Chapter III: Part 3

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.

PECK'S BAD BOY AND HIS PA.

HIS PA GOES CALLING.

"Say, you are getting too alfired smart," said the grocery man to the bad boy as he pushed him into a corner by the molasses barrel, and took him by the neck and choked him so his eyes stuck out. "You have driven away several of my best customers, and now, confound you, I am going to have your life," and he took up a cheese knife and began to sharpen it on his boot.

"What's the--gurgle--matter?" asked the choking boy, as the grocery man's finger let up on his throat a little, so he could speak. "I haint done nothing."

"Didn't you hang up that gray torn cat by the heels, in front of my store, with the rabbits I had for sale? I didn't notice it until the minister called me out in front of the store, and pointing to the rabbits, asked what good fat cats were selling for. By crimus, this thing has got to stop. You have got to move out of this ward or I will."

The boy got his breath and said it wasn't him that put the cat up there. He said it was the policeman, and he and his chum saw him do it, and he just come in to tell the grocery man about it, and before he could speak he had his neck nearly pulled off. The boy began to cry, and the grocery man said he was only joking, and gave him a box of sardines, and they made up. Then he asked the boy how his Pa put in his New Years, and the boy sighed and said:

"We had a sad time at our house New Years. Pa insisted on making calls, and Ma and me tried to prevent it, but he said he was of age, and guessed he could make calls if he wanted to, so he looked at the morning paper and got the names of all the places where they were going to receive, and he turned his paper collar, and changed ends with his cuffs, and put some arnica on his handkerchief, and started out. Ma told him not to drink anything, and he said he wouldn't, but he did. He was full the third place he went to. O, so full. Some men can get full and not show it, but when Pa gets full, he gets so full his back teeth float, and the liquor crowds his eyes out, and his mouth gets loose and wiggles all over his face, and he laughs all the time, and the perspiration just oozes out of him, and his face gets red, and he walks so wide. O, he disgraced us all. At one place he wished the hired girl 'a happy new year' more than twenty times, and hung his hat on her elbow, and tried to put on a rubber hall mat for his over shoes. At another place he walked up a lady's train, and carried away a card basket full of bananas and oranges. Ma wanted my chum and me to follow Pa and bring him home, and about dark we found him in the door yard of a house where they have statues in front of the house, and he grabbed me by the arm, and mistook me for another caller, and insisted on introducing me to a marble statue without any clothes on. He said it was a friend of his, and it was a winter picnic. He hung his hat on an evergreen, and put his overcoat on the iron fence, and I was so mortified I almost cried. My chum said if his Pa made such a circus of himself he would sand bag him. That gave me an idea, and when we got Pa most home I went and got a paper box covered with red paper, so it looked just like a brick, and a bottle of tomato ketchup, and when we got Pa up on the steps at home I hit him with the paper brick, and my chum squirted the ketchup on his head, and we demanded his money, and then he yelled murder, and we lit out, and Ma and the minister, who was making a call on her, all the afternoon, they came to the door and pulled Pa in. He said he had been attacked by a band of robbers, and they knocked his brains out, but he whipped them, and then Ma saw the ketchup brains oozing out of his head, and she screamed, and the minister said. 'Good heavens, he is murdered!' and just then I came in the back door and they sent after the doctor, and they put Pa on the lounge, and tied up his head with a towel to keep the brains in, and Pa began to snore, and when the doctor came in it took them half an hour to wake him, and then he was awful sick to his stummick, and then Ma asked the doctor if he would live, and the doc. analyzed the ketchup and smelled of it and told Ma he would be all right if he had a little Worcester sauce to put on with the ketchup, and when he said Pa would pull through, Ma looked awful sad. Then Pa opened his eyes and saw the minister and said that was one of the robbers that jumped on him, and he wanted to whip the minister, but the doc. held Pa's arms and Ma sat on his legs, and the minister said he had got some other calls to make, and he wished Ma a happy new year in the hall, much as fifteen minutes. His happy new year to Ma is most as long as his prayers. Well, we got Pa to bed, and when we undressed him we found nine napkins in the bosom of his vest, that he had picked up at the places where he had called. He is all right this morning, but he says it is the last time he will drink coffee when he makes New Years calls.

"Well, then you didn't have much fun yourself on New Years. That's too bad," said the grocery man, as he looked at the sad eyed youth. "But you look hard. If you were old enough I should say you had been drunk, your eyes are red."

"Didn't have any fun eh? Well, I wish I had as many dollars as I had fun. You see, after Pa got to sleep Ma wanted me and my chum to go to the houses that Pa had called at and return the napkins he had kleptomaniaced, so we dressed up and went. The first house we called at the girls were sort of demoralized. I don't know as I ever saw a girl drunk, but those girls acted queer. The callers had stopped coming, and the girls were drinking something out of shaving cups that looked like lather, and they said it was 'aignogg.' They laffed and kicked up their heels wuss nor a circus, and their collars got unpinned, and their faces was red, and they put their arms around me and my chum and hugged us and asked us if we didn't want some of the custard. You'd a dide to see me and my chum drink that lather. It looked just like soap suds with nutmaig in it, but by gosh it got in its work sudden. At first I was afraid when the girls hugged me, but after I had drank a couple of shaving cups full of the 'aignogg' I wasn't afraid no more, and I hugged a girl so hard she catched her breath and panted and said, 'O, don't.' Then I kissed her, and she is a great big girl, bigger'n me, but she didn't care. Say, did you ever kiss a girl full of aignogg? If you did it would break up your grocery business. You would want to waller in bliss instead of selling mackerel. My chum ain't no slouch either. He was sitting in a stuffed chair holding another New Year's girl, and I could hear him kiss her so it sounded like a cutter scraping on bare ground. But the girl's Pa came in and said he guessed it was time to close the place, unless they had a license for an all night house, and me and my chum went out. But _wasn't_ we sick when we got out doors. O, it seemed as though the pegs in my boots was the only thing that kept them down, and my chum he like to dide. He had been to dinner and supper and I had only been skating all day, so he had more to contend with than I did. O, my, but that lets me out on aignogg. I don't know how I got home, but I got in bed with Pa, cause Ma was called away to attend a baby matinee in the night. I don't know how it is, but there never is anybody in our part of town that has a baby but they have it in the night, and they send for Ma. I don't know what she has to be sent for every time for. Ma ain't to blame for all the young ones in this town, but she has got up a reputashun, and when we hear the bell ring in the night Ma gets up and begins to put on her clothes, and the next morning she comes in the dining room with a shawl over her head, and says, 'its a girl and weighs ten pounds,' or 'a boy,' if it's a boy baby. Ma was out on one of her professional engagements, and I got in bed with Pa. I had heard Pa blame Ma about her cold feet, so I got a piece of ice about as big as a raisin box, just zactly like one of Ma's feet, and laid it right against the small of Pa's back. I couldn't help laffing, but pretty soon Pa began to squirm and he said, 'Why'n 'ell don't you warm them feet before you come to bed,' and then he hauled back his leg and kicked me clear out in the middle of the floor, and said if he married again he would marry a woman who had lost both her feet in a railroad accident. Then I put the ice back in the bed with Pa and went to my room, and in the morning Pa said he sweat more'n a pail full in the night. Well, you must excuse me. I have an engagement to shovel snow off the sidewalk. But before I go, let me advise you not to drink aignogg, and don't sell tom cats for rabbits," and he got out of the door just in time to miss the rutabaga that the grocery man threw at him.

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 HAT.

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.

THE THIRSTY GOPHER.

A Minnesota town got a fire steamer on trial, and tested it by trying to drown out a gopher. After working it six hours, the gopher came out to get a drink. He would have died of thirst if they had kept the hole closed much longer.

COLORED CONCERT TROUPES.

Sometimes it seems as though the colored people ought to have a guardian appointed over them. Now, you take a colored concert troupe, and though they may have splendid voices, they do not know enough to take advantage of their opportunities. People go to hear them because they are colored people, and they want to hear old-fashioned negro melodies, and yet these mokes will tackle Italian opera and high toned music that they don't know how to sing.

They will sing these fancy operas and people will not pay any attention. Along toward the end of the programme they will sing some old nigger song, and the house fairly goes wild and calls them out half a dozen times. And yet they do not know enough to make up a programme of such music as they can sing, and such as the audience want.

They get too big, these colored people do, and can't strike their level. People who have heard Kellogg, and Marie Rose, and Gerster, are sick when a black cat with a long red dress comes out and murders the same pieces the prima donnas have sung. We have seen a colored girl attempt a selection from some organ-grinder opera, and she would howl and screech, and catch her breath and come again, and wheel and fire vocal shrapnel, limber up her battery and take a new position, and unlimber and send volleys of soprano grape and cannister into the audience, and then she would catch on to the highest note she could reach and hang to it like a dog to a root, till you would think they would have to throw a pail of water on her to make her let go, and all the time she would be biting and shaking like a terrier with a rat, and finally give one kick at her red trail with her hind foot, and back off the stage looking as though she would have to be carried on a dust pan, and the people in the audience would look at each other in pity and never give her a cheer, when, if she had come out and patted her leg, and put one hand up to her ear, and sung, "Ise a Gwine to See Massa Jesus Early in de Mornin'," they would have split the air wide open with cheers, and called her out five times.

The fact is, they haven't got sense.

There was a hungry-looking, round-shouldered, sick-looking colored man in the same party, that was on the programme for a violin solo. When he came out the people looked at each other, as much as to say, "Now we will have some fun." The moke struck an attitude as near Ole Bull as he could with his number eleven feet and his hollow chest, and played some diabolical selection from a foreign cat opera that would have been splendid if Wilhelmj or Ole Bull had played it, but the colored brother couldn't get within a mile of the tune. He rasped his old violin for twenty minutes and tried to look grand, and closed his eyes and seemed to soar away to heaven,--and the audience wished to heaven he had, and when he became exhausted and squeezed the last note out, and the audience saw that he was in a profuse perspiration, they let him go and did not call him back. If he had come out and sat on the back of a chair and sawed off "The Devil's Dream," or "The Arkansaw Traveler," that crowd would have cheered him till he thought he was a bigger man than Grant.

But he didn't have any sense.

MATTIE MASHES MINNESOTA.

Mrs. Mattie A. Bridge is meeting with great success in Minnesota. In some places she is retained until she lectures four times. She says the heart of Minnesota is warm towards her. We shall feel inclined to put a head on Minnesota, if it don't quit allowing its heart to get warm.

WHY THE FEVER DIDN'T SPREAD.

Portage City has had a sensation which, though at one time it looked serious, turned out to be a farce. A girl was taken sick, and a physician was called who pronounced it a case of yellow fever, and he made out a prescription for that disease. Mr. Brannan, editor of the Portage Register, who lives near, got the news, and imparted it to all whom he met, and they in turn told it to others, and a stampede was looked for. Fox turned the Fox House over to Bunker, and had his trunks checked for the Hot Springs. Corning and Jack Turner hired a wagon to take them to Briggsville. Hærtel, the brewery man, offered to sell out his brewery and all his property for eight hundred dollars, and he bought a ticket for Germany. Bunker left the Fox House to run itself, and went to Devil's Lake. Sam. Branuan, telegraphed to George Clinton, at Denver, not to come home, as the yellow fever was raging, and people were dying off like rotton sheep. And Sam got vaccinated and went to Beaver Dam. The excitement was intense. Men became perfectly wild, and were going to rush off and leave the women and children to the mercies of the dead plague. Chicago and Milwaukee bummers could be seen at the hotels, kneeling beside their sample cases trying to pray, but they couldn't. Just before the train started that was to carry away the frightened populace, the doctor came up town and said that the girl with the yellow fever was better, and that she was the mother of a fine nine pound boy. The authorities took every precaution to prevent the spread of the yellow fever, by arresting the brakemen whom the girl said was the cause of all the trouble. All is quiet on the Wisconse now.

TOO PARTICULAR BY HALF.

It is one of the mottoes of THE SUN never to publish anything that would cause a blush to mantle the cheek of innocence, or anybody. And yet, occasionally, a person finds fault. Not long since a man said he liked THE SUN well enough, only it had too much to say about patched breeches, which was offensive to some. Well, some people are so confounded high toned that if they were going to have a patch put on they would have it way up on the small of their back. Some of the best women in the world have sat up nights to sew a patch on their husband's pants. Martha Washington used to do it. But, G. Lordy, a family newspaper must not speak of a patch. When you take patches away from the people you strike a blow at their liberties. Don't be too nice.

THE WAY TO NAME CHILDREN.

The names of Indians are sometimes so peculiar that people are made to wonder how the red men became possessed of them. That of "Sitting Bull," "Crazy Horse," "Man Afraid of his Horses," "Red Cloud," etc., cause a good deal of thought to those who do not know how the names are given. The fact of the matter is that after a child of the forest is born the medicine man goes to the door and looks out, and the first object that attracts his attention is made use of to name the child. When the mother of that great warrior gave birth to her child, the medicine man looked out and saw a bull seated on its haunches, hence the name "Sitting Bull." It is an evidence of our superior civilization that we name children on a different plan, taking the name of some eminent man or woman, some uncle or aunt to fasten on to the unsuspecting stranger. Suppose that the custom that is in vogue among the Indians should be in use among us, we would have instead of "George Washington" and "Hanner Jane," and such beautiful names, some of the worst jaw-breakers that ever was. Suppose the attending physician should go to the door after a child was born and name it after the first object he saw. We might have some future statesman named "Red Headed Servant Girl with a Rubber Bag of Hot Water," or "Bald Headed Husband Walking Up and Down the Alley with His Hands in His Pockets swearing this thing shall never Happen Again." If the doctor happened to go to the door when the grocery delivery wagon was there, he would name the child "Boy from Dickson's Grocery with a Codfish by the Tail and a Bag of Oatmeal," or if the ice man was the first object the doctor saw, some beautiful girl might go down to history with the name, "Pirate with a Lump of Ice About as Big as a Soltaire Diamond." Or suppose it was about election time and the doctor should look out, he might name a child that had a right to grow up a minister, "Candidate for Office so full of Bug Juice that His Back Teeth are afloat;" or suppose he should look out and see a woman crossing a muddy street, he might name a child "Woman with a Sealskin Cloak and a Hole in Her Stocking going Down Town to Buy a Red Hat." It wouldn't do at all to name children the way Indians do, because the doctors would have the whole business in their hands, and the directories are big enough now.

AN EDITOR BURGLARIZED.

The residence of John Turner, of the Mauston _Star_, was entered by burglars a few nights since, and his clothes were stolen, containing all his money and his railroad pass. We can imagine an editor around bare as to legs, etcetery, and out of money, but to be without a railroad pass must indeed be a sad state of affairs. When burglars burgle an editor it is a sign that confidence is restored under Hayes' administration. We trust that editors throughout the State who are blessed with this world's goods to the extent of more than one pair of pants, will send one pair at least to John Turner, Mauston, Wis., by express. We are probably as poor as any editor, but we have sent him those alligator pants that have created such a sensation in years gone by. It is true they are a little bit fringy about the bottoms, and the knees are worn through, and concealment, like a worm in the bud, has gnawed the foundation all out of them, but in a little town like Mauston, such things will not be noticed. John, take them, in welcome, and when the cold winds--but you better carry bricks in your coat tail pockets. That is the way we wore them the last three or four years.

PECK'S BAD BOY AND HIS PA.

HIS PA DISSECTED.

"I understand your Pa has got to drinking again like a fish," says the grocery man to the bad boy, as the youth came in the grocery and took a handful of dried apples. The boy ate a dried apple and then made up a terrible face, and the grocery man asked him what he was trying to do with his face. The boy caught his breath and then said:

"Say, don't you know any better than to keep dried apples where a boy can get hold of them when he has got the mumps? You will kill some boy yet by such dum carelessness. I thought these were sweet dried apples, but they are sour as a boarding house keeper, and they make me tired. Didn't you ever have the mumps? Gosh, but don't it hurt though? You have got to be darn careful when you have the mumps, and not go out bob-sledding, or skating, or you will have your neck swell up biggern a milk pail. Pa says he had the mumps once when he was a boy and it broke him all up."

"Well, never mind the mumps, how about your Pa spreeing it. Try one of those pickles in the jar there, won't you. I always like to have a boy enjoy himself when he comes to see me," said the grocery man, winking to a man who was filling an old fashioned tin box with tobacco out of the pail, who winked back as much as to say, "if that boy eats a pickle on top of them mumps we will have a circus, sure."

"You can't play no pickle on me, not when I have the mumps. Ma passed the pickles to me this morning, and I took one mouthful, and like to had the lockjaw. But Ma didn't do it on purpose, I guess. She never had the mumps and didn't know how discouraging a pickle is. Darn if I didn't feel as though I had been struck in the butt of the ear with a brick. But about Pa. He has been fuller'n a goose ever since New Year's day. I think its wrong for women to tempt feeble minded persons with liquor on New Year's. Now me and my chum, we can take a drink and then let it alone. We have got brain, and know when we have got enough, but Pa, when he gets to going don't ever stop until he gets so sick that he can't keep his stummick inside of hisself. It is getting so they look to me to brace Pa up every time he gets on a tear, and I guess I fixed him this time so he will never touch liquor again. I scared him so his bald head turned gray in a single night."

"What under the heavens have you done to him now?" says the grocery man, in astonishment. "I hope you haven't done anything you will regret in after years."

"Regret nothing," said the boy, as he turned the lid of the cheese box back and took the knife and sliced off a piece of cheese, and took a few crackers out of a barrel, and sat down on a soap box by the stove, "You see Ma was annoyed to death with Pa. He would come home full, when she had company, and lay down on the sofa and snore, and he would smell like a distillery. It hurt me to see Ma cry, and I told her I would break Pa of drinking if she would let me, and she said if I would promise not to hurt Pa to go ahead, and I promised not to. Then I got my chum and another boy, to help, and Pa is all right. We went down to the place where they sell arms and legs, to folks who have served in the army, or a saw mill, or a threshing machine, and lose their limbs, and we borrowed some arms and legs, and fixed up a dissecting room. We fixed a long table in the basement, big enough to lay Pa out on you know, and then we got false whiskers and moustaches, and when Pa came in the house drunk and lay down on the sofa, and got to sleep, we took him and laid him out on the table, and took some trunk straps, and a circingle and strapped him down to the table. He slept right along all through it, and we had another table with the false arms and legs on, and we rolled up our sleeves, and smoked pipes, just like I read that medical students do when they cut up a man.

"Well, you'd a dide to see Pa look at us when he woke up. I saw him open his eyes, and then we began to talk about cutting up dead men. We put hickery nuts in our mouths so our voices would sound different, so he wouldn't know us, and was telling the other boys about what a time we had cutting up the last man we bought. I said he was awful tough, and when we had got his legs off and had taken out his brain, his friends came to the dissecting room and claimed the body, and we had to give it up, but I saved the legs. I looked at Pa on the table and he began to turn pale, and he squirmed around to get up, but found he was fast. I had pulled his shirt up under his arms, while he was asleep, and as he began to move I took an icicle, and in the dim light of the candles, that were sitting on the table in beer botles, I drew the icicle across Pa's stummick and I said to my chum, 'Doc, I guess we had better cut open this old duffer and see if he died from inflamation of the stummick, from hard drinking, as the coroner said he did.' Pa shuddered all over when he felt the icicle going over his bare stummick, and he said, 'For God's sake, gentlemen, what does this mean? I am not dead.'