The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-03-31
MY GREAT-AUNT'S WILL.

AM a clerk in a country store, and
sometimes | wish I'd been martyr in
those days when they stretched people
on beds of spikes or roasted them on
gridiron. Then l think l could have
taken a little comfort in life.
This is the way of it: am behind the
counter on the side where we keep prints,
and there trots up to the opposite side,
where we keep flannels, a customer
neither young nor beautiful. 1 hurry
around and across, and she asks for
calicoes; then turn her about and make
my way back, and pull down half
dozen pieces, but she just gazes at the
shelves, says she'd like to look at the
under piece on the top shelf; climb up,
at the risk of breaking my neck, and get
the under piece out, and she concludes
tisn't what she thought it was. Then
she says she'd like to look {" at that
stripe; blunder on to every other stripe
before get her particular stripe. Then
she says she wants little figure, and |
get all the little figures out for her. She
wants to know how much It's yard; l
say six cents, and she says she can get
better in Springfield for five cents, and
she looks at me suspiciously as if was a
cheating youth. She wants to know if
it'll wash, and say l presume so, most
calicoes do wash, and she looks at me
Indignantly, as if l was a saucy youth.
Then she asks me if we take eggs, and |
say we do, and we pay twenty-eight
cents, and she says they're paying thirty
cents at the other store; and off she goes,
and put up the prints, and am down at
the farther end of the room turning frag-
ments out of cracker barrel when back
she comes and wants samples.
We keep the postotfice, and, by the
time get back to my cracker barrel, in
comes man who wants to know If he
hasn't letter. He never had letter in
his life, and he knows it, and know it;
but it is one of those facts that both
parties ignore, and l go and look, and
give him the consoling assurance that he
hasn't any, and he departs in peace of
mind
Then there is lady who wants to
match COMPOUNDED bit of silk braid,
drab bordering on the lilac. 1t takes me
five minutes to find one box OF silk
braids, and five more to find we haven't
drab bordering on the lilac. Then she
wants sewing silk the same shade, and l
hunt through all the sewing silks, and
there's drab bordering on everything
else under the sun except lilac; but |
know by the way her flounces sweep out
that a mercantile house not keeping
drab bordering on the lilac stands very
low.
get down to the farther end of the
store again, and there comes man to
the front door, and yells out loud enough
for every customer to hear that he's
brought back that barrel of flour; says
the bread was black and all dough in the
middle. Now that man understood,
when he had that -four that it was in
ferior quality, not recommended, and he
had it cheap, and took it because it was
cheap. help HIM roll the flour in, and
i can see that he thinks he has circum-
vented villain.
That's the way it goes day after day,
week after week, and hate tea, detest
saleratus, abhor Goldfish, and wish calico,
cotton cloth, drilling, hooks and eyes,
and all the rest of the wretched necessi-
ties of an artificial civilization were at
the bottom of the Indian Ocean. ! long
to be savage more than do an angel,
and shall be, one of these days, though
/ do wear cloth suits, and have shaw
ing7mug at the BARRIERS marked in gilt
letters S. o. Haynes. | wonder that all
self-respect and sentiment of humanity
hasn't long ago persisted from out my
bosom.
INV rnA Enn
morning Just after train time, while
was weighing out half pound of black
tea, when my fellows sufferer in the dry
goods and grocery intiction called out:
" Here's lady inquiring for you,
SAM"
In distinct outline before the door
stood little woman, her skirts spread
out by triangular hoop like the skirts
of the female figures we used to draw on
our states at school. ! came up to make
my bow, and saw she had deposited a
brown willow basket on the showcase
and dropped black glazed bag at her
side. She wore a stringy kind of shawl,
with fearfully long fringe, and seemed
20 be afflicted with numb palsy.
Are you my nephew Sam'wel?"
asked she.
"My name is Samuel Haynes, ma'am."
"rm your fathers aunt, Loueezer
Haynes" .... ..
"rm glad to see you, Aunt Louisa"
She looked at me sharply, as if l was
making fun of her. suppose it is be.
cause the corners of my mouth turn up,
people are always suspecting me of max
ing fun of them. l wish those corners
would sink, and wonder they don't.
am your only living female relative
on the fathers side," said she.
My business experience with females
had been so imbittering, l was glad to