The Florence tribune., 1901-12-28
CULTURE IN MAINE.
It Has q Singular Effect on the Laun- drynan, the Housemaid and
 the Cook.

'sThe next time l go to Maine,' said the girl, pausing to chat while she unpacled her trunk, relates the New York Sun, q take with me a complete celluloid outfit. so as to snap my fingers at laundry agents and the like. With water, water everywhere on the coast of Maine, you'd think it would be easy to get your washing done, built isn't.
 ''On the island where I was stay, ing the first week all my things were shipped off miles and miles away to Portland, or Boston or Bsth. The laundry agent was a most cbliging and delightful boy, a son of an Amreican ambassador or something equally imposing, and a true, thrifty Yankee. He was putting himself through some university by this cleanly summer pursuit. And it was pursuit, if pursuit means hunting for lost things.
 Well. he took my things Monday, called at the cottage in person. dis cussed affably the social news of the island, partook of the ginger ale our host brought out and then went off with our bundles under his arm. Sat- urday he brought back what there was. It was a very meager display. A lot of my things didn't turn up at all, and all the hooks had been ripped off one of my waists, in an excess of zeal, for fear they would rust. The agent was very sympathetic. I de- scribed the things I was shy on. It did seem funny, but he never cracked a smile; he just jotted down de- scriptions of the missing things in his little memorandum book and l promised to look them up.
 "You see he went everywhere and met him at every tack and turn. I ignored his laundry career at dances and clamhakes and such places, but I am told there were girls who tackled \ him boldly during the paases Of the Boston dip, or when they were tipped up on the edge of a catboat with him, or anywhere, about things trimmed with Hamburg and others ruffied and edged with torchon.
 q used to assail him on the wharf when the express boat came in He was really such very nice boy and took no end of pains. One by one my things trickled back. He would come up to me on the wharf, bare haadaI bs~ arae 1,aop,,,r o,5 b;. teeth gleaming.
 "'Good morning, there's a petti- coat just in. looks like yours,' he would say; or I've had letter about that stock, it's been found. It will be along in day CT two
 Once he came up very confidently to know if I.had pink ribbon run ir anything, as there was a corset cover seeking an owner and he thought night be she, although he remem bered I never sent things without taking the ribbons out Nice as he was, though, couldn't patron7ze hi: old laundry, so I tried various other evils.
 Speaking Of the polite little laun | dry agent makes me think of the loi of people down in Maine who worl
 at anything during the summer to gS to college during the other min, | months. The man who ran the trunl | delivery business was senior q Il some university. a terror in Iatil
 and Greek. I suppose, and he certain ly was wizard with the trunks + \ didn't look at the cheeks until he go
 to your house, and then he general \ ly would find he had mixed things. H used to moralize to myself sometime Il as to whether educated service is a II good as the plain straight kind A "For instance. the housemaid a the cottage where I stayed knew
 lot you didn't expect her to know
 but from one to two things m
 hostess let drop I fancy Ida fe
 short in the things she was expecte
 to know. One day at dinner one (
 the children asked her father th
 French for crumb. He couldn't te her, although he was educate abroad. We all tried but none of |
 could recollect the word. After dil
 ner Alice, the little girl, came out ar
 asked her father if miette was nt the French for crumb.
 That's the word I was trying 1