Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1889-03-20

! y
a feather! hadn't tho sense to put it
down when heard the girls coming,
and the first thing knew, Miss Henry
said: 49,"
"Why, here it is, in Aunt Mahalah's
lap =
"Oh! Aunt Mahalah's putting on
airs, reading Browningr
" How do you like him, Aunt Ma
halah9 Do you find him obscure?'
" But he's just heavenly when you
do get at him.
Nothing would do but I must tell
them what I had read, and they were
amused enough when they found I'd
been taken in by a:prologue, as they
called it, and thought it was only a
recipe for roasting ortolans in Italy.
! held my ground, and when I said
would like to have a whole cook book
full OF recipes like that to puzzle out,
with a little piece tackled on. to the last
of each one like: Take what is, trust
what may bel at the end OF. the roast
ortolans, they declared I should be
made an honorary member of the
Browning Club. wouldn't have any
such works as that, but I thought I
should like to go to it just once, to see
what they did.
"Come to, it was going to meet at
Marla's the next time, so / was right
there on the spot, and it was the very
day before | came home, so it was q
narrow chance besides, and I'm glad
enough didn't miss it."
$50 am I. wouldn't have had you
miss it for any thing"
"Why didn't you join it yourself,
Tom? Maria said they asked you, and
1 think they were disappointed that
you didn't"
''Stutf! l saw it was going to be a
Bumstead Club as much as any thing,
so 1 said, Excuse me- What did they
do?"
"Why. don't you think, they had a
little play acted! I'd heard them talk
so much about BrOwning's obscurity.
as they call it-that means things like
'Flavor-no fxture'-and :Lo, the
rust!'"
! 'Oh! worse things than that!"
''Well, think s likely enough, be-
cause, you see, I haven't read any piece
of his but the Roast Ortolans.' know
from what I heard them say, though.
that he leaves out his who's and
Witches dreadfully, and he makes one
| person talk as if he was two or three,
asking questions and answering them
himself, and all like that; but after
awhile-the girls said Mrs. Porter said
you get so used to sensing his poetry
with only part of the words said. and
some of them kind of put cart-before-
the-horse, that you don't have
near so much trouble as you did
at first. Though, when he gets to 60
ing, he seems to be so full of the mat
ter that he gives a lurch here and
dart there and a dive in another place,
and you've got to be tremendous spry
| if you keep track of him. I'm most too
old for such gymnastics, but 1 envied
Miss Henry and Jenny the way they
scrambled after him.
maria never goes more than about
so far in any thing, you know, and then
she leans. back and pokes fun at the
| rest, and Minnie has to make believe a
good deal to keep up appearances.
She'd never bother herself about it if
it wasn't the thing to do, and, besides,
they must have splendid times at that
club, young ones and old ones together,
and a good sprinkling of men folks.''
"Does Mrs. Porter run it alone?"
''No; there are two presidents and
two vice-presidents, man and wom-
an in each Office, and the presidents
take it turn about, and the man vice.
president takes the place of the man
president when he can't come, and the
woman vice-president of the woman
president, and they've never had sign
of a fuss, Maria says.
| "Well, there! started to say that
had heard so much about Browning's
obscurity, and all that, that I was
afraid I shouldn't get the giSt of that
play they had acted, but there was no
trouble about that The story was
plain as could be-all but what made
that girl act so-but it was terrible.
You never heard any thing like it in
all your life! saw Romeo and Juliet
once. but this shook me- up a sight
more than that did. There were Just
two lovers and Queen, and that was
all, and it was enough! The name of
it is: In a Balcony and Maria and
the girls rallied off one end of the
dining-room and rugged it up to look
like a balcony, with fower-pots and
vines, and real flower stuck on every
once in awhile. And then, by OPEN
ing the foldingdoors into the sitting
room, and the big door into the hall,
part of the club could look sideways
and part frontways through the doors,
besides the ones that sat at the other
end of the dining-room. It didn't
do to have it very light on tho
balcony-only couple of umbrella
lamps all smothered up in green stuff
so it had to be as dark as pitch