The daily Alaskan., 1906-10-29
A Widows Inconsistency
,opvright. 1sO5. by P. c. Eastment.

ICopyright, 19O5. by P. c. Eastment.I
 The Widow Henderson employed a hired man to run things. and she hadn't been a widow five months when he quit hoeing potatoes one day to come up from the field and make her an offer of marriage. She indignantly ordered him to pack up and move along, and before night be was gone.
 Hired man No. 2 was told to take warning by the fate of No. l, and he restrained his love until one day after her year of mourning was up. The widow had bought q new COW, and the COW turned out to be kicker. When she had knocked the hired man or the milk stool three times in succession and he was running for fence rail to pound her to a jelly the widow came out to the barnyard and said:
 Its all your fault, Joe. l can milk that COW night and morning for year, and she will never stir hoof."
 She took the pail and stool and sat down. She had been milking for i've minutes and was just about to look around with q smile of superiority on her face when the cows right leg shot out like the piston rod of an engine, and the widow and the pail and the stool went end over end and brought up against the fence.
 Joe ran over to pick the woman up and say something about her smart ness. but she was unconscious. Then be dropped down on his knees and begged her to come back to earth Tor his sake, He loved her like a mad Niagara and couldn't live without her. He seized her hand and pressed It. and in his emotion he even went so far as to print a kiss on her marble brow.
 But 1t was one kiss only. While he was puckerlng his mouth for a second one the widow awoke from her solar plexus blow and rose up and kicked him harder than the COW had kicked her. He started to hunt another job.
 A third hired man took his place. He knew of the fate of his predecessors, and vet not two months had gone by when he put his foot into the same bear trap. He had fallen ln love at first sight, but had been very careful not to show It. His suspenders held him until one day he got third drink of hard cider. and then he tried to take the widows hand and tell his love. He cot the hand against one of his sun burned ears. He also got the bounce.
 When hired man No. brought his trunk the Widow Henderson decided to leave nothing to chance. She looked him square in the eye and said:
 "I want no nonsense. The minute you begin to play the fool I'll begin to bounce you. am hiring you for hired man and not for husband"
 You refer to the men who have de parted?" Queried the man, whose name was Tom Parker and who neither look ed nor acted like the average hired man.
 Yes, sir, I do."
 "They were idiots enough to fall in love with you, understand"
 "I don't know as there was anything so idlotic about their falling in love with me" answered the widow, a bit provoked, but I want DO such tom fool >aonsense."
 And you shall have none from me. wouldn't marry the best woman that ever squinted up her eyes to thread a alarming needle"
 The widow had set out to tell the new hired man what was what, and when she came to think it over she couldn't figure that she had got the best of It. He knew his business as hired man and attended to 1t. While he was of the family, he was not with It. He kept to himself as much as pos sibla. and. ghlle reapecttul and will