Peck's Sunshine Part 24

Rather than have anybody think she had been having a row she explained how it happened. She was sitting with her husband and little girl in the parlor, and while the two were reading, the little one disappeared. The mother went to the girl's room, on tip-toe, to see if she was asleep.

She found the girl with all her dolls on the floor, having a doll's prayer meeting. She had them all down on their knees, and would let them pray one at a time, then sing. One of the dolls that squeaked when pressed on the stomach was leader of the singing, and the little girl bossed the job. There was one old maid doll that the little girl seemed to be disgusted with because the doll talked too much, and she would say:

"There, Miss, you sit down and let some of the other sisters get in a word edgeways. Sister Perkins, won't you relate your experience?"

After listening to this for a few moments the mother heard the girl say:

"Now, Polly, you pa.s.s the collection plate, and n.o.body must put in lozengers, and then we will all go to the dancing school."

The whole thing was so ridiculous that the mother attempted to rush down stairs three at a time, to have her husband come up to prayer meeting, when she stubbed herself on a stair rod, and--well, she got the black eye on the journey down stairs, though what hit her she will probably never know. But she said when she began to roll down stairs she felt in her innermost soul as though she had broke up that prayer meeting prematurely.

SHOOTING ON SUNDAY, WITH THE MOUTH.

There is nothing in the world that is so beautiful as to see a sporting man, one who loves to shoot the wild prairie chicken and chase the bounding duck over the plains, have a respect for the Sabbath day. There are too many of our sporting friends who, if they are out for a week's shooting, forget that they should lay away the deadly breech loader on Sunday, after oiling it, and busy themselves reading good books, or loading cartridges.

However, we are proud to number among our acquaintances one sporting gentleman who would sooner cut a dog in two than to hunt on Sunday. It is related of him that on one occasion while in camp in a deer country, that his hounds got after a buck one Sunday morning, and that our friend was so incensed at the dogs that he seized his gun and shot one of the dogs dead, besides wounding the deer, and that he had to follow the deer over four miles before he could overtake the animal and put it out of its misery.

A wicked companion said that he shot at the deer and killed the dog accidentally, but those who know Mr. Van Brunt would not believe the story for a moment. Not long since this gentleman left his home at Horicon and went to Owatonna, Minn., for a few weeks' hunt. He hunted a good deal in town, and became somewhat acquainted with the fair s.e.x as well as the chickens and other ducks of the prairies. However, Sunday came, and while the other wretches went out snooting on Sunday, our friend hied himself to the Sabbath school. His presence was observed by a teacher, and he, by the way, observed _her_ presence, and being a stranger and a pious looking man, she invited him to help her teach her cla.s.s. He accepted, and seated beside the fair teacher, he chipped in an occasional remark to the cla.s.s, while he looked into the soulful, pious eyes of the handsome teacher. She introduced him to the superintendent as a pious young man from Wisconsin, and the superintendent invited him to address the school.

It was new business to our friend, but he said he never had anything sawed off onto him unless he stood it like a man, so he got up, with the girl's eyes on him, and told the children the beautiful story of the cross, and how Samson went up in a chariot of fire, and Adam was found in the bullrushes by a Sunday school teacher, while he was shooting blue wing teal, and how Noah and Sat Clark built an ark and coasted around Uoricon lake and landed on Iron Ridge and sent out a canvas-back duck to see if there was any living thing this side of Schleisingerville, and how the duck came back with a sprig of wild celery in its bill which it had found at Lake Koshkonong.

He told how the locusts came down on the democratic party and lected Garfield, and counseled the children to be good and they would have a soft thing. He said evil communications corrupted two of a kind, and they could not be too careful with their pennies, and advised them to give up the soul destroying habit of buying taffy, and try and lead a different life, and put their money into the missionary box, where the wicked cease from troubling, and give us a rest.

He would have gone on all the afternoon, only the superintendent of the Sunday school told the children that the exercises would close with "Little Drops of Water," and our friend sat down and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

The teacher said that his words had opened new beauties to her in the Scriptures, though he was a little off on some of his statistics. He told her, by way of apology, that she couldn't expect much religion from a man that came from so strong a democratic county as Dodge county. This may be all a lie, but if it is, we got it from one of the best liars of the State.

A WASHINGTON SURPRISE PARTY.

When Mr. and Mrs. Hayes returned to Washington from the far west their Ohio friends got up a surprise party for them. They had just retired for the night, rather early on account of fatigue, when the door bell rung violently. Mr. Hayes put on his pants, and throwing one suspender over his shoulder and holding on to it with his hands, he went to the door and asked who was there. On being answered that John Sherman was there, Mr. Hayes supposed there was something important, and he opened the door.

Mr. Sherman came in with a market basket of sandwiches, followed by about a hundred ladies and gentlemen, loaded down with articles usually taken to surprise parties. Mr. Hayes was taken entirely by surprise, and as he b.u.t.toned his trousers and tucked in his night shirt behind he said he hoped they would excuse him for a moment till he went up stairs and put on a collar and some stockings, and called Mrs. Hayes, who was in bed.

Matt Carpenter said never mind; he would call Mrs. Hayes, and he gave a hop, skip and jump and went up stairs three at a time, followed by Mr.

Hayes, who was shivering from the contact of his bare feet with the oil cloth in the hall.

"What is the trouble, Rutherford?" said Mrs. Hayes, as Mr. Carpenter rushed into the room.

"Get up and dress yourself, you are surrounded, and escape is impossible."

Mrs. Hayes screamed as she saw the bold buccaneer, pulled the bed clothes over her head and said, "We are lost."

At this point Hayes, who had got on a pair of woolen stockings, and was b.u.t.toning on a paper collar, said: "I say, Matt, of course this is all right, and I don't want you to be offended, but won't you just step out into the hall so Mrs. Hayes can get her clothes on."

"Why, to be sure," said Matt, as he got up out of a rocking chair, on which there were three skirts, a red petticoat, an emanc.i.p.ation corset, and a pair of striped stockings with long suspenders arranged to b.u.t.ton on the waist, "of course I will go out, but you need not mind me. I am near sighted."

Matt went down stairs with the crowd, and when he was gone Mrs. Hayes got her head out from under the clothes and wanted to know what the trouble was, and if they could not fly.

Hayes told her not to be alarmed, as it was only one of those d--d surprise parties. He said there were two hundred hungry people down stairs, with baskets of sandwiches and pickles, and the chances were that they would eat up everything there was in the house, and mash crumbs and cold tongue into the carpet.

Mrs. Hayes got up and sent Rutherford into the linen closet after a clean white skirt, and he returned with a night gown and had to be sent back. While she was taking her hair down out of the curl papers, and putting bandoline over her ears, she gave Mr. Hayes her opinion of surprise parties. She said that little shrimp, Alexander Stephens, would sit on the piano keys, and knock his boot heels against the piano case, and that Dave Davis would fall over the music rack, and sit down in her best rocking chair and break it.

Just then she touched her nose with a curling iron that she had heated in a gas jet, and screamed and woke Mr. Hayes up, and he wanted to know what was the matter. She rolled over in bed, felt of her nose to see if it was there, and told Mr. Hayes she had been dreaming there was a surprise party came to the house.

He said: "My dear, I trust there is no such fate in store for us. You are nervous. Try a little of that crab apple cider, and lay on your face, and see if you can't go to sleep."

THE DIFFERENCE IN CLOTHES.

There is something about the practice of "practical joking" that is mighty pleasant and enjoyable, if the joke is on somebody else. It was about six years ago that we quit practical joking, and the reason was that the boys played one on us that fairly broke our back. We had always been full of it, and an opportunity to play a joke on a friend was a picnic for us, but this time we had all the tuck taken out and fairly unraveled.

A party consisting of Hogan, Hatch, Root, Wood and Webb had been down from La Crosse to the marshes shooting ducks for a week. We had prepared to break camp and take the train to Brownsville at 2 o'clock, from which we took a little steamer for La Crosse.

We were out shooting and did not get to camp until everything was packed up, and just had time to catch the train with our hunting clothes on.

The rest of the fellows had been in camp an hour, and had put on their good clothes, and washed up and looked like gentlemen, as they were, while we looked like a tramp, which we were not. All got on the little steamboat, and hugged around the boiler with the other pa.s.sengers, for it was a cold night.

We felt a little ashamed of the old hunting clothes that had been worn so many years, and were covered with blood and dirt, but there was no chance to change, and we sat down with the boys. Finally Root, who was the biggest hector in the world, and a fine looking gentleman, turned to the captain of the boat and said, pointing to us:

"I wish, captain, you would ask this red-headed muskrat trapper to sit on the other side of me. He smells bad."

If lightning had struck us we could not have been more astonished. The pa.s.sengers all looked at the dirty looking "muskrat trapper," and stuck up their noses. The captain asked us in a polite manner if we would not please move and get on the "lee side" of the pa.s.sengers. He said he didn't mean any offence, but the smell of muskrats oftentimes made people sick.

Well, it was a pretty tight fix, but we forced a laugh and looked around at the rest of the boys in a familiar way, and began talking to them.

Not a man of them would recognize us. The captain turned to Hogan and said, "Is this a friend of yours?" Hogan put on a look of disgust, and said he had never seen us before. "However," says Jim, "he may be a very deserving person of his cla.s.s."

The captain said we had better go to the other end of the boiler and lay down with the dogs where it was warm. We tried to pa.s.s it off as a joke, and turned to Hatch and tried to get into conversation with him about a goose he had killed the day before, but he wouldn't have it. He said we could get the smell out of our clothes by burying them, and then he went on to tell how he shot a skunk once, and spoiled a suit of clothes.

We spoke to Colonel Wood, one of our party, as a last resort, and all he said was to draw in his breath with a "Whoosh," and put his handkerchief to his nose. We never felt so mean in the world. The whole gang had combined against us, and we got up to leave them, meditating revenge, when Walt Webb said, "Let's throw the cuss overboard." We went and laid down on the valises, and tried to think of some way to get even with the boys, when Root told the captain that they had got some valuables in those valises, and they didn't want any tramp laying down on them, and he came along and actually drove us off of our own valise. 4

To make the matter still worse, a homely looking Norwegian dog that we had borrowed to take on the hunt, and which was the worst looking brute that ever was, and which had been the laughing stock of the camp for a week, at this point came up to us, wagged his tail and followed us, and the boys said, "Look at the dog the muskrat trapper owns." That was the worst give away.

We walked around on deck, and would occasionally stop and speak to one of the boys, hoping they had given us enough and would relent, but all the way to La Crosse not one of them would speak to us, and when the boat arrived at the landing Root handed us a quarter, in the presence of the pa.s.sengers, and asked if we wouldn't help Mike Doyle, the cook, carry the baggage ash.o.r.e.

It was the worst joke we ever had perpetrated on us, and even after we got ash.o.r.e, and Hatch said, "Come, old sorrel top, let's go and get a gla.s.s of beer," we could hardly smile. Since then when we go hunting we wear the best clothes we have got.

For years afterwards when fellows were joking, some of the party would ask us "if the trapping was good this season." We got so we could not look a myskrat in the face. So we say that practical joking is splendid if it is on the other fellow. Always quit when they get it on to you.

A TEMPERANCE LECTURE THAT HURT.