Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1873-01-16

house now with our new little brothers
/ and sisters" as
The bishop sat down on the pave.
ment and wiped away tear. Then he
asked:
"Who was your father?''
Mr.. Simpson, said the crowd,
and he died on Tuesday,
And how manyof his Internal old
widows--I mean how many of your
mothers are there r.
/ "Only twenty-seven," replied the
childleR, Sand there are only sixty.
fonr of us. and we arc awful glad you
have come home."
The bishop did not seem unusually
glad !; somehow he failed to enter into
the enthusiasm of the occasion. There
appeared to be, in acertafl sense, SO
much sameness about these surprises.
so he sat there with his hat pulled over
his eyes, and considered the situation.
Finallyiseeing there was no help for it,
he went 70 the house, and forty-eight
of Mrs. Potts rushed up to him and
told him how the prophet had had an
other vision, In which he was COM
manded to seal Simpsons widow to
Potts.
Then the bishops Stumbled around
among the cradles ID the writing desk,
where he felt among The gum rings and
rattles for his letter paper, aud then ad-
dressed note to Brigham, askin' him as
a personal favor to keep awakeitill after
Christmas. "The man must take me for
founding hospital he said: Then
the Bishop saw clearly enough that if
he gave presents to the other children,
and not to the late Simpsons, the bride
(relic Of Simpson) would probably
souse down on him, tumble among his
hair and make things warm for him.
So repacking his carpet bag, he again
started for San Francisco for sixty-
four mouth organs, while Mrs. Potts
gradually took leave of him in the en-
try-all but the red haired woman,
who was up stairs, and who had to be
satisfied with screoching good-by at
the top of her voice.
On his way home after his last visit
to San Francisco, the bishop sat in the
car by the side of q man who had left
Salt Lake the day before. The stran-
ger was communicative. In the course
Of the conversation he remarked to the
bishop:
"There was mighty pretty little
affair mp there at the city on last Mon
day"
"Why, that wedding McGaths Wild
ow, you know, married by proxy
"You don't say,v replied the bishop,
II did not know that McGath was
dead"
Yes; he died on Saturday, and that
night Brigham had q vision, in which
he was ordered to seal her to the
bishop"
Bishop exclaimed Potts, "Bishop,
what Bishop"
"Well you see there were fifteen Of
Mrs. McGath and eighty two children,
and they shoveled the whole lot of on
old Potts. Perhaps you don't know
him T"
The bishop gave wild unearthly
shrek, and went into hysterical fit,
and writhed upon the floor as il he had
the hydrophobia. When he recovered
he leaped from the train and walked
back to San Francisco. He afterwards
took the first steamer to Peru, where
he entered q monastry and became o
celibate.
His carpet-bag was sent on to- his
family. 1t containca the rest OF The
mouth-organs. On Christmas morn,
ing thay Waro distribated, a..d ia less
than an hour the entire 2OS children
were sick from sucking the paint off
Of them. A doctor was called, and he
seemed to take so much interest in the
family that brigham divorced the
whole concern from old Ports and am
nexed it to the doctor, who immedi.
diately lost his reason, and would have
bntchcred the whole family, if the red
haired woman and the oldest boy had
not marched him of to lunatic asy-
lum. where he'spent his time trying to
arrive at an estimate of the number of
his children by cyphering with an i'm
possible combination Of the multipli-
cation table and algebra.