Year: 1877

of woman is her cheerful perseverance in
looking under the bed for man. No
man in his right senses ever looks under
the bed for a woman, but there are mill
ions of women in this country who
would find it quite impossible to sleep in
any bed under which they had not pre-
viously searched for the concealed man.
Experience is lost upon them. The
average unmarried woman of forty years
of age has usually looked under the bed
at least $500 times without ever once
finding the expected man, but she is not
in the least discouraged by so long a
course of failure; and it would be easy
to find woman of eighty or ninety years
who still nightly search for the man
whom they have never found.


Miss johnson, of Evanston, will here
after be famous as a women whose long
perseverance has been signally rewarded
1t would be indelicate to inquire into her
precise age, had she not described her
self in a recent affidavit as having been
born in the year 1884, and we may there
fore take it for granted that she is at
least forty-three years old. If we as
sumo that she began to look under the
bed at the age of fifteen, it follows that
she has performed that ceremony more
than 10000 times. Until last Friday
night she never found the smallest frag-
ment of a man under her bed, but on
that eventful night her perseverance was
rewarded, and the long-sought man
greeted her astonished gaze.


Miss johnson being an unmarried lady,
not wholly unconnected with the milliner's
trade, and full of womanly independ-
ence, resides entirely alone in small
house containing but three rooms-a
kitchen, shop, and bedroom. Dogs she
despises and cats she mistrusts, while
as for men, she regards them as poor
creatures who may possibly have their
uses in time of drought, when water
must be carted from the creek, but who,
as rule make more trouble about a
house than their necks are worth. Hold
ing these views, it naturally follows that
Miss johnson lives alone, and the cool
bravery with which she locks up her
house at night and seeks her solitary
couch, no matter if frst-class thunder
storm is inprogress, has for years been the
admiration of the more timid of her sex.


1t was about eleven o'clock last Friday
night when Miss johnson stopped down
aud looked under her bed for possible
man, precisely as she had done on ten
thousand previous nights. Whether she
was or was not astonished at perceiving
largesized man lying under the bed,
with the back of his head toward her,
will never be known, but, at any rate,
she gave no sign of astonishment, and
did not even inform the man that she
saw him. On the contrary, she resumed
with great deliberation the nocturnal
twisting of her back hair, and even soft
ly hummed "Hold the Fort" with as
much distihctness as could be expected
of women while holding a comb be-
tween her teeth. Her back hair being
finally finished, she opened her win
dow, turned down the lamp until it gave
forth dim and modest light, and then
stepped gracefully into bed, but not to
sleep.


That sagaciols woman was perfectly
we'll aware that the man under the bed,
not suspecting that he had been dis
covered, would creep forth with view
to plunder as soon as he found that she
was asleep. The bedstead stood in the
corner of the room, and from the posi-
ton of the man it was plain that he
would creep out at the side of the bed.
Miss Johnson, therefore, changed her
usual manner of composing herself to
rest, and lay, as she subsequently ex-
pressed it, "flat as a pancake" with
her head projecting over the side of the
bed at the precise locality where she ex-
pected the man to appear. For at least
half an hour she lay perfectly still,
watching for the man with stealthy
vigilance that would have done credit to
an astute and experienced cat. Not a
muscle or hairpin of her frame moved,
and her breathing was as slow and regu-
lar as that of profound sleeper. At
length the man, confident that she was
asleep, softly began to worm himself
from under the bed, moving after the
manner prescribed by way of penalty to
the original serpent of the Garden of
Eden. Little did he imagine that pair
of pitiless gray eyes were waiting for the
appearance of his head, while pair of
1.-the and nervous hands were ready to
pounce upon his ears. 1t was not many
minutes, however, before each ear was
suddenly caught in an inexorable grasp,
and his head began to oscillate with re-
markable speed between the floor and
the edge of the bedstead.


Won Moltka himself could not have
surpassed Miss Johnson's tactics. She
had the man completely at her mercy,
and he was as helpless as though his
head were in the, stocks. At first his
captor maintained grim silence, but
after she had bumped him sufficiently to
ease her mind she addressed him upon
the wickedness and folly of seeking to
rob her. In vain did the man protest
that his motives were innocent; that
he had mistaken the house, and had
merely intended to take quiet nap
under his own bedstead, where the flies
could not find him. Miss johnson stern
ly told him that he could not make her
believe any such nonsense, and that she
would "let him know" and would also
"show him." These threats were
carried out by a renewal of the humping
process, until the man yelled for mercy
so loudly that the neighbors we're aroused
and rushed to Miss Johnson's house with
firm conviction that a gang of burglars
had murdered that excellent woman, and
were quarreling over the division of heI
spoils. IL was not until strong force,
armed with clubs and hatchets, had
recklessly entered the room that Miss
johnson surrendered her captive, with
the remark that the sooner they took
themselves off the better, and that, If any
other man would ike to hide under her
bed, she was entirely ready to knock a
little sense into him.


Thus this intrepid woman not only de
Tended herself with the most signal sue
cess, but she pointed out the true way tc
deal with man under the bed. Mos
women would have tried to poke the man
out with a broom, at the same time re
questiDg him to "shoO." The result
would have been to expose themselves
to an attack at very great disadvant
age. Miss Johnson's plan, on the con


trary, places man under the bed en-


tirely at the mercy of cool and coura
geous woman, and those women who may
at any time hereafter find man under


their respective beds will do well to iml


tate her example and share her we'll
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