The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-12-22
WITH TIE sHOPKEEPERS.
Sights and Scenes ArOind the Stores Thi
Happy Christmas Week.

| The throng surges on aud on through
main street and Douglas avenue duriDg
the whole day long.
The busy man hurrying along through
these thorou2hfares experiences the eli
max of misery and impatence
His trail IS like the trail of serpent fol
he must dodge this woman and that child
at every step and tip his hat and smile and
look pleasant to hundred different people
before he reaches his journeys end. All
these cOurtesies absorb time and the only
consolation one has is that it is gallant.
1t Is harder to walk along street now
and dodge than it used to be when the
fashions were not so loud. Now the girls
wear those wonderful puffy sleeves and
two OF them walking abreast take up the
whole sidewalk. You walk after them,
hoping they may give you an opening by
which you can squeeze through after a
while, but the first thing You know they
Will stand still before some shop window
and you RIM into them. While you
are excusing yourself somebody else
Will run into you and by the
time you get through being jostled
around you are mad. just then some
air-taced acquaintance will smile on you
and you must smile back and look pleas
ant and utter some sweet word, although
your soul within you is burning 1t is no,
very dignified, but the sensible man in a
hurry will trot up the alley and risk hav.
ing pan of dish-water thrown down on
him, by some careless matron, from the
third story.
The sidewalks on the business streets
belong exclusively to the ladies and their
baby carriages this week They hold
them from a. m. till 10 p III. The stores
belong to them too as many a man realizes
to his sorrow. If you attempt to go into
one of them in a hurry you stand in imin-
ent danger of having your eye punched out
by the nose of a hobby horse or the tongue
of baby wagon in the arms of some happy
mama coming out against you.
Ladies can be seen in the streets fro N
every point of the compass. They cana
here from every city within. radius of
100 miles, because they can select their
Christmas presents from a great variety
They come dressed in the fashion, ahead
of the fashion and behind the fashion and
as general thing they all
come well fixed notwithstanding
the recent stringency. The merchants who
deal in toys say that their business is fifty
per cent better than it was last year and
better than it has been during any Christ
mas week for several years.
Hobby horses. little red wagons, dolls
and sets of dishes are all the rage. They
are piled up everywhere in heaps, inside
and outside. Dolls are hung in windows
by invisible threads like angels flying
around and red wagons are strung up on
telegraph poles and every where else where
the searching eye of the small boy is liable
to encounter them. Mothers drag their
children after them from ons window to
another and mama l want this" and
mama want that" is ali the cry.
There is a long, lingering, tired, weary
look on the faces of the clerks while they
are at rest, butwheu customer comes in
their faces must brighten up, the milk of
human kindness must spring up anew in
their breasts and from an aching heart
they must conjure up marriage-day
smile. Madam. | am delighted to see
YOU or ooh. what a pretty baby p are
what they must say, and, if they don't
say this. they must say 'What charm
ing day." or something else, to break the
ice of negotiation.
~ wish Christmas would never come"
said one clerk to an EAGLE reporter yes
terday.
why, aren't you Christian ,"
al am for the other fifty-one weeks of
the year, but christmas week l am by
eng. People are so unreasonable during
the holidays that mans patience is hard
ly able 10 stand it. Look at that woman
over there now" as he pointed to a lady
bargaining for a little kit Of carpenter
tools for boy. She is kicking because a
rivet in the saw is rusty as if it made any
difference. That SAW can't cut anything
anyway and, besides, in two weeks from
now it will be repOsiug gracefully on top
OF the ash pile That clerk that is waiting
on her hasn't done anything else for nearly
an hour and I'll bet she will slide out vet
and not buy them. Men are the only
reasonable human beings who trade in
this store during Christmas week. A man
will come in, gather up what he wants IN
his arms. pay for il without grumbling,
and walks off contented; woman will
dicker with you over two-5it doll half
day. look around half the time 10 see what
other women are buying, aud you are
lucky If she don't leave you altogether
apd go over across the street aud buy
aoli there for the same price. Excuse me,
here comes woman now that has been
here SIX times already without buying a
hing, aud suppose ! must put on the
smile intended fox my best girl and wait /
III her.
STILL ANOTHER RESTRAINING ORDER
At O'Clock Wednesday evening o. G. |