The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1869-10-14
SHIRTS AND THE LITTLE mEArHEs.
BY JOHN QUILL.
'But they must have clothes, Mr..
Wilkins.n

nonsense for any collection of old wo-
men like your sewing society to start
out lot Of duds to the heather in At
rica. 1t is confounded stupid, say
Whatdo you suppose lot of old coffee
colored pagans, stepped in ignorance
and vice. want with shirts? Hey i?
Why, they don't want 'em. They
were born without 'em, weren't they (?
And if it was right for them to have
clothes don't you suppose they would
have had 'em? Don't you suppose be-
nefcent nature knows better than you
and all the other heifers down at the
sewing bee? Why it's absolutely ri
die"
wilkins, you shan't talk that way
"It's perfectly ridiculous. But yoa
go on; you go on and send them over
there to Africa, and doyou know what
will happen? Do you know what will
bethe result your tomfoolery? Why,
the very first thing you know some
benighted heathen or other will go
and mount one of those shirts some
night, and paddle around in the dark
and scare the other heather, and make
them believe in ghosts, and set the
whole continent Of Africa to falling
down and sacrificing themselves to a
lot of old nine-headed idols, and jab-
bering away at their pagan prayers.
You've got sin enough on your soul,
old woman, without that, l want you
to understand"
"Mr. Wilkins you are too contempt
ible to notice."
"Yes, and I'd like to know what an
ignorant heather knows about shirts,
any how? Why, absolutely nothing j;
aud very likely the first fellow that
tries to get into one will get it upside
down, and mix his legs all up in the
and get himself into tangle
and trip up, and fall over some preci-
pice or other, and then there will be the
responsibility for a mangIed man adj
ded to your list of crimes. But I'd just
like you to bear in mind that you don't
send any of my wardrobe out there. l
don't want a parcel of Ethiops sport
ing around on Afric's sunny shore in
nay linen. Not exactly. l like to see
men enjoy themselves, but not in that
indecent style.
"But, Mr.. Wilkins
"Pretty spectacle it will be now,
won't it? Forty-six little Africans
dressed in a simple but cbaste garb of
white shirts, sitting along bench in
Sunday-school wriggling their toes, or
else enjoying themselves at recess sing
ing ham fat and doing the walk a
round.' Thot'a pretty way to civil
ize heathen land, amt it? For they
won't wear any pants you observe. If
you go to shipping lot of pants over
there the first thing you know they'll
have them tackled on some idol or
other, or rammed full of feathers, and
be holding religious service before each
pant and as for socks, why every sock
as has ever been sent over there has
been stuffed with sand, and used as a
war club. That's so, and I've no doubt
that very identical pair you're knitting
on now will brain a stray pagan some
day or other in some muss.
"Mr. Wilkins, you know that's not
So"
"If you want to do your colored
friends a service, why don't you go to
work and ship them lot of the deliea-
cies Of the season? Why don't you
send out a ship load of canned mission
aries, or something else that will make
their teeth water? Or you might col
Iect an assortment of second hand jaw
bones, and give them for necklaces, or
send out your own false teeth, or"
"Wilkins! I'll scratch ---"
"Or go yourself, and see how it feels
to be eaten. / won't stop you. You've
got my permission, you understand.
But ! pity the miserable pagan that
stufTs himself with you. You won't
agree with him. You never did with
me, my love"
"Mr. Wilkins, you are brute"
"But for my part / think you had
better stay at home and attend to your
instead of fooling down there
at that society with a lot of tabbies,
who slander their neighb0rs, and make
more mischief than they do under
clothes for the naked Hottentots."
''Mr. Wilkins, that's not So"
You'd better stay at home and sew
for your family, that's what you'd bet
ter do. There's William Henry been
going round for six weeks or more with
only one gaIlus on his pants, and look
ing like he was deformed cripple,
with one shoulder a foot higher than
the other, while his stockings have no
feet, and the upper part of them keep
a working up his leg until the boy
nearly goes mad"
"What an awful story, Wilkins"
"And Bucephalus Alexander's best
jacket has burst out all over in
spots, and Breckenridge Augustus, hav-
ing run out of handkerchiefs, has late
ly been practising wiping his nose on
his sleeve in church, until | was so
mortified that | had to take him out
last Sunday and have him stood in the
coal hole and spanked like the nation
by the sexton. Unaffected simplicity
is all well enough in its way, but that's
it little too far. y
"Mr. Wilkins, you know that's no: