The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1905-08-11

realm, and dad said the sultan couldn't
turn his stomach with no cream Of
the harem, only they must keep their
hands of him, and the sultan promised
he should be Is safe as a unique
whatever that is.
Dad and | had hired knee breeches
and things of q masquerade ball store,
and we didn't look half bad when the
crowd of shieks and things formed a
crescent around the sultan, who sat in
a sort of BARRIERS chair with an avn
ing over ii, and they sounded a hew-
gag or something, and about a dozen
pretty fine looking females, dressed like
the ballet in a vaudeville show, came
in and began to dance before the sui
an.
Dat stood it first rate until q girl got
on the carpet barefooted ana began
n OF those wIllowy sort of dances
that nearly broke up the Chicago fair,
when people left the buildings flied
with the work OF the worlds artists.
in all lines of progress, ana went TO
the Midway in a body to see little
Egypt but when this dancer wa ted
up to dad and wiggled in a foreign tan.
guage, dad sashayed up to her aad
couldn't hold him back,
He was Just getting warmed up to
balance to partners" when a fYo1R
came over the sultaa's face. aaI ha
Looked cross at dad. and thea tho
hewgag sounded, and the girls scat
tered out of { side door, and DAD waut-
ed to follow, but | held him by the
coat, and it was over, | think those
girls were the only ones in the whole
harem that were gooi looking.
Dad breathed hard a little from his
exercise, and said he was ready to in
spect the stock, and the sultan de-
tailed a tall negro, with a face dried
up like a mummy, and we started out
through the harem, dad pulling the
long hair on the side of his head over
his bald spot. and throwing his shout
ders back and drawing in his stomach,
to make him look young,
Well, say, there is nothing about a
harem, much different from keeping
house at home, except that there is
more of it. The idea people get of
harems is that the women are all
young and beautiful, and that they sit
around a swimming tank and play
puitarc and Eaon tho uiac of tbo r,or
who owns the place, while he smokes
the vile Turkish tobacco burning in a
jardiniere, through a section of rubber
hose, and goes to sleep like a China
man smoking opium, and that they
drink rare wines and dance with ban
giles on their legs and ropes of pearls
on their necks and arms.
| have seen alleged limitations Of a
Turkish harem on the stage, with
American girls doing the acting. and
it would make you feel as though you
would invest in a harem when you got
old enough, but, gee, when you see a
regular harem, run by an up-to-date
Turk, you think of the Mormon apostle
who has 40 wives Of all ages. from 10
down to a ~l6-year-old hired girl, with
a hairlip and warts on her thumbs.
This harem was like a big stock barn
in the states, with a big room to ex-
ercisa the colts, and box stalls for the
different wives and their families to
live in and do their own cooking and
washing,
Instead Of sitting by a bath playing
q harp. the poor old wives stand by a
wnshtub and play tunes on the wash
board, and scrub, and take care Of
children. | thought the custom Of
spanking children was an American in
stltution. but it is as old as the ages.
for | saw a Turkish mother grab up a
child that had lifted a kitten by the
tail, and take it across her knee and
give it a few with a red hand covered
with soapsuds, and the young Turk
yelled bloody murder, just like an.
American kid, and then sat down on
its knees, so the spanking wouldn't
hurt. and called its mother names in
n language / couldn't understand, but
I knew what the child said, by instinct.
Dad started to interfere, because he Is
a member of the humane society, but