Peck's Sunshine Part 27

He said there was no use of being scared, if the man was dead he was not dangerous, and if he was alive the four of them could whip him, if he undertook to run things. What they were in duty bound to do was to let him out. No man could enjoy life screwed down in a sarcophagus like that.

"Now," says Cornes, "there is a doctor from Milwaukee in the sleeper.

I will go and ask him to come in the baggage car, and you fellows go in and pull the trunks off that coffin, and we will take a screw driver and a can-opener and give the man air. That's doing as a fellow would be done by."

So he went and got the doctor and told him he had got a case for him.

He wanted him to practice on a dead man. The doctor put on his pants and overcoat, and went with Fred. As they came into the baggage car the boys were lifting a big trunk off the coffin, when the voice said:

"Go easy. Glory hallelujah!"

Then they all turned pale again, but all took hold of the baggage and worked with a will, while the doctor held a screw driver he had fished out of a tool box.

The doctor said the man was evidently alive, but the chances were that he might die from suffocation before they could unscrew all the screws of the outside box and the coffin, and he said he didn't know but the best way would be to take an ax and break it open.

Fred said that was his idea, and he was just going for the ax when the brakeman moved the water barrel, tipped over the parrot cage, and the parrot shook himself and looked mad and said. "There, b.u.t.terfingers!

Polly wants a cracker."

Cornes had just come up with the axe, and was about to tell the brakeman to chop the box, when the parrot spoke.

"Well, by-----," said the baggageman. The doctor laughed, the brakeman looked out the door to see how the weather was, and the conductor said, "I knew it was a parrot all the time, but you fellows were so anxious to chop into the box that I was going to let you. I never saw a lot of men with so much curiosity." Then they all united in trying to bribe the doctor not to tell the story in Milwaukee.

GOT IN THE WRONG PEW.

When the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation left our bed and board, without just cause or provocation, and took up its abode in Bon Accord Hall, we felt as though we had been bereaved of a fruitful source of items, and at first we were inclined to advertise the a.s.sociation, and warn dealers not to trust them on our account, as their credit was as good as ours, but almost every day we hear of something that will do to write up.

The new hall of the a.s.sociation was formerly used by Prof. Sherman as a dancing academy, and the other night when young Mr. Collingbourne agreed to go around to the dancing school and escort a lady friend home, about half past nine, he did not know of the change. At the appointed time he went to the place he had always found the dancing school, and at the bottom of the stairs he met a solemn looking sort of person who handed him a circular and said, "Come in, brother, and partake freely of the waters of life."

"You bet your boots," says Collingbourne, as he threw his cigar into the street, "but don't we get anything but water?"

Mr. Collingbourne is the last man in the world who would appear irreverent, but he thought it was a dancing school, and when a mournful looking man on the first landing took him by the arm and said, "Come all ye who are weary and heavy laden," he felt that there was an effort being made to s.n.a.t.c.h his watch, so he jerked away from the brother and told him he didn't want any taffy, and if he wasn't careful he would get kicked so his head would ache.

The good brother thought Collingbourne was a brand that it would be creditable to pluck from the burning, so he followed him up stairs, telling him there was salvation for all, only to meet with the reply that he better mind his own business or he would get salivated so his folks would not know him.

At the top of the stairs he met two men that he had never seen at the dancing school, and he felt as though he was being cornered for no good, as the other fellow had closed in on his rear. The two new brothers each took hold of one of his hands, and were telling him how glad they were that he had shown a disposition to turn over a new leaf and try to lead a different life, and they began to picture to him the beauty of faith, when he backed up against the railing and said, "I don't know who you fellows are, but you have tackled the wrong boy. I have been brought up in this town, and I know all the games, and you can't get me on any racket," and then he looked at the door, as the piano sounded the beautiful tune, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," and asked, "What time does the cotillion break up?" The good brother told him it was early yet, and "while the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return."

The visitor said he would go in, he guessed, and shake his foot once, just for luck, and he opened the door. Such a sight met his eyes as he never saw in a dancing school before. The whole congregation nearly, was on its knees, and a good man was offering up a prayer that was indeed beautiful. Collingborne began to sweat in three different languages, but being a gentleman who had the most unbounded respect for religion in all its forms, he uncovered his head and bowed reverently while the prayer was being uttered.

When it was through he turned to one of the truly good people in the hall, that had watched his devotion, and said, "Say, boss, this is evidently a new scheme. I thought this was Sherman's dancing school. You must excuse my seeming irreverence. If you will kick me down stairs I will consider it a special dispensation of providence," and he went down into the wicked world and asked a policeman where the dancing school was. All the way home the lady friend asked him what made him so solemn, but he only said his boots fit him too quick. He never goes to a dancing school now without finding out if it is there yet.

PALACE CATTLE CARS.

The papers are publis.h.i.+ng accounts of the arrival east of a train of palace cattle cars, and ill.u.s.trating how much better the cattle feel after a trip in one of these cars, than cattle did when they made the journey in the ordinary cattle cars.

As we understand it the cars are fitted up in the most gorgeous manner, in mahogany and rosewood, and the upholstering is something perfectly grand, and never before undertaken except in the palaces of the old world.

As you enter the car there is a reception room, with a few chairs, a lounge and an ottoman, and a Texas steer gently waves you to a seat with his horns, while he switches off your hat with his tail. If there is any particular cow, or steer, or ox, that you wish to see, you give your card to the attendant steer, and he excuses himself and trots off to find the one you desire to see. You do not have long to wait, for the animal courteously rises, humps up his or her back, stretches, yawns, and with the remark, "the galoot wants to interview me, probably, and I wish he would keep away," the particular one sought for comes to the reception room and puts out its front foot for a shake, smiles and says, "Glad you came. Was afraid you would let us go away and not call."

Then the cow or steer sits down on its haunches and the conversation flows in easy channels. You ask how they like the country, and if they have good times, and if they are not hard worked, and all that; and they yawn and say the country is splendid at this season of the year, and that when pa.s.sing along the road they feel as though they would like to get out in some meadow, and eat gra.s.s and switch flies.

The steer asks the visitor if he does not want to look through the car, when he says he would like to if it is not too much trouble. The steer says it is no trouble at all, at the same time shaking his horns as though he was mad, and kicking some of the gilding off of a stateroom.

"This," says the steer who is doing the honors, "is the stateroom occupied by old Brindle, who is being s.h.i.+pped from St. Joseph, Mo.

Brindle weighs 1,600 on foot--Brindle, get up and show yourself to the gentleman."

Brindle kicks off the red blanket, rolls her eyes in a lazy sort of way, bellows, and stands up in the berth, humps up her back so it raises the upper berth and causes a heifer that is trying to sleep off a debauch of bran mash, to kick like a steer, and then looks at the interviewer as much as to say, "O, go on now and give us a rest." Brindle turns her head to a fountain that is near, in which Apollinaris water is flowing, perfumed with new mown hay, drinks, turns her head, and licks her back, and stops and thinks, and then looking around as much as to say, "Gentlemen, you will have to excuse me," lays down with her head on a pillow, pulls the coverlid over her and begins to snore.

The attendant steer steers the visitor along the next apartment, which is a large one, filled with cattle in all positions. One is lying in a hammock, with her feet on the window, reading the Chicago _Times_ article on "Oleomargerine, or Bull b.u.t.ter," at intervals stopping the reading to curse the writer, who claims that oleomargarine is an unlawful preparation, containing deleterious substances.

A party of four oxen are seated around a table playing seven-up for the drinks, and as the attendant steer pa.s.ses along, a speckled ox with one horn broken, orders four pails full of Waukesha water with a dash of oatmeal in it, "and make it hot," says the ox, as he counts up high, low, jack and the game.

Pa.s.sing the card players the visitor notices an upright piano, and asks what that is for, and the attendant steer says they are all fond of music, and asks if he would not like to hear some of the cattle play. He says he would, and the steer calls out a white cow who is sketching, and asks her to warble a few notes. The cow seats herself on her haunches on the piano stool, after saying she has such a cold she can't sing, and, besides, has left her notes at home in the pasture. Turning over a few leaves with her forward hoof, she finds something familiar, and proceeds to walk on the piano keys with her forward feet and bellow, "Meat me in the slaughterhouse when the due bill falls," or something of that kind, when the visitor says he has got to go up to the stock yards and attend a reception of Colorado cattle, and he lights out.

We should think these parlor cattle cars would be a success, and that cattle would enjoy them very much. It is said that parties desiring to charter these cars for excursions for human beings, can be accommodated at any time when they are not needed to transport cattle, if they will give bonds to return them in as good order as they find them.

DUCK OR NO DINNER.

There is nothing that gives pious people more annoyance than to hear shooting on Sunday on some adjacent marsh while they are wors.h.i.+pping, and there is nothing much more annoying to wicked Sunday, hunters than to have ducks fly habitually in the vicinity of a church.

Winneconne, up on the Wolf river, is about evenly divided between-church going people and those who take more pleasure in standing behind a shot gun. When ducks fly about Winneconne in the Spring they follow the river up and down, and the bridge in town is a favorite place for hunters to stand and pepper the ducks with shot.

One Sunday about three weeks ago the ducks were flying terrible, and when the bell rung for church the bridge was pretty well covered with hunters, and many wors.h.i.+ppers entered the church hard by with the smell of powder in their spring bonnets. The hunters were so interested in the ducks of the air that they did not notice the ducks on the way to church.

Finally the church people all got seated and the minister gave them an excellent sermon, which was only occasionally interrupted by the good man dodging down behind the pulpit to escape a stray charge of No. 4 shot which came through the open window. No complaint was made, and no sarcastic remarks were made about the wicked men who were out of meat, and were shooting up a little for dinner, though there were silent prayers offered for the Sabbath breakers.

At last the services were over, and the chair was singing, "A charge to keep I have," as the minister was picking some duck shot out of his trousers, when there was a commotion. A wounded duck had fallen on the door step of the church and being only "winged" had fluttered into the church, and crawled under the seats, when a couple of retriever dogs belonging to a German rushed into the sacred edifice and went howling under the seats after the duck, while the owner's voice could be heard outside yelling, "Rouse mit em!"

Well, some of them, those who had clock work stockings, held their feet up in the air to get them away from the dogs, while others jumped up on the pews and yelled b.l.o.o.d.y murder. Some went for the windows, and a brakeman tells us that the senior deacon fainted away.

The dogs retrieved the duck, and as the congregation came out of the church the German went down toward the bridge wringing the neck of the duck and kicking the dogs for not having more sense than to go right into a church during service.

The hunters of Winneconne should be talked to by the presiding elder.

They do very wrong to shoot on Sunday.

THE GUINEA PIG.

n.o.body knows who is to blame for bringing the first Guinea pig to this country, but certainly he didn't do anything very creditable. A Guinea pig does not know anything, and never-learns anything. It is quite a neat little plaything for children, and if it had any sense would become a pet, but it never learns a thing.

A lady living near a theatre in this city bought a Guinea pig in Chicago recently and brought it home, and it has been in the family ever since, and it has never learned anything except when it is hungry it goes to the lady and nibbles her foot, and how it learned that n.o.body knows.