Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-05-19
"HIRAM,S FOLKS"

Vus BLU Olu NIL OlSSo'
Mas Paulina Prickett had invited the
Bigg. family to tea, with hot wafaes,
ounce preserves, Sally-lunns, angel
cakes, and the best quality OF Young
Hyson, to celebrate the purchase of a
new tea set-white French china with a
gold band on the edge-in which she
had indulged. Inviting the Biggs FAM
ily, as Miss Paulina very we'll knew,
was better than advertising the whole
thing in the newspaper, for there was a
goodly number of them, and they al
ways talked to everybody about every
thing, The Biggses seldom invited
company themselves, because, like John
Gilpin's wife, they had a frugal mind,
but they always came in full force
wherever they we're hidden.
"'Yes," said Mrs. Horatio Biggs; 'in
the bnok business, I'm told"
81 knowed a book-maker once" OBJ
served Miss Prickett, literally ladling
out TIE golden syrup of the ounces, "as
only got ninety cents a day, and found
himsttf."
THAT was a book-binde7, Aunt
Prickrtt," said Esther, her niece, who
was serving up the waff1es hot and hot,
with q c~ountenance considerably in
famed from the vicinity of the kitchen
stove.
"Well, where's the d%ifference?''
sharply retorted Miss Prickett.
"Aua everybody knows as printers
don't set no wages to signify" Joined
in Mrs. Luke Biggs, who wore a green
dyed SIX, with plated bracelets and a
cameo breastpin as large as an individ-
ual butter plate. 81 saw n standing
on the steps of a newspaper office, and
he wore a dreadful shabby hat, with no
coat, nnd a shirt as was all blacks and
grease spots, only fit for the wash-tub."
"I-inters have to dress according to
their work, 1 s'pose," said Luke,
surlily.
: The Biggs family had not been like
DR.. Watts's proverbial birds, which "in
their little nests agreed" Horatio Biggs
had overreached his two younger broth.
ers in business, and had set up a ''gen.
eral store'' in Biggsville, out Of the re.
suit of his sharp practice, with a tall.
angular wife, who despised Mrs. Luke
because she once worked in a factory,
and scorned Mrs. Hiram because she
was a teacher when her husband frs
met her. Luke Biggs was a selfish
grinding, misery sort of a fellow, who
drudged away on the old farm because
he was too ~parsimonious to spend The
money necessary to enable him to i'm
prove that or enter any other business
and Mrs. Luke's chief end and aim il
life was to screw enough cash out of he
husband to enable her to outdress tn.
other matrons and maids of the neigh
borhood. Miss Josepha Briggs, the I'm
married daughter, made dresses for s'th'
genteelest families only" and old Mr.
and Mrs. Biggs lived in a wing of tn
old homestead, and when they were no
quarreling between themselves, mad
common against Mrs. Horatio.
Under the circumstances it was not t
be marvelled at that Hiram Biggs, VIII
had managed to get an education from
his slender share of the family none,
Ga few thousand dollars left by a dis
tant relative, and gobbled up at once b,
the Biggses), and the young wife that h
had married, had found the atmospher
too full of disagreeable electricity, an
removed to New York.
''Take my word for it," said Mrs
Horatio Bigggs, "you are making a mis-
take"
"Don't you expect as to support yo
when you come back here without
cent" said Mrs. Luke, ruefully sigh
ing.
sHiram's marriage has been hi
ruin," whispered Josepha. II offere
to pay his wife fifty cents a day to hel
trim dresses in busy times, but she DE-
clined it."
elizabeth always was too proud
put up with us plain people" said Mrs
Biggs, senior, with thequiet malice tina
occasionally develops itself in a mother
in-law.
These family details may in som
measure account for the animus dis
played over the watties and angel-cak
at Miss Prickett's tea party that after
noon.
"Well," shifts Miss Josepha, sac
cording to my idea of things, book
making amt no business at all. If
was carpentering now, Or the hardwar
line, or if Elizabeth had energy enoug
to 60 into the millinery trade, instead q
paying four dollars in good hard none
for a spring hat, as she did when sh
was staying here in April! But I've n
faith in their calculations and never had.
Mr.. and Mrs. Hiram Biggs, however