Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1890-10-29
MRS. WIGGINS PAINTS HER
HOUSE.

dOUOE.
I've been as busy as bee all
winter, and it's lucky for me that Eye
had enufF to keep my blood a-circulat-
ing for, if I'd a-had to set still, l
should haye froze to death, with the
mercury falling down among the
zeroes.
I've braided all Reuben's old
trousers and coats up into rugs, and |
declare /! when the poor man got out
in the rain the other day, and wet
hisself clean through, there warn't
enuff everyday clothes in the house
for him to shift hisself into, and he
had to put ON his black trousers and
his swallow-tail coat, that he'd never
made practice of wearing anywheres
except to prayer-meeting and Sundays.
Reuben was mad as a bob-tailed dog
in fy-time, and SEE he, giving the cat
a hist out of the rocking-cheer, where
she'd got curled up for nap, SEE he ::
"Mirandy, you'd ort to be ashamed
of yourself, a-cutting up them good
clothes of mine. And them gray
panterloons warn't worn out at all,
except place ON the knees and meb-
by they needed to be reseated." SEE
he: "It's lucky that Pm put together
solid, for you'd braid me into a rug,
soul and body, if you could tear me
up into strips as you could pair of
panterloons."
And he kicked at that cat agin,
jest as she was a-gwine to git back in
the cheer. Strange to me that, when
men-folks git mad, they always spit
out their spite onto the cat or the
dog. Jest as if that animal was to
blame for my braiding up those
britches
But was sorry enuff afterward,
when Reuben came in from the barn,
with his swaller-tail all spattered over
with milk he'd been a-milking, and
the COW had taken notion to step in
the pail to soak her corns, and the
milk had flew all over the coat-tails
of the partner Of my joys and sorrows.
1t took me two hours, with a sponge
and some anomaly, and my eyes and
nose watering as if had the chroni-
cal influenza. to scrub that milk off.
And then | didn't get it off, for Reu-
ben never could stand still minnit
to have anything done to him, and,
as soon as l got good grab on them
tails, and got the sponge sot right to
scrub, he'd fetch whisk, and I'd
lose my holt intirely.
Margaret Ann, that is our darter
from city school, has got pile of
new idees brought home with her.
Bent's Corner is an old-fashioned
place, and the folks don't travel round
to any great extent. And materially
we hain't got ahead so fur as some
parts Of the world. We still think
that it amt proper and nice for n man
to have more than one wife to u time,
and we shouldn't be likely to elect an
absconding Canada tramp of bank
cashier to be deacon of our meeting
house-not if We knowed about it !;
and we still think that it looks better
not to 60 fishing Sundays.
Margaret Ann, almost as soon as
she got home, begun to complain how
old-styled our house looked. 1t need
ed refurnishing, and repainting, and
repapering, and re-almost every
thing else. "Why, mamma" seq she
she has taken to calling me ma
and mamma, jest as if she was a
three-year-old calf, "you have no idee
how our superanimated our interior
looks. There is nothing asthetick or
rershashy about it,"
IL should hope not, indeed" SEE |.
81 shouldn't want anything with such
a sounding name as them has got, in
my insides, if that is what you mean"
ma, how dreadfully vulgar you
are If Arabella Jones should come
to see me, and here you talk, she
would fall into a state of nervous
prostration. She is so delicate and
refined, that she would faint away if
she should be in q room with pair
of those dreadful cowhide boots that
pa wears..and I have known her to
have a spssm when she has inhaled
the breath of someone who had been
eating onions! Oh, she is altogether
too ethereal for this mundane spear :"
Then ! should advise her to 90 to
spear where they don't eat onions"
SEE l. "Bent's Corner is no place for
her."
"But ma. why can't we fix up the
old house :" SEE Margaret Ann, a-tip-
ping her head on one side to see how
the'little topknot of curl panned
out, that she'd been a-winding onto
curling-iron. And full half of the