The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1878-08-30
AN APPALLING BORROWER.

a hslghbor Who Wanted Everything.
''Fm going to moYe," said Mr..
Butterwick 81 can't stand those
Thompsons next door to me any
longer. They're the awfullest peo-
pie to borrow things that l ever
saw. Coffee and butter and sugar
and flour, l don't mind so much,
although when a woman borrows
hgih-priced sugar and Java coffee,
and send back sand and chickory, a
man naturally feels bilious and
mean. But they've borrowed pref
ty near every thing in the house.
First it's one thing, and then it's an
other, from morning till night right
straight along.
"Now there's the poker. A poker
is a piece of machinery that you'd
think anybody might go round and
buy, or, if they couldn't afford it,
they might use a fence paIing to
shake up the fire. But Mrs. Temp
son seems to banker after our poke err :;
she borrows it fifteen or twenty
times a day, and last Saturday she
sent for it thirty-four times. She
pays boy two dollars a 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 our chairs three
times day, at every meal, and she
borrOws the rocking chair wheAever
she wants to put the baby to sleep.
ga couple of times she sent over
for our sofa, and when the boy came
back with it, he said Mrs. Thomp-
son was mad as thunder, and kept
growing around the house all day,
because there was no castors on it.
Last Monday she borrowed our
wash boiler, and we had to put off
our washing till Tuesday. She did
her preserving in Il. and the conse-
quence was all our clothes were full
of preserved peaches. I've got on
an undershirt now that Pm doubt
fui if l ever get it of, it's stuck to
me so tight.
ever now and then she has COM
pany, and she borrows our hired
girl and all the psrlor furniture !;
once, because I would not carry the
piano over for her and take down
the chandelier, she told the girl
that there was rumors about town
that was reformed pirate.
"Perfectly scandalousl They think
nothing of sending over after a
couple of bedsteads or the entry
carpet and the other day Thomp-
son says to me:
"tBntterwick, does your pump
log pull up easy2 p
"And when I said 1 thought it
did, he said:
"sWell, I would like to borrow 1t
for few days till can get one, for
mine is all rotted away
THE only wonder to me is that
ne did not try to borrow the we'll
along with 1t.
"And then on Tuesday Mr..
Thompson sent that boy over to see
If Mrs. ButterWick would not lend
him our front door. He said theirs
was away being painted and he was
afraid the baby would catch cold.
When 1 asked him what he suppos-
ed we were going to do to keep
comfortable without any front door,
he said Mrs. Thompson said she
reckoned we might tack up a bed
guilt or something. And when l
refused, the boy said Mrs. Thomp-
son told him if l wouldn't send over
the front door, to ask Mrs. Butter
wick to lend her q pair of striped
stockings and q horsehair hustle.
and to borrow the coal scuttle till
"What in the name of Moses she
is going to do with q hair hustle
and q coal suttle, 1 can't perceive.
"But there the most extraordina-
~ people, Last Fourth of July the
boy came over and told Mrs. Bnt-
terwick that Mrs. Thompson would
be much obliged il she'd lend her
the twins for few minutes. Said
Mrs. Thompson wanted 'em to suck
on new bottle top because it made
the baby sick to taste fresh India
But that's her way. She
don't mind il any norat
ssWhy, I've known her to take Off
J ohnDy's pants when he's been pIay-
ing over there with the children. and !
send him home bare-leQged to tell
his mother that she had borrowed
them for pattern. And on Thomp-
sons birthday she said her house
was so small for party that if we'd
lend her ours we might come late
in the evening and dance with the
company, If we wouldn't let on that
we lived there.
Yes sir I'm gong to move. I'd
rather live next to q lunatic asylum
lnd have the lnnatics pouring red
hot shot across the fence every hour
IN the day. Indeed wculd.o
One Of the attractions of 4 Paris
,ircus Is the firing of q young vo-
man from cannon loaded with a !
carefully graduated charge of pow