The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1877-10-05
They Carried 1t too Far.

Mr.. Butterwick called to see me the other
day, and in the course of the conversation
he said:
"I'm going to move. 1 can't stand those
Ihompsons next door to me any longer
They're the awfulest people to borrow
things that l ever saw. Coffee, and but
ter, and sugar, and flour, l don't mind so
much, although when woman borrows
high-priced sugar and Java coffee and
sends back sand and chickory, a man nat
urally feels mad. But they've borrowed
pretty near everything in the house.
First it is one thing and then it is another,
from morning till night right straight
along.
"Now there's the poker. A poker's a
piece of machinery that you'd think any
body would go around and buy, or, if they
couldn't afford it, might use a fence
pailing to shake up the fire. But Mrs.
| Thompson seems to banker after our polk
er. She borrows it fifteen or twenty times
day and last Saturday she sent for il i
dollars week to run over and borrow
that poker and she's used it so much that
it's bent like corkscrew.
"Now take chairs, for instance. She
| asks us to lend her our chairs three times
| day, at every meal, and she borrows the
| rocking chair every time she wants to put
the baby to sleep.
ga couple of times she sent over for a
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 is no casters on it.
Last Monday she borrowed our wash boil
er, and we had to put off washing till Tues
day. She did her preserving in it, and the
consequence was our clothes were full of
preserved peaches. I've got on an under
shirt now that I'm mighty doubtful if I'll
ever get of, it's stuck 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 was reformed pirate.
"Perfectly scandalous They think
nothing of sending over for couple of
bedsteads or the entry carpet, and the
other day Thompson says to me:
"Butterwick, does your pump log pull
up easy 2"
"And when said thought maybe it
did, he said:
swell, I would like to borrow it for
few days till I can get one, for mines all
rotted away"
"The only wonder to me is that he didn't
try to borrow the well along with it,"
"And then on Thursday Mrs. Thompson
sent the boy over to know if Mrs. Butter
wick would lend her our front door. She
said theirs was away being painted, and
said 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 u bed quilt or something. And
when refused the boy said Mrs. Thomp-
son told him to ask if wouldn't send
over the front door, to ask Mrs. Butterwick
to lend her pair of striped stockings and
a 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 l can't conceive.
But they're most extraordinary people.
Last Fourth of July was it Yes-last
fourth of July the boy came over and told
Mrs. Butterwick that Mrs. 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-tep, 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 a party, that il we'd lend
her ours we might come in the evening
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 a lunatic asylum and
have the maniacs pouring red hot shot
over the fence every hour of the day. In
deed l would"