Peck's Sunshine Part 7

If a man comes along on the sidewalk, the dog will follow him off, follow him until he meets another man, and then he follows _him_ till he meets another, and so on until he has followed the entire population. He is not an aristocratic dog, but will follow one person just as soon as another, and to see him going along the street, with his tail coiled up, apparently oblivious to every human sentiment, it is touching.

His legs are about the size of pipe stems, and his feet are as big as a base ball base. He wanders around, following a boy, then a middle aged man, then a little girl, then an old man, and finally, about meal time, the last person he follows seems to go by the barn and the dog wanders in and looks for a buffalo robe or a harness tug to chew. It does not cost anything to keep him, as he has only eaten one trotting harness and one fox skin robe since Monday, though it may not be right to judge of his appet.i.te, as he may be a little off his feed.

Pierce said he would be a nice dog to run with a horse, or under a carriage. Why, bless you, he won't go within twenty feet of a horse, and a horse would run away to look at him; besides, he gets right under a carriage wheel, and when the wheel runs over him he complains, and sings Pinafore.

What under the sun that dog is ever going to be good for is more than we know. He is too lean and bony for sausage. A piece of that dog as big as your finger in a sausage would ruin a butcher. It would be a dead give away. He looks as though he might point game, if the game was brought to his attention, but he would be just as liable to point a cow. He might do to stuff and place in a front yard to frighten burglars. If a burglar wouldn't be frightened at that dog nothing would scare him.

Anyway, now we have got him, we will bring him up, though it seems as though he would resemble a truss bridge or a refrigerator car, as much as a dog, when he gets his growth. For fear he will follow off a wagon track we tie a knot in his tail. Parties who have never seen a very long dog can call at the barn about meal time and see him.

A SEWING MACHINE GIVEN TO THE BOSS GIRL.

In response to a request from W. T. Vankirk, George W. Peck presented the Rock County Agricultural Society with a sewing machine, to be given to the "boss combination girl" of Rock County. With the machine he sent the following letter, which explains his meaning of a "combination girl," etc.:

Milwaukee, June 7, 1881.

W. T. Vankirk--Dear Sir: Your letter, in reference to my giving some kind of a premium to somebody, at your County Fair, is received, and I have been thinking it over. I have brought my ma.s.sive intellect to bear upon the subject, with the following result:

I s.h.i.+p you to-day, by express, a sewing machine, complete, with cover, drop leaf, hemmer, tucker, feller, drawers, and everything that a girl wants, except corsets and tall stockings. Now, I want you to give that to the best "combination girl" in Rock County, with the compliments of the _Sun_.

What I mean by a "combination," is one that in the opinion of your Committee has all the modern improvements, and a few of the old-fas.h.i.+oned faults, such as health, etc. She must be good-looking, that is, not too handsome, but just handsome enough. You don't want to give this machine to any female statue, or parlor ornament, who don't know how to play a tune on it, or who is as cold as a refrigerator car, and has no heart concealed about her person. Our girl, that is, our "Fair Girl," that takes this machine, must be "the boss." She must be jolly and good-natured, such a girl as would make the young man that married her think that Rock County was the next door to heaven, anyway.

She must be so healthy that nature's roses will discount any preparation ever made by man, and so well-formed that nothing artificial is needed to--well, Van, you know what I mean.

You want to pick out a thoroughbred, that is, all wool, a yard wide--that is, understand me, I don't want the girl to be a yard wide, but just right. Your Committee don't want to get "mashed" on some ethereal creature whose belt is not big enough for a dog collar. This premium girl wants to be able to do a day's work, if necessary, and one there is no danger of breaking in two if her intended should hug her.

After your Committee have got their eyes on a few girls that they think will fill the bill, then they want to find out what kind of girls they are around their home. Find if they honor their fathers and their mothers, and are helpful, and care as much for the happiness of those around them as they do for their own. If you find one who is handsome as Venus--I don't know Venus, but I have heard that she takes the cake--I say, if you find one that is perfect in everything, but s.h.i.+rks her duties at home, and plays, "I Want to Be an Angel," on the piano, while her mother is mending her stockings, or ironing her "picnic skirts," then let her go ahead and be an angel as quick as she wants to, but don't give her the machine.. You catch the idea?

Find a girl who has the elements of a n.o.ble woman; one whose heart is so large that she has to wear a little larger corset than some, but one who will make her home happy, and who is a friend to all; one who would walk further to do a good deed, and relieve suffering, than she would to patronize an ice cream saloon; one who would keep her mouth shut a month before she would say an unkind word, or cause a pang to another. Let your Committee settle on such a girl, and she is as welcome to that machine as possible.

Now, Van, you ought to have a Committee appointed at once, and no one should know who the Committee is. They should keep their eyes out from now till the time of the Fair, and they should compare notes once in a while. You have got some splendid judges of girls there in Janesville, but you better appoint married men. They are usually more unbiased. They should not let any girl know that she is suspected of being the premium girl, until the judgment is rendered, so no one will be embarra.s.sed by feeling that she is competing tor a prize.

Now, Boss, I leave the const.i.tution and the girls in your hands; and if this premium is the means of creating any additional interest in your Fair, and making people feel good natured and jolly, I shall be amply repaid.

Your friend,

Geo. W. Peck.

DON'T APPRECIATE KINDNESS.

One of the members of the Humane Society, who lives in an aristocratic ward, had been annoyed at hearing sounds from a stable near his residence, which indicated that a boy who had charge of a horse was in the habit of pounding the animal vigorously every morning, while cleaning off the dirt. It seemed to the humane man that the boy must use a barrel stave or fence board to curry off the horse, and the way the animal danced around the barn was terrible.

It occurred every morning, and the humane man made up his mind that it was his duty to put a stop to it. He went to the barn one morning, just as the cotillion commenced. Looking through a knot hole he saw the horse tied so his head was away up to the top of the barn, so he could not use his teeth to defend himself. The boy stood with a curry comb in one hand and a piece of plank in the other, and he warmed the horse with both, and the animal kicked for all that was out.

The humane man thought this was the worst case of cruelty to animals that ever was, and he rapped for admission. The boy, covered with perspiration, horse tail, stable refuse and indignation, opened the door, and the humane man proceeded to read him a lecture about cruelty to dumb animals, called him a fiend in human form, and told him that kindness was what was necessary, instead of a club.

The boy couldn't get in a word edgeways for a while, but when the man had exhausted his talk the boy told him that kindness might work on ordinary horses, but this horse was the meanest animal in the world.

He would bite and kick without any provocation, and the present owner couldn't sell him or give him away. He said that the only way he could be curried was to tie him up at both ends, and the only way he could be harnessed was to toss the harness on him with a pitch fork.

The horse, with his head tied up so high that he could not use it, looked down at the humane man with one eye filled with emotion--the other eye had been knocked out years ago--and seemed to be thanking the kind-hearted citizen for interfering in the matinee and causing hostilities to be suspended. The humane man was touched by the intelligent look of the horse, and insisted that the animal be untied and allowed its freedom. The boy said he didn't dare untie him, for he would kick the side of the barn out, but the man insisted that he should release the horse, and went up to his head to do so, when the boy went through the manure hole in the side of the barn.

What happened when the humane citizen untied the halter will perhaps never be definitely known, but no sooner had the boy struck the ground through the hole, than there was a sound of revelry in the barn, there came a yell through the crevices, there seemed to be a company of cavalry drilling on the barn floor, there was a sound as of cloth tearing, and then it appeared as though something was climbing up the inside of the barn, and after which the hind heels of the horse could be heard playing the snare drum on the manger. The boy roused the neighbors and they armed themselves and entered the barn. They found the horse in the stall, with its head where its tail should be, with its mouth full of pantaloons cloth, and kicking away as though its heart would break.

And the humane man, where, O, where was he? Ask of the winds that far around with fragments of hat and coat tail strewed the barn floor.

"Shoot the horse." said a faint voice from the upper part of the barn, and every eye was turned in that direction. The humane man was up there, clinging to a cross piece. He had evidently gone up the ladder which led to the hay loft, a little ahead of the horse, and as he clung to the cross piece, his coat tail gone, and the vital part of his pantaloons and some skin gone to that bourne from whence no pantaloons seat returns, his bald head covered with dust and cobwebs, he was a picture of meekness.

The crowd got the horse into another stall, head first, and put bars across, and the humane man came down from his perch. Seizing a barn shovel, and spitting on his hands, he asked his friends to wait and watch him curry off that horse just a minute for luck. He said he only wanted to live just long enough to maul every rib out of the animal, and if he was forgiven for interfering in somebody's else's business this time he would try and lead a different life in the future.

They put a horse blanket around his wounds and led him home, and he has given the boy five dollars to pound the horse an hour every morning for the next thirty days. You can't make that man believe that a horse has any intelligence.

RELIGION AND FISH.

Newspaper reports of the proceedings of the Sunday School a.s.sociation encamped on Lake Monona, at Madison, give about as many particulars of big catches of fish as of sinners. The delegates divide their time catching sinners on spoon-hooks and bringing pickerel to repentance.

Some of the good men hurry up their prayers, and while the "Amen"

is leaving their lips they s.n.a.t.c.h a fish-pole in one hand and a baking-powder box full of angle worms in the other, and light out for the Beautiful Beyond, where the rock ba.s.s turn up sideways, and the wicked cease from troubling.

Discussions on how to bring up children in the way they should go are broken into by a deacon with his nose peeled coming up the bank with a string of perch in one hand, a broken fish-pole in the other, and a pair of dropsical pantaloons dripping dirty water into his shoes.

It is said to be a beautiful sight to see a truly good man offering up supplications from under a wide-brimmed fis.h.i.+ng hat, and as he talks of the worm that never, or hardly ever dies, red angle worms that have dug out of the piece of paper in which they were rolled up are crawling out of his vest pocket.

The good brothers compare notes of good places to do missionary work, where sinners are so thick you can knock them down with a club, and then they get boats and row to some place on the lake where a local liar has told them the fish are just sitting around on their haunches waiting for some one to throw in a hook.

This mixing religion with fis.h.i.+ng for black ba.s.s and pickerel is a good thing for religion, and not a bad thing for the fish. Let these Christian statesmen get "mashed" on the sport of catching fish, and they will have more charity for the poor man who, after working hard twelve hours a day for six days, goes out on a lake Sunday and soaks a worm in the water and appeases the appet.i.te of a few of G.o.d's hungry pike, and gets dinner for himself in the bargain. While arguing that it is wrong to fish on Sunday, they will be brought right close to the fish, and can see better than before, that if a poor man is rowing a boat across a lake on Sunday, and his hook hangs over the stern, with a piece of liver on, and a fish that nature has made hungry tries to steal his line and pole and liver, it is a duty he owes to society to take that fish by the gills, put it in the boat and reason with it, and try to show it that in leaving its devotions on a Sunday and snapping at a poor man's only hook, it was setting a bad example.

These Sunday school people will have a nice time, and do a great amount of good, if the fish continue to bite, and they can go home with their hearts full of the grace of G.o.d, their stomachs full of fish, their teeth full of bones; and if they fall out of the boats, and their suspenders hold out, they may catch a basin full of eels in the bas.e.m.e.nt of their pantaloons.

But we trust they will not try to compete with the local sports in telling fish stories. That would break up a whole Sunday school system.

A DOCTOR OF LAWS.

A doctor at Ashland is also a justice of the peace, and when he is called to visit a house he don't know whether he is to physic or to marry. Several times he has been, called out in the night, to the country, and he supposed some one must be awful sick, and he took a cart load of medicines, only to find somebody wanted marrying. He has been fooled so much that when he is called out now he carries a pill-bag and a copy of the statutes, and tells them to take their choice.

He was called to one house and found a girl who seemed feverish. She was sitting up in a chair, dressed nicely, but he saw at once that the fatal flush was on her cheek, and her eyes looked peculiar. He felt of her pulse, and it was beating at the rate of two hundred a minute. He asked her to run out her tongue, and she run out eight or nine inches of the lower end of it. It was covered with a black coating, and he shook his head and looked sad. She had never been married any before, and supposed that it was necessary for a justice who was going to marry a couple to know all about their physical condition, so she kept quiet and answered questions.

She did not tell him that she had been eating huckleberry pie, so he laid the coating on her tongue to some disease that was undermining her const.i.tution. He put his ear on her chest and listened to the beating of her heart, and shook his head again.

He asked her if she had been exposed to any contagious disease. She didn't know what a contagious disease was, but on the hypothesis that he had reference to sparking, she blushed and said she had, but only two evenings, because John had only just got back from the woods where he had been chopping, and she had to sit up with him.