Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Anacortes, Wash. Ter.) 1882-1887, 1883-01-27
HIS PA MORTIFIED.

over 10 your house this morning.?
said the grocery man to the bad boy
rs the youth was firing frozen pota-
toes at the man who collects garbage
in the alley.
20. they are searching for sewer
gas and such things, and they have
got plumbers and other society eX-
perts till you can't rest, and L come
away for fear they would find the
sewer gas and warm my jacket. say
do YOU think it is right, when any
thing smells awfully to always lay 1t
to boy?"
"Well, in nine cases out of ten they
would hit it right, but what do you
think is the trouble over at your
house, honest?'
IS h h! Now don't breathe a word
to living soul, or 1 am dead boy.
You see l was over to the dairy far
at the exposition building Saturday
night, and when they were breaking
up, me and my chum helped to carry
boxes of cheese and firkins of butter,
and a cheese man gave each of us
piece of limburger cheese, wrapped
in tin foil. Sunday morning l opened
nv piece, and it made me tired. y,
il was the offulest smell l ever heard
of, except the smell when they found
tramp who hung himself i'll the
woods on the Whitefsh Bay road,
and had been dead three weeks. 1t
was just like old back number flu
neral. Pa and ma were just getting
ready to go to church, and L cut OF a
piece of cheese and put it in the inside
pocket of pas vest, and put another
in the lining of mas muff, and they
went to church. 1 went down to
church, too, and sat on back seat
with my chum, looking just as pious
as though 1 was taking up a collec-
ton. The church was pretty warm,
and by the tine they got up to sing
the first hymn pas cheese began to
smell match against mas cheese
Pa held one side of the hymn book
and ma held the other, and pa he al
ways sings for all that is out, and
when he braced hims alf and sang
Gust as 1 am" ma thought pas voice
was tinctured with biliousness and
she looked at him, and Launched him
and told him to stop singing and
breathe through his nose, cause his
breath was enough to stop a clock:
Pa stopped singing and turned
around kind of cross towards ma,
and then he smelled mas cheese, and
he turned his head the other way and
said, 'whew,' and they didn't sing any
more, but they looked at each other
as though they smelled IRONY. When
they sat down they sat as far apart as
they could get, and pa sat next to a
woman who used to be nurse in
hospital, and when she smelled pas
cheese she looked at him as though
she thought he had the smallpox.
and she held her handkerchief
to her nose. The man in the other
end of the pew, that ma sat near, he
was a stranger from Racine, who be-
longs to our church, and he looked at
ma sort of queer, and after the minis
ter prayed, and they got up to sing
again, the man took his hat and went
out, ard when he came by me he said
something in whisper about a fe-
male glue factory. Well, sir, before
the sermon was over everybody in
that part of the church had their
handkerchiefs to their noses, and they
looked at pa and ma scandalous, and
the two ushers they come around
in the pews looking for a dog, and
when the minister got over his ser
mon and wiped the perspiration off
his face, he said he would like to have
the trustees of the church stay after
meeting, as there was business of i'm
portance to transact He said the
question of proper ventilation and
sewerage for the church would be
brought up, and he presumed the
congregation had noticed this morn
ing that the church was unusually
full of sewer gas. He said he had
spoken of the matter before, and ex-
pected it would be attended to before
this. He said he was meek and
humble follower of the lamb and he
was willing to cast his lot wherever
the Master decided, but he would be
blessed if he would preach any
longer in church that smelled like a
bone boiling establishment. He said
religion was good thing, but no
person could enjoy religion as well in
a fat rending establishment as he
could in a flower garden, and as far
as he was concerned he had got
enough. Everybody looked at every
body else, and pa looked at ma as
though he knew where the sewer gas
came from, and ma looked at pa real
mad, and me and my chum lit out,
and I went home and distributed my
cheese all around. put slice in
mas bureau drawer, down under her
underclothes, and piece in the spare
room, under the bed, and piece in
the bath room, in the soap dish, and
slice in the album on the parlor
table, and piece in the library in a
book, and went to the dining room
and put some under the table, and
dropped a piece under the range in
the kitchen. l tell you the house
was loaded for bear. Ma came home
from church first, and when l asked
where pa was, she said she hoped he
had gone to walk around a block to
air hisself. Pa came home to dinner,
and when he got smell OF the house
he opened all the doors, and ma put
q comfortable around her shoulders
and told pa he was disgrace to civ
ilization. She tried to get pa to
drink some carbolic acid. Pa finally
xck - - l..