Part 6 (1/2)
I think myself that some young girl ought to come forward and s.n.a.t.c.h this brand at an early date.
The great trouble with men who form the bowl habit is that, on the morrow, after they have been so bowling, they awake with a distinct and well-defined sensation of soreness and swollenness about the head, accompanied by a strong desire to hit some living thing with a stove leg. The married man can always turn to his wife in such an emergency, smite her and then go to sleep again, but to one who is doomed to wander alone through life there is nothing to do but to suffer on, or go out and strike some one who does not belong to his family, and so lay himself liable to arrest.
This letter is accompanied by a tin-type picture of a young man who shaves in such a way as to work in a streak of whiskers by which he fools himself into the notion that he has a long and luxuriant mustache.
He looks like a person who, under the influence of liquor, would weep on the bosom of a total stranger and then knock his wife down because she split her foot open instead of splitting the kindling.
He is not a bad-looking man, and the freckles on his hands do not hurt him as a husband. Any young lady who would like to save him from a drunkard's grave can address him in my care, inclosing twenty-five cents, a small sum which goes toward a little memorial fund I am getting up for myself. My memory has always been very poor, and if I can do it any good with this fund I shall do so. The lock of hair sent with this letter may be seen at any time nailed up on my woodshed door. It is a dull red color, and can be readily cut by means of a pair of tinman's shears.
The two following letters, taken at random from my files, explain themselves:
”BURNT PRAIRIE, NEAR THE JUNCTION,} ”ON THE ROAD TO THE COURT HOUSE,} ”TENNESSEE, January 2.}
”DEAR SIR--I am in search of a wife and would be willing to settle down if I could get a good wife. I was but twenty-six years of age when my mother died and I miss her sadly for she was oh so good and kind to me her caring son.
”I have been wanting for the past year to settle down, but I have not saw a girl that I thought would make me a good, true wife. I know I have saw a good deal of the world, and am inclined to be cynical for I see how hollow everything is, and how much need there is for a great reform. Sometimes I think that if I could express the wild thoughts that surges up and down in my system, I could win a deathless name. When I get two or three drinks aboard I can think of things faster than I can speak them, or draw them off for the paper. What I want is a woman that can economize, and also take the place of my lost mother, who loved me and put a better polish on my boots than any other living man.
”I know I am gay and giddy in my nature, but if I could meet a joyous young girl just emerging upon life's glad morn, and she had means, I would be willing to settle down and make a good, quiet, every-day husband.
”A. J.”
”ASHMEAD, LEDUC CO., I.T.,} ”December 20.}
”DEAR SIR--I have very little time in which to pencil off a few lines regarding a wife. I am a man of business, and I can't fool around much, but I would be willing to marry the right kind of a young woman. I am just bursting forth on the glorious dawn of my sixty-third year. I have been married before, and as I might almost say, I have been in that line man and boy for over forty years. My pathway has been literally decorated with wives ever since I was twenty years old.
”I ain't had any luck with my wives heretofore, for they have died off like sheep. I've treated all of them as well as I knew how, never asking of them to do any more than I did, and giving of 'em just the same kind of vittles that I had myself, but they are all gone now. There was a year or two that seemed just as if there was a funeral procession stringing out of my front gate half the time.
”What I want is a young woman that can darn a sock without working two or three tumors into it, cook in a plain economical way without pampering the appet.i.tes of hired help, do ch.o.r.es around the barn and a.s.sist me in acc.u.mulating property.
I. D. P.”
This last letter contains a small tress of dark hair that feels like a bunch of barbed wire when drawn through the fingers, and has a tendency to ”crock.”
THE HATEFUL HEN
XI
The following inquiries and replies have been awaiting publication and I shall print them here if the reader has no objections. I do not care to keep correspondents waiting too long for fear they will get tired and fail to write me in the future when they want to know anything. Mr.
Earnest Pendergast writes from Puyallup as follows:
”Why do you not try to improve your appearance more? I think you could if you would, and we would all be so glad. You either have a very malicious artist, or else your features must pain you a good deal at times. Why don't you grow a mustache?”
These remarks, of course, are a little bit personal, Earnest, but still they show your goodness of heart. I fear that you are cursed with the fatal gift of beauty yourself and wish to have others go with you on the downward way. You ask why I do not grow a mustache, and I tell you frankly that it is for the public good that I do not. I used to wear a long, drooping and beautiful mustache, which was well received in society, and, under the quiet stars and opportune circ.u.mstances, gave good satisfaction; but at last the hour came when I felt that I must decide between this long, silky mustache and soft-boiled eggs, of which I am pa.s.sionately fond. I hope that you understand my position, Earnest, and that I am studying the public welfare more than my own at all times.
Sa.s.safras Oleson, of South Deadman, writes to know something of the care of fowls in the spring and summer. ”Do you know,” he asks, ”anything of the best methods for feeding young orphan chickens? Is there any way to prevent hens from stealing their nests and sitting on inanimate objects?
Tell us as tersely as possible what your own experience has been with hens.”