Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1883-02-19
PECK'S BAD BOY.

the eAHIDlIloH DulluIDg, OdIurudy
night, said the bad boy to the gro
ceryman, "and when they were
breaking up, me and my chum help
ed to carry boxes of cheese and fir
kins of butter, and cheese man
gave each of us a piece of limberger
cheese, wrapped in tin-foil. Sunday
morning l opened my piece, and it
made me tired. O, it was the offull-
est smell l ever heard of. 1t was
just like an old back number funeral.
Pa and ma were just getting ready
to 60 to church, and | cut off piece
of cheese and put it in the inside of
pas vest, and put another in the
lining of mas muff, and they went
to church. | went down to church,
too, and sat Oh a back seat with my
chum, looking just as pious as though
| was taking up collection. The
church was pretty warm and by the
time they got up to sing the first
hymn pas cheese began to smell a
match against mas cheese. Pa held
one side of the hymn book and ma
held the other, and pa he always
sings for all that is out, and when he
braced himself and sang 'sJust as |
am" ma thought pas voice was
tinctured with biliousness and she
looked at him and hunched him and
told him to stop singing and breath
through his nose, cause his breath
was enough to stop clock. Pa
stopped singing and turned around
kind of cross towards ma, and then
smelled mas cheese, and he turned
his head the other way an said
'whew,' and they didn't sing, but
they looked at each other as though
they smelled frowsy. When they
sat down they sat as far apart as they
could get, and pa sat next to wom-
an who used to be a nurse in hos
pital, and when she smelled pas
cheese she looked at him as though
she thought he had the small pox,
and she held her handkerchief to her
nose. The man in the other end of
the pew, that ma sat near, he was
stranger from Racine. and he looked
at ma sort of queer, and after the
minister prayed and they got up to
sing again, the man took his hat and
went out. Well, sir, before the SER
mon was over everybody in the
church had their handkerchiefs to
their noses, and when the minister
got over his sermon and wiped the
prespriation off his face, he said he
would like to have the trustees of the
church stay after meeting, as there
was business of Importance to trans
act. He said the question of proper
ventilation and sewerage for the
church would be brought up, and
that he presumed the congregation
had noticed this morning that the
church was unusually full of sewer
gas. He said he was a meek and
humble follower of the lamb, and
was willing to cast his lot wherever
the blessed Master decided, but he
would be blessed if he would preach
in a church that smeIed like bone
boiling establishment. Everybody
looked at everybody 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 bu-
reau drawer, down under the clothes,
and piece in the soap-dish and slice
in the album on the parlor table, and
a piece in the library in book, and
I went to the dining room and put
some under the table, and dropped a
piece under the range in the kitchen.
| tell you the house was loaded. Ma
came home from church first, and
when | asked where pa was, she said
she hoped he had gone around a
block to air himself. Pa came home
to dinner, and when he got a smell
of the house he opened all the doors,
and ma put a comfortable around her
shoulders and told pa he was dis
grace to civilization. She tried to
get pa to drink some carbolic acid.
Pa finally convinced ma that it was
| the house that smelled so, as well as
| the church, and all the afternoon they
went visiting. and this morning pa
went down to the health Office and
got the inspector of nuisances to
come up to the house, and when he
smelled around spell he said there
was dead rats in the main sewer pipe
and they sent for plumbers, and ma
went out to neighbor's to borrow
some fresh air, and when the plumb
ers began to dig up the floor in the
basement | came over here. Ii they
find any of that limberger cheese it
will 90 hard with me. But / guess L
will go over to the house and stand
in the back door and listen to the
mocking bird. If you see me come
| flying out of the alley with my coat
tail full of boots you can bet they
have discovered the sewer gas. -
Pech's Sun.
A Californian claims to have in
vented a screw joint for stove pipe
that will go together without the aid
of single 'scuss word. He ought
to he rawardad with commission In