The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-03-31
~~~~-G4- Eliph HeW1tt and Easter Hat Question

Knowledge and Compendium of Idtera-
 ture, Science and Art" said Eliph' Hew- lit, quickly, which I am selling for the small sum of''-
 I don't want no books" interposed
 Mrs. Billup instantly. T told you l didn't want'-
 "No, ma5am." said Eliph' Hewitt "I was only going to tell you about tho | hats l made for my twenty-five wives when I was'-
 Twenty-Five wives" exclaimed Mrs.
 Billup. Don't You try to fool me with any nonsense about you ever having twenty-five wives!"
 Yes, ma'am," said Eliph' Hewitt.
 Iwenty-hve; no more, no less; that be-
 Ing the custom of the country in which was, as you can see by looking on page 745 of this work. which am selling. giy- Ing, among other things all the odd cus- . toms or the strange countries of the world, together with the flora and fauna. | of all continents, as well as the mys- ! terles Of the depths of the sea. And ter-
 rible time I had with them twenty-five wives, too, the women of Timbuctoo be- | Ing by nature easy to anger" was you ever in Timbustoo2" said Mrs. Billup "I don't believe there Is such
 place."
 "Its in Africa" explained Eliph' Hew-
 lit, "and this book on my knee tells all
 
 | one thousand and one other subjects, com- prislng all the wisdom known to man, a most Invaluable volume, as you may | know when I tell you that the Bible and | 'Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and | Compendium of Literature, Science and Art were the only two books took with me when I went to be professor of uni
 versal knowledge at the university at | Timbustoo. This one book was all I | needed, for 1t contains all; what isn't | in 1t isn't worth knowing. But I made my error when I began to teach them poor i benghted savages religion. I began at | the wrong season.
 T don't see what difference the sea- son would make" said Mrs. Billup. , T began along during Lent" said Eliph' l Hewitt, land I had taken board and | lodging with a man that had twenty-five | wives. and I told the ladies they had | ought to give up something, but they wasn't the kind that would give up any | thing they cared for. l argued hard, but 1, the only thing they would give up was their husband They thought less of him than of anything they had, s" they gave ! him up and when twenty-five women , unite to give up one man about all that man can do is to desert that family and
 go and look for another that hasn't got the giving up habit; so he went. My mistake was in telling them about Easter. You see. had told them about
 the way ladies all got new hats at Easter and how the children had fancy colored eggs on that day. and they sort of took 1, to the idea, although they didn't rightly understand it. They was as simple as children. them wives was, and they would ask me if all women where I came from had new hats at Easter and did their husbands have to give them new hats; and I said I guessed the ladies got hats if they wanted them. and they always wanted them. so they always got them. And at that that whole lot of dark brown wives gave up their husbands and clung to us. They took to the Easter hat idea and liked 1t and said they would have Easter right there in Timbuctoo, with
 hats and colored eggs That was all they was able to understand of the religion that I was trying to teach them-new hats and colored eggs at Easter. They wouldn't go any further into It. They said they liked that part so well they would stick right to that part and that I needn't mind the rest. They had way of
 saying 1t that was part talk and part var