The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1900-07-12
THE COMEDY OF 1T.

The Hennesseys and the Whimpetts
IN ancient unpleasantness, and it had
IT'S beginnings in the fact that when
Mick Hennessey, for reasons not nee
essary to mention, was laid off at the
stockyards, Bill Whimpett went in and
look his job. Immediately upon this,
Nora Hennessey, as bad luck would
have it, fell i'll with rheumatism, and,
while she was in bed, little Pat, who
was 10, got into bad company, and TAX
Ing the bit il his teeth, as young colts
will now and then, he ran away. 1t
was three months before he turned up
sgain at home, and when he did he had
acquired a good deal of knowledge
which a boy of 10 can do nicely with
out. All of which the Hennesseys laid
at the door of the Whimpetts. Indeed
and indeed, when Mary Whimpett
ventured over to the Hennesseys with
a baking of warm bread-that was
while Nora Hennessey was in bed-she
got her trouble for her pains, and the
bread flung back at her.
LII LuS COuISS Va IilnS DOIh llhA1AASO
would have been we'll enough pleased
to have tluttered a flag of truce, but a
perverse fate attended all efforts at
reconciliation. If the grown folks were
in a mood for amity, the youngsters
gave each other bloody noses, and the
respective mothers, fierce as tigresses,
espoused the part of their young.
Moreover, Mick got a place on the Hal
sted street line as grip driver, and the
first thing he did was to run over the
Whimpett's terrier. The terrier had
been more petted by the W~himpetts
than any child they ever owned, and
the death was celebrated with solem-
nifty.
The Whimpetts had, moreover, some
cause for envyings. They were better
off than they had ever been before in
their lives. They enjoyed the distinc-
ton of a front fat, a piano, a new set
of parlor furniture and ONE flow
cred dishes-126 pieces, including
scimitar-shaped dishes for the rinds of
baked potatoes. With such conven-
fences it is possible to live in an ele-
CANT manner. Jack Whimpett had,
moreover, gone to Cuba at the call OF
his country, and though he was now
engaged in rolling barrels of sugar and
-four from the trucks of a wholesale
grocery house he made bold to wear his
blue jacket and buff leggins and the
SLOUGH hat that suggested San Juan
and other heroic episodes. But with
the Hennesseys it was different. They
had seen much better days, and it was
not easy for them to forget it. When
methods were simpler, Mick Hennes-
sey had been a contractor and had
made money. But figuring got too
close, finally, and Mick made plumbers,
lost his property and his reputation,
and had the pain of seeing his family
move out of their imposing three-story
brick into an apartment beside the
Whimpetts. However, they still lived
in the shadow of prosperity, for Mrs.
Hennessey's sister, Kate Cragin of
Boston, had the goodness to keep Rose
marie Hennessey at the convent, a
fact which the Hennesseys 1outed now
and then before the Whimpetts, who
sent their brood to the public school
and had expectations of nothing bet
ter.
Keep you clear of that Rosemarie
Hennessey!" warned Mrs. Whimpett,
speaking to her son the day before the
girls expected return.
"Heh!" shifted Jack. "I've no need
to go to the Hennesseys, l hope, to find
a girl to my liking"
Say, there's others, amt there,
Jack?" piped Dick, who knew things
the rest of the family did not. He had
seen Jack taking girls into ice cream
saloons, big as life. Jack was a hand
some fellow. His broad shoulders and
sturdy legs, his big round head with
it's clustering black curls, his brave
eyes ana simple manner, were calcu-
lated to do execution, though, to be
just, he was not vain.
The Whimpetts heard great goings
on the night of Rosemarie Hennessey's
return. There were lights in all the
windows, and the sound of fddling,
and an ice-cream freezer from the
caterers standing out in the hall. The
young Hennesseys paid full tribute to
the glory of the occasion by running
out in the corridor, in their Sunday
best, and sticking out their tongues at
the young Whimpetts.
Jack Whimpett sat in his own house
and ~endeavored to read the book he
had brought home, from the public Ii
brary. 1t was a good book, but he
could not really understand it because
of the fiddling next door, which got