Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1884-02-20
"HIRAM'S FOLKS"


$50 IIiram's folks has made money,
eh?" said old Mr.. Biggs.
Miss Paulina Prickctt had invited the
Biggs family TO tea, with hot waflles,
ounce preserves, Sally-lunns, angel
cakes, and the best quality of Young
HysOn, to celebrate the purchase of n
new tea sct-white French china with a
gold band on the edgc-in which she
had INDUCED. Inviting the Biggs fam
ily, as Miss Paulina very well knew,
was better than advertising the whole
thing in the newspaper, for there was "
goodly number of them, and they al
ways talked to everybody about every
thing. The Biggscs seldom invited
company themselves, because, like John
Gilpin's wife, they had frugal mind,
but they always came in full force
wherever they were hidden.
YES, said Mrs. Horatio Biggs; ''in
the book business, I'm told.
II knowcd book-maker once OBJ
served Miss Prickctt, literally ladling
out the golden syrup of the ounces, las
only got ninety cents a day, and found
himself"
That was book-biRdcr, Aunt
Prickctt.' said Esther. her niece, who
was serving up the wallles hot and hot,
with countenance considerably in
famed from the vicinity of the kitchen
stove.
well. where's the differenceP"
sharply rctorcd Miss Prickett
And everybody knows as printers
don't get no wages to signify" joined
in Mrs. Luke Biggs, who wore green
dyed silk, with plated bracelets and a
cameo brcastpin rs large as an individ-
ual butter plate Il saw one standing
ON the steps of newspaper Office, and
he wore a dreadful shabby hat, with no
coat, and a shirt as was all blacks and
grease spots. only fit for the wash-tub. :"
Printers have to dress according to
their work, ! s'pose," said Luke,
surlily.
The Biggs family had not been like
DR.. Watts's provcrbial birds, which lin
their little nests agreed Horatio Biggs
had ovcrreached his two younger broth
erS in business, and had set up "gen-
cral store in Biggsvillc, out of the re-
suit of his sharp practice, with a tall,
angular wife, who despiscd Mrs. Luke
because she once worked i'm factory,
and scorned Mrs. Hiram because she
was a teacher when her husband first
met her Luke Biggs was II 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. Lukc's chief end and aim in
life was To screw enough cash out of her
husband to enable her to outdress the
other matrons and maids of the neigh
borhood. Miss Josepha Briggs, the UNI
married daughter, made dresses for ''the
genteelest families only" and old Mr..
and Mrs. Biggs lived in wing of the
old homestead, and when they were not
quarreling between themselves, made
common cause against Mrs. Horatio.
Under the circumstances ii was not To
be marvelled at that Hiram Biggs, who
had managed to get an education from
his slender share of the family money
Ga few thousand dollars left by dis
tant relative, and gobbled up at once by
the Biggscs), and the young wife that he
had married. had found the atmosphere
too full of disagreeable electricity, and
removed to New York.
Take my word for it," said Mrs.
Horatio Biggs, ''you are making mis-
take"
Don't you expect as to support you
when you come back here without O
cent said Mrs. Luke, ruefully sigh.
ing.
"Hram's marriage has been his
ruin, whispered Josepha. Il offered
To pay his wife fifty cents day 10 heir
trim dresses in busy times, but she de-
clned it,.
Elizabeth always was too proud &c
put up with us plain people," said Mrs
Biggs, senior, with the quiet malice thai
occasionally develops itself in mother
in-law.
These family details may in some
measure account for the animus dis
played over the waffles and angel-cake
at Miss Prickctts tea party that after
noon.
WELL" shifts Miss Josepha, "ac
cording TO my idea of things. book
making ain no business at all. If il
was carpentering now, or the hardware
line, or if Elizabeth had energy enough
10 60 into the millinery trade, instead O.
/ paying four dollars in good hard none,
for a spring hat, as she did when sh,
was staying here in April! But I've nc
faith in their calculations and never had. ,
Mr.. and Mrs. Hiram Biggs, however
had ambitions which the family nevc,
dreamed Of Hiram's tastes had AWAY,
been of refined and literary nature
and several simple stories of rural lif,
which he had ventured to send with feal
and trembling to a popular monthly
magazine had been accepted and liber
ally paid for. And Elizabeth, though
she could not trim hats, and abhorret
the dressmaking business, had deli
cate fancy with her pencil in illustrating
the ideal dreams of others and she, too
tried her luck, and succeeded in the ar
tistic world, much to her own amaze
ment. And as time went on their gooc
fortune became more pronounced. Mr.
Biggs wrote satirical novel, under tn,
nom dc plume of paul de Savez, '
which had wide and brilliant circula
ton; Mrs. Biggs illustrated popular
poem which was brought out in an edi
ton dc hre at Christmas. And tn,
young people became the fashion.
The Biggses of Biggsville, not being
literary. were a long time in finding on
that their kins-people were succeeding
in the world. AT first they declined e
credit the thing at all, having settled
idea that the "book-making business,
as they persisted in calling Il, was but I
grade above the avocation of the rag
picker. But when at last they realized
matters, they decided that Hiram ant
Elizabeth ought TO be encouraged.