The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-08-12

total up at least fifty dollars. I shall
be glad to get out of it for that sum.
Meanwhile, the house is upset, our rou-
tine broken up, and who can blame me
if I take to drink"
MIR. Perkins, I have as good as told
Mrs. Bronson that / would take fifty
quarts of strawberries"
And perhaps you will, my dear, but
we should settle the particulars first.
We will say that you escape blood
poisoning or an eruption. Have you
considered the risk of an explosion?''
What sort of an explosion ?''
II should say from what I know of
the laws of chemistry that when you
mix sugar and berries together and
bring them to a certain heat and stand
there stirring them with a long-handled
spoon and your mouth wide open, that
the chances of an explosion were even
up. The first thing you would know the
pan would go flying to the ceiling, and
then down would come it's scalding con-
tents, followed by screams of agony
from my second wife. I rush.
IT won't listen to any such bosh, !"
shouted Mrs. Perkins. mo living man
ever heard of a pan of strawberries
blowing up and you know it,.
Wasn't it in the papers a week ago
about a dish of mashed potatoes blow
ing up in a Chicago restaurant and
breaking the jaw of an alderman
IT don't believe word of it.
I'VE will, however, proceed for mo-
ment on the theory that your straw
berries blow up. I said that rushed.
I want to take that back. / should
probably be down town, where could
not rush. The first should know about
it would be from the undertaken, who
would stop me, clasp my hand in a
sympathetic way and observe;
Z" Perkins, I'm sorry to hear that you
are a widower again, but men who will
buy Strawberries to do up must expect
to lose their wives. Hope you'll have
IN,
That's the way he would speak to
me. Mrs. Perkins, and [ would be pre-
pared in a measure for the terrible
sight awaiting me at home. I should
porch covered with doctors and the
yard swafming with tramps. l should
work my way into the house and take
YOU by the hand-the hand you gave me
after I had been a Widower for year
and with your last strength you would
look up into my face and gasp out:
Mr. Perkins, had you truly loved
me, you would have put your foot down
against my getting those Strawberries.
a4All these are to be taken into con-
ration, Mrs. Perkins, with yet 9th
| ers. Of course, there would be the fu-
neral expenses my loss of time, your
| tombstone with an angel on top, and
your old clothes wouldn't sell for $780,
| You see
IT see that married the meanest man
| in the wor1di''
II haven't said that you couldn't have
your strawberries. have simply tried
| to show you
II don't want them at ALI"
sThen that seems to settle the case,
| and I wish to compliment you for see
| ing things as I do
But I donti"
Then / wish to compliment you be-
cause you don't, but are willing to let
| the berries go for fear of ptornaine poi
soning-a matter I should have got
around to in a few minutes more. Let
us now drop the subject and go out in
| to the garden and pile briekbats on our
cucu1nbers to make them grow longer
| instead of developing up in imitation of
a squash. '--( Copyright, 1905, by Eugene
PercelIe.1