Cooperstown courier., 1883-09-21

THE HOTEL MOTHER.
With Some Notes on her Billiard
room Son and Piazza Daughter.
81 am sure that she is well connected"
remarked Mrs. Haphazard; "she wears
the most beautiful diamonds every
morning" Mrs Fungus was the most
gorgeous figure in the hotel. She
breakfasted in black velvet gown, with
train and short sleeves, and she COM
monty dined in blue satin. She would
have been called very pretty, but for a
somewhat aggressive stare in her round
light eyes, and fixity in the lines of
her graceful mouth and chin which sug-
eested not composure SO much as de-
fance. You could not look-at her fair
skin and banged hair. and her super
fluffy of gems and gold chains, or listen
to her laugh and her grammar, without
thinking of translated barmaid. But
she was perfectly good-natured and
unaffected. If her manners we're not
fine, they were atleast easy; being those
which had came to her in the course OF
nature. She was fond of talking to any
body who would accept her company,
and was an especial favorite with
transient young men, who
found her q pleasant
relief from the monofony of the smok-
ing-room, and spoke of her as "gay."
Most of the boarders felt lin looking at
her as Carlyle's raw Scotch maid felt
when, being shown Virgin and Child
in the National Gallery, she could only
exclaim: 20 my! how expensive!" Mrs.
Fungus did not like saint; but there
was no real harm in her. She never
walked abroad; sho never drove; she
never read; she never was seen with q
needle. She passed the morning on the
piazza the afternoon and evening in the
public parlor, talking loud, if she had
anyone to talk to, and otherwise con-
tentedly taking exercise in rocking
chair. The last thing she thought of was
the children. The late Mr.. Fungus had
left her several pledges of affection, land
she left them entirely to Sarah, who in
turn generally left them alone, though
the boarders never could discover-she
shook them. Thus it happened that the
children of Mrs. Fungus bee me the ty-
rants OF the establishment. They played
horse in the corridors. They jumped in
the parlor. They put the piano out of
tune, and ldislocated the sofa springs,
and broke the croquet mallets.
They stripped ethe fower-borders, and
were terror to all domestic animals
They rushed to the dining-room as soon
as the doors we're open, gave extensive
orders, scrambled for the dessert, filled
the neighboring guests with disgust, and
drove the walters to desperation. The
complaints of their noise and their tres
passes were the chief worry ofthe clerk
but there was no remedy short of ex
pelling the family. It never entered
the head of Mrs. Fungus that for their
own sake the children ought to be taught
a respect for the rights of others. or that
they had anything to gain by acquiring
self.control.
Mrs. Fungus will be recognized by
every visitor at Saratoga, at Long Branch,
at the White Mountains, at the Virginia
Springs, at all the fashionable resorts of
the United States; for she pervades all
sections, and she fourishes in the de-
velopmeut of series nf types evolved
from a rude social ori,ln, and tending
toward a complex product not yet clear
ly discerned. She is only little re-
moved from the primitive and labori-
GUS ignoSamus; changed conditions of
existence have affected her imperfectly;
she has dropped old habits, and has not
yet learned the new ones appropriate
to her new environment. In the next
generation we shall observe marked adj
vance. The children who are now the niu-
sance of note! corridors will be the swells
ofthe billiard room and the bellies of the
piazza, Young Fungus will never be q
gentleman, but he will early assume to
be connoisseur in coats, cigars, saddle.
hotels as closely as his mother, for what
other home than a hotel has he evel
known?-and there he will breakfast
late, and call the barkeeper by his frs
name, and take leading and dogniatit
part in the extraordinary vapid, copious
and unlettered conversation which is te
be heard only in the Office of hotels ant
livery stables. He will be only for
and fool. with no thought but his owl
amusement; whether he will be any
thing else will depend upon the freak.
of fortune-especially his luck in bus
mess and his luck in marriage. He viii
never he an interesting fellow. His sis
ter will at least be an object ofattraction
From a troublesome and over.dresset
child, she will grow into q pert miss
with a profound disrespect for he
mother, and saucy answer for strang
gentlemen who try to amuse themselve
with her. She will quickly cato
the accent and manner of
class much better educated than he
own, she will learn, before she has pu
on long dresses, that diamonds at break
fast are in bad style; at fourteen sh
will be remarked for the elegance ofhe