Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1890-10-29

auction because it was two hundred
and twenty years old, and Washing
ton had sot into it. Margaret Ann
had just painted the back of it with
yaller daisies and a sunfowe, and |
yelled out as | seed the Squire a-goin /:
Don't set into that chair! It's"
But the Squire had sot before l
got the words out, and the deed was
done. And, when he got up, there
that bunch of daisies and that sun
flower, Photographed onto the back of
his coat as slick as you could mark
your name onto a soap-box with a
stencil-plate.
"Ill empty her out" seq Reuben,
seized with bright idee Strange
that didn't think of it afore." And
he grabbed that barrel and stood me
right upon my head, and rocked the
barrel round fust one way and then
t'other, jest as if | was coal-ashes that
had got wet and stuck.
Reuben Virgins" seq |, as soon
as l could speak, eff ever / git out of
here, I'll make you sorry for this.
You are a-running my brains all out
through the top of my head
"Bu'st off the hoops" SEE the Squire,
coming to the rescue. And he seized
a hammer 'and hit the barrel lick
that sot my rhumaticks off into a
tantrum and nigh about bowed off
the top of my skull. But the barrel
caved, and / was saved.
Jest as l got out, l heerd terrible
wailing kind of a howl from Nero
that's our dog-and l knowed he was
in trouble. | went out into the set
ting-room, where the noise come from
and declare, l didn't know wheth-
er to laff or cry. Margaret Ann had
sot that pot of prepared glue onto the
table, and the dog had got up there
and upset it, and the glue had run
out, and he'd laid down and got to
sleep, and his tail had dried into the
glue-and SO had my ten-dollar switch
of hair that I'd took off afore l begun
painting and laid down there!
The table-cloth Oh that table was
one that Mary Ann Simons worked
in this ere kerosine work that's so
stylish jest now, and we'd either got
to cut the cloth off from the tail or
cut the tail off from the cloth. 1t
was question of no table-cloth or a
tailless dog. did not hesitate: l
grabbed the scissors and was going to
slash right into the cloth, when the
dog-seeing, no doubt, how desprit l
looked-give an awful howl and a
frantic leap and cleared hisself-cloth
and false-hair and all-from the table
and dashed into the front-entry right
over that mess of chany and through
the winder, and down the road like a
streak, with that table-cloth and that
ten-dollar switch, warranted not dyed
and all long hair, a-trailing after him
like the tail to kite.
And that chany was smashed into
kindling, and we all sot off after that
dog, a-yelling: "Git out, there !"
And the groceryman's clerk come
out and fired at Nero, thinking he
had the hydrophoby, and killed old
Mrs. Mulligan's goat, that was lunch
ing off the old hocp-skirts and tomato
cans in Grigg's backyard. And she
sued him for damidges.
And, jest as Reuben and the Squire
and Margaret Ann had got to the
front-gate, carriage drove up, and
out stepped Arabella De Jones and
Gabriel Van Robinson, her young
man.
Imagine, if you can, the tableau
p. S.-Nero came back the next
day, with his tail bare of hair mostly
but I've neither heard anything from
my switch nor the table cover. And
we got jenkins the painter to paint
our house, because we thought it
would be cheaper.