The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1878-07-03

And the woman in the black bonn
baxine, and the woman in the sun
bonnet said
(" Oh-h.h, just look at him Y
And the woman who talked bass
said, in her most sepulchral and pen
etrating accents:
The mans fool. :"
And the baby itself, utterly ignor.
ing the fact that Mr.. Thumbledirk
was laboring IN its own interest, threw
all the obstruction it could in the way
OF further proceedings by alternately
Strengthening itself out into an abnor-
NAL condition Of such appalling rigid
ity that Mr.. TEldmbledirk was obliged
to hold its head tightly in one hand
and its heels in the other, and then
suddenly doubling itself up into so
small knot that the poor man had to
hold his two hands close together,
like q bowl, and hold the baby as he
would pint of sand, and these tran
sitions from one extreme to the
other were made with such startling
rapidity and appalling suddenness,
that Mr. Thumbledirk had to be
constantly on the alert, and his arms
ached so, and he exhibited such signs
OF tatiguSand distress that the depot
policeman looked in TO say to him
that if he was tired out, he would
send in a section hand or the steam
shovel to give him spell.
1t seemed to Mr.. Thumbledirk that
he never heard so much noise come
from so small a baby in his life. The
more he turned it around and tossed
it about the more its cloak and dress,
and skirts and things become entan-
gled around its neck, and now and
then the mass OF drapery would get
over the hepy's face and stife its cries
for a se&Spd, but the noise would
come ou8shonger than ever when the
tossing little hands would tear away
the obstruction. And the louder the
baby screamed the faster the vigor-
Gus, fat legs few, kicking in every
directioh&like crazy fly wheels with
the rirDE Sometimes Mr., Thum-
bledirk made as high as a hundred
and eighty grabs minute at those
legs and never touched one of them.
He was hot, blind and wild with ter
Tor and confusion. Once he tried to
sing to the baby, but when he quaver-
ed out az Hootchy, pootchy, puddin'
and pie the women laughed, all but
the woman who talked bass
-sTd - tsds aad ne stoppe1. ~
He gave the baby his pearl handled
knife, and the innocent threw it into
the stove. He gave it his gold watch,
and it dashed it on the floor. He
gave it his emerald scarf pin, and the
baby put it into its mouth.
The pretty woman screamed.
The sad woman in the bombazine
shrieked. 3.a 4.
The angular woman in the sun bon
net yelled, "Oh, mercy on us !" s.
The fat woman with the market
basket called wildly for doctor.
The gloomy woman who talked
bass shouted hoarsely:
He's killed it,"
And Mr.. Thumbledirk hooked his
finger into that child's mouth and
choked it until its face was purple
and black, trying to find that pin
And Mr.. Thumbledirk couldn't hear
even the chattering woman. 1t beat
the air with its clenched fist, and
thrashed and kicked with its fat bare
legs, and walled and howled and
choked and screamed and doubled
up and Strengthened out until Mr..
Thumbledirk, steeling his nerves to
the awful effort, clasped the scream
ing baby in his arms and arose to his
feet.
He was going to 60 out and throw
himself and the baby under the first
train that came along.
The baby's mother sprang in
through the door like an angle Of
mercy.
She took the baby in her arms and
with one slight motion of one hand,
had its raiments Strengthened out 50
exquisitely smooth that there wasn't
wrinkle in it.
The baby lay in her arms as placid,
quiet, flexible, graceful and content
as dream of Paradise.
The mother thanked Mr.. Tumble
dirk for the agony and torture he had
endured so patiently for her. This
was the way she thanked him. She
did not look at him. She looked
straight out of the window with a
stony glare, and said, in a tone that
made the thermometer SILVER
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