The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-05-17
TENDERFOOT KANSAS.
Rebuhs Net by q New Yorker Who
Wanted to Be Agreeable.
TFrom the New york SUM-


1t IS not always necessary to throw
bouquets when you are out dining"
said a New York travelling man. When
l was in Kansas town not long ago [
was invited to the home of a custom er
to take dinner. A travelling man never
permits himself to misunderstood an IN
vitation to eat q home dinner
My customers wife was one of those
matter of-fact, eommon-sense women
to whom promise is a prina-
rose, whether it grows l,v the
rivers brim or in the barnyard
Soon after I was seated at her daintily
spread table I began fumbling around
for something of a gracious brand to
launch which would show my appreci-
alton of her hospitality.
i opened on butter. It was worth
travelling miles to taste such butter as
that on her tablet I said a few nice
things about New York. of course, we
all do that, but 7 admitted that there
was no such butter in New York as I
found on her table.
She couldn't understand that, for the
butter l was tasting was from a firl1in
sent her by express by her aunt in
Herkimer county. Just then I happen
ed to think of story and the butter
incident was relegated.
We had got down to peas and I al
lowed that there We're no peas ike the
homegrown kind It added to the lus-
ciousness of the pea to watch it grow
and Gull it from the vine.
She thought otherwise. Her peas had
been failure ever since the grasshoD-
pers did her gardening last year, and
George-that was her husbands name
had bought canned peas ever since. I
had been TIN owing tulips at canned
peas!
4 think said something about the
weather, Just then That's what a man
coughs up when he goes against the
rocks. You would think after a throw
down or two such as I have mentioned
that I would have confined myself to
the monosyllabic- And 7 would had not
the little woman spoken Of the wild
goose she served.
" At least she said in a splendid
way, we can offer YOU in this some
thing you don't often have in New
York
of course. Allowing much in New
Yorks favor I must say that the goose
we get in the metropolis is a pretty
tame bird. I admitted this. And then
L cut loose on the delicious meat of the
fowl that honks.
I could conceive of no sport like that
of hunting the wild goose. Then quo
ted som ething from 'Hiawatha' about
the wawa-LongfelloW for wild goose
you know.
7 said her husband must be mighty
hunter. OF course it is only in the
great open country that the wawa can
be hunted, said. [ got a second round
of wawa, and felt quite satisfied at last
that had hit the right trail. Then the
little woman, looking at me with her
gray eyes, said:
t think we are indebted to Mr.
Edison or some one of his school for
the dish we are enjoying. Recently
quite recently, our modest little city has
been lighting the streets with electrici-
ty.
g In the night when the sky is over
cast these lights seem to attract the
great hocks of wild geese which pass
this way, and when they get into a
radius of the lamps they become con-
fused, and even the boys kill them with
clubs
The wild goose we have this evening
is quite modern. It was indirectly killed
| by electric light
well, it was to laugh There was
nothing else to do. I didn't feel like it.
but laughed. And so I lifted my COB
let and proposed the health of my hos
tess in the pure. sparkling liquid which
only Kansas could produce.
From Blank Springs in the state of
| New York said my hostess.
''Then laid down: the time left on
my hands at that house was devoted to
a discussion of infant baptism, Cuban
reciprocity, the Philippines, the Beef
Trust and Carrie Nation"