Peck's Sunshine Part 17

O, we are too smart. We are trying to fire education into boys with a shotgun, when we ought to get it into them inside of sugar coated pills.

Let us turn over a new leaf now, and show these boys that we have got souls in us, and that we want them to have a good time if we don't lay up a cent.

A TRYING SITUATION.

It was along in the winter, and the prominent church members were having a business meeting in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the church to devise ways and means to pay for the pulpit furniture. The question of an oyster sociable had been decided, and they got to talking about oysters, and one old deaconess asked a deacon if he didn't think raw oysters would go further, at a sociable, than stewed oysters.

He said he thought raw oysters would go further but they wouldn't be as satisfying. And then he went on to tell how far a raw oyster went once with him. He said he was at a swell dinner party, with a lady on each side of him, and he was trying to talk to both of them, or carry on two conversations, on two different subjects, at the same time.

They had some sh.e.l.l oysters, and he took up one on a fork--a large, fat one--and was about to put it in his mouth, when the lady on his left called his attention, and when the cold fork struck his teeth, and no oyster on it, he felt as though it had escaped, but he made no sign. He went on talking with the lady as though nothing had happened. He glanced down at his s.h.i.+rt bosom, and was at once on the trail of the oyster, though the insect had got about two minutes start of him. It had gone down his vest, under the waistband of his clothing, and he was powerless to arrest its progress.

He said he never felt how powerless he was until he tried to grab that oyster by placing his hand on his person, outside his clothes; then, as the oyster slipped around from one place to another, he felt that man was only a poor, weak creature.

The oyster, he observed, had very cold feet, and the more he tried to be calm and collected, the more the oyster seemed to walk around among his vitals.

He says he does not know whether the ladies noticed the oyster when it started on its travels, or not, but he thought as he leaned back and tried to loosen up his clothing, so it would hurry down towards his shoes, that they winked at each other, though they might have been winking at something else.

The oyster seemed to be real spry until it got out of reach, and then it got to going slow, as the slickery covering wore off, and by the time it had worked into his trousers leg, it was going very slow, though it remained cold to the last, and he hailed the arrival of that oyster into the heel of his stocking with more delight than he did the raising of the American flag over Vicksburg, after the long siege.

The sleeping car companies are discussing the idea advanced by the _Sun_, of placing safes in the cars, or iron drawers with locks, into which pa.s.sengers can place their watches and money. We trust the iron drawers will be adopted, as the flannel drawers now used are not safe by any means. It is true they are sometimes tied with a string in the small of the back, but the combination is not difficult for even a stranger to unlock, unless it is tied in a hard knot. Give us iron drawers in a sleeping car by all means. To be sure they will be cold; but everything is cold in a sleeping car except the colored porter.

Several proprietors of eastern resorts have announced that only adults will be entertained, and that no children will be admitted as guests on any terms. At first we would be inclined to say that a hotel proprietor who would make such a distinction could have no soul, but when we reflect that the proprietor is catering to the pleasure of a majority of his guests, then we conclude that the guests are devoid of souls.

What kind of a place would a summer resort be without happy children? It would be a hospital for decayed roues, very old maids, women who hated children, smart Alecks who were mashers, dead beats and sour curmudgeons. The day would be put in in gossiping, exercising old flirts with stiff joints, drinking at somebody's expense, and fis.h.i.+ng for rich husbands with graveyard coughs, and angling for women who wanted to be caught and didn't care a continental who caught them.

The atmosphere about such a place would be a blizzard of heat and cold, filled with fine sand, and would make a person with a heart, who loved children, think he or she was in h.e.l.l looking for an artesian well.

A hotel proprietor who will thus insult the better part of the human race, should be ignored entirely by all who love children, and he should be compelled to stand on his deserted verandah all the season and see his rival across the way, who entertains children, surrounded by the richest and best guests, and the soulless creature, and the few soulless, dyspeptic boarders that he has, should be obliged to listen to the laughter of thousands of happy children running races and playing tag up and down the lawn of the man who has a soul.

No one who would patronize a summer hotel that refuses little children a breath of G.o.d's fresh air should enjoy a moment's pleasure. Mosquitoes should bore them, and country dogs should bark all night and keep them awake. Be they male or female resorters, we pray for ants to crawl up them, for bugs and worms to go down them, for snakes to frighten them out of their boots or gaiters, for country cows to run them out of pastures, and fleas to get inside their night gowns and practice the lancers all night. May their food disagree with them, their clothes fail to come back from the laundry, and their bandoline lose its staying qualities.

And may those at the house where children are welcome have health and happiness, and may they get to heaven, eventually, with the children, and while on the way up there may they throw a bundle of prepared kindling wood into the pit below where the child haters are sighing for zinc ulsters.

THE KIND OF A DOCTOR TO HAVE.

A dispatch from Long Branch announces that "Dr. Bliss goes to New York for a few hours today." That is encouraging. If the doctors had kept away from the President more he would have been better. He has had from one to six doctors in sight, night and day, for over ten weeks. Take a man here at home that is sick, and let a doctor go and stay with him night and day, and how long do you suppose the man would live?

What a sick man wants is to have a doctor go around practicing on other people, and come in once or twice a day, blow off a little steam, slap the patient on the leg and say, "Well, boss, how's your liver?" A sick man wants to have a doctor forget to come some time when he is expected, and get nervous about it, instead of getting nervous because the pill-bags is there all the time, smelling of everything.

Let a doctor that is due at the bedside at 4 o'clock, say, stay away till 6, and then come in and tell about being down on the South Side to see about somebody's having a sick baby, or to sew up a man that has been to a circus, and the cross patient that has been waiting for the doctor till he got mad, is better at once. It cheers him to know that somebody else has a baby or had a gash cut in him in a fight, and changes his mind about swearing at the doctor, and feels better.

Why, some of our best doctors never think of curing a man until they get him mad a few times. It braces a man up to get mad and think, "Now that confounded old pill-bags has forgotten all about me, and I'll bet he is in a saloon somewhere shaking the dice for the drinks." A sick man gains strength, actually, lying in bed and thinking how he would like to kick the stuffin' out of a doctor.

A doctor who has only one patient is a damage to the patient, and Garfield has suffered more by having those doctors around when he ought to have been left alone till he yearned for them, than anybody imagines.

Why, the feeling of a man's pulse for half an hour, and timing it as you would a trotting horse, is enough to make a well man sick. What a doctor wants to do is to feel of a man's pulse about one second, and then throw the patient's hand down and say: "O, you are all right. We will have you entered in a walking match next week."

He wants to say something of this kind if the man is dying. A doctor has got to be a good deal of a liar, to succeed. We do not mean to say Bliss is not a liar, but somehow he does not seem to display judgment. He is too much of a stayer. Bliss is too frequent.

THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ABE TALKING ABOUT.

A celebrated writer on the state of the country, has an article in a magazine, in which occurs the following paragraph:

"The defects of the New England girl may be done away with by giving less prominence to the purely intellectual or purely practical side of her education."

In the first place, we do not admit that there are any defects in the Boston girl, but if there _are_ defects, as is alleged by the writer above, and by other scientific persons, we do not see how giving less prominence to her intellectuality is going to do away with them. For instance, there is a defect in the girl whereby she has a s.h.i.+n on both sides of her lower limb, or an indentation where there should be the customary calf--we say calf advisedly, because it _is_ a calf, and no person need be ashamed of it, even if it _is_ terrible slim--we don't see how that defect can be done away with by giving less prominence to the purely practical side of her education. It does not stand to reason.

Sawdust, or bran would be worth two of it.

Or, again, suppose the New England girl has no hips to speak of, or her stomach is caved in where there should be a fullness, is the giving of less prominence to the purely intellectual side of her education going to do away with these defects, or fill up the waste places and make them glad? Not much! A sack of canary seed, or a rubber air cus.h.i.+on, or a bale of cotton, beats the Boston idea all hollow, and we will leave it to anybody that knows anything.

Now, as to hair. Suppose the Boston girl has no more natural hair than one of these Mexican dogs, is education going to raise a crop of hair?

Not by any means--she has got to buy it.

No, you Boston magazine critters can theoretically take a plain, unvarnished New England girl with these defects, and give all the prominence you want to to the practical side of her education, and you may imagine you can do away with these defects and make her pa.s.s muster in a crowd, but when you get all through she will be homely as a stone fence, and some western girl, with no defects at all, just a natural born jolly girl, with not too much education and intellectuality, will come along there, and all Boston will go crazy after her.

You fellows don't seem to know what you are talking about. Well, we don't know what we are talking about either, but we had to write something to fill up with, and girls are the easiest things in the world to write about.

A KANSAS CYCLONE.

The little town of Clyde, Kansas, is mighty full of vinegar for a place of its size. The princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nt the boys have is to scare the daylights out of visitors from the States by telling big stories about cyclones.

There are two young fellows in business there named Will May and Charley Armstrong. They have a store where they buy b.u.t.ter, and eggs, and things, and pack them for the Eastern market. Last June, Uncle Armstrong, father of Charley, and a young fellow named Charley Farmer, were out there visiting. The hosts entertained the guests to the most hair-standing stories about cyclones, until they were so nervous they couldn't sleep at night.

One night the guests had retired, and the zephyr was pretty loud. Will and Charley got into the room adjoining that occupied by the guests, and began to talk about funnel-shaped clouds, trees torn up by the roots, horses flying through the air, and wagons being taken up bodily and carried away--talking so the guests could hear them. Then they prayed for strength to pull them through the fearful ordeal; and, pretending that a cyclone was upon them, they started down stairs head over appet.i.te, to get into the refrigerator, in the cellar, for safety, yelling to the guests to fly for their lives.

Uncle Armstrong is getting pretty well along in years, but he got down to the cellar about ten stairs ahead of young Farmer, and asked to be allowed to get into the refrigerator first. It seemed a little cruel to the boys to let the guests get in there with nothing on but their unders.h.i.+rts, but they were going to have some fun, so they put them in among the cakes of ice, and Uncle Armstrong sat down on the zinc floor and allowed that if his life was spared till morning, he would never set foot in Kansas again.

Young Farmer sat on a firkin of b.u.t.ter, and leaned against the zinc lined side of the refrigerator, and tried to pray, but he had forgotten the combination; and couldn't make a first payment.

Will and Charley went up stairs ostensibly to lock the safe, but really to go on with the programme. The first thing they did was to fire off a shotgun, and roll a keg of s.h.i.+ngle-nails down the cellar stairs, and yell to the guests in the refrigerator to look out for G.o.d's sake, as the house was struck by lightning.