Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1889-07-25
DON'T RETURN EMPTY-HANDED.
Bob Burdette Gives Some Private Advice
to Heads of Families.

Bob Burdette Gives Some Private Advice
to Heads of Families.
Dearly beloved, yet a few days and
then the all-beholding sun will see you
| flying from a home full OF comfort to
stuffy room in a desolate boarding
house on a mountain full of black flies
and fieas, or on sandy beach full OF
feas and mosquitoes If you can stand
it the all-beholding sun will have to.
It's none OF his business anyhow. You
are entitled to a holiday and you
should take it, if ryou die of the expe-
rience. What We want to urge upon
you just now is the Importance of col
lecting little souvenirs of your outing.
! Bring some thing home with you.
Bites of various kinds, stings from bee
and bug, scratches and bruises of
course you will not forget to bring;
they will be provided by the proper
insects without the aid of memoranda;
don't trouble yourself about them. And
don't forget to bring a receipted board
bill, else will you never see your hap
py home again. Bring that, if you
have to leave your clothes, which
you probably will. VIII what?
Will bring home the bill; can't
! you understand language. But beside
these things, which are less useless
than monumental, encourage your
wife and daughters to bring home lit
tie things for household decoration.
An ingenious tourist with plenty of
room in his trunks can utilize the woods
and sea-shore by making them con-
| tribute lovely collections which a lit
| tie artistic taste and skill can shape
into beautiful ornaments.
Sand. for instance. The colored
sands one finds on sea-shore and
mountain side, yellow, brown, white
| and red, and some intermediate shades.
Fill lot of bottles with sand, arrang-
ing it in layers of blending and con-
trasting colOrs; it will, if carefully
laid in pretty or oddly-shaped bottles
and mantel ornaments and remind you
pleasantly of the localities where you
found it, but it's the boss thing for
hens in the winter time when scratch
ing is frozen up. By encouraging
your wife and the girls to make a col
lection of sands, you furnishing all the
bottles they want, you can get them to
bring home enough sand to last a
colony of forty hens all winter. And
if you feed this sand discreetly.
and in proper quantities and at
right intervals. along about week be-
fore Easter the hens will begin to lay
parti-colored eggs that will make the
hair stand up on rainbow. All
through Lent last year my hens laid
series of sand-colored eggs that just
made my heart ache when | paid for
them, and Easter morning they broke
the market with a lot of ring-streaked
and speckled fruit that made the rab-
bits tired. I'd show you some if you'd
come around, but they are all gone
now. and l can't remember where we
got the sand. Beside, come to re-
member. the man said there was no
more sand like that On the beach.
And pebbles. Pick them up on the
beach and in the brooks. You have
noticed how dim and dingy they look
after you get them home. That is be-
cause they are dry. They'll look bright
enough if you live in Pennsylvania
(Joke.) When you get home put the
pebbles in vases pronounced vawzez),
and pour water over them; they will
shine like gems of the first water,
which is all the water they'll get. An
other joke.) These vases will be the
handiest things you ever saw. or rath-
err ever didn't see. to upset in the dark
when you are feeling for a match.
After they have been once upset they
will begin to be useful. You can pelt
the neighbours dog with them from
the parlor or bedroom window without
going out of doors to find a rock. You
can get the girls to bring home peb-
bles enough to gravel garden walk
by due encouragement. Hint that the
big round ones are the more effective
for massing. You can fire them
straighter.
And golden rod and leaves; autumn
leaves; pressed field-flowers and dried
grasses. You furnish books and bas-
kets and boxes for pressing and pre-
serving, and admire them as fast as
the girls bring them in, with many
notes of joyous delight You can east
ly get home with a dry-goods box full
of them. Then let them hang around
on the walls few days. and stand in
vases (another kind of vase, but mis-
pronounced the same way) a few days
until the bulrushes and the golden rod
have filled every carpet in the house
so full of fluff and lint that the sweeper
clogs. and then you can gather up the
whole consignment and make the dog
the incest bed in the corner of til e
woodshed that dog ever slept on.
And sea-weed, oh, don't forget to
bring home about a cord of sea-weed
with shells clinging to it. Hang a
bunch of it up in the parlor. Then,
after you have enjoyed a surreptitious
cigar in that forbidden room. sprinkle
little water on the dried sea-weed
that gives such marine effect to the
chimney corner. and in five minutes
nobody will ever believe that you have
been smoking In that room. They may
darkly suspect that you murdered your
landlord a couple of weeks ago and
concealed his mutilated cadaver under
the floor, but you can easily disprove
that by producing the extremely live
body of the landlord next rent day.
Now 60 and have a good time all