The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1908-04-03
On Owning a White Elephant.

On Owning White Elephant.
Have you ever owned a snorting
ripping, roaring hot-water heating
plant, all your very own? If you
haven't, knock on wood-you may
same sday. -.. z
aHaEe you sbraased 4about it until
your ssfrien1s, zsssing gyau seeming, ehayep
slipped quietly into: asstairway tosayoid
hearing "a 11aan who understands the
E:physics Of combustion and the science
OF 'draughts, relate, at attenuated
length, the virtues of the aforesaid hot
water plant? IF not, there is still
hope!
And have you ever had in your en-
ploy plumber who doesn't plumb?
All, how happy you must be!
am not happy! How can man be
happy who through the wee small
hours of morning has ridden leaky
pipe a-straddle, with his night shirt
buoyed up on both ends and his body
balanced on the left by a large and
angry-looking hammer and on the right
by tamping iron that won't lamp?
How can even humorist roar with
laughter when the greasy water is
hitting him in the eye and running off
the tail of his night-shirt in wanton
abandon onto the plastering below?
How can he titillate his risibles when
his feet are freezing on the tile of the
bathroom and the plug in the pipe is
burning a hole in his left leg? How
can he cackle with glee as he hangs
onto the squirt while his wife falls
downstairs and opens the flood gates
to perdition and let's all their nice,
clean, soft water go to the demnition
bow-wows?
say how can a man be filled with
effervescent 'mirth and convulsed with
the frOth Of nonsense when he has to
sit up all night and nurse a hot-water
plant that he can't even walk the floor
with, because it is too wet? How can
he shout with laughter when he mildly
calls the plumber over the telephone
eight times and can get no one but the
hired girl? If he wanted a hired girl,
he couldn't find one in six months!
| How can he gurgle with joy and jig
gle his ''tummy" with internal cachin-
| nations when his heart is filled with
guile and a desire to introduce a bill
| for the complete qualification of most
plumbers by hanging, and one plumber
| in particular by the progressive meth
| cd of tickling a mules heels with
feather buster?
All, sweet was life before I owned
| that hot-water plant! How xmelodi-
| ously the birds sat upen little tmiggs
and sang gaily of their doves, their
southern chalets and their :Angle-
worms! How odorously the nectar of
| the field and wood waited ACROSS the
range of my olfactory nerve, limiting
of the clover in bloom, honey in the
comb, ripe blackhaws on the bushes
and the scent of new-mown hay! How
| gladly went about my duties, CLEAN
ing from my thankful heart the costa
| sizes of life and putting them on paper
| at column rates! How glad and sweet
| and livable life was-and then came
the dispoiler, the avenger, the tyrant,
| the devil, the demon, the master
| mechanic of Inferno! Down in the
basement of my home, the bedaubed
and heinous villains set the snorting,
kissing, leaking, paving, starving, ca
| daverous offspring of Gehenna, filled
it's yawning craw with hard-earned
| coal, touched it off and escaped before
the fury within broke loose in all it's
demoniacal luridness and set upon me
the seal of nervous and haggard ap-
prehension!
How it spurted and leaked and went
out! How it snorted and coughed and
ripped, and calling me flying down
three flights of stairs into the regions
OF Tartarus, flashed in my face and
yowled for more coal! How it bel
lowed and clustered and boiled and
stampeded, growled, snarled, moaned
| and groaned!' How it sulked and
| moped and sank down until it had to
be doctored with the dump and coaxed
| with shavings, papers and rags-and
| then, how it ripped once more until
| my wife went out and sat on the gate
post and waited for the house to
blow up! n. $:z- ~ e
All, what a nightmare! What a
mince-pie agony of Plutonian gloom!
What an accomplishing terror during
the hours when God is supposed to be
giving his beloved sleep! No wonder
write like this! Go out and buy a
hot-water plant and ride it straddle
for few nights! Then you will won
der how can write at all
Small Talk. 2
The Japanese never kiss. Foolish
little Japs, to miss half the Joy Of life.
When Willie and Johnny fight.
mother ticks. $