Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1908-12-31

N
NM your face and you
hate your fellow
man and the powder you put on your
complexion resolves itself into cum
ming little marbles of dough!
Anyhow, Tom and | should have
known better than to rent our fiat
furnished when we moved away. Or
else never should have come back
10 pack up the furniture. We should
nave let the fiat remain a glad mem
DRY In all It's original glory. Then I
should have been spared the sight of
my best Bokhara rug In the passage-
way between the kitchen and dining
room and my best vase being used as
nm ash receiver! | saved all my ten.
cent pieces for six months to encom-
pass the purchase OF that vase-and
then the tenant, who wore diamonds
and said she loved 'Vogner' music, said
she couldn't find anything in tho
house she dared give her husband to
use for ashes until she stumbled on
that cheap little colored-glass thing
on the mantel! She said she thought
colored glass vulgar on the whole
didn't /?
i don't know why Il is that tho
most Vigorously moral persons, on
renting somebody elses home fur
uished at once becc,ne gladsomely ir.
responsible heathens.
"still, think could have stood It
all II 1t hadn't been for the picture Of
| Washington Crossing the Delaware
| didn't own 1.-THE tenant did. I
ildnt even know il was In the fat. 7
was too much engaged in waiting on
she misanthrupic man who had ar
lived With what seemed like lumber
yard and an excelsior factory to crate
my own pictures for shipping.
"Mournfully | carted them in and
deposited them about him In circle
Ike n funeral pyre. felt that way
because, OF course, ] didn't know
whether | ever should see them again
except In small Fragments. This NOV
'ng Is SO uncertain. But the packer
was 4 good man at heart and assured
me that he would do his best.
And he did. Such layers OF excel.
sior, such bracing and wadding Of
corners | never hope TO see again. /
| 1well upon this particularly In view
81 what happened later. That man
toiled for hours--and | was paying
him for his time. He tugged and
pounded and nailed and tied and
stuffed excelsior till finally that huge
crate was as solid as n brick. !
don't believe you could have got n pin
inserted In II, for there wasn't crev,
ice big enough anywhere. It was
triumph Of packing.
Just as the man paused before
driving the last nall to wipe the sweat
from his brow. the tenant tore madly
into the kitchen where we were. She
was a little woman and she hoped
around like distracted chicken.
Where she shrleked, where Is
my Washington? My Washington
Crossing the Delaware?"
The packer and gazed subsidy at
each other | think by this time the
excelsior had got into our brains.
! dunno, ma'am, the packer STAN.
mered, after staring wildly into the
sink and under the kitchen table. Ts
he dog or cat?
Don't try to act innocent cried
the tenant, shaking her finger at him
1T was my Washington that my great
aunt brought from New Hampshire as
present the year all OF us children
had the measles and she came to
visit pa! ] set IL down by the radI
ator right here-and It's gone! You've
put II in that box and you've Just goi
to unpack IT,!
There was an agonized instant In
which the packer swayed Imply and
hung across that huge box like a rag
I When he got his breath he said he'd
be everlasiingly something or other II
he did! Unless he got paid for III
THE tenant had fierce eyes. muir.
INJURED few weak, temporizlng things
such as that | would send the picture
back after | unpacked the box nj its
destination. | even suggested buy,na
her another. Thereupon she explod
ed. She said had no feelings and
that she was going to have her origi
nal Washington that her reyered
great-aunt had given, and that no
money could replace II. gathered that
II was a work of art done by an old
master and that the rest OF the CON
tents of the box were dross TO Il.
Beneath her gaze | crumpled and
gave the word to unpack.
Il didn't watch the process.
couldn't have stood the sight OF nj,
that excelsior being pried out. The
farther the man excavated the box thu
more sprightlg grew the packers Ian
guage, but when at last he found
Washington he was dumb from ex
haustion and rage. 1t was the very
first picture he had packed and O,
course was at the bottom of the box.
Eagerly ] rushed to gaze on the
masterpiece. i found l could dupli
cate 1t for so cents in any department
store in the world and l wanted to
burst into tears.
"But ! left that, act to Tom-wait
fiji he gets the nacker's hint"