The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-04-15

We have lived in it four years, and
even now when / press a button i am
not quite sure whether it is lighting
Zap the ex-wine cellar in the basement
or the little light to the left of the
sidehoard in the dining rooms!
You cannot imagine the disturb
ance those buttons have caused us,
my dear sir! Why, it is only our
superb luck which has prevented a to-
tai smash of the affair betwene my
daughter. Miranda, and the young man
who began paying her attention cou.
! pie OF years ago, Nathaniel Winter
bloom, who is the sort of young man
every parent prays for andSrarely gets.
miranda would take Nathaniel into
the wicker sun parlor, which is toler-
ably secluded and has a nice, dim light
conducive to romance, and just as she
would be gazing with trusting girlish
innocence directly into Nathaniel's eyes
and heswas beginning to feel queer my
wife or 1 would decide to leave the
living room and 20 upstairs for some
thing, first pressing the button which
lights the upstairs hall.
Invariably instead of the up
stairs hall my wife would hit the but
ton Illuminating the sun parlor with
Roentgen ray glare and there would
be a shrek from Miranda and a curse
from Nathaniel.
The second button! The second .
would hiss.
But ! did press the secondly INV
wife would retort, trying to put out
the sun parlor light and only succeeding
In turning on another glare in the din
ing room. further, Illuminating the
seelusion of the love birds. By the time
she got the buttons Strengthened out
Nathaniel would be all upset for the
evening and how on earth Miranda ever
got him finally to propose don't know.
You've got to hand it to that girl
Miranda had some trouble herself
with those lights. When she would be
out at a party she always got home
several hours later than she should and
took particular pains to creep upstairs
quietly. There is not particle of
doubt that she would have made the
grade, too, had it not been for that in
fernal upper hall light, which she would
turn on from the switch by the front
door. Reaching the upper hall she
would be confronted by the implacable
push-button hoard She would push one
without waking us but usually it mere
ly turned on the light in the guest
room and when she got the button to
turn 1t out would begin to hear the
clicks.
She would press another and from
her repressed niutterings ! would Judge
she had turned on the living room light
downstairs. Next would come the light
way off in the sun parlor and finally
with the sudden glare of tropic dawn
the ceiling light in our bedroom would
burst into flame and my wife with a
shrek would start up demanding to
be saved and asking if our fire in
surance papers were safe. So it be-
came our duty the next morning to
argue with her over her reprehensive
hours, whereas if we hadn't heard her
We could have let it slide and saved
our face.
IF we had guests their sufferings
were intense. Usually when they
retired for the night, after wrestling
with the many buttons, they had
turned on all the lights downstairs and
IN the basement and the night watch
man would ring us up insisting a band
OF busy burglars were burgling busiIy
and ostentationusly and we'd better get
our gun and let him in. 1t was nearly
as bad about the bells and / have Just
about learned that when a bell like a
decrepit sleighbell jangles it is the side
door where the ashes go out and who
the dickens-anyhow is ringing it; if
it is a bell that sounds like all the
tinware jangling suddenly it is the
back delivery door and when a regu.
lar fire alarm peals out it is the front
doc"
I'VE, all the bells in this house
sound alike" said the agent soothing
". tactfully siding away from the sub
ject of push buttons. so you won't
have any trouble whatever, because
you'll never know which door it is
that is, ] mean-say, come on and
ilet me show you what dandy base
mept this house has! Say y