The banner-enterprise., 1883-05-24
LIKE A MAN.

There is something sublime in
Niagara of trouble that roars an,
crashes through the world with
heroic fuss that one can brag about
but this constant drizzle of petty an
noyances, drip, drip, drip!
TO begin with, l am a long, youn,
person, with big bones and plenty o
them, and don't care button if m,
hair is red
l have good reason to know that
am not considered beautiful; that my
nose, for instance-but there's really
no need for such distressing details.
My father, Peter Brown, the best
farmer in all Fairfax, be the dead Ont
who he may, is the unfortunate posses
sor of thirteen children, every single
one OF them girls-and the married
ones, too, for that matter
Of course, girls are all very well as
far as they go, but one gets too much
ofa good thing sometimes, and so when
poor pa takes a notion toupbraid Fate
because all his boys turned out girls,
must say l rebel against the decree
that condemns me to slavish frocks
and frizzes.
Most good folks sing out that they
want to carry harps and be angels, but
If only | were Peter Brown, Junior,
and had farm like pal
| don't blame ma, of course, but |
really do think the even dozen ought
to have contented her-and, what's
more, say 81, when pa and l get be-
yond the subduing influence of her eye
for there's nothing tritiiDg about
mas eyel
When NJ and mas love was young
and the future a rose.colored rose
there I've heard pa say it dozen
times, but when girl happens to be
shackled with memory like a boys
pocket upside down, and the middle
nowhere, and gets that memory from
her ma, suppose there's to be allow
ances-anyhow, the first girls got the
benefit of it all in the way of mugs,
and cOrals, and names as fine as tiddles;
then there came such disastrous lull
in pas enthusiasm that ma says, when
he pantel up from the fields one hot
noon and found our dear old twins
waiting, in stead of his dinner, 1t set
him so frantic that he threatened to
bunch the whole family together like
a string of fish and do a dark and
desperate deed.
But ma just kept on having her own
way--whicn meant girls-until by the
time she wound up the home circle
with meat your service-she had 50
worn her intellect down at the heels
thinking up double-barreled names for
the other dozen, that she handed my
christening over to pa, and pa ever
lastingly disgraced himself, in my es-
timation, by heartlessly calling me
SiS-absolutely nothing but Sis.
If | had been boy this indignity,
at least-but there are some wrongs 81
great that the only thing one can con-
yeniently do is forgive them.
But, though pa has been cheated of
his bishops and senators and things
(poor dear, he never dreams that sons
VI. his might have turneu out farmers
like himself, only not half so good
the girls have certainly made up his
loss in husbands. Indeed, pa seems to
have more sons-in-law than he quite
knows what to do with-and as to
grandsonsl
"If one could only feed them like
chickens +" sighs poor ma, plaintively.
"If one could only kill them like
chickens, you mean," / retort, vindic-
lively.
After that little business talk pa and
/ had behind the barn, I've settled in
my mind that the Browns have got to
economize-and l mean to start with
the grandchildren, by way of noble
beginning.
"Now, look here, ma" say to the
dear old soul who is already staring at
me with big, anxious eyes, like a hen
with her feathers rufiled, "this thing
has gone on long enough, and l just
mean to hitch old Calico to the cart
and dump every scrap of grandchild
at his own lawful door-I do It's
downright mean in the girls to impose
on us in this everlasting way-as If
there wasn't work enough of our
own"
"There, there, Sis" interrupts ma,
pathetically, "they only mean to please
pa"
"And nice way they take to dol
Pas an old man now, and after pinch
ing and slaving all his life for us army
of girls, what right have they to keep
him pinching and Saving to the last?
Oh, you needn't look at me like that, ma,
dear; children, like good manners,
ought to be found at home-hi, you
Tom, Dick, Harry, ETC., etc. !" aud
when at last | have packed them in
The wheezy old cart, and we go laugh
ing. scratching and squalling down the
road, feel like the pied piper Of Ham
Iein, only there's no hill with wide,
greedy jaws waiting a. the end of the
the pityl
When have impartially divided
heir bowling household gods between
.ha eight sisters who live so uncom-
near, the sun is sinking be-