The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-03-04
A FrescOed Reality.

Mr.. Timothy Bliggins is the owner of a
corner grocery on the West Side, and the
bane of his life is that he must rise with
| the lark and be on deck to accommodate
| the people who never take time by the fore
| lock in household matters. but persist In
buying their provender in driblets and 60
| ing to market as regularly as meal time
| comes around. If these people would stock
up in provisions the night previous, like
| rational beings ought to do, Bliggins could
slumber and snore like Christian until
his eyelids relaxed OF their own accord, but
as they don't do it, he must bounce out
with the first yawn of day, open up the
grocery and hang out the Goldfish.
But that's the rub.
1t is easy 10 write of the splendors OF
sunrise, from hearsay but getting up In the
night while the stars yet twinkle 10 sell milk
and bacon TO women with frowsy heads and
children with jelly-tinted faces is condi-
ton of things not mach crowded with
poetry.
SO Bliggins says.
Nothing comes easier than sleeping late
in the morning, but to get up when the eyes
| are heavy and weigh out sugar by the ounce
| and butter by the cents worth requires an
order of courage that could eat gunpowder
with a teaspoon.
But we meander from Bliggins.
For 10, these many years Bliggins has been
a bachelor and a boarder, but he Is such no
longer. In fact, he is married and gone to
housekeeping. Before this change in his
habits he slept in room over his store, and
was called TO life every morning by his
clamorous customers, but when he got into
his own house some other means of being
aroused became niece 'sary.
So he bought an alarm clock.
- Il. Il -.
with staring face and harmless look.
Bliggins wound up the continuance, set it
| according to directions, and went TO bed.
But he couldn't sleep.
Bliggins Is moderately honest person,
for groceryman, and seems to have
fairly quiet conscience, but in spite of
these soothing advantages somethi =
seemed to bother him like bad debt, and
slumber was denied him. Somewhere in
his innermost being was deep-rooted
conviction that the clock was a fraud, and
would not be on hand with its part of the
programme ut the proper time.
For that reason he was wakeful.
He knew to the minute when a lot of
slipshod women with shawls over their
heads and milk pitchers in their hands
would be standing at the door of his
grocery, but he didn't know when the
clock would cut loose and tell him to bestir
| himself. He had never had any experience
with that kind of clock, and being "a
| heavy sleeper he was not over sanguine
that it would be equal to the emergency,
even though it might slip its halter at the
| proper moment.
Hence he rolled and tumbled.
His wife slept like a frog in winter, but
Bliggins couldn't get so much as refresh
ing nap. If he dropped into doze he was
sure to claw the air nj the very same instant
| and sp.ing up in cold sweat of apprehen-
sion that it was nine o'clock in the morning
and the cream of the days business gone
to the bow-wows. Finally, however, after
Tuning and fretting until he had tired him.
self to exhaustion, he dropped asleep
Just before the nighthawk went to roost, and
dreamed that he had opened up and was
taking in money faster than he could make
change. He had barely got into n sound
slumber when a noise like Bedlam cut loose
| smote the air and chilled the wax in his
ears with a.
| "ker-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-!-!- G
that made his flesh creep as he bounced
straight up in bed, with his hair on end,
the collar of his ni2ht shirt trembling with
fright, and his eyes fairly popping with dis
may, while his wife was Waiting around in
the middle of the room, shrieking MUIR
ucT4 VI every jump III tho oiSStSs MINI VI
italics, and knocking down whatever came
in her way.
Unless 10 was nailed to the wall.
For as much as a minute Bliggins didn't
know whether his name was Scott or Nc
Carly, but he finally caught his breath and
hoped out of bed with so much suddenness
that he skinned an ear on the edge of a
base rocker and tangled mp both feet in
what he swears was n barbed-wire hustle,
from viii n with volley of unpunctuated
remarks he managed to tear himself and go
banging around in the dark in the craziest
kind of DEVELOPMENT until bad luck guided