The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1873-05-30
Il AOUSE STOKI.
LOVE AND SOFT SOAP

Once "Bobbio Burns wrote poem
! about nameless, nasty little beast
which he saw creeping over a lady'S
| bonnet in church. | always thought
! it was the foolishcst thing TO write a
| poem about. l don't think so now.
| think Burns was very moderate to
| stop at one poem on the nameless little
! beast. Because / knew a certain little
| brute equally silly and senscless, equal
! ly diabolically perniciOus, which poet
| could write a whole Homers Had
about, twentyzfour books complete. At
! least I'm positive one could make
TennysOnian King Arthur idyl of it.
The nasty little brute | refer to was
mouse [ can endure anything in
| this world better than mice. / can
put up with q sneaEing, yOwling cat.
l can even, yea, do, lake a sarcastic
blowingup about being woman's right
| ish, regularly once month from the
| editor OF the POST And | don't stay
awake o. night over it much. But
wretched pusillanimous mouse with
its petty thievery and its eternal, in
| fernal nibble-nabble, sets me wild.
We had most "ridiculous muss"
at our house last week. We moved, a
little while ago, and we hadn't put up
our kitchen curtains vet. We had
rolled them up in q roll, and tucked
them behind the -four barrel 1t was
Mt neat to do that, but it was handy
| Likewise 4 week ago we bought 4 nice
new umbrella. 1t makes family look
respectable to have q nice umbrella
| Well, we were demOralized yet, from
moving; and by some means, Ill
never pretend to say how it was-ac-
cidents will happin in the best regu-
lated families-bv some means that
nice new respectable family umbrella
| got tucked behind the flour barrel too
Again it wasn't neat, but it was handy
In the course of time last week, |
| came around to my kitchen curtains
After dinner one day, L started to put
! them up. Nelly fished them out Fl ON
! behind the hOur-barrel for me. Nelly
is a nice, pretty girl who is kin to us.
! Nelly tished the curtains out, and We
unrolled 'em. And those two curtains
were riddled and ruined from one end
/ to the other. We had made up our
minds that there weren't any mice in
our nice new house, and so had relaxed
that eternal vigilance whichis the price
| of liberty. \ should have seen those
curtains At the outside part where
they had been rolled up, there was
| big round hole. The hole in the next
| layer wasn't quite so big, the next hole
was a little smaller still, and so on,
| each one smaller than the last, until
these beautiful, fringy-edged holes
reached the wooden roller, at the top
! There the pcsky mice had stopped
suppose the roller made their teeth
ache There were fourteen holes in
each curtain, from bottom to top, tweE-
! ty-eight holes in the two curtains. l
never in my life saw anything taper off
as beautifully as those holes did. How
| wish some man had been around to
swear for me
Wrathfully l dashed those open
work curtains upon the floor, and with
a fateful sinking Of the heart, drew
| from behind the four-ba1rel my res
pectable new family umbrella. BY the
shield of Jupiter, that new umbrella
was gone to flinders too! 1t was
ruined family umbrella. At that my
feelings gave way wholly. l don't
know what | mightn't have been tempt
ed to say on my own hook, if at that
moment George hadn't come in. Il
always make it point to meet my
| husband with a SMILE" and if | can't
smile grin. One has about as much
effect on him as the Other.) | pokea
that respectable family umbrella at
him and laughed wildly. L shook it
distractedly to show him that it was
not what it had been, and as l shook
it thus insanely, behold out popped
the diabolicaI author Of all our woes
a mouse.