Part 4 (1/2)

I awake at an unearthly hour on Sunday morning, after which I turn over and go to sleep again. This second, or beauty sleep, I find to be almost invaluable. I do it also with much more earnestness and expression than that in the earlier part of the night. All the other people in the house gradually wake up as I begin to get in my more fancy strokes.

By eight o'clock everybody is stirring, and so I get up and glide about in my pajamas, which makes me look almost like the ”Clemenceau Case” in search of an engagement.

Mr. Rogers is going to have me sit to him in my pajamas for a group of statuary. He also wishes to model an iron hitching post from me.

On waking I at once take to me tub and give myself a good cold bath.

I then put in my teeth.

After doing some little studies in chiropody I throw a silk-velvet dressing gown over my shoulders and look at my bright and girlish beauty in a full-length mirror, comparing the dimpling curves, as I see them reflected, with those shown in the morning paper.

After reading a little from the chess column of some good author, I descend to the _salon_ and greet my family smilingly in order to open the day auspiciously. We all then sing around the parlor organ a little pean ent.i.tled, ”It's Funny When You Feel That Way.”

We now go to the breakfast room, where the children are taught to set aside the daintiest bits for papa, because he might die some time and then it would be a life-long regret to those who are spared that they did not give him the tender part of the steer or the second joint of the hen.

After breakfast, which consists of chops, hashed brown potatoes, m.u.f.fins and coffee, preceded by canteloupe or baked beans, we proceed to quarrel over who shall go to church and who shall remain at home to keep the cattle out of the corn.

We then go to church, those who can, at least, whilst the others remain and read something that is improving. Sometimes I shave myself on Sunday mornings. Then it takes me quite a while to get back into a religious frame of mind. I do not manage very well in shaving myself, and people who go by the house are often attracted by my yells.

I go to church quite regularly and enjoy the sermon unless it is too firm or personal. If it goes into doctrine too much I am apt to be quite fatigued at its end on account of the mental reservations I have made along through it.

I like to go and hear about G.o.d's love, but I am rarely benefited by a discourse which enlarges upon his jealousy. When I am told also that G.o.d spares no pains in getting even with people, I not only do not enjoy the information, but I would sit up till a late hour at night to doubt it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _He sometimes succeeds in getting himself disliked by some other dog and then I can observe the fight_ (Page 67)]

I shake hands with the pastor, and after suggesting something for him to preach about on the following Sabbath, I go home.

In the afternoon I go walking if no one calls. We have dinner at 2 o'clock on Sunday, consisting of jerked beef smothered in milk gravy.

This is the remove. For side dishes we have squash or meat pie. We sometimes open with soup and then have clean plates all around, with fowl and greens, tapering off with some kind of rich pie.

After dinner I sometimes nap a little and then fool with the colt. This is done quietly, however, so as not to break in upon the devotional spirit of the day. After this I go for a walk or converse intelligently with any foreign powers who may be visiting our sh.o.r.es.

When I walk I am generally accompanied by a restless Queen Anne dog, which precedes me about a mile. He sometimes succeeds in getting himself disliked by some other dog and then I can observe the fight when I catch up with him.

As the twilight gathers all seem ready again for more food and we begin to clamor for pabulum, keeping it up until either square or round crackers and smearcase are produced. These are washed down with foaming beakers of sarsaparilla.

As the evening lamp is now lighted, I produce some good book or pamphlet like ”The Greatest Thing in the World,” and read from it, occasionally cuffing a child in order to keep everything calm and reposeful. At 9 o'clock the cat is expelled and the eight-day clock is wound up for the week. Gazing up at the bright cold stars after kicking forth the cat, I realize that another Sabbath has been filed away in the great big brawny bosom of the past, and with a little remorseful sigh and an incipient sob when I think that I am not making a better record, I drive a fence nail in over the door latch and seek my library which, on being properly approached, opens and becomes a beautiful couch.

A FLYER IN DIRT

VIII

I have just returned from a visit to my property at Minneapolis, and can not refrain from referring to its marvelous growth. The distance between it and the business center of the city has also grown a good deal since I last saw it. This is the property which I purchased some three years ago of a real good man. His name is Pansley--Flinton Pansley. He has done business in most all the towns of the Northwest. Perhaps a further word or two about this pious gentleman will not be amiss. Entering a place quietly and even meekly, with a letter to the local pastor, he would begin reaching out his little social tendrils by sighing over the lost and undone condition of mankind. After regretting the state in which he had found G.o.d's vineyard, he would rent a store and sell goods at a sacrifice, but when the sacrifice was being offered up, a close observer would discover that Mr. Pansley was not in it.

In this way he would build up quite a trade, only sparing a little time each day in which to retire to his closet and sob over the altogether G.o.dless condition in which he had found man. He would then make an a.s.signment.

Pardon me for again referring to the matter, but I do so utterly without malice, and in connection with the unparalleled growth of my property here. So if the gentle and rather attractive reader will excuse a bad pen, and some plain stationery, as my own crested writing-paper is in my trunk, which is now in the possession of a well-known hotel man whose name is suppressed on account of his family, I shall refer again briefly to the property and the circ.u.mstances surrounding its purchase. I had intended to put a good fence around it ere this, but with these peculiar circ.u.mstances surrounding it, I feel that it is safe from intrusion.