Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1878-02-27
M GREAT AUNT,S Will.


and sometimes wish I'd been a
martyr in those days when they
stretched people on bed of spikes
or roasted them on a 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; / hurry round and
across, and she asks for calicos ;
then | turn her about and make
my way back, and l pull down half
a dozen pieces, but she gazes at
the shelves, and 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 I'M
der piece out, and she concludes
'tisn't what she thought it was.
Then she says she'd like to look sat
that stripe ;" l blunder on to every
stripe before get her particular
stripe. Then she says she wants
little figure, and l get all the
little figures out for her. She
wants to know how much tits
a yard; l tell her six cents, and she
says she can get better in Spring
field for five cents, and she looks
at me suspiciously, as if / was
cheating youth. She wants to
know if it will wash, and l say /
presume so, most calico does wash,
snd she looks at me Indignantly,
as if l was a saucy youth. Then
she asks me if we took eggs, and |
say we do, and pay twenty-eight
cents, and she says they're paying
thirty cents at the other stores; and
off she goes, and l put up the
print, and am down at the farther
end of the room turning fragments
out of cracker barrel, when she
comes back and wants samples.
We keep the postoffice, and by
the time l get back to my cracker
barrel, in comes a man who wants
to know if he hasn't letter. He
never had letter in his life, and
he knows it, and l know it; but it
is one of those facts that both
parties ignore, and / so and look,
and give him the consoling assur-
ance that he hasn't any, and he de-
parts in peace Of mind.
Then there is a lady who wants
TO match a COMPOUNDED bit Of silk
braid, drab bordering on the lilac.
1t takes 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 I hunt
through all the sewing silks,
there's drab bordering on every
thing else under the sun except
lilac; but / know by the way her
Acunces sweep out that mercan-
tile house not heeping drab border
ing 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 Gus
toner 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 IN
derstood, when he had that -four,
that it was inferior quality, not
recommended, and he had it cheap,
and took it because it was cheap.
l help him roll the -four in, and /
can see that he thinks he has cir
cumvented a william.
That's the way it goes day after
day, and 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 neces-
sites OF an artificial civilization
were at the bottom Of the Indian
Ocean. / long to be a savage more
than an angel, and shall be, one Of
these days, though do wear cloth
suits, and have a shaving mug at
the barbar's marked in gilt letters
s. o. Haynes. ] wonder that all
,elfrespect and sentiment of hu-
hasn't long ago persisted
rom out my BOSOM.
Such were my reflections one fine
inst after the train time,