing commenced he climbed up the pole as easy as a squirrel would climb a tree, and when it was over they had to get a fire ladder to get him down, as his pants had got caught over the gla.s.s telegraph k.n.o.b, and he had forgotten the combination, and besides he said he didn't want to take off his clothes up there and come down, even if it _was_ dark, because it would be just his luck to have some one fire off a Roman candle when he got down.

The Hon. Norton J. Field was another man who lost his nerve. He was explaining to some ladies one of the pieces that was to be fired off, which was an allegorical picture representing the revolution, when the whole business blew up. He thought at the time, that the explosion was in the programme, and was just rea.s.suring the ladies, by telling them it reminded him of battle scenes he had witnessed when he was on the military committee in the a.s.sembly, when he noticed a girl near him whose polonaise had caught fire, and he rushed up to her, caught her by the dress, intending, with his cool hands, to put out the fire.

The girl felt some one feeling, as she supposed, for her pocket-book, and she started to run, yelling, "pickpocket," and left the burning polonaise in Mr. Field's hands. He blushed, and was about to explain to his lady friends how the best of us are liable to have our motives misconstrued, when somebody threw a box of four dozen of those large firecrackers right at his feet, and they were all on fire. Ten of them exploded at once, and he grabbed the polonaise in one hand and his burning coat tail in the other, and started West on a run.

The steward of the Gideon's Band Club House, at Burlington, said he arrived there at daylight on the morning of the 5th, and he still held the pieces of dress, but the whole back of his coat was burned off, and his suspenders just held by a thread. He said the comet struck the earth at Racine, at 9:30 the night before, and knocked the town into the lake, and he and another fellow were all that escaped.

The narrowest escape was that of young Mr. Oberman. He is a small man, all except his heart and feet, and when the air began to fill with patriotic missiles, he started to run. On pa.s.sing the _News_ office he had to jump over the old coal stove that stood there, and while he was in the air, six feet from the sidewalk, a sky rocket stick pa.s.sed through his coat tail and pinned him to the building, where he hung suspended, while other rocket sticks were striking all around him, Roman candle colored b.a.l.l.s were falling on his unprotected head, etc., and one of these n.i.g.g.e.r chasers, that run all over the ground, climbed up the side of the building and tried to get in his pants pocket.

Mr. Oberman begged Mr. Wright, the postmaster, to cut him down, but Mr.

Wright, who was using both hands and his voice trying to disengage a package of pin-wheels from the back portion of his coat, which were on fire and throwing out colored sparks, said he hadn't got time, as he was going down to the river to take a sitz bath for his health.

The man that keeps the hotel next door to the _News_ office came out with a pail of water, yelled "fire," and threw the water on Mr. Curt Treat's head. Mr. Treat was very much vexed, and told the hotel man if he couldn't tell the difference between an auburn haired young man and a pin-wheel, he'd better go and hire somebody that could. Friends of Mr. Treat say that he would be justified in going into the hotel and ordering a bottle of pop, and then refusing to pay for it, as the water took all the starch out of his shirt.

Those who saw the explosion say it was one of the most magnificent, yet awful and terrible sights ever witnessed, and the only wonder is that somebody was not hurt. What added to the terror of the scene was when they went to the artesian well to get water to put out the fire and found that the well had ceased flowing. On investigation they found that Mr. Sage, the a.s.semblyman, had crawled into the pipe.

By the way, Mr. Oberman finally got down from his terrible position by the aid of the editor of the _Journal_, to whom Mr. Oberman promised coal enough to run his engine for a year. Very few men displayed any coolness except Mr. Treat and Mr. Sage.

YOUNG FOOLS WHO MARRY.

An exchange has the following item which may seem all right, but it will get some young fellow's back broke yet:

"An Illinois justice has decided that courting is a public necessity, and must not be interrupted; therefore, if a young man wanted to kiss a girl he might put her father out of the room first if he liked."

The publication of the above may cause some smart youth to do something he will regret. The lame, sickly-looking father of a girl may come into the parlor some night and find the warm-haired youth on the sofa with the girl, and when the old man speaks of it being time to stop such nonsense, the young man, with this judicial decision in his mind, will tell his prospective father-in-law to wipe off his vest and go to bed.

The old man will spit on his hands and grasp the warm-haired young man by the county seat and tie him up in a double bow knot, and pin a scarf on him, and throw him out on the path to the gate, and then he will turn and slap the girl across where the dress is plaited, and she will go up stairs with her hand on her heart, as it were, and the old man will jump up and say "Whoop?"

The young men of this country have got gall enough about visiting girls in the evening at their homes without filling their heads with any such ideas in regard to their legal rights. There are very few fathers who would quietly submit to being told to go away by a youth with a striped neck tie and pants too short at the bottom.

These sparkers are looked upon by parents generally as a nuisance, and often they are right. Nine-tenths of the sparking is done by boys who haven't got their growth, and they look so green that it is laughable for old folks to look at them. They haven't generally got a second shirt, and they are no more qualified to get married than a steer is to preach. And yet marrying is about the first thing they think of.

A green boy, without a dollar, present or prospective, sparking a girl regularly and talking of marrying is a spectacle for G.o.ds and men. He should be reasoned with, and if he will not quit it until he is able to support a wife, and to know who he loves, and the difference between love and pa.s.sion, he should be quarantined or put in a convent erected on purpose for such cases.

Nine-tenths of the unhappy marriages are the result of green human calves being allowed to run at large in the society pasture without any pokes on them. They marry and have children before they do moustaches; they are fathers of twins before they are proprietors of two pairs of pants, and the little girls they marry are old women before they are twenty years old. Occasionally one of these gosling marriages turns out all right, but it is a clear case of luck.