The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-12-08
T h e B o Us Sister

"Je ne me sens jaIrrais Plus seuI que
lorsque je livre mon occur a quelque
ami. '-Maupassant.
i
Garland's profession took him to Ten
Pin Corners. His profession was to
collect butterflies for the Natural His
tory Museum of New York Uncle
Billy" who kept the Constitution ho-
lei at Ten Pin Corners, thought bug
huntin' was a ~dampoOr bizness. even
fur a dood. and perhaps it was-but
that IS none of your business or mine
Garland lived at the Constitution no.
tel. The hotel did small honor to its
name, in fact it would have ruined any
other constitution. II was running Gar
lands by degrees, but man of TWEEN
ty-hVe doesn't notice such things. SO
Garland swallowed his saleTatus bis
cults and boiled pork and beans and
Z was very glad that he was alive
He had met the male population of
Ten Pin Corners over the bar at the
Constitution hotel-it being a temper
ance state-and there he had listened
10 their views on all that makes life
worth living.
He tried to love his fellow country
men, When Orrin Hayes spat upon the
stove and denounced wOman's suffrage
when Cy Pettingil, whose wife was
obliged to sign his name for him,
agreed profanely-when the Hon. Han
ford Perkins, A. p. A., demonstrated
the Wickedness of Catholicism, and
proffered vague menaces against Rome.
Garland conscientiously repressed a
shudder
They are my comtrymen, God bless
EN-" he thought, smiling upon the
free-born.
Uncle Billy's felonious traffic in the
j'yful juice" did not prevent his at
tendance at town meeting, nor his en-
thusiastic voice against local option
II amt no dun fool he observed to
Garland, 'let the wimmen hev their
way"
But don't you think" suggested
Garland. that a liberal law would be
better?"
Nav" replied Uncle Billy.
But don't you think even poor
law should be observed until wise leg
islation can find a remedy?"
Nav" said Uncle Billy, and closed
the subject.
: Sometimes Uncle Billy would come
out on the verandah where Garland
was sitting in the sun, fussing over
some captured caterpillar. His invar-
liable salute was. More bugs? GOSH"
II.
and suggested the bar-room as a new
and interesting collecting ground, but
Garland explained that his business
Z did not include such augean projects,
and the thrifty old man was baffied.
What's them bugs good fur?" he
demanded at length. Garland explained
but Uncle Billy never got over the i'm
s preston that GarIand's real business
was the advertising Of Persian Powder.
of a e
Pin Corner came TO Garland to engage
his services as potato-beetle extermin-
ator measuring worm destroyer. and
general annihilator of mosquitoes and
To each in turn he carefully explained
what his profession was.
They were skeptical-sometimes sar-
castle. One thing, however, puzzled
them; he had never been known to
try TO sell anybody Persian Powder.
for. possessed with the idea that he
was some new species of drummer
they found this difficult to reconcile
with their suspicious.
Bin a-buggin'. hatn't ye?' was the
usual salute from the free-born whom
he met in the fields; and when Garland
smiled and nodded, the free-born would
expectOrate and chuckle. "Oh. yew air
slick, Mister Garland, yew're more'n
a Yankee than / be"
sides of the road; the Constitution no.
tel stood at one extremity of the main
street, the pOstOffice at he other. Gar
land once asked why the place was
called Ten Pin Corners. and Uncle Bill
5 ly told him a lie about its having been
named from his, Uncle Billy's palatial
ten pin alley.
Then why not Ten Pin Alley?"
asked Garland.
ssCrYz ~ al M olIa,-
Billy.
But" persisted Garland, why Cor
ners?''
"Becuz there hain't no corners" said
Uncle Billy. evasiveIy, and retired to
his bar, thirsty and irritated. Asks
enough damfool que-estions L set
man crazy" he cOnfided TO the Hon
Hanford Perkins; I've he'd drummers
an drunmers at the Constitooshun,
but ] hain't seen nothin' tew beat
him"
The Hon. Hanford Perkins looked at
Uncle Billy and spat gravely upon the
stove, and Uncle Billy spat also, to
put himself on an equality with the
Hon. Hanford Perkins.
Concerning the mendacity Of Uncle
Billy there could be no question. Ten
Pin Corners had been originally Ten
Pines Corners. Half a mile from the
d
low stone house, surrounded by ten gi-
gantic pines. and from the four cross
reads behind It, now long disused and
overgroWn with grass and fireweed.
that the village name degenerated from
Ten Pines to Ten Pin.
Thither Garland was wont to go in
the evenings, for the pines We're the
trysting places of mOths-gray moths
with pink and black under wings
brown moths with gaudy orange under
wings rusty red moths flecked with sill
yer, nankeen yellow moths the prod
uct of the measuring worm, big fluffy
moths, little busy moths. and moths
that you and / know nothing about.
The sap from the pines attracted some
of these creatures. the lily garden in
front of the stone house attracted 9TH
ers, and the whole combination at
tracted Garland. Also there lived in
the stone house a boys sister.
One afternoon when Uncle Billy's
continued expectoration and Cy Pet
tingil's profanity had driven Garland
from the hotel. he wandered down into
fragrant meadow, butterfly net in one
hand, trout rod i'm the other, and pock-
cts stuffed with cyanide jar. fiy-hOok,
sandwiches and Wilson on Hybrids.
The stream was narrow and deep, for