The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-02-08
THE FAMILY STORY PAPER.

THE FAMILY STORY PAPER.
Hello, Stebbins What you sit
ting on the horse block for?" asked
a sympathetic neighbor.
''Ain't nowhere else to sit," re-
piled Mr.. Stebbins, gloomily.
What's the trouble? Folks clean
in house %
Nope. Too much literatoor, !"
groaned Mr.. Stebbins. "You see,
twas about four months ago, l reck-
on" he went on, seeming glad of a
chance to talk, 'that a real pretty,
ennercent-lookin' girl came along a.
huntin' subscribers for sort of fam
lily paper, says she, with something in
it fer everybody round the place.
Ways fer the women to fix up the
house and cook. Ways fer the men
to do business honest and successful.
Ways fer the gals to make sofy pill
lars. Ways fer the babies to cut
teeth and be fed and get took care of
and learnt manners. And, best of
all, ways fer the boys to amuse them
selves by making things out of moth
ing.
I'VE hadn't no babies to be learnt
to cut teeth, but we did hev two
growed-up girls and three boys. 1t
seemed an awful lot to get for one
dollar; SO, dummed ijit that was, I
up and 'scribed fer the paper.
1.-The fust number want. long in
comm and when see them all try
in to read it at once, and how pleas
ed they was, felt just like one of
them there flanthropusts.
well, sir, there was a pictur on
the very first page of a thingumbob
they called cosy corner, and, blame
me, if them women didn't go to work
and make one fer every last corner in
the house. They made them of boards
and cracker boxes and kivered them
with ruff1es of fancy caliker till they
looked as soft and downy as snow
drift in January; but if they made
them cosy corners of cast iron and up
holstered them with carpet -tacks,
p'ints up, they couldn't have been
much worse to set on. This here
stone horse blocks feather-bed COM
pared to them cosy corners. That's
one reason I'm a-settin' out here.
Another is, I'm tryin' to get up
nappytite for my vittals.
THAT there paper had pictures of
all kinds of vittals did up fancy fer
the table; and, by gum them pic
lures looked good enough to eat.
But the vittals themselves Gosh
Fer instance. I'm real fond of plain
boiled squash, but after readin' that
there paper and seein' them pictures,
nothin would do but the hull blamed
squash had to come on the table with
the raw stem fer the handle of the
kiver, and the inside all fixed up
fancy with unknown ingrejents that
made feller dream hijous dreams
after he'd ct them.
But the way that paper struck
them three boys was the worst. Gee
whiz There was a feller writ
piece about having a circus in the
attic, and if that didn't jest hit them
boys. Fer four days they was a ham,
merin' and a-sawin' and a-riggin' up
ropes. They stole all their maw's
clothes-line and most of the neigh
bors' into the bargain, and they suit
tin'ly did have a circus. Then, Jest
as we was gettin' used to havin' a
raft of boys racin' up stairs to the at
tic and to havin' chunks of plaster
drop off the ceiling onto Our unsus-
pectin' heads, another of the dodgas-
ted papers come along and stirred
things up again.
'"There was recipes for some more
of them back twistin' things, but they
called them 'ingle-nooks' this time;
some more pizen vittals for the wo-
men to cook and fer me to eat; and
fer the boys, directions fer making
workshop in the cellar.
"Them drafted boys sawed the
handle off the hoe and the pitchfork
to make tool-rack cut up the barn
door fer work bench, and spent all
the money in their missionary box
fer nails.
Things went along that way fer
about four week, and then another
one of them papers come. The wo-
men fell to making easy chairs out of
barrels-I'm m lame in every Joint from
tryin' to set in the one they were kind
enough to make fer me-and I had
to send fer the doctor lickity-split be-
fore I'd ct more than a quarter of a
page of the last dose of fancy dishes
but as usual, it was the boys that got
the most good from that there family
paper.
This time it was nothing less than
directions fer making a menagerie in
the back yard. Gee how them boys
did work. They made coops and
cages all the way across the lot, us
ing up the rest of the barn fer lum-