Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1869-08-26

il Z Forly-six little Africans, dressed in
a simple but chaste garb of white shirts,
sitting along bench in the Sunday
school, wriggling their toes, or else en-
joying themselves at races, singing Ham
Fat and doing the Walk Around.
That's pretty ,way to civilize heather
land, ain'tit2 For they won't wear any
pants, you observe. If you 90 to ship.
ping q lot of pants over there, the FIRST
thing you. know they will have them
tackled on TO 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 war club. That 6
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. "7Afrp" p' 8-
"Mr. Wilkins, you are brute"
a"But for my part | think you had bet
ter stay at home and attend to your chill.
dren, instead of fooling down there at that
society with lot of tabbies who slsnder
their neighbors and make more mischief
than they do underclothes for naked hot
tentots." lies ''7
81 "Mr. Wilkins, that's not so.
You'd better stay at home and sew
for your family, that's what you'd better
do. There's William Henry been going
round for six weeks or more, with only
one gallus op his pants, and looking like
he was a 1eformed cripple, with one
shoulder a foot higher than the other,
while his stockings have no feet, and the
upper part of them keep working up
his leg, untilthe boy nearly goes mad.'
"What an awful story, Wilkins"
"And Bucephalus Alexanders best
Sunday jacket has burst out all over in
spots, and Breckinridge Augustus, having
run out of handkerchiefs, has lately been
practicing 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-house and spanked
like the nation by the sexton. Unaffected
simplicity is all well enough in its way,
but that's carrying it q little too far"
"Mr. Wilkins, you know that's not
true"
sand as for Mary Jane, she is just
going straight to destruction. She tries
TO initiate your example, and no one
thinks it amt worth while to live if they
can't do something for the heathen and
what did she do yesterday but go and give
my best light hat to the boy that swept the
chimney, and it came down to his waist,
and she asked him if he had read DR..
McPherson's treatise on sThe Whole
Duty of Man, and he observed that he
didn't know muffin bout dat dsr, he
reckon and while she went up stairs TO
get it for him, he embezzled two chunks
of corn beef and cold potato, and the
first thing you know he will be in the pen.
itentiary, and all along of your blamed
foolishness." la %
: II declare, Mr. wilkins, you are a
scandalous story teller" b. uaG
"And there's the boys. 1t was only
last Saturday that they took their crowd
up stairs, and played that the garret was
Africa, and half Of them represented
heathens, and ran AROUND without a
stitch of clothes on them; and Bucepha-
Ius Alexander be distributed my clean
shirts among them, and they upset the
barrels, fred away oil my old books in a
skirmish with the ssyages, and one Of
them, who vas 0 cannibal, liked to
guawed the whole thumb of William
Henry, trying to swallow him, because be
said he was missionary, aud it amt
we'll yet" d aei lH...4.I a.aiAl
"Pshawl Mr.. Wilkins, you talk like
"And then what must Mary Jane do,
but try to represent heather mother /
wholly unenlightened by Christianity,
trying to drown her infant in the sacred
river, which she represented by sousing
the cat in the bath.tub, but that animal
wouldn't play fair and liked to scratch
the whole hide off Of her, while she let the
water run until the whole soo14 vas lul,
and it poured perfect cascade out of the
window, which she said was 10 represent
tie over flowing of the Nile, like she read
about in her Susday-school lesson. l
say it, outrageous to bring up your chill
drep in that kind Of style. If you love
the hesthsu, Why 90 among them, but
don't 20 TO poisoning the mines OF your
innocent offspring" IL
"As long as you have made such a
fuss about the sewing-circle, Mr.. Wilkins,
rlltell you what I've been making there"
Rat ="
20 don't but me; won't listen to
you"
81 wasn't sewing for the heathen."
"What2" 30
81 didn't stitch a stitch for the heather
at the sewing circle. "
why, what in the mischief were you
foolipg your time away down there for
then n - if
sWhy-I-was-making- you "a
dczen-new--shirts-while-you : were
sbusiug-me. You'll break my heart
yes-you will r
There, now, don't cry, my darling.
Don't cry-I was only in fun. was only
Joking, you understand. / didn't mean
IL. There now Don't cry, I say, Sally |
Well, below, then, below / never did
see such a woman as yeul"
And Mr.. wilkins took a pull at the
covers, turned over and went to sleep.
But he seemed TO be recoueiled TO her
neat day, for be called her several hard
names because she lelt the baby covered
up on the sofa 80 that be Inadvertently
sat down on il.