The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1876-02-11
They Carried 1t Too Far.

Ihey Carried 1t Too Far.
MIR. Butterwick called in to see me the
other day, and in the course of the con-
versation, he said:
I'm going to move. can't stand those
Ihompsons, next door to me any longer
They're the awfullest people to borrow
things that ever saw. Coffee, and but
ter, and sugar, and flour, don't mind 30
much, although when woman borrews
high-priced sugar and Java coffee, and
| sends back sand and chickory, man ma.
turally feels bilious and mad. But they've
borrowed pretty near everything in the
house. First it's one thing and then it's
another, from morning till night, right
straight along.
"Now there's the poker. A poker's
piece of machinery that you'd think any,
body might 60 around and buy, or, if they
couldn't afford it, they might use fence
paling to shake up the fire. But Mrs.
Thompson seems to haEker after our po-
ker. She borrows it fifteen or twenty
times day, and last Saturday she sent for
it thirty-four times. She pays boy two
dollars week to run over and borrow
that poker; and she's used it so much that
it's all bent up like corkscrew.
"Now, take chairs for instance. She
asks us to lend her our chairs three times
a day at every meal, and she borrows the
rocking-chair whenever she wants to put
the baby to sleep.
"A couple of times she sent over for
sofa, and when the boy came back with it
he said Mrs. Thompson was mad as thun-
der, and kept growing around the house
all day, because there were no castore on it.
Last Monday she borrowed our wash-boil-
err, and we had to put off our washing till
Tuesday. She did her preserving in it,
and the consequence was all our clothes
were full of preserved peaches. I've got
on an undershirt now that I'm mighty
doubtful if I'll ever get off, it's stuck to
me so tight.
every now and then she has company,
and then she borrows our hired girl and
all the parlor furniture; once, because I
wouldn't carry the piano over for her and
take down the chandelier, she told our girl
that there were rumors about town that 1
was reformed pirate.
"Perfectly scandalous! They think
nothing of sending over after couple of
bedsteads or the entry carpet; and the
other day Thompson says to me:
"'Butterwick, does your pump-log pull
up easyS
"And when said l thought maybe it
did, he said:
"'Well, would like to borrow it for q
few days till can get one, for mines all
rotted away
"The only wonder to me is that lie didn't
try to borrow the we'll along with it.
"And then on Thursday, Mrs. Thompson
sent that boy over to know if Mrs Butter.
wick wouldn't lend her our front door,
She said theirs was away being painted
and she was afraid the baby would catch
| cold. When l asked him what he suppos-
ed we were going to do to keep comforta-
| BILE without any front door, he said Mrs.
Thompson said she reckoned we might
tack up bed quilt or something. And
when l refused, the boy said Mrs. Thomp-
son told him if / wouldn't send over the
| front door to ask Mrs. Butterwick to lend
her pair of striped stockings and horse
| hair hustle and to borrow the coal scuttle till
Monday. What in the name of Moses she
| is going to do with hustle and coal
scuttle can't conceive.
"But they're the most extraordinary
people! Last Fourth of July, was it
Yes-last Fourth of July the boy came
| over anu lOlu mrS. DuLIerWlCk tnaC MIS-.
Thompson would be much obliged if she'd
lend her the twins for few Minutes
Said Mrs. Thompson wanted 'em to suck
off new bottle-top, because it made her
baby sick to taste fresh india rubber!
Cheeky, wasn't it But that's her way
She don't mind it any more!
"Why I've known her to take off our
Johnny's pants when he's been playing
over there with the children, and send him
home bare-legged to tell his mother that
she borrowed them for pattern. And on
Thompson's birthday she said her house
was so small for party that if we'd lend
her ours we might come in late in the even
ing and dance with the company if we
wouldn't let on that she didn't live
| there!
eyes, sir; I'm going to move. I'd rath-
er live next door to lunatic asylum and
have the maniacs pouring red.hot shot
over the fence every hour of the day. In
deed d."-Man Adeler, in Ne,O York
Weekly.